Monday, February 21, 2011

"Leaving"

In the beginning, I acted like leaving for work was hard. Like I was upset about missing Juliet’s daily developments. I wasn’t. I was happy to escape the crying and the constant liquid shit explosions that necessitated load after load of wash. I wasn’t leaving. I was running away.

Things are different now. Juliet knows me. She smiles for me. Sometimes, she reaches for me. Leaving her every morning is the worst part of my day.

I can’t imagine what it will be like for Melissa. She goes back to work in a week. She’s been here every day since Juliet was born. Juliet smiles bigger for Melissa than for anyone. Melissa is going to cry. Juliet too.

We got a great nanny. We’ve had her in for a few test runs. She leaves notes that say, “Juliet loved singing ‘If You’re Happy and You Know it, Clap Your Hands.” She reads Juliet the Bunny Kisses book, and she has pictures of Juliet in her phone. Her friend told us last Saturday when they came to babysit.

Somehow, from among the not so stiff nanny competition in the greater Philadelphia area, Melissa had found two great candidates: our nanny and Marcy. When I first met Marcy, I had said that I could immediately see her as part of our family. She’d had that profound an effect on me.

Marcy had previously worked for two families. The first had a toddler and a ten year old, an incredible but rewarding challenge, Marcy had said. The second had twin baby boys. Marcy stayed with them for two years before moving to Berkley. The twin’s father passed away, and Marcy came back to help the mom. They’re still very close, she had explained, sitting at our dining room table, holding Juliet in her arms. Everyone smiling.

Our nanny’s references raved about her. They said to hire her before someone else did. But we didn’t. We risked losing our nanny so that we could check Marcy’s references.

Marcy’s references weren’t as enthusiastic as our nanny’s. The twin’s mother turned out to be Marcy’s sister. Melissa found her on Facebook. Marcy’s sister didn’t have any kids. She’s never been married. Her husband didn’t die.

Marcy’s other reference turned out to be the number to PYT, a burger place in Northern Liberties. The manager there was supposed to lie and tell us that Marcy was a great nanny. But under the pressure of Melissa’s cross examination, he admitted that he had no kids, but felt terrible about having to fire Marcy for being perpetually late. He’d said he’d do whatever he could to help her get another job. Melissa hates lateness, even more than she hates liars.

Marcy didn’t get the job. She isn’t returning messages.

We had been ready to trust her with our daughter, to do what we would do, if we were doing it. It was the biggest mistake either of us had ever almost made. But now we know, when it comes to our daughter, we have to be paranoid. Ever worried. Expecting the worst, waiting by the phone, listening for the garage door. We have to be what we’d said we never would. We have to be our parents. And the irony is that it was Marcy, not our parents, who taught us that.