by Mia Ford
Sherry listened to their discussion for a few minutes more. It amazed her how much someone can read a person just by listening to them talk. She reflected back to working at The Blue Ivy… a thought which then turned the corner and circled the block to somehow wind up back at Darren.
Just as she built up the courage to head downstairs, a broad-shouldered shadow suddenly reached out over the staircase. Sherry stepped back, startled at first. She then realized it was Darren, only moments before he shouted up, “Sherry! You here? Sherry?”
Sherry glanced away for a moment, trying to think about whether or not she wanted to be here. Darren had said she would be free of her duties until 8:30ish – a little less than an hour from now. Glancing back down the hallway, her bedroom door represented her opportunity to be invisible. Feelings for Darren were becoming so strong she knew guilt would eat her up if she were to reject coming down. Does he want me to meet his family?
Darren started climbing the steps before Sherry could decide her response. She spoke up quickly. “Yeah, I’m coming.” She headed down, meeting Darren on the half-way landing. He looked her up and down and smiled. She looked flustered, maybe even a bit anxious. Darren chuckled, said hello, then explained, “I was thinking maybe you could come down and meet my mom and aunt. They were asking about you, since...you know...you’re Gabriel’s nanny. If you don’t want to, I understand. It’s not that big’a deal. They’ll be leaving soon so you could just come down then and get Gabriel.”
Sherry nodded quickly. “No, no, that’s okay, Darren. I can come down and meet your mother and aunt.” She smiled then added, “Mister McWaters.”
Darren chuckled then grabbed Sherry’s hand. He lifted it up, held it for a moment as he looked into her eyes, then turned around. Sherry looked at the back of his head as she followed him out to the terrace. “They went out back.”
Sherry giggled as she wondered if the two women were going to sit in the same place where she’d been riding Darren’s cock. Only seconds before Darren approached the french doors, he looked back over his shoulder. He looked into Sherry’s eyes – a look which said so much while never opening his mouth.
“Mom,” Darren said, walking out to the table next to the rose bushes. “This is Gabriel’s nanny, Sherry. Sherry, this is my mom, Joan, and my aunt, Carol.”
Sherry took a deep breath then stepped forward. She shook each woman’s hand, her own trembling slightly. Quickly, Sherry discovered the thought of a moment like this was much more than the reality. Darren’s mother Joan, who was just as Darren described her – tall, hair cut short, and definitely a pantsuit kind of lady – greeted Sherry graciously. However, Sherry could feel her eyes judging her. Her sister Carol was a bit more down-to-earth, but clearly came from a life of money and privilege. A strange feeling brewed in Sherry’s stomach during the long pause after their introduction. Darren came from these kinds of people… They’re so stuck up.
“Have a seat, Sherry...Have a seat,” Joan insisted.
Darren pulled the fourth chair out and allowed Sherry to sit down. When Darren sat down next to her – the way he sat down next to her – things seemed to get even more awkward. Sherry went along with it, though, and only speaking when spoken to.
Darren led the conversation then filled Sherry in on what they’d done for the day. First, was the tiny water park in Headwaters Park downtown. They then had a picnic in another section of the park. Darren willingly showed the photos they took on his phone. She smiled, of course, as they were beautiful in their own right and certainly something the single father would cherish. However, as the conversation had moved on, Sherry’s mind dwell on this strange feeling she’d gotten from looking at the photo. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what she was feeling, but a strong feeling that she was missing from the picture came over her.
Sherry followed Darren and his family back into the house then into to the foyer. After saying her goodbyes to his mother and aunt, they said their farewells to Gabriel then the baby was handed to Sherry. She stood in the foyer in such a way where she stood in a shadow, looking out the window once again as if she were invisible. Sleeping baby Gabriel purred in her arms as she watched Darren’s mother talk his ear off from the door to the sidewalk. She couldn’t help but to giggle at how the stiff woman would say Darren’s name if she wanted to make sure she got a point across. Bet she has her impression about me.
