The nanny murders by Merry Bloch Jones Page A

Boom. Susan was shouting. “This isn’t about us or our kids—it’s about our sitters. Our nannies. These are young, vital women whom all of us rely on. Who’s home right now with your newborn, Gretchen? And while you play tennis every morning, who takes care of the kids? Karen, when you’re on duty, who’s with Nicholas? Ileana—who watches your kids when you show houses? Davinder, you have a job now, too, right?”
    “Only part-time—”
    “Fine. Who watches your Hari ‘part-time’? Do you expect your sitters to risk their lives just so you can keep your kids’ routines normal and undisturbed?”
    “Susan—” I started, knowing she was spouting without thinking, and probably just getting started. “I don’t think that’s what anyone meant—”
    “I, for one, am giving Bonita a gun. I want her to keep it on her person at all times. I’m getting her a license and paying for her to take shooting lessons.”
    Karen’s eyes widened. Leslie seemed to sway in her seat. Someone moaned a soft “Oy.”
    “Susan, is that smart? A loaded gun? Around the kids?” I asked.
    “You bet, a loaded gun around the kids,” she said. “Guess what—I want them to learn to shoot, too. Nobody at my house is going to wait around to be a goddamned victim. Someone messes with us, they’re dead.”
    The other women exchanged meaningful glances, silently agreeing that Susan had lost it. But she’d gotten them out of their funk. Now they were debating issues of self-defense, the benefits of Mace versus stun guns, karate versus tai chi. I stood and went to the window, needing another break.
    Molly stood beside the pit, by the uneven parallel bars. She stepped up and, with Coach Gene’s help, lifted herself to the lower bar. My heart stopped. I watched her little body swing, gather momentum, and somehow fly itself up to the high bar, defying gravity. Molly fearlessly held her position, her back arched and toes pointed, then leaned forward and spun back down to the lower bar. She flipped and flew back and forth between the bars, until finally she swung into her dismount, a cannonball from the high bar into the pit. When my heart began to beat again, I stifled the urge to burst into applause.
    It was true; familiar activities, routine, and structure weretherapeutic. They soothed us, kept us in the here and now. There we were, the gymnastics moms, the same as every week. Even with the disappearance of Tamara, we were following our routine, sticking together. A bunch of women, a mini-community bound by little besides the age of our children and hectic schedules that, by chance, had led us to sign our kids up for the same class. But now, aroused by Susan’s spirit, we were organizing ourselves to take action—any action—against the paralysis of grief and fear.
    “We’ll need a buddy system,” Gretchen suggested. “Nannies go nowhere if they don’t go in pairs.”
    “And cell phones—programmed with emergency numbers.”
    “And we should hire that self-defense teacher, that guy who teaches women to poke out attackers’ eyes—”
    “Yeah, and knee ‘em in the balls—”
    “Mom?” Molly’s head poked through the doorway. She looked puzzled.
    The conversation stopped dead. “Hi, honey.”
    She was glowing from exertion, damp with sweat. “Mom, did you see me? Were you watching?”
    I crossed the room to hug her, wondering what she’d heard, and my chin quivered unexpectedly. “Yes, I did, Molly—I watched. I saw you, and you were amazing.”
    She beamed proudly, escaping the hug to run to the water fountain. The other children swarmed in, finding their mothers, pulling on their coats. Plans for moms organizing against crime were, at least for the time being, abruptly suspended.

EIGHT
    A T FIFTH STREET DELI, EMILY AND MOLLY IMMEDIATELY GOT busy with the puzzles and games on the kids’ place mats. Susan and I sat looking nowhere, saying nothing. I told myself to relax; still, a sooty finger beckoned from