He was four. His babysitter was fourteen. She glowed and lifted him into a glowing happiness where it was warm and safe. When he turned five, she turned fifteen, and the difference was negligible; he was still in love, she was still beautiful. The house glowed in the afternoons when they watched television together waiting for Mom and Dad to return home from their hardware store.

When he turned six, she was sixteen and the only change was that her attention was not solely on him as it had been, but rather on the needs of his baby sister. He did not mind sharing because it offered an acceptable situation. He could watch the babysitter from a different angle. Instead of her bending towards him with her beautifully closed smile while extending a napkin and a loaded bowl of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, he watched her bend over Sissy with wads of paper towels and spoons of Quaker Instant Oatmeal. He watched the babysitter lift Sissy into the pram, or swaddle Sissy into a jacket for a quick walk to the park. At six, he no longer needed help with his jacket or his scarf or his mittens, if he could find them, and he made sure the babysitter noticed his proficiency in zipping on his jacket, how he tied his scarf, or that he found his mittens all by himself. He guessed he did a good job by her quick acknowledgment when she flashed her beautiful smile followed by three slow blinks. 

When he turned seven, she turned seventeen. The babysitter was beautiful inside, but she shined on the outside. Especially when a slight breeze lifted her long hair when she extended her hand for him to hold as they crossed the street, encasing him in the security of a babysitter with her charges. He wished to understand her magic. That is when he got an idea. He wanted to capture that glow to show the world, to show her, so she could see it, too. He snuck his mother’s camera from the secretary’s top shelf to take a picture of the babysitter reading a book, with her legs tucked under and the rest of her nestled into the corner of the couch. She caught him just before he snapped. She extended her hands out to him but this time took the camera with one hand and tucked him into the bend of her side with the other. Along with a tilt of her head, she flicked her hair behind her shoulder, twisted the camera around, suspended it over their heads, and pointed it at them. She smiled and snapped their picture. She let him go, allowing him to slide off the couch along her skirt to the floor. Though he could still smell the lingering hug of her vanilla-honey hand cream, she shook her head and nodded him towards the secretary to put the camera back. 

When he turned eight, she turned eighteen and things changed. Sissy learned to walk, his mother talked about a new baby, he learned to ride a bike, and the babysitter talked about getting a driver’s license. To him, a driver’s license was a plastic card. He knew cars could not do tricks while stuck at red lights, but a bicycle could do lots of tricks down a sidewalk, flipping up and off curbs, popping wheelies, and front braking to a dead stop. All of that stalled when he fell and broke his elbow. Mom was not happy about the cast and the doctor’s bills, nor was she happy to hear that he did not allow any of the kids at school to sign his cast after she brought home a package of markers from the store. He wanted the babysitter to be the first. She plucked the marker’s lid off with her teeth and drew the tiniest of hearts over where she judged was the break. She replaced the lid tight and bent towards him to hand the Sharpie back. She smiled, blinked three times, and shook her head before returning to the twin’s nursery. He swooned.

He turned nine. She turned nineteen. Sissy discovered Barbies and the twins turned into toddlers. 

When he turned ten, the babysitter also turned. The changes were profound. He grew taller, thicker in places, hairier in others, and his words were trapped by the snapping rubber bands of his braces. Her beautiful smile had grown tiny and untouchable. She no longer extended her hand to him, no matter what trick or performance or story or joke he cracked. Instead, her attention was—elsewhere. His mother was exasperated when the babysitter put in her notice. She had noticed another boy. His name was Buck and his family had a lot of money. Mom joked that she should marry him. The babysitter blushed, then smiled.

When he celebrated his eleventh birthday, the babysitter was twenty-one and had moved to the biggest city of them all, New York. His mother said the babysitter was smart to attend one of the smaller colleges there. His mother also lamented needing a new babysitter. He knew his babysitter could never be replaced, and she would never fall for a Buck, and she would be back, so he would wait. Worse, his mother settled on the idea of hiring a nanny because four children were too much for one babysitter. An agency sent a string of nannies posing as babysitters. None were right. None glowed. There were young ones and old ones, some made it for a month, while others lasted a day. Some never cared for boys, others only liked coloring, and one was more of a cook. She made homemade mac and cheese that was white and not orange. The nannies said the twins were fussy. Sissy was a handful. The boy was amiable, pleasant, and a complete gentleman, but he turned untrustworthy because he helped himself to any five-dollar bill he found in the nannies’ handbags. He was saving for a welcome-back gift for his babysitter when she returned from school with her degree in babysitting. By the end of the year, his mom settled on the oldest nanny of them all, Mrs. Suehicky. She was a retired reading coach and never carried cash. 