Darren stepped out onto the sidewalk next to his mother while he did everything he could to keep from rolling his eyes and sighing the way he did when he was a teenager. His mother had been going on and on about a judge’s event she was trying to make it to because she thought the man would be a good connection. “Oh, Mom,” he said, shaking his head.
“What, Darren?” Joan asked, shrugging it off. “I’m only trying to tell you how to play the game. Are you doing it here? Seriously, Darren? I hope you’re making good connections here. I think you could definitely shine in a city like this. Meet some judges, some other investors. Bank Presidents are good to know if you’ll be needing help with financing. Look at some of the more prominent, older churches. You remember what I used to always tell you when you were kids and you wouldn’t listen then you wonder why your brother gets opportunities in life you let pass by.”
“Yeah, yeah, Mom,” Darren said. “I know. Churches are where the old money is.”
“Absolutely,” Joan said. She nodded her head confidently. “I’m glad you were listening.”
Darren sped up the conversation to the point where both his mother and aunt Carol felt they were being rushed off.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Joan said, pushing her son’s chest. “How have things been going with her...the nanny, Sherry...so far?” She nodded toward the house. “I just wanted to ask. You know, I’m a grandmother, so I need to know these things.”
Darren snickered then nodded his head. “She’s doing good, Mom.” Their stormy night came to mind. “Really good, actually. She’s good with Gabriel and is even easy to work with and responsible. It’s like she’s naturally good at it.”
Joan nodded, looking back up toward the house while she recalled her first impression of the young woman. “Oh, how many children does she have?”
Darren shook his head. “No. She watched her nieces and nephews when they were babies. You should’ve seen the first time she took Gabriel from me and fastened him into the car seat. It was snowing, windy and she just did it so naturally. That was the same day as the interview.”
“Oh, she doesn’t have any children?” Joan said, clearly processing the information. “Well, that’s interesting.”
“She seems like a nice girl,” Carol said, butting in. She’d been admiring the neighborhood’s architecture. “And in a lot of ways, as crazy as it sounds, but it’s a coincidence too, but Gabriel looks a lot like her to me. When I saw her then looked at your mother holding the boy, I thought they really looked like. You know, we didn’t have a nanny when we had Harrison and Kenner. We went ahead and did it ourselves, but you know, I’ve never really thought about what it must be like to be virtually raising someone else’s child.”
Joan nodded. They hadn’t used a nanny either, but rather her mother filled in the gap. A resemblance between John and Gabriel and herself was to be expected. She then nodded, recalling Sherry’s face as Gabriel was handed over to her in the foyer. “Yeah, I see that too. Really, he definitely looks like another of you when you were a baby.”
“Hmph,” Darren said, nodding his head. “I guess I never noticed it.”
“Yeah, well,” Joan said. She looked at her time. “We better get back on the road. I wanted to stay longer, but you know the prosecutor’s daughter has a drunk driving case coming up. If I get her off, that would certainly make it easier for your father to pull off a couple things we’d been thinking about doing.”
Darren’s eyebrows furled as he shook his head disappointingly and hugged his aunt Carol. Joan stepped up to take her hug then headed out into the street. �
�Oh, Darren...Would you calm down? You act like we have dead bodies buried under the house or something.”
“You could, Mom,” Darren said. “You very well could.”
Joan lowered Carol’s window and talked across her. “Darren, you should know me better than that. You know me and your father wouldn’t have them buried under the house.” She smiled. “That would be too obvious.”
Darren turned away, playfully, heading back up the walkway to his porch. He waved at his mother, she honked, then he stepped back into the house. He paused in the doorway, looking up toward the top of the staircase. The light from either Sherry’s room or Gabriel’s nursery shined toward the landing. His mother’s words simmered in his mind as he climbed the stairs, his destination already in mind.
