Free What Was Mine by Helen Klein Ross Page B

Trinidad who wanted to bring her infant son to the job, so she could babysit him, too—but if there were a fire, which baby would she rescue first?; a woman from Barbados who’d been Claudette Colbert’s laundress—but how much would she know about taking care of a baby?
    I realized I was looking for someone who was not only capable but like-minded. I began to fathom the commitment required for a mother-sitter relationship to work. It would be akin to a marriage. Indeed, some mothers at the playground saw more of their sitter than they did of their spouse.
    A sitter would be someone who would wield great influence over my daughter, someone I’d have to trust to guide her development. A sitter could make my life miserable or wonderful. This imbued the decision with enormous weight. I began to get cold feet. I toyed again with the notion of finding a job that would let me stay home with my baby. I could start a business. A couple I knew had left advertising to start a catalog company selling baby clothes. The company had become successful—I sometimes saw people reading their catalogs on the subway—but that success had taken years. I didn’t have years.
    Then, one afternoon while pushing Mia in her stroller to the corner market, I saw a sign on a bus stop. Babysitter—Mush Experience. The sign was handwritten and I wondered if the “Mush” was intentional, meant to be ironic. The penmanship was Palmer Method, tight but graceful loops, the kind of writing that hasn’t been taught for decades. I knew an older woman had written the notice. I was partial to hiring an older woman. An older woman would prove more responsible, I’d heard at the playground.
    I called the number and spoke with someone with an accent, who wasn’tthe babysitter. She said she was the babysitter’s cousin. The babysitter wasn’t home now, but she was a very good babysitter, the cousin said. The cousin had trusted her own son to her, but now she stayed home and didn’t need a babysitter anymore. The babysitter had two interviews arranged for the next day, did I want an interview with her? Yes, I said, and we set a time. The woman on the phone offered to come with the babysitter. Because the babysitter’s English wasn’t too good, she said. This alarmed me. I didn’t want someone taking care of my baby who couldn’t speak English. I said I’d changed my mind about the appointment, but, apparently, there was confusion because the next day, at the appointed hour, the doorbell rang.
    It was the babysitter. She’d come alone. She was a kind, gentle-looking Chinese woman about my age. She had dressed for the interview in an old-fashioned silk dress that reminded me of dresses my mother had worn. It would have been rude to turn her away.
    She insisted she couldn’t wear shoes into the apartment and, over my protests, slipped them off on the doormat. She was shorter without heels, and though I am not a big woman, I felt oversize as I led her, barefoot, down the hall to the living room, where Mia was playing in her jump seat. Mia had been wary of other sitters I’d interviewed, but she began to bounce happily when she saw this woman, as if they were already friends.
    I gestured to a place on the sofa, and I settled myself opposite.
    I asked her about her experience with babies. Her English wasn’t as bad as it could be.
    She said she’d taken care of her cousin’s son. Also, she had a son herself, back in China. She reached for her purse and took out a plastic wallet and thumbed a photo out of its billfold. The boy wore a school tie and posed on a bicycle, one foot on a pedal, one on the ground.
    â€œI raised him until twelve,” she said, gazing at the picture. Its serratededges were bent and she gently pressed them back into place. Now the boy was fourteen, she said, and lived with her husband and parents in Shanghai.
    She slid the image carefully