Dirty Red

“Her immune system needs time to develop,” he says, removing his stethoscope from her chest. “In my opinion, she’s too young for daycare. Usually women take a short maternity leave before putting their child into full-time care.”

Caleb shoots me a look. Seething. He is absolutely seething.

I focus on a box of latex gloves. He’s going to yell at me. I hate when he yells at me. I can guarantee my skin has already erupted into a splotchy mess; a telltale sign that I’m shitting myself.

“I’m going to admit her so we can monitor her for forty-eight hours. She could dehydrate otherwise. Someone should be in to take her up to pediatrics in a few minutes.”

As soon as he leaves the room, Caleb turns to me.

“Go home.”

I stare at him with my mouth open.

“Don’t you take that self-righteous tone with me,” I hiss. “While you go traipsing all over the country, I’m stuck at home — “

“You carried this little girl, Leah, in your body.” He makes a motion with his hands that makes it look like he’s holding an invisible ball. Then just as suddenly, he drops his arms to his sides. “How can you be so calloused?”

“I — I don’t know.” I frown. I had never thought of it like that. “I thought it was a boy. I would have felt differently if — “

“You were given something … a life. That is so much more important than shopping and drinks with your f**king girlfriends.”

I jerk at his ‘f’ bomb. Caleb hardly ever uses profanity.

“I’m more than that,” I say. “You know I am.”

His next words spear through my soul, laying me out in the most profound hurt I have experienced.

“I think I’ve fooled myself into believing you are.”

I spring to my feet, but my knees fail me. I have to lean against the wall for support. He’s never spoken to me that way.

It takes a few seconds to coerce the words from my tongue. “You said you would never hurt me.”

His eyes are frigid. “That was before you f**ked with my daughter.”

I leave before I explode.

Forty-eight hours later, Caleb returns from the hospital with the baby. I saw him twice while he was there — both times to drop off breast milk. I am sitting at the kitchen table, reading a magazine and eating green beans straight from the freezer when he walks in carrying her car seat. He has more hair on his face than I’ve ever seen him with, and his eyes are dark and tired. He takes her up to her room without saying a word to me. I expect him to come right back down and give me a rundown of what the doctor said. When he doesn’t, I sneak upstairs to see where he is. I hear the shower running, so I decide to wait on the bed.

When he comes out of the bathroom, he has a towel wrapped around his waist. My first thought is of how gorgeous he is. I want to jump his bones despite what he said to me. He kept his facial hair. I kind of like it. I watch him drop the towel and pull on his boxer briefs. The best thing about Caleb is not his perfect body, or his half smiles, or his even sexier voice ... it’s his mannerisms. The teasing, the way he runs his thumbnail across his bottom lip when he’s thinking, the way he bites his tongue when he’s turned on. The way he makes me look at him when I have an orgasm. He can undress you with one look, make you feel like you’re standing naked in front of him. I know from experience, it’s a pleasure to be naked in front of Caleb. I think of the angles I could go with — an apology and make up sex ... a slap to the face and angry sex. I am extremely proficient at seducing him. It’s likely that he won’t believe any apology I try to offer. I go for something new.

“I’ll try harder.”

He continues getting dressed without looking at me … jeans, t-shirt. I don’t know what to do, and for the first time, it occurs to me that I may have taken things a little too far. I guard my true self so well from Caleb. I try to live up to his expectations. This time, he caught me with my panties down.

“I think I have postpartum,” I blurt.

He looks at me. I breathe a sigh of relief. The best way to manipulate Caleb is by lying about medical conditions. He’s had stress and shock-induced amnesia. If anyone could relate to an uncontrollable medical condition, it should be him.

“I’ll … I’ll go see a doctor about it. I’m sure they can prescribe something…” I let my voice trail off.

I can see his profile in the mirror. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows, and he rests his forehead on his thumb.

“I have to interview the nanny,” he says. “We’ll talk about this later.”

He strides from the room without a backward glance.

I refuse to hide when Caleb interviews Estella’s potential nanny. I dress in a blush colored Chanel suit and park myself in the formal living room to wait. Whoever Caleb called the other night is coming with the nanny candidate, and I want to see who he was speaking to with so much familiarity. I wonder if this person was a part of his life when he had amnesia. There is so much I still do not know about that time in his life, and I’m constantly wondering what he got up to without my supervision.

The doorbell rings. I stand to my feet, smooth out my skirt. Caleb eyes me suspiciously as he walks through the foyer. I hear him greet them warmly, and then seconds later, he appears around the corner. I see the man first. He is shorter than Caleb and stocky. He bears a striking resemblance to Dermot Mulroney — that is, if Dermot had a goatee, shaggy hair and dressed like a slob. I eye his jeans and tucked-in button down. He has one of those distasteful sleeve tattoos — which is peeking out of his cuffs. I immediately dislike him. He is a most unlikely owner of a nanny agency. He should at least iron his clothes.

The girl that follows behind him gets my catty seal of approval. She is a petite blonde with a pretty oval face. She looks innocent enough, except that she has heavily lined come hither eyes. Unlike her sloppy employer, she is wearing Dolce’s newest pants suit in sage green with an exact pair of snakeskin Louboutins that I have in my closet. How can a nanny afford to buy such expensive clothes? And then I realize she probably has one nice suit that she saves for interviews to impress potential employers. I won’t let her wear makeup like that when she’s with Estella. I don’t want my neighbors thinking that I got my nanny from an escort service. And besides, in my house, I get to be the most beautiful woman. I make a mental note to tell her that her uniform needs to be khaki pants and a white polo, and then I smile at them politely.