Nanny Dearest by Flora Collins

Author:Flora Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2021-10-05T12:21:13+00:00

21

Camp Suzy, as cheesy as it sounds, is fun. Anneliese feeds them breakfast, a vitamin-filled smoothie, and then gets to work applying for jobs. I take them on a new field trip every day: the Bronx Zoo, where I have to shield their eyes from masturbating baboons. Coney Island. The Natural History Museum. The Botanical Gardens. The Studio Museum in Harlem. The library’s Schomburg Center, where Lola stares, transfixed, at artifacts, illustrations, sculptures created by Black and African artists, and I imagine I’m helping her connect with her heritage in some small way. The Noguchi Museum. Around Manhattan on the Circle Line boat.

And I get to know them, their likes and dislikes. The way Lola runs her tongue around her ice cream sandwich, until the ice cream part is concave, before taking a bite. How Jordan insists on reading aloud to me every description of every animal at the zoo, every label near every work of art in every museum, no matter how dense or confusing the language is.

I watch as Lola gnaws at her knuckles when she’s thinking deeply about something. How Jordan softly pats his sister on the back, right by the spine in a very particular rhythm, when she’s scared or lonely or unhappy. I watch them at night, after a long day, watch him braid her hair, tell her stories in low whispers when she’s taking her bath, admonishing her when she inadvertently splashes him, but never really meaning it.

One day, I take them to a magic show, in a little theater on the Upper West Side. A man who calls himself Incredible Isaac, with blond highlights and a pink but kind face, who I recognize from a cable TV show, stands on a little stage with red curtains and enraptures a room of children. He invites them on stage, lets their stuffed animals join them. He makes coins come out of kids’ noses, makes his wand go limp. Sparks of fire come out of a blue kerchief.

Jordan sits without making a sound, his little face mesmerized. He doesn’t even laugh or raise his hand to volunteer. He just watches intently, like a scientist absorbing new data. When we get home, he rushes to the computer without asking permission, and I hear Incredible Isaac’s voice, teaching Jordan new magic tricks through the screen.

When I’m gone, back to my own apartment and away from them, my chest aches like something’s missing, and it’s such a foreign feeling that I wonder if I should curb this sentimentality, this overflow of love I’m feeling for them. Because that’s what it is, pure, uncomplicated love. There’s no need for people-pleasing or excessive complimenting, no subtle urge to twist them to fit my needs.

In Prospect Park, I turn my head to help Jordan open a bag of chips, and Lola is gone. And the feeling I have in that moment, my eyes straining to find her braided hair colorfully adorned with pastel barrettes, is nothing like I’ve ever experienced, a fear so animal, so entrenched in me that I forget to breathe.

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