4. THE SON I LOST TWICE

🌹TESSA🌹

I stood outside the gates for a long time before I pressed the buzzer.

The house loomed behind the iron bars, all stone and glass and the kind of quiet that money bought. I had seen houses like this before. I had grown up in one. But that life felt like it belonged to someone else, some other girl who had not made the mistakes I had made.

A voice crackled through the intercom. "Yes?"

"I'm here for the nanny interview," I said. "Tessa Hart."

The gates swung open and I walked through them. I felt my hands shaking and I pressed them against my thighs to steady them. I had done this before. I had walked into interviews and smiled and pretended I was not desperate.

I could do it again.

The door opened before I reached it. A woman stood there, tall and slender with sharp features and eyes that swept over me like she was cataloguing everything she did not like. She wore a cream dress that probably cost more than my rent and her hair was pulled back in a way that looked effortless but was clearly not.

"You must be Tessa," she said. Her voice was pleasant but distant, the kind of voice that was used to getting what it wanted. "I'm Melisa. Come in."

I stepped inside and I felt the cool air hit my face. The house was immaculate. Everything was in its place. Nothing was out of order. It was the kind of house that did not feel lived in, the kind of house that was designed to impress rather than to comfort.

Melisa led me through a hallway and into a sitting room. She gestured for me to sit and I did, perching on the edge of the couch because I did not want to wrinkle anything. She sat across from me and crossed her legs and looked at me the way you look at a candidate you have already decided against.

"Tell me about your experience with children," she said.

I opened my mouth to answer. I had prepared for this. I had practiced in the mirror. I had told myself that I could do this, that I could smile and talk about my qualifications and pretend that I was not terrified.

And then I heard footsteps in the hallway.

I turned.

A woman walked into the room. Older with silver hair and sharp eyes that missed nothing. She moved with the kind of confidence that came from decades of being in control. She sat down in the chair beside Melisa and looked at me like she was waiting for me to fail.

And behind her, a boy.

He was tall for his age, all long limbs and the kind of frame that suggested he would grow into a large man. He moved with the confidence of someone who had never been told to shrink himself. His clothes were expensive but he wore them like he did not care about them. His face was sharp, his jaw already defined, and his eyes were gray.

I felt my heart stop.

I could not breathe. I could not make my lungs work. I stared at him and I felt the world tilt beneath me because I knew that face. I had memorized that face. I had spent eight years looking at that face every single day.

He was Wayne. He was exactly Wayne. The same nose. The same mouth. The same shape of his ears, the same curve of his chin. But Wayne's eyes were bright and curious and full of questions. This boy's eyes were cold. He looked at me like I was an inconvenience, like I was something he had stepped in and was trying to scrape off his shoe.

Raymond gave him away. That was the thought that surfaced first, cold and sharp and immediate. He did not want him. He paid me to forget my son and then he handed him off to strangers. Or maybe he sold him. Maybe he took my baby and he sold him to the highest bidder, to this cold woman and her cold mother who looked at him like he was an inconvenience.

I had told myself that Raymond was taking him because he wanted him. I had convinced myself that he would give him everything, that he would raise him with love and care and everything I could not give him. But his eyes were empty and hollow. The eyes of a child who had never been loved.

I had given my son away to a man who did not want him. I had given him away to be raised by strangers. I had sold him like he was nothing.

"Dwayne," Melisa said, and her voice was sharp. "Come here."

He did not move. He stood in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and he looked at me and then he looked at Melisa and there was something like disdain in his eyes.

"I'm busy," he said. His voice was flat and cold and I heard the intelligence in it, the sharpness of a child who had learned to speak like an adult.

Melisa's face tightened. "Dwayne, I said come here. Now."

He did not move. He just stood there with his arms crossed and his eyes on me and I felt him studying me, taking me apart piece by piece. He was not looking at me like a child looked at a stranger. He was looking at me like he was trying to figure out what I wanted.

"Do you have something to say?" He asked the question with the kind of calm that felt practiced. "Or are you just going to stare at me like I'm a sideshow?"

I opened my mouth but nothing came out.

Melisa stood up. "Dwayne, that is enough. Go to your room."

He did not look at her. He kept his eyes on me and I felt them burning into my skin, those cold gray eyes that looked nothing like Wayne's. Wayne's eyes were warm. This boy's eyes were ice.

"You're not going to hire her," he said, and his voice was flat and matter-of-fact. "So why are you wasting her time?"

