Different Circles

She sighed. “Sorry, Mom,” she said. “I’ll watch the potty mouth. But what they’re saying is not true. I am Jake and Laura’s nanny. Nothing more. I don’t know what information they think they have, but it is not true.”

“You need to tell them that then,” he mother said. “He gave me his phone number and wants you to call him so he can get a statement from you for the story.”

“I’m not going to call the reporter,” she said. “But I will take his name and number.”

“If you don’t call him he’s just going to print what he has and say that you refused to dispute the account,” she said. “He told me that!”

“Jake warned me that something like this might happen,” she said. “He told me that if it did, to call him or to call his sister, Pauline and they will handle it.”

“They have no right to forbid you from telling your side of the story,” she said. “Even if it’s true, you have to deny it completely.”

“It isn’t true, Mom,” she said firmly. “I really get angry when you do not believe me when I tell you that.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, honey,” she said soothingly, “it’s just that that man is so notorious, so sleazy, so violent!”

“He is actually none of those things,” Meghan told her. “He and Laura are both very nice people who love their daughter a whole lot. And Caydee is the cutest little thing in the world. I love taking care of her.”

“You need to get out of there right away,” Loraine said. “Right now. Tonight! I want you to come home and get back in your bedroom where you belong. Just leave all of your things there.”

“I’m not going to do that, Mom,” she said patiently. “Now, please give me that reporter’s name and number.”

“Meghan, you don’t know what you’re doing!” she said. “Your name is going to be smeared all over that sleazy rag! Your picture is going to be on newsstands all over the country.”

“Yeah, I’m not really happy about that, Mom,” she said, “but I’ve been instructed on what to do if this happens and I’m going to do it. Now, please give me the name and number.”

Reluctantly, she gave the name and number. Jack Fenton was the reporter’s name. His number had a Los Angeles city area code. She jotted it down. “Okay,” she said. “I’ve gotta make a phone call now. I’ll talk to you later, Mom and let you know what’s going to happen.”

“My daughter is going to considered the slut of the century is what is going to happen,” Loraine predicted. “He told us that there are even reports that you might be being held there against your will!”

“I’m not being held here against my will,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“I am pretty sure,” Meghan told her. “I think I would notice if I was being held against my will. Tell Dad I love him. And don’t worry too much. Jake and Laura deal with this stuff all the time.”

“I have no doubt about that,” Loraine said huffily.

“Goodbye, Mom,” Meghan said. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Meggie. Please come home.”

“I am home,” Meghan told her with a sigh. She then hung up on her.

Jake, Laura, and Celia were doing nothing even remotely like what Meghan had been fantasizing about. Instead, they were gathered in the grandparental Kingsleys’ living room with the Nerdly grandparental units, all of them drinking beer except Caydee. She was being held by her grandma and was drinking a bottle of breast milk spiked with rice cereal. On the television screen, the Giants were playing the Dodgers and getting their asses handed to them. The volume on the television was turned very low and no one was paying particular attention to it. Jake was sitting on the couch, Laura sitting next to him on one side, Celia on the other, and he was strumming his guitar and singing the lyrics he had finally come up with for the melody that Caydee had enjoyed so much starting inside Laura’s uterus.

The song was now called Winter Frost. The analogy was related to Caydee herself, who had been born in December—not technically in the winter, but close enough. Winter frost was something that occurred when the conditions were right for it. It was something that happened inevitably, whether you were ready for it or not if you had placed yourself in a place where it could happen. It was something you had to embrace, something that you learned to love and even look forward to. That was the basis of the chorus of the piece and the theme. The verses had to do with the profound sense of love that Jake felt for his daughter upon seeing her for the first time and upon watching her grow into the tiny human being she now was. He waxed particularly poetic on the look in her eyes she had when she gazed up at him when he was holding her—the look of contentment, the look of love, the look of trust and safety she felt in his arms.

It was the most emotional and heartfelt piece he had ever composed. The Kingsley and the Nerdly parents, upon hearing it for the first time, were overcome with emotion. All four of them were seen actually wiping tears from their eyes as they heard and processed the tune.