All Chapters of When Winter Blooms: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

It was nothing.I want to be very clear about that going in, because I've turned it over enough times now to know that the only way to survive thinking about it is to be extremely precise. It was a small thing. An accidental thing. The kind of thing that happens when two people exist in the same space and occasionally occupy the same corner of it at the same moment. It meant nothing. It was nothing.It was five seconds.It happened three nights after the storm. Lily had fallen asleep on the couch, she'd been fighting it for an hour, the way she did sometimes, jaw set, eyes going glassy but refusing to close, until she just dropped mid-sentence about something Gerald had apparently done that day. I'd draped a blanket over her and left her there because moving her sometimes woke her and when Lily woke up from almost-sleep she came back furious and nobody wanted that.The apartment was quiet. Ethan was working in his study, I could see the light under the door, and I was on the other e

Lily got sick on a Monday.Nothing frightening, just the particular misery of a small child with a fever and a blocked nose and the absolute conviction that the only acceptable response to her situation was to be held continuously by another human being. She'd picked it up at nursery, probably from the boy in her class who'd been sneezing on everything for a week, and by Monday morning she was hot to the touch and wanted nothing except me, Gerald, and apple juice in that specific order.I called Ms. Park and cancelled the week. I set up camp in Lily's room, blankets, her whole stuffed animal collection, the little humidifier from the bathroom cabinet, and I sat with her while she drifted in and out of sleep, one small hand usually somewhere on my arm or my leg, just keeping contact, just making sure I was still there.I understood that, I didn't mind it. Some children get sick and become demanding in the aggressive way, loud, inconsolable, angry at the world. Lily got sick and became

I didn't plan to be in the hallway.I was coming back from the kitchen with a glass of water, It was 8:15 on a Thursday evening and Lily had been in bed for forty minutes and Ethan had gone in to say goodnight the way he always did, the brief, quiet visit, the kiss on the forehead, the lights out, except that this time the lights hadn't gone out and forty minutes had passed and he was still in there.I noticed on my way back down the hall. The line of warm light under Lily's door. The low sound of his voice, not the words, just the sound, the particular register of someone speaking quietly and carefully to a child.I stopped.I told myself I was just checking. That I'd listen for thirty seconds and if everything was fine I'd go to my room and mind my own business. I stood in the hallway with my glass of water and I listened."Her hair was like yours," I heard him say. "Dark, and it did this thing in the morning where it went in about six different directions and she was always a bit

He knocked on my door at 9:10 pm.I was in my pajamas, a soft grey ones with a small hole near the left hip that I'd been meaning to throw out for two years and hadn't because they were comfortable. My hair was out, I had my reading glasses on. I was reading a novel I'd borrowed from the shelf in the hallway, and I had been fully committed to the idea that the rest of this evening belonged entirely to me.Then he knocked.Three knocks, measured.I pulled my glasses off and then immediately put them back on because the alternative was not being able to see, which would be worse. I went to the door.He was in his work trousers and a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled up, which meant he'd been in his study since dinner. He had a folder in one hand, he looked at me.There was a pause for a second, maybe two. But I noticed it because he was not someone who paused. He was someone who always knew exactly what he was going to say before he opened his mouth, the pause was new."I wanted to dis

He asked me on a Monday.Monday morning, 7:15, while I was making coffee and Lily was still asleep. He came out of his room in his work clothes, already dressed, already Ethan Cole, and went to the coffee machine and then stopped.Turned around.Like he'd decided something."There's an event next Friday," he said. "A charity auction, Black tie." He looked at his coffee. "I have to go.""Okay," I said carefully, because Derek had said he would mention it and Derek had been right about everything so far and I was not going to be caught off guard."I thought…." He stopped, started again. "There's a plus one, If you want to come."The kitchen was quiet.He was looking at his coffee with the focus of a man reading something very important in it. Which was, I was coming to understand, what he did when he'd said something he wasn't sure about, he looked at something else and let the words stand on their own without his face adding anything to them."As your nanny?" I asked. Because I needed