Darren stepped up to Gabriel’s bedroom doorway and peeked inside. Sherry sat in the wooden chair on the other side with Gabriel in her lap. Ever so affectionately, she looked down into the beautiful baby’s eyes and calmed him by singing a soft melody. Whatever song it was, Darren didn’t know; however, after the tune looped around, he too found it a bit entrancing. Sherry’s low, singing voice was so lulling Darren himself could very well drift to sleep thinking about it. The light whining Gabriel had been doing faded into soft giggles with his tiny hands reaching up for Sherry’s necklace.
With a slight grin on his face, he stepped away from the door and headed down the hall to his bedroom. He pushed the door closed softly then crossed the room and through the french doors of his tiny sitting room. There, he approached his bookcase and pulled a couple of family albums he’d held on to since leaving Chicago. Sitting down in front of the window, he looked through them. The man gazed at photos of himself as a baby. Certain poses were funny while others were too embarrassing at this point to show people. He couldn’t help but to take in how youthful and almost nurturing his mother looked with him in her arms. And to no surprise, the woman wore pants in every single picture.
“Hmph,” Darren said. Gabriel really does look like me. He then envisioned Sherry’s face, thinking of his mother’s and aunt’s comments. I see Sherry in him too. That’s crazy...really crazy.
Shortly after closing the albums then placing them back on a lower shelf, he stopped in the doorway. He vividly replayed his mother’s reaction to Sherry not having any children. Oh, she’s never had a child? That’s interesting. Darren wondered what she meant by that.
Darren leaned out into the hallway and looked down toward Gabriel’s room. He still hadn’t had his question answered about Sherry. He badly wanted to know what it was that she’d been through because whatever it was had obviously changed her since that night at her apartment.
Chapter 10
Darren hung up the phone Sunday afternoon relieved. What started off as supposedly going to be a busy day suddenly got a lot lighter. This morning, he’d gotten up to go deal with a tenant who was moving out quickly so he could get back to Indianapolis. He then rushed across town to the apartment complex, let himself into the office, and collected some documents he needed for banking. By the time he finished, it was nearly three o’clock and the weather outside was wonderful. Sherry had just been getting the baby bag and heading out when he walked through the front door.
“Where are you headed to?” Darren asked.
“Oh, I was just going to take Gabriel to the park,” Sherry explained. “We were just out back after he had lunch and the weather is great, so I thought about taking him to, you know, that park downtown where the people walk their dogs and they play with each other.”
“He loves dogs,” Darren said, rubbing the side of his son’s head.
“Yea, that’s just what I was thinking,” Sherry said. “And I’m sure a lot of people will be out with theirs today.”
“Hmm,” Darren said. He then said he needed to make a phone call and he’d be ready to go. Ten minutes later, he met Sherry with Gabriel out on the porch. He insisted on driving then they walked down to his MKZ and climbed in.
At Headwaters Park, Gabriel’s face lit up like a child on Christmas when he saw puppies. He laughed when tiny, ankle bitter dogs, as Sherry called them, came close and barked. His eyes filled with terror and he clung to Sherry desperately when big dogs came nearby. A playful Saint Bernard got to close to Gabriel that the baby screamed. Darren sitting next to her, they both comforted baby Gabriel until he called down. Soon enough, the baby drifted off to sleep in Sherry’s arms. Darren and Sherry both leaned back and gazed out at the green grass, rolling over the slope then descending into a thick wooded layer separating the park’s open space from the rushing St. Mary’s River. A chilling breeze whipped by.
Oh, she doesn’t have any children? Interesting?
“So, Sherry,” Darren said, bravely. “I don’t know if we ever talked about it yet, but I don’t think you ever told me if you want any kids one day.”
Sherry turned away from Darren and stared off toward the walking trail coming out of the woods. Within only a matter of seconds, a young mother pushing a stroller walked into view. “Uh, well….” she said, thinking of her own baby. The memory of walking into that adoption agency with Gabriel popped into her mind with a vengeance. She had long dealt with the guilt, but it still was sharp enough to sting her, even if only momentarily, like a needle pressing into her skin.
“I don’t know,” Sherry said, turning toward Darren. “I really don’t know at this point.” She chuckled. “Sometimes you don’t know what you want until it comes to you, I guess.” She felt one of her eyes swelling up, so she wiped it quickly and held her head high as she tried to show as little emotion as possible.