Melisa's face went red. "Dwayne, I am warning you."

"She looks poor. And tired. And desperate." He said it like he was commenting on the weather, like the words did not cut me open and leave me bleeding. "You don't hire people who look like that. You hire people who know how to pretend. She doesn't know how to pretend."

I felt the tears building behind my eyes and I forced them back down. He was eight years old. He was eight years old and he was looking at me like I was nothing and he had no idea that I was his mother, that I had held him in my arms, that I had pressed my lips to his forehead and whispered goodbye.

"Dwayne." The older woman's voice was calm and measured and I turned to look at her. She had not moved from her chair. "You are being rude. Apologize to the poor woman."

He did not apologize. He just looked at me one more time and then he turned and walked out of the room. I watched him go. His steps were long and confident. He did not look back. He did not hesitate. He just walked away like I was already forgotten.

"He's not usually this..." Melisa trailed off and waved her hand vaguely. "He's been under a lot of stress lately. Changes in the household. You understand."

I nodded. I did not understand. I understood nothing. I understood that my son was eight years old and had just looked at me like I was beneath him. I understood that he had been raised by strangers who did not know how to love him. I understood that I had given him away and this was the result.

Melisa sat back down and crossed her legs and looked at me with an expression that was almost pitiful. "Dwayne is a difficult child. He requires structure and discipline. He does not respond well to..." She paused and looked at me the way you look at someone who has shown up to a formal event in casual clothes. "...softness. That is why we need someone who can handle him."

"I understand," I said, and my voice came out steadier than I expected.

“I don't think you do.” The older woman looked at me for a long moment, her cold eyes sweeping over me like she was examining something she had already decided to throw away.

"You are not the right fit for this position." She said it flatly, without hesitation, like she had known it from the moment I walked through the door. "We need someone with experience handling children like Dwayne. Children of his... caliber. He is perceptive. He can spot weakness from across a room. He needs someone who will not let him get away with that behavior. Someone who is not going to cry the first time he speaks his mind. I look at you and I see someone who would not last a week."

"I have experience with children," I said, and I heard the desperation in my voice and I hated it. "I have raised a child alone for eight years. I know how to set boundaries. I know how to be firm."

"Raising your own child is not the same as raising someone else's," The older woman said, and her voice was dismissive. "You would be caring for a child who has standards. Expectations. He is not going to accept mediocrity. And neither are we.”

I opened my mouth to protest, to tell her that I had raised a child alone for eight years, that I knew how to be firm, that I could handle him.

I can love him.

"We need someone Dwayne will respect," Melisa cut in. "And from the moment he looked at you, he did not respect you. My son has excellent instincts. If he does not like someone, there is usually a reason."

The words landed somewhere in my chest and I felt them settle there, cold and sharp. My son. She called him my son. She said my son did not respect me. My son looked at me with contempt and it was because I had failed him, because I had given him away, because I had not been there to raise him and now he was cold and sharp and he looked at his real mother like she was nothing.

The older woman stood up. "Thank you for coming, Miss Hart. We will not be extending an offer. We wish you the best in your search."

I stood up. I could not make my throat work. I walked out of the room and down the hallway and out the front door.

I walked to the bus stop and I sat down on the bench and I tried to stop shaking. I tried to tell myself that it did not matter, that I had made the right choice, that he was better off without me.

But I could not stop seeing his eyes. Cold. Sharp. Empty. The eyes of a child who had never been loved.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out. I thought it might be Wayne's school calling. I thought it might be the landlord reminding me about the rent.

It was an email.

Interview Invitation — Executive Personal Assistant Position. The address was familiar. The same neighborhood. The same street.

I scrolled down. I saw the company name.

Reddington Group Holdings.

I read it again. Reddington Group Holdings. Raymond Reddington's company.

I had applied to this job weeks ago, during one of those desperate nights when I had applied to everything I could find. I had not realized. I had not made the connection. I had just seen the job listing and the salary and I had sent my application without thinking.

And now they wanted to interview me.

I stared at the screen and I thought about Dwayne and his cold eyes and the way he had looked at me like I was nothing. I thought about Raymond and the contract and the money and the way he had told me to disappear.

I thought about Wayne. His round cheeks and his bright eyes and the way he had asked about school.

I had no choice. I had never had a choice.

I typed my reply. Yes, I would be there.

And I hit send.

I felt the tears burning behind my eyes.

I was going to walk back into his world.

And this time, I was not going to disappear.