Rose 2.59: The help

Shauna

     "I know my son! I know he's still in there somewhere, and I really hope you can pull him back out," Donovan's mother tells me.

     I can't decide whether or not she's crazy. Perhaps she has the excitable trait. What I saw of Donovan last night, I can understand her worry.

     "Mrs Robles-"

     "Please call me Rose," she interjects.

     I let out a quick, patient sigh. "I just can't believe you are happy with this. You don't think it's creepy?"

     She shakes her head no. "If it weren't for my gut feeling, maybe, but I've never been wrong. I see what you did as clever...in a stalker kind of way, but I'll take it."

     "You're really worried about him, aren't you? What if this doesn't work like you want it to?" Any second now, she's going to come to her senses and throw me out.

     "First of all, stop thinking that way. Second, why don't you meet the kids?" She smiles at me.

     She is so pretty. I don't think I aged well, but I make the best of it. Plus, I can't seem to shake the extra weight I've had since graduating college. Donovan's mother makes me feel dowdy.

     "Lorenzo!" Mrs Robles calls out, startling me. "Come here!"

     A teenage boy with black hair and a familiar shade of grey eyes walks through an archway to a computer room. "I'm right here; you don't have to yell."

     He gets closer, and I have to swallow my gasp. Tiffany. 

     Mrs Robles speaks up in a commanding tone. "Lorenzo, meet your new nanny. Well, I guess you don't need one, but she's here to help us. Shauna, this is Lorenzo, Donovan's oldest."

     He smiles a cross between Donovan's smile and what must've been what Tiffany looked like smiling. I don't recall ever seeing her smile...not around me anyway.

     "Hi," he says simply and shakes my hand. His has oil paint on it. "Oops! Sorry. Let me get that." He wipes my fingers with the underside of his shirt.

     I smile. "It's okay. I'm a bit of a painter myself...though... I prefer watercolors."

      "You paint?!" he asks excitedly and starts talking ninety miles an hour about everything he's painted and different techniques he wants to try, how he wants to join the art club at school, how he's taken over both of his grandmother's easels, how he's trying his hand at computer graphic art like his dad. He's like talking to a male version of Tiffany without the sneering. She never liked me. "So what have you done? Advertisements? What?"

     Realizing I have a chance to talk, I say, "Oh! I've done the illustrations for several children's books." I name off a few, and he smiles when he probably recognizes one.

     "Why did you quit that job?"

     "My...boss was my ex-husband," I quietly explain.

     "Oh. Okay. That's fine. Well, welcome to Monte Vista anyway."

     A redheaded girl shyly walks down the stairs, her Donovan-grey eyes watching me warily through the slats of the railing. I smile in a friendly way back at her. Mrs Robles follows, holding an infant.

     The little girl turns to her grandmother. "Nonna?"

     "Introduce yourself," she gently urges.

     The little girl looks up at me, saying nothing, so I decide to speak. "Hi, my name is Shauna."

     "I'm Camilla. You have pretty earrings. Did you buy them at the beach?" she asks quietly.

     I smile brighter. "No. I actually made these. Would you like me to teach you?"

     Her mouth drops for a moment before she asks in subdued excitement, "You can make your own jewelry?"

     I nod. "Yes. We can go and find rocks, pretty rocks, and I can show you how."

     "Nonna says you're going to be our nanny. What is that?"

     "I'm going to help your Nonna take care of you and help her with other things." I bite my lip when I think about the 'other things.'

     "Do we call you Nana?" she asks. She looks like she's bursting with a million questions but has kept them all to herself.

     "If you want," I say, smiling again.

     "Yes," she answers simply. Then, at a loss for what to do next, she looks around. Lorenzo pats the cushion next to him, and she walks over to sit and watch TV with him.

     Mrs Robles hands me the baby, introducing him as Arlen. The game awkwardly places me in front of the television while I hold him.

     Something feels off about him. It's not because he's a fairy. I can't place it. Then, finally, I let it go, calling myself silly, and I hold the precious baby, Donovan's baby.
     Babies are so precious. I think few people know this better than me after what I've gone through. I'll never forget my little baby boy. Darrin struggled for two days, forty-seven hours, but his little body lost the fight. Scott and I tried again six months later, but I had a miscarriage early on. I remember how much I hated myself. It was my fault. My body wouldn't hold them. I battled my self-hatred for years until I finally had to let it go. I realized I wasn't meant to have children, and I had to accept that. Some women, like me, are just unlucky.

     Donovan has three beautiful children, all from different women, but all his. Lorenzo is obviously Tiffany's son, but who are the mothers of Camilla and Arlen? Where are they? My stomach balls into an angry knot as I think about how Camilla's mother left her and Donovan to return to her husband. Arlen's mother, for all anyone knows, left him on the doorstep. I could only discover as much as the press found out.
     Their only mother figure has been their grandmother. Maybe I...

     Don't go there, Shauna. You may not even last one night in this house once he finds out. 

     His mother acts totally confident I can win Donovan back, hopefully saving him from himself in the process. I hope she's right.

