“Not much, sir,” Mrs. Graham, the house manager, answered carefully.
Daniel sat across from Annie.
“You need to eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” Annie said.
“Is this because of what happened this afternoon?”
She looked down at her plate.
“Not eating will not change my decision,” Daniel said.
Annie looked up at him. Her eyes were not angry. They were steady.
“I know.”
“Then why aren’t you eating?”
She thought seriously before answering.
“Because when people don’t listen to me, my stomach feels closed.”
Mrs. Graham lowered her eyes.
Daniel had no answer.
After dinner, Sarah ran Annie’s bath. She tested the water with her wrist, added a little cold, then a little hot, exactly as she always did.
“You don’t have to do this,” Sarah said softly. “One of the new nannies can do bath time tomorrow.”
“But I don’t want one of the new nannies.”
“Your father thinks they’re more suitable.”
Annie dipped her feet into the warm water. “Suitable means they look right to him. Not that they take care of me.”
Sarah looked surprised. “You’re too young to talk like that.”
“I listen when adults talk,” Annie said. “They just think I don’t understand.”
Sarah sat on the closed toilet lid and folded a towel slowly.
“Miss Sarah?”
“Yes, baby?”
“If I choose you tomorrow, and Daddy says no again, will you still be here?”
“I work here,” Sarah said carefully. “So yes.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Annie looked at her with quiet fear. “Will you still be mine?”
The question landed softly, but it broke something open inside Sarah.
For years, Sarah had lived quietly inside other people’s homes. She had done laundry, cooked, cleaned, obeyed schedules, and kept her grief hidden. Once, long ago, she had a little girl of her own. A daughter with bright eyes and a laugh that filled every room. Fever took her in one terrible week, leaving Sarah with empty arms and a life that never felt whole again.
She had never told Annie that story.
Not fully.
But somehow children knew the places adults were wounded.
Sarah reached out and smoothed Annie’s hair.
“Sometimes in life,” Sarah said gently, “you don’t get to choose who stays. Sometimes other people decide that.”
Annie shook her head immediately.
“Then I’ll just keep choosing again.”
Sarah’s eyes filled, but she did not let the tears fall.
“You are a very stubborn little girl.”
Annie nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Later that night, Daniel came to Annie’s room.
He did not usually do bedtime. There had always been someone else for that. Someone to bring water. Someone to tuck blankets. Someone to check the night-light. But tonight, he stood in her doorway and knocked softly.
“Can I come in?”
“Yes, sir.”
He sat in the chair near her bed, looking slightly uncomfortable, as though he were visiting a place he had paid for but never truly entered.
“Annie, do you understand why I want you to choose one of those women?”
“You think they’re better,” she said.
“I think they are trained. They know how to raise a child properly. Structure, education, discipline. Those things matter.”
“Miss Sarah knows how to take care of a child.”
“That is different.”
“How?”
Daniel opened his mouth, then closed it.
