The flight from Chicago had been a nightmare, but I was smiling as I unlocked the front door. I had caught an earlier connection, hoping to surprise everyone. I imagined the squeals of my toddlers, the relief on my husband’s face.
The house was silent. Too silent for 2:00 PM on a Tuesday.
I walked down the hallway, the wheels of my suitcase humming on the hardwood. I turned the corner into the kitchen.
There they were. Mark and Chloe, our twenty-three-year-old nanny.
I came home early from a business trip to find my husband and our nanny sitting at the kitchen table holding hands.
They didn’t jump apart. They didn’t look guilty. They didn’t scramble to make excuses. They looked like a hiring committee waiting for an applicant they intended to reject.
“Mark?” I dropped my bag. The sound echoed in the room.
He stood up. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t stammer. He looked at me with a terrifying, calm pragmatism.
“You’re back early,” he noted.
“Why are you holding Chloe’s hand?” I demanded, my heart hammering against my ribs.
He sighed, as if I were a child asking a tedious question.
“Sit down, Sarah,” he said.
“I will not sit down!“
“Fine,” he said. He looked me in the eye and said, ‘She’s better with the kids than you are.’.
The air left my lungs.
“She’s patient,” he listed, as if reading a performance review. “She’s always here. She doesn’t travel for work. The kids prefer her.“
I looked at Chloe. She was wearing my apron. She was drinking out of my favorite mug. She refused to meet my eyes, staring at the table with a smug little pout.
“‘We think it’s best if you move out so we don’t disrupt their routine,’” Mark continued.
I stared at him. He wasn’t breaking up with me. He was firing me.
They tried to replace me in my own home. They wanted to slide Chloe into my slot—Mother, Wife, Homeowner—seamlessly, like changing a battery. They wanted the house, the kids, and the life, but they wanted to delete the woman who paid for it all.
“Disrupt their routine?” I repeated, my voice shaking with a rage that was turning into ice. “You want to protect their routine?”
“Exactly,” Mark nodded. “It’s about stability.”
“Okay,” I said, pulling my phone out. “Well, part of the ‘routine’ is paying the mortgage. Which I do. Another part is paying the nanny. Which I do.”
I tapped the screen.
“I just froze the joint accounts,” I said. “And I’m calling the police to have two intruders removed from my property. Because unlike you, Mark, my name is the only one on the deed.”
His smugness vanished. Chloe finally looked up, eyes wide.
“You can’t kick us out,” he sputtered. “The kids need consistency!”
“The routine just changed,” I told him, dialing 9-1-1. “You wanted a replacement? Go find a replacement roof to sleep under. This position has been terminated.”
