David frowned but nodded. They walked down the hallway. David opened the door to the child’s room. Michael was sitting on the floor by the window with a book on his lap. A first-grade math textbook. When the door opened, the boy jumped to his feet and stood at attention.
Vera felt a lump in her throat. She crouched down to be at his eye level and signed slowly and clearly: “Hi. My name is Vera. What’s yours?” Michael looked at his father, waiting for permission. David nodded.
“Michael,” the boy signed back, timidly, almost fearfully.
“That’s a beautiful name,” Vera smiled. “Do you like math?”
Michael shrugged. He didn’t like it or dislike it. He just did it because he was supposed to.
Vera saw what she was looking for. In the corner of the room, on the very top shelf of a bookcase, were toys. Neatly arranged, untouched. Model cars, a LEGO set, a stuffed bear. All expensive, all new, and all lifeless. “Thank you.” She stood up and left the room.
In the living room, David was waiting with a businesslike expression.
“When can you start?”
Vera looked him in the eye.
“Monday. But I have one condition.”
David raised an eyebrow.
“I’m listening.”
“The schedule has to be flexible. If a child needs more time at the park, we stay longer. If he’s tired of lessons, we play. Children with hearing loss need structure, but not a prison.”
A silence fell. David looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Vera held his gaze.
“Fine,” he said finally. “We’ll try it your way. But if I see his academic performance slipping…”
“You’ll see the opposite,” Vera answered firmly.
They shook hands. Hers was warm and strong. His was cold and dry.
Monday began with rain. Vera arrived at seven a.m., as agreed. David was already leaving. A business meeting, important negotiations. He gave her a quick glance, a nod, and disappeared out the door. Michael was waiting in the kitchen. A bowl of untouched oatmeal sat in front of him.
The boy sat upright, hands on the table, staring into space. Vera sat down next to him.
“Good morning,” she signed.
Michael flinched, as if he hadn’t expected anyone to greet him.
“Morning,” he signed back automatically.
“You don’t want the oatmeal?”
The boy shook his head. “No.”
“What do you want?”
Michael looked at her with disbelief. It seemed no one had ever asked him that question.
“I don’t know,” he signed.
Vera opened the refrigerator. Everything inside was perfectly organized. Labeled, compartmentalized. Yogurts, fruit, pre-cut vegetables in containers. Like a grocery store display.
“Do you know how to make pancakes?” she asked.
Michael shook his head no.
“Then you’re about to learn. Come on.”
They cooked together. Vera showed him, and Michael copied her. They cracked two eggs that missed the bowl and spilled flour on the floor. Vera laughed, and Michael froze, terrified, expecting to be scolded.
But Vera just wiped the floor with a towel and signed, “No big deal. Let’s keep going.” The first pancake was a disaster. The second was almost normal. The third was pretty good. For the first time that morning, Michael smiled. Just a little, barely noticeable. But it was a smile. They ate pancakes with sour cream and jam. Michael ate three. More than he usually ate for breakfast.
After breakfast, it was time for lessons. Vera opened the materials the previous nanny had left. Handwriting, math, speech development. All dry, formal, and boring. She pushed the textbooks aside.
“Let’s go,” she signed.
“Where?” Michael signed back, surprised.
“To have a real lesson.”
They got dressed and went outside. The rain had stopped, but the ground was wet. The air was fresh. Vera pointed to a tree.
“Do you know what this is?”
“A tree,” Michael answered.
“What kind of tree?”
The boy was stumped.
“Let’s find out together.”
They walked closer. Vera pointed to the leaves, the bark, the branches. She explained in sign language, slowly, patiently. A maple. These are maple leaves. This is maple bark. In the fall, the leaves will turn yellow and red. Michael listened. For the first time, he was listening not because he had to, but because he was interested.
Then they counted the steps from the building entrance to the playground. Then they found rocks of different shapes and sorted them by size. It was math, but it was alive, real. When they got back to the apartment, Michael was muddy, damp, and happy. David was watching the security camera footage.
He had six cameras installed in the apartment. Living room, kitchen, hallway, Michael’s room. It wasn’t about distrusting the nannies. It was about fear. The fear that he would miss something important, that he wouldn’t be there in time, wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t protect. On the screen: Vera and Michael in the kitchen. Making pancakes. Laughing.
Well, Vera was laughing. And Michael? David leaned closer. Michael was smiling. A real smile. David leaned back in his chair. Four days had passed since Vera started. Four days, and something had changed. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. His son had become… more alive.
In the evenings, when David came home from work, Michael no longer sat at his desk with fear in his eyes. He would run to his father and sign—quickly, excitedly, as if afraid he’d forget—to tell him about his day. About the trees in the courtyard. About the rocks. About the pancakes. David would listen, nod, and try to smile.
But inside, a question gnawed at him: why couldn’t he talk to his son like this? Why did it take a stranger to make his own child start living? He switched the camera to the living room. Vera was sitting on the floor with Michael. In front of them was the LEGO set David had bought six months ago, which had been collecting dust on the shelf ever since.
They were building something together. A tower. Michael handed her the pieces, Vera assembled them, then they switched roles. No textbooks. No workbooks. Just play. David turned off the monitor and poured himself a whiskey. One glass. Then a second.
He drank slowly, staring out the window at the Chicago skyline. Kate had known how to play with Michael like that. Right up to the very end. Even when she was pregnant with their second. Even when the doctors told her to take it easy. She would sit on the floor and build castles out of blocks with her son.
“David, he’s a child,” she would say.
“He needs expensive specialists. He needs love,” Kate would reply to his objections.
“He has a condition,” David would insist. “He needs professional help.”
“He needs a father,” Kate had said quietly. It was their last conversation. The next morning, she went to the hospital. That evening, David got the call. Complications, hemorrhaging, ICU. They couldn’t save her. They couldn’t save the baby, either.
After that, David decided: no more risks. No more chaos. Only control. Only rules. Only safety. He built a perfect world for Michael. And locked his son inside it like a cage. On Friday evening, Vera stayed late. Michael was already asleep. David was working in his office.
She was washing dishes in the kitchen when he walked in.
“You’re still here?”
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