When he turned twelve, he entered his last year of childhood. The babysitter was somewhere in her twenties and Mrs. Suehicky remained ancient. Her knees cracked. Her bunions hurt. Her hair smelled like mold. She was sweaty. So, he tried to avoid the nanny and the twins. Sissy avoided everyone. He would retire to his bedroom to think about things like baseball, pinners, video games, and summer camp away, which his mother thought was a fun opportunity. She was right. However, when he came home before Labor Day, his mother was in a snit because a wedding notice came in the mail. She was unsure if she should give the happy couple a setting from Saks or sturdy flatware from their store. She decided on both. On the notice, the babysitter’s name was blazoned in gold lettering next to Buck’s, along with a date. The boy was determined. He could save her on the wedding day like in the movies; he would stand up when they called for objections over Buck. Then, Mom told Mrs. Suehicky it was a shame there was no invitation because it was a destination wedding. He was defeated. Buck extinguished the chance of her returning. Devastated, the boy retreated to his room.

He celebrated his thirteenth birthday because he was officially a teenager. No babysitter or nanny for him. Besides, his babysitter had surely forgotten him. Nonetheless, he was a proud Knight from West Field High. Baseball was his game, debate was his team, Vox robotics was his vocation. Unfortunately, he got a D in English, so he spent every Monday and Thursday afternoon at home with Mrs. Suehicky for tutoring. 

When he reached fifteen the routine of his day expanded: a big breakfast, school bus, morning classes, lunch, gym, a quick snack that looked like lunch, afternoon classes, school bus home, another snack that looked like lunch, homework, some sort of team practice, unless it was a Monday or Thursday then he practiced English with Mrs. Suehicky, followed by a light snack, homework, dinner. His mother wondered where a skinny boy put all that food. She decided he was old enough to spend his free Saturdays at the Hardware store helping Dad with the nuts, bolts, and washer inventories. It turned out he was good at counting. As he counted loose wood nails, he allowed himself to wonder about his babysitter and what her days looked like; eating Kraft Mac & Cheese, folding her napkin on her lap, then tucking her legs on the couch to read a book. She must have been good at English, too. 

When he turned seventeen, college was on his mind, and so were girls. It was amazing and uncanny. All the girls were babysitters. West Field High was a cornucopia of babysitters. It turned out that Bonnie Jo was a babysitter. So were half the cheerleaders. Katie Hathaway babysat her cousins on Friday nights and was only available to go to the movies on Saturdays. Jocelyn Fairbanks, whom he had a little crush on, joked she was a career babysitter with CPR training and a girl scout badge. Even Sissy was old enough to babysit, sort of. Mom found it all quaint. She said it would be funny if Sissy babysat the babysitter because the babysitter was going to have a baby. He shrugged. Life goes on and so should he since he lived in the Babylon of babysitters. He figured it was his quest to discover the common magical trait among babysitters. So, he took Bonnie Jo out on Friday nights and Katie Hathaway on the following Saturday and when they found out he did not have a date for prom.

When he turned twenty that meant the babysitter was thirty. That didn’t sound right in his head. Babysitters were never thirty years old. She was too beautiful to be old like a nanny. However, her image seemed to fade behind the days that it took for him to turn into a man. 

When he turned twenty-two, he began interviewing for accounting internships after he graduated with his degree. Mom and Dad were very proud, along with Sissy and the twins at his graduation party. Mom mentioned there was a graduation card from their old babysitter. Once alone in the front room, he found the card with the others displayed on the mantel. The babysitter had added a tiny heart next to her and Buck’s names.

At some point, he turned twenty-five. He reconnected with Jocelyn Fairbanks and they lived together for a couple of years sharing laughs and small incomes. A better position took her away and he found himself in a long-distance relationship, looking for a roommate, making his car payments, while trying to find time to visit Mom and Dad. At this point, he concluded that all babysitters leave. 