Darren nodded, looking into Gabriel’s sleeping face then at Sherry. Mom and Aunt Carol were really on to something. Gabriel’s eyes were strikingly similar to Sherry’s. In fact, Darren was amazed he had never noticed before his mother and aunt pointed it out. His eyes were then drawn to the dip above Sherry’s upper lip. This too was similar to the one between Gabriel’s lips and nose. This is strange, he thought. Gabriel looks just like Sherry. Throughout his life, Darren had been in many households where nannies were the primary caretakers to their employers’ children. Sure, it wasn’t strange for a nanny to be close to their boss’s children almost like mothers; however, much like he noticed before, such as when Gabriel woke up in the night, the bond between his adopted son and Sherry seemed far stronger than one would expect.
“I see, I see,” Darren said, accepting Sherry’s answer. “I just wondered. You seem like you would be a good mother.”
“I do?” Sherry asked, turning her head quickly. “You really think so?” She still envisioned herself as the woman working at various bars throughout her early twenties. If a guy was looking to have a fun time, she was available and ready to go. Hooking up with a guy from Chicago only visiting for the night was better than getting with a local guy who might be a little too clingy and be looking to settle down.
“Hell yeah,” Darren said, staring out at a dog jumping to catch a Frisbee. “My mom and aunt liked you...if that means anything to you.”
Sherry laughed out loud. She imagined Darren’s mother Joan walking down the walkway and out to the street sidewalk. Just before she’d gone upstairs with Gabriel after standing in the shadows of the foyer and staring out the window, she imaged a much more toned-down version of Cruella Deville.
“Your mother was….was… She’s interesting.”
Darren’s eyes cut to Sherry. “Is that how you would describe her?” His head shook. “There’s a lot of ways to describe her. She was going to stay longer, like she talked about weeks ago, but she has her corruption to get back to, so she has to run.”
A giggle slipped out of Sherry’s mouth. “Darren, you don’t have to say that.”
“What?” Darren asked, holding his hands up. “It’s the truth.” He chuckled. “But, that’s Mom. She wants me to join one of the older churches.”
“Really?” Sherry asked. “Um, your mom didn’t exactly seem like a church-going kind of l
ady. No offense…”
Darren dismissively waved away the subject. “She’s not. She just wants me to go so I can make certain kinds of connections. Growing up, she always told us that church was the best place to find old money.”
Sherry’s face fell flat from disbelief. “You can’t be serious.” At that very moment, she realized how small-town-from-Indiana she really was. She shook her head, snickering. “That is...is...”
“My mother,” Darren said, confidently. “Yup, that’s Mommy. She’s off to do something about a judge’s case then defend some prosecutor’s drunk driving daughter so she can get some favors done for my dad.”
“What in the world?” Sherry asked. “Your family sounds like the mafia.” She playfully squinted at Darren. “I wonder who you are really? Why did you come to Fort Wayne? Are there about to be dead bodies coming up floating in Chicago?”
Darren chuckled then looked away devilishly. “No, I brought them here to a place where nobody will find them.”
Sherry looked at Darren then away, once again feeling her heart beat for this man in ways it hadn’t been for any man in quite some time.
Darren and Sherry eventually got up and walked the park for about thirty minutes before loading back into the car and heading back home. Sherry updated Darren on how Gabriel’s day had been. Once Sherry finished up explaining, he couldn’t help but to notice how Sherry looked back at Gabriel. It was as if Gabriel represented more for her than a job. Darren finally felt the courage to ask her something he’d been wanting to know since meeting her. “Have you ever had a child, Sherry?”
Sherry’s head quickly turned toward Darren. “Huh? Why do you ask that?”
“Because,” Darren said. “I just have a strong feeling. If I’m wrong or asking something too personal, then please forgive. It’s just...it’s just...I sensed something. I could tell you were getting over something when I hired you. Again, if it’s too hard to open up about, then you don’t have to answer.”