      When Mrs Robles hears that I'm living in a hotel, she immediately does some switching things around from the family inventory. She trades her beautiful double bed for a set of twin beds she said used to belong to the boys. I'm shocked. She's letting me sleep in her room with her? I try to talk her into another alternative, but this woman is very determined. She makes me more nervous than I make myself, thinking about Donovan.
     Due to nerves, I have to excuse myself to go be sick in the toilet.
     I can't do this! This is insane! He said so himself: he's not the man he once was.
     But his mother says she knows he's still in there.
     But his mother may have already lost her mind. She's lost her husband after all, and from everything I've ever heard or discovered while Googling Donovan, they were very close.
     Oh, Shauna! This is crazy! What are you doing here? You don't belong here. It's just like Donovan said.
     I should leave, I decide, and I exit the bathroom to find Mrs Robles standing in the bedroom, smiling at me.
     "As long as I can sleep next to Pedro's urn, I'm okay," she tells me. "I'm afraid I'm going to insist upon having the lower bunk. I don't know if my knees could take the upper one."
     "It's f-fine," I tell her. I'll sneak out later. Maybe Donovan will never have to know I was here.
     "Shauna," she says in a more serious tone, "it's going to be okay."
     "He's going to be furious," I whimper.
     "You let me handle him," she insists.
     I help the kids with their homework, and then we play video games until it's time for bed. Mrs Robles asks me to go put Arlen in his swing for a while. He likes the rocking. While I'm up here, I decide to clean up the toys all over the floor.


 

     The slamming door makes me almost jump out of my skin. Oh maker! It's Donovan! I glance at the baby. The door slamming didn't affect him at all. Perhaps he's used to it?
     "I seem to be asking this a lot lately: What are you doing here?" he asks in a deadly tone.
     I can't breathe! I can't breathe! I can't breathe! I think rapidly. This room is WAY too small. There's a door to a small balcony to my right, and I consider jumping.
     "Does my mother know who you are?" he asks after waiting and getting no answer to his first question.

     "Y-yes," I answer, freezing like a rabbit caught in a wolf's stare. Right now, my heart races like one. From last night and now, Donovan scares me to death.
     He's being intimidating on purpose because he wants you to leave! This isn't who he really is! my inner voice desperately reminds me. I know if I leave now, I'll regret it for the rest of my life, just like I did when I started seeing Scott our senior year.
     He takes a single step in my direction. I notice he doesn't unblock my passage to the door. "Does she know everything?"
     I take a step towards the balcony. "She knows enough."
     "So, you're conspiring with my mother. What a happy little plan! I don't know why I'm surprised, but I am. And here I thought you weren't the manipulating type, Shauna," he says with quiet fierceness.

     "I'm not manipulating anyone," I argue, and he starts advancing. So, I start heading for the balcony door.
     "Oh, you're not?"
     "No," I snap and reach for the door handle.
     He grabs my hand, pulls it off the door handle, and spins me around, putting my back to the bed and dollhouse.

     His pent up rage explodes. "How can you not call it manipulating when you come to my house, with my children and my mother, and impersonate a nanny!"
     His expression, even with the glasses, is terrible. I hate it, but I try not to let it hurt me. "I told her the truth, Donovan! I even tried to leave, but she hired me anyway."
     "Don't. Don't you dare try and place the blame on my mother! She is a grieving widow that thinks she can feel better by 'helping' her son!" He breathes in a harsh breath through his nose.

     He continues, his voice dripping with rage. "And you're taking advantage of that."
     Arlen makes a happy gooing noise and kicks his feet back and forth. The lullaby of the swing sounds eerily odd when also faced with Donovan's expression.
     "I'm not! You're not listening to me. Did I contact her first? Yes. I don't know what I was thinking-"
     "I want you out of here, Shauna! Go!" he yells, and it hurts to hear it. Since I don't move, he continues, "Stop deluding yourself into thinking we could rekindle anything. I don't want you anymore!" He points to the door.
     Ow. His words slash at me, and a few sobs escape before I can stop them. Through my tears, I focus on his shoulders. He's panting...panting like he's just as afraid as I am. Oh, I wish I could only see his eyes! As it is, his mouth forms a line, and he clenches his jaw. His hands ball into fists like he's battling self-control.
     Sniffing, I find a small slice of bravery and say belligerently, "That's not what that kiss said last night." Take that! I think with a tiny amount of victory. When I'd gotten back to my hotel room last night, I remembered that kiss, and that convinced me he was bluffing when he told me he wanted me to leave. Surely, his body language doesn't mean what he wants me to think it means. It has to be that he's doing all he can to hold back. You don't kiss someone like that and feel nothing!

     I watch him as he gets a calculating look, judging from his eyebrows.
     "So that is it. I kiss you; you decide you liked it and want more; so you call my mother and wheedle your way into my household. But you're not really in the household, Shauna. You're just the help."
     He may as well have slapped me. I take deep breaths to calm myself down, not wanting to have a crying fit in front of him again.
     He watches me with his head slightly tilted down, his eyes peering out from the top of his glasses. I can finally see his eyes! And I see...lust.

     I gasp when he suddenly jerks me to the side, pressing my back against the wall. He doesn't lean into me like I actually half-expect, but I still freeze nonetheless.
     His voice has taken on a frightening, sickly-sweet calm as he asks, "Is that what you wanted, sweet Shauna? To be the help in my house?" He reaches up to hold my chin. I still look away. He was right; he's not the man he was. There is a darkness in his eyes that wasn't there before, and I can't bear to see it. He's in there too, but, right now especially, that darkness is in control. "Hm?" he questions since I haven't answered. As it is, I can barely breathe with the way his fingers lightly run across my face.

     "So desperate for more that you let yourself become a servant?" His thumb runs across my lips, and I hear a small sound as he parts his. His breath smells like over-fermented nectar. "You are so lovely... and right here in my house." His hand moves from my face to press into the lower part of my rib cage. Then, he starts moving it up as he questions, "So perhaps you want to play master and the servant?"
     No, that's not what I want! I scream in my head, but another part of me knows Donovan is seconds from kissing me. And that part wants it.

     A quiet, innocent voice asks, "Papa? Don't scare Nana. I like her."
     I see over the rim of his sunglasses as Donovan closes his eyes in a defeated way, muttering a swear word under his breath.


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