ONE

MILLIE Three Months Earlier

After an hour of scrubbing, Amber Degraw’s kitchen is just about
spotless.
Considering that, as far as I can tell, Amber seems to eat almost
all her meals from restaurants in the area, it feels like the effort isn’t
quite necessary. If I had to put down money, I’d bet she doesn’t
even know how to turn her fancy oven on. She has a beautiful,
enormous kitchen filled with appliances that I’m fairly sure she has
never used even once. She has an Instant Pot, a rice cooker, an air
fryer, and even something called a dehydrator. It seems somewhat
contradictory that somebody who has eight different kinds of
moisturizer in her bathroom also owns a dehydrator, but who am I to
judge?
Okay, I judge a little.
But I have carefully scrubbed down every single one of these
unused appliances, cleaned the refrigerator, put away several dozen
dishes, and mopped the floor until it’s shiny enough to almost see
my reflection. Now all I have to do is put away the last load of
laundry and the Degraws’ penthouse apartment will officially be
clean as a whistle.
“Millie!” Amber’s breathless voice floats into the kitchen, and I
wipe a bit of sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand.
“Millie, where are you?”
“In here!” I call out. Even though it’s fairly obvious where I am.
The apartment—which has merged two adjacent apartments into
one uber-apartment—is large, but it’s not that large. If I’m not in the
living room, I’m almost certainly in the kitchen.
Amber floats into the kitchen, looking her usual impeccably sleek
self in one of her many, many designer dresses. This one is zebra
printed with a plunging V-neck and sleeves that taper at her slender
wrists. She’s paired the dress with matching zebra-printed boots,
and while she does look achingly beautiful as always, part of me is
not sure if I should compliment her on her outfit or hunt her on
safari.
“There you are!” she says with a hint of accusation in her voice,
as if I’m not exactly where I’m supposed to be.
“I’m just finishing up,” I tell her. “I’ll just grab the laundry and —”
“Actually,” Amber interrupts me, “I’m going to need you to stay.”
I cringe internally. I clean for Amber twice a week, but I also do
other errands for her, including babysitting for her nine-month-old
daughter, Olive. I try to be flexible because the pay is fantastic, but
she’s not great at asking in advance. It feels like all my babysitting
jobs here are on a strictly need-to-know basis. And apparently, I
don’t need to know until about twenty minutes before.
“I’ve got a pedicure,” she says with all the gravity of somebody
informing me that she will be heading to the hospital to perform
heart surgery. “I need you to keep an eye on Olive while I’m gone.”
Olive is a sweet little girl. I absolutely don’t mind keeping an eye
on her—usually. In fact, there are times when I would jump at the
chance to earn a little cash at the exorbitant per-hour rate Amber
gives me, which allows me to keep a roof over my head and eat
food that isn’t scavenged from a garbage can. But right now, I can’t
do it. “I have class in an hour.”
“Oh.” Amber frowns, then quickly makes her face blank again.
She told me the last time I was here that she read an article about
how smiling and frowning are the leading causes of wrinkles, so
she’s trying to make her expression as neutral as possible at all
times. “Can’t you skip it? Don’t they have the lectures recorded? Or
some transcript you could get?”
They don’t. Furthermore, I have skipped two classes in the last
two weeks because of last-minute babysitting requests from Amber.
I’ve been trying to get my college degree, and I need a decent
grade in this class. And anyway, I like the course. Social psychology
is fun and interesting. And a passing grade is crucial for my degree.
“I wouldn’t ask you,” Amber says, “if it wasn’t important.”
Her definition of “important” may differ from mine. For me,
“important” is graduating from college and getting that social work
degree. I’m not sure how a pedicure could be that important. I
mean, it’s still the tail end of winter. Who’s even going to see her
feet?
“Amber,” I start to say.
As if on cue, a high-pitched wail comes from the living room.
Even though I’m not officially babysitting Olive right now, I usually
keep an eye on her whenever I’m here. Amber takes Olive to a
playgroup three times a week with her friends, and the rest of the
time, she seems to be scheming ways to get Olive off her hands.
She has complained to me that Mr. Degraw will not allow her to hire
a full-time nanny because she herself does not work, so she pieces
childcare together through a series of babysitters—mostly me. In
any case, Olive was in her playpen when I started cleaning, and I
stayed in the living room with her until the vacuum lulled her to
sleep.
“Millie,” Amber says pointedly.
I sigh and put down the sponge I’ve been holding; it feels like it
has been melded to my hand lately. I wash my hands off in the sink,
then I wipe them dry on my blue jeans. “I’m coming, Olive!” I call
out.
When I get back into the living room, Olive has pulled herself up
on the edge of the playpen, and she is crying so desperately that her
little round face has turned bright red. Olive is the sort of baby that
you might see on the cover of a baby magazine. She’s so perfectly
cherubic and beautiful, right down to the soft blond curls that are
now smushed against the left side of her head from her nap. At the
moment, she’s not quite so cherubic, but when she sees me, she
instantly lifts her arms and her sobs subside.
