Step On A Crack

Chapter 7

JUDGING FROM the wrinkled jeans and dusty navy peacoat of the young blond woman on the other side of my door, I decided she probably wasn’t headed to a Manhattan-style cocktail party.

But with a dirty knapsack that bulged over her back and a duffel bag clutched in her gloveless hands, she definitely seemed to be heading somewhere.

“Mr. Bennett?” she said, dropping her bag and extending a small, well-formed hand. “Mr. Michael Bennett?”

Her Irish accent was as warm as her hand was cold.

“It’s me, Mary Catherine,” she said. “I made it.”

From her accent, I suspected she must be some relative of my wife’s. I tried to place Mary Catherine’s face from the small contingent of Maeve’s side who had attended our wedding. But all I could remember was an elderly granduncle, some distant cousins, and a trio of middle-aged bachelors. What the heck was this about?

“Made it?” I repeated warily.

“I’m the au pair,” Mary Catherine said. “Nona said she spoke with you.”

Au pair? Nona? I thought. Then I remembered that Nona was Maeve’s mother’s name. My wife had always been insistently vague about her past, growing up in Donegal. I had a feeling her people were a little eccentric.

“I’m sorry, um, Mary, is it?” I said. “Ah, I don’t think I know exactly what you’re talking about.”

Mary Catherine’s mouth opened as if she was about to say something. Then it closed. Her porcelain features blushed crimson as she picked up her bag.

“Sorry I wasted your time, sir,” she said quickly and a tad sadly. “There must have been some mistake on my part. I’m sorry.”

Her duffel bag slipped out of her hand as she approached the elevator. I stepped out of the doorway to give her a hand, then noticed my mail on the floor. It had been piling up a little, and my helpful neighbors, the Underhills, had dumped it beneath the alcove’s table we share in order to make way for their antique wooden nutcracker collection.

I noticed a small, odd-looking letter sticking out from the pile’s center.

“Wait,” I said. “Hold up a second, Mary Catherine. Just a sec.”

I tore open the letter. It was handwritten in a tiny, all but illegible script, but I was able to make out the Dear Michael, a couple of Mary Catherine’s, and the God Bless You In Your Time of Need, Love Nona closing.

I still didn’t know what the hell it all meant, though.

I wasn’t even 100 percent aware my mother-in-law was still alive until that moment. One thing I was sure of, though, was that it was too late and I was too tired to try to figure it all out right now.

“Oh,” I said to the girl as the elevator door rumbled open. “You’re Mary Catherine, the au pair.”

Naked hope twinkled in her bright blue eyes. But where the heck was I going to put her? Our inn was filled to capacity. Then I remembered the maid’s room on the top floor; it had come with the apartment and was currently being used for storage.

“C’mon,” I said, grabbing her bag and walking her into the elevator. “I’ll show you where you’re staying.”

It took me a good twenty minutes to get the crib, baby toys, some old car seats, and Chrissy’s Barbie and Shawna’s Three Princesses bikes out of the small room.

By the time I went down to the apartment and came back with some sheets, Mary Catherine had the mattress unrolled on the steel-frame twin bed and was putting her stuff neatly into the drawers of the dresser we’d used for a changing table.

I studied her for a moment. She was in her late twenties. Though she wasn’t very tall, there seemed to be an energetic heartiness to her. Spunky, I thought, which was good, considering the job she was applying for.

“Nona didn’t happen to mention how big my family is, did she?”

“A brood, she said. ‘Quite a brood,’ I believe was the phrase she used.”

“How many is ‘quite a brood’? Where you come from?” I asked.

Mary Catherine’s eyebrows raised.

“Five?”

I shook my head, put out my thumb, and jerked it upward.

“Seven?”

I watched a ripple of panic cross Mary Catherine’s face when I motioned for her to shoot higher.

“Not ten?” she said.

I nodded.

“They’re all toilet trained, thank God. And they’re great kids. But if you want to walk away now or tomorrow or next week, I won’t blame you.”

“Ten?” Mary Catherine said again.

“A one and a zero,” I said with a smile. “Oh, and if you’re going to work for us, you have to call me Mike. Or idiot, if you want. But please don’t call me Mr. Bennett.”

“Okay, Mike,” Mary Catherine said.

As I left, I noticed that the panic seemed to have stuck in her face.

“Ten,” I repeated under my breath.

The perfect ten.