“Whenever you are, dear. Out the door, past the stairs, third door on the right after the staircase.”
Movies and television made it seem so easy to push people in wheelchairs. To Hanna, they’d always weighed far more than she expected, which she imagined was partially the chair.The chairs weigh more than we expect, too, I think. We forget that the people in them have to manage to scoot themselves along despite the weight. Then we complain when they want smooth ramps and corners they can navigate.
“I’m going to ask you to be honest with me, Hanna,” Vivian said, once they were in the corridor. “It’s going to be awkward for you, but it shouldn’t be. I don’t mind whatever you tell me.”
Hanna blinked. “Okay.”
“What have they told you about this position? Don’t try to spare me.”
Awkwarddescribed it perfectly. “They said you needed a governess for a child.”
“They said I’m imagining there’s a child that needs a governess.”
Hanna winced. “You weren’t kidding about awkwardness. They were much kinder about it. You’re aware your doctors have talked about dementia?”
“I am. I also think it’s not as bad as they’re saying it is. The rest of my health is, pardon my language, shit.” Vivian shook her head. “I know that. And I know they think I’m coming unwrapped. I’ve heard them saying they think I’m seeing the child I lost. My heart is weak and my arteries are trying to start a collection of plaque, but my hearing’s just fine, thank you.”
Oh dear.“They did say that, yes. There wouldn’t be any shame in it, I want to say that up front. The mind’s a funny thing. But you don’t think that’s right?”
“I know it’s not.” They passed the staircase. Hanna would have sworn the temperature dropped five degrees around them. “They won’t listen to what I’m telling them. Not that I blame them, you understand. In their shoes, I don’t think I would listen to me, either.”
“Why not?”
Vivian gestured towards the door she had described before. “This is the room. The child’s room, and now your room. I don’t blame them for not listening because I was in their shoes. I’m a lot of things, Hanna, including whimsical and spontaneous, but I’m also a practical old woman whom life has taught that you have to keep your feet on the ground.”
Hanna pushed the chair across the threshold and inhaled sharply. Cold, very cold. Had she not been outside just an hour before, she would have thought someone left a window open to the winter. Her breath gusted in front of her, but when she looked down, Vivian’s did not. “What didn’t they listen to?”
Vivian craned her neck to look back at Hanna. “They didn’t listen when I told them there’s a ghost who lives in this room. A little boy, wary as a rabbit and very afraid of you just now because he doesn’t know you yet. I can’t hear him, but I’ve been able to see him since I had my heart attack.”
Shocked, Hanna stared down at the older woman. “Wait. You’re saying…”
Vivian nodded up at her. “I don’t know his name. I know he’s been alone here for a very long time. We played a bit of a guessing game, when I tried to find out how to help him feel calmer, and when I hit upon the word ‘governess’, he seemed ready to cry. I took that as a good sign. You, Hanna, are his governess now.”
* * *
“How’d she do?”Martin asked, glancing up from the laptop screen as Gregory entered the office again.
“Well enough that Gran is playing lady of the house and showing Hanna her room,” Gregory said. “After what I saw in her, I can’t say it surprises me.”
He’d watched her. Watched her like a hungry hawk from the moment he spotted her in the throng of travelers disembarking in the airport. Studied how she treated the people around her, if she allowed families with children to go first or walked with patience behind slower travelers. She had to be tired after a long flight, and tired people let their manners slip. He’d had an hour and a half to locate the real Hanna Sparrow behind the public face, ninety short minutes before she learned his true identity, and he’d intended to watch what she did with the rope he doled out.
One potential governess had already metaphorically hung herself with that rope. She hadn’t even lasted through the ride to Greenhill Hall. Eager to chatter with a potential fellow staff member (or perhaps to impress the handsome limousine driver, as Martin pointed out with an excess of glee), she had all-too-happily fallen into a biting line of gossip about former employers and speculation about what kind of “crazy” she would find in Greenhill Hall. Gregory felt bad about sounding out a candidate’s willingness to engage with that kind of talk until that woman had taken it to new heights.
And until Hanna had shut it down. It showed strength of character as well as personal integrity, and had impressed the hell out of Gregory. No one looked like much when they stepped off an international flight, but he’d seen her in an entirely new light after that.
She wore her enthusiasm like a glittering tiara, and her good nature like a noble’s velvet cloak. They made her a different kind of princess, the kind who worked hard to earn her throne and ruled all the better for it. If she hid secrets beneath that cloak, well, who didn’t hold their secrets close to the vest. He certainly had enough of his own.
“Greg, I have been talking for at least two minutes now, and I anticipate you haven’t heard a word I said,” Martin said with amused exasperation.
Gregory blinked. “What? Shit. I’m sorry, Marty. I zoned out a minute there.”
“I could tell. I was saying that I filled in and printed out Hanna’s employment paperwork and non-disclosure agreement. All she has to do is read it over and sign. Then I was further saying that I like her, and I hope she works out.” Martin tapped a stack of papers to indicate what Hanna would need to sign.
Gregory nodded. “Thanks. I hope she does, too. She looked very accepting of Gran’s issues.”
“You tossed her in the deep end to see if she could swim, and it looks like she can dog paddle just fine. Though we’ll see how well she does when your mother stops sulking and comes out to impress us all with how much she can make her mouth look like a cat’s ass.”
“Oh, God.” Gregory threw himself down in his chair with a groan. “I probably should have warned Hanna about my mother.”