I reach into the playpen and heft her into my arms. She buries
her little wet face in my shoulder, and I don’t feel quite so bad about
missing class if I have to. I don’t know what it is, but the second I
turned thirty, it was like some switch flipped on inside me that made
me think babies are the most adorable thing in the entire universe. I
love spending time with Olive, even though she’s not my baby.
“I appreciate this, Millie.” Amber is already tugging on her coat
and grabbing her Gucci purse from the coat rack beside the door.
“And believe me, my toes thank you.”
Yeah, yeah. “When will you be back?”
“I won’t be gone too long,” she assures me, which we both know
is a bald-faced lie. “After all, I know my little princess will miss me!”
“Of course,” I murmur.
As Amber digs around in her purse for her keys or her phone or
her compact, Olive nuzzles closer to me. She lifts her little round
face and smiles up at me with her four tiny white teeth. “Ma-ma,”
she declares.
Amber freezes, her hand still inside her purse. All time seems to
stand still. “What did she say?”
Oh no. “She said… Millie?”
Olive, oblivious to the trouble she is causing, grins up at me
again and babbles louder this time, “Mama!”
Amber’s face turns pink under her foundation. “Did she just call
you mama?”
“No…”
“Mama!” Olive cries gleefully. Oh my God, will you stop it, kid?
Amber throws her purse onto the coffee table, her face twisted in
a mask of anger that will almost certainly cause wrinkles. “Are you
telling Olive that you’re her mother?”
“No!” I cry. “I tell her I’m Millie. Millie. I’m sure she just gets
confused, especially because I’m the one who…”
Her eyes widen. “Because you’re around her more than I am? Is
that what you were going to say?”
“No! Of course not!”
“Are you saying that I’m a bad mother?” Amber takes a step
toward me, and Olive looks alarmed. “You think you’re more of a
mother to my little girl than I am?”
“No! Never…”
“Then why are you telling her that you are her mother?”
“I’m not!” My exorbitant babysitter pay is circling the drain. “I
swear. Millie. That’s all I’m saying. It sounds like mama, that’s all.
Same first letter.”
Amber takes a deep, calming breath. Then she takes another
step toward me. “Give me my baby.”
“Of course…”
But Olive isn’t making it easy. When she sees her mother coming
toward her with outstretched arms, she clings to my neck tighter.
“Mama!” she sobs into my neck.
“Olive,” I mumble. “I’m not your mama. That’s your mama.” Who
is about to fire me if you don’t let go of me.
“This is so unfair!” Amber cries. “I breastfed her for over a week!
Isn’t that worth anything?”
“I’m so sorry…”
Amber finally wrenches Olive out of my arms, while Olive bawls
her little head off. “Mama!” she screams as she reaches for me with
her chubby arms.
“She’s not your mama!” Amber scolds the baby. “I am. Do you
want to see the stretch marks? That woman is not your mother.”
“Mama!” she wails.
“Millie,” I correct her. “Millie.”
But what’s the difference? She doesn’t need to know my name.
Because after today, I’ll never be allowed in this house ever again. I
am so fired.
TWO
During my walk from the train station to my one-bedroom apartment
in the South Bronx, I keep one arm firmly clutched around my purse,
and the other holding the can of mace stuffed into my pocket, even
when it’s broad daylight. You can never be too careful in this
neighborhood.
Today I feel lucky to even have my little apartment in the middle
of one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in New York. If I don’t
find another job soon to replace the income I just lost after Amber
Degraw let me go (with no offer of a reference), the best I could
hope for is a cardboard box on the street outside the decrepit brick
building where I currently live.
If I hadn’t decided to go to college, I might have saved some
money by now. But stupid me, I chose to try to better myself.
As I walk the final block to my building, my sneakers squishing
against some slush on the pavement, I get the sensation that there’s
somebody behind me, following me. Of course, I’m always on high
alert around here. But there are times when I strongly feel like I
have attracted the wrong sort of attention.
For example, right now, in addition to a prickly feeling in the back
of my neck, there are footsteps behind me. Footsteps that seem to
be getting louder as I walk. Whoever is behind me is getting closer.
But I don’t turn around. I just hug my sensible black coat tighter
around my body and I walk faster, past a black Mazda with a cracked
right headlight, past a red fire hydrant leaking water all over the
street, and up the five uneven concrete steps to the door of my
building.
I have my keys ready. Unlike in the Degraws’ swanky Upper West
Side apartment building, there is no doorman here. There is an
intercom and there is a key to open the door. When the landlady,
Mrs. Randall, rented me the apartment, she gave me a stern lecture
about not letting anyone in behind me. It’s a good way to get
robbed or raped.
As I fit the key into the lock that always seems to stick, the
footsteps grow louder again. A second later, there’s a shadow
looming over me that I can’t ignore. I lift my eyes and identify a
man in his mid-twenties, wearing a black trench coat, his dark hair
mildly damp. He looks vaguely familiar—especially the scar over his
left eyebrow.
“I live on t