Page 2 of 5+Us Makes Seven

“I’m sorry, Mr. Maxwell. I really am. I sympathized with you because I know what it’s like to lose a spouse. But this…”

She looked back at my kids as they sat perched at the kitchen table.

“I’m not here to raise your children,” she said. “I’m here to simply assist the efforts you already put in.”

Then she handed me the apron from my closet, picked up her things, and left.

When my wife died, things were hard. Clara was barely one and I felt like I was floundering. I had three kids who needed me and I had no way to be there for them. I was too busy wallowing in the death of the only woman I’d ever loved. I was absent when my children needed me there and they suffered because of it. Because I wasn’t strong enough to choke down my grief and be the father they needed.

I had hired a nanny to help me with them, and in the process I began using them as a crutch.

She was right. A nanny was there to assist me in the efforts I was already taking with my own children. A nanny wasn’t there to raise them or take care of them the way their mother should’ve been. She was there as an assist to what I should’ve stepped up to do for them.

But over the past two years, I’d cycled through three nannies trying to find a replacement.

My heart sank to my toes. Tears were welling in my kids’ eyes as I rushed to them. I gathered them up in my arms as they clung to me, their tiny little hands gripping my t-shirt. They kept asking me if she was coming back and if I was mad at them. Clara asked if she could stay home from school and the boys asked me if they could go to work with me. I buried my face into the crooks of their necks, taking in their scent and finding their mother in every feature etched into their bodies.

I felt empty.

For the past two years, I’d been nothing but empty.

I was tired of looking for nannies. I was tired of trying to build a stable home for my children. Cycling through women in their lives like this wasn’t good and they deserved better than what I was giving them. I poured the three of them bowls of cereal and ate up the eggs they didn’t want. Then I ushered them all upstairs to get ready for school.

I had become the master at washing myself down in the sink.

I cleaned myself up for work an

d helped Clara get into her newest favorite outfit. A pair of pink sparkling leggings and a bright yellow tunic shirt. She had matching yellow flats and a big pink bow that jingled with little bells in the design. She was carrying a magic wand around in one hand and a baseball in the other, ready to turn people into toads and concuss them at the same time. Girl could throw.

I watched her torment her brothers as they both tried to get dressed.

“Come on, kids. You're already late for school,” I said.

I opened up the doors of my 2018 Lincoln Navigator and watched them crawl into their seats. They buckled themselves up and I drove them into school, dropping them off one by one. Nathaniel and Joshua were in the same elementary school and Clara was at the preschool daycare across the street. I kissed them all goodbye then headed into work, making sure to stop for a very strong cup of coffee.

I was going to need it for the newest nanny search.

“Rough morning?” Logan asked.

“My nanny quit,” I said.

“You got wild animals chasing them off or something?” he asked.

“You’d think that with the way they act sometimes. They’re good kids, Logan. You’ve babysat them, so you know.”

“They’re kids. They run around, jump on things, and demand what they want. The key is to run with them and stick to your guns when you lay down rules. What happened this time?”

“I think this nanny simply didn’t want to put in the time to my kids. Hell, she called out three times last week.”

“Was she sick?”

“No. She said she needed a break and I understood. I’ve got three under seven. They’re good, but they’re all in that one stage where energy is apparently infinite,” I said. “So I gave her the days off. Then she comes in this morning, gets on me about needing a trainer for them, and quits.”

“They’re not fucking animals, Carter. They’re kids. What the hell did she think she was getting into?”

“Exactly,” I said. “But she brought up a good point.”

“What?” he asked.