When he turned twenty-seven, he felt his thirties breathing down his neck. After Jocelyn Fairbanks said he was not serious enough, Sally Kilpatrick became his serious girlfriend. His promotion at the accounting firm became serious. His student loans were serious. Just tying his sneakers felt serious. One of the twins called and said that Mom fell and that he should come home because it was serious. Her illness didn’t last long. She left in the pale way that cancer casts in the room.

His mother’s funeral was the same week as his twenty-eighth birthday. Sissy took over the management of the arrangements and funeral. Having owned a hardware store in a close-knit community meant that the community came in droves to celebrate Mom’s wake. Even Mrs. Suehicky came, walker and all. It was like a wedding in reverse. He stood in the receiving line accepting condolences and sympathies before welcoming his mother’s guests to the refreshment and banquet tables. There was a definite edge to his sadness, which made it hard for him to breathe. While standing in line between the twins to shake the hands of neighbors he long forgot, he felt her glow as she and Buck entered the hall. Her smile was still beautiful and closed. She blinked three times before extending her lovely hand to him. She said absolutely nothing but nodded her head in reverence to his mother’s passing. In her other hand, she handed him a sympathy card. Inside was a photo of her tucked in a corner of a couch along with a little boy smiling into a camera. His mother found it on an odd roll of film that included an old DeWalt tool display and shelving schematics. He did not recognize the little boy though he knew it was himself. However, the babysitter was able to capture them, smiling in the halo of a glow. 

Her glow had remained, though matured. He found it in her handshake, and within the blink of her eyes. It was in her voice when she simply said, you were always my favorite. She pointed to the card and then to his breast pocket for safekeeping. For the rest of the afternoon, he and the babysitter sat at a table and shared funny stories with Sissy, Dad, and the twins. Mrs. Suehickey regaled her own stories, which were more embarrassing. They all agreed Mom would have found the conversation quaint. Once alone in his old bedroom filled with little boy trinkets, he took the photo from his pocket. There was an inscription on the back in Mom’s curvy script; Here’s the photo you asked for. Can you believe how big our boy has grown. He tucked the photograph into the frame of the family’s Christmas portrait taken when he was a little boy and believed the babysitter was his, because that is what little boys think, but he was wrong. He was also wrong because she had not forgotten him. 

When he turned thirty, his body turned clumsy, heavy. He took over the hardware store. Dad retired and spent his afternoons puttering about a golf course and insisted on spending Saturdays taking the nuts, bolts, and washer inventories. Sissy was married and had her own babies. The twins were off doing what the twins would do in a big city like New York. He was able to reconnect with Bonnie Jo but that did not last long. This time he was the one who left. 

The morning after his thirty-first birthday party he accidentally spilled coffee on a young woman’s laptop at the Starbucks on Route 12. He apologized for being so clumsy. He tried to mop the coffee with handfuls of napkins. He tried a smile. She did not. In an angry accent, she told him he would have to replace her laptop that day, pronto. She took his breath away. For the next three hours they spoke, they talked, they shared, they giggled, and she sparkled. He felt it tinge his cheeks. He told her about the hardware store and his mom, even Mrs. Suehicky. He ordered her a new laptop along with a case from an app on his phone. In her beautiful accent, she pointed out the uncanny. She once worked as an au pair while studying accounting. She just passed her CPA. Her grin widened to a toothy smile. Wait, she said, taking her phone, and raising it above the two of them, she snapped a selfie. Instead of allowing him to slip away and down to the floor, she asked for his phone number to share the photo. 

I got it, she said. Look, she said tapping her phone. She smiled at the picture. We’re charming. 

After the invisible second of data bouncing off a satellite, he looked at his screen and at two people captured in the sparking glow of their own charm. Magic. Thank you, he said and tucked his phone into his pocket.

Later that night he opened the picture to look at that sparkle. She was able to capture it, a different sort of glow. Special. Because she was not a babysitter but an au pair certified public accountant. He was an accountant who owned a hardware store. He knew all he had to do was to glow in that sparkle along with her for the years and years ahead.

+++

Julieanna Blackwell’s fiction and essays have appeared in Stonecoast Review, Saw Palm Florida Literature & Art, MoonPark Review, Lunch Ticket, and others. She was the flash fiction editor for 805 Literary and Arts Journal. She directs Elements&Arcs Creative Writing Classes and WordSmitten Workshop. www.JulieannaBlackwell.com