When Lara’s six-year-old son called her in the middle of the day and whispered that he was scared, she rushed home, only to find the nanny unconscious and the past clutching at her. In a panic, Lara had to face the one memory she had tried to bury: the day she and Ben found his father dead.
You don’t expect your world to fall apart on Friday at 2:25 p.m. You expect an email, maybe a quick coffee from the vending machine. But not the voice of your six-year-old son whispering fear into your ear, as if it’s the only thing holding him together.
I’m Lara, 30, a single mother trying to juggle it all — a full-time job, full-time chaos, the constant feeling that I’m carrying a tray of glass that’s always on the verge of shattering.
My son, Ben, is the centre of my universe. He’s one of those boys who not only feels his own emotions, but absorbs those of others. He’s soft-hearted, wide-eyed, and the kind of boy who brings worms home in his pockets because he doesn’t want them to be lonely in the rain.
Ruby, our nanny, is 21. She is gentle, calm, and Ben immediately felt safe with her.
She became part of our rhythm. She was careful with him. Attentive. Generous. Madly in love. She even remembered what phase of dinosaur he was in. Right now, it was the Allosaurus.
Ruby was my assistant. If something happened at work, Ruby was the first person I called. I had no reason to doubt her.
Until Friday.
No caller ID. A missed call. Then another.
I reached for my coffee when my phone buzzed again, and something compelled me to answer.
‘Mummy?’ Ben’s voice was so faint I could barely hear him.
My whole body tensed.
‘Ben? What’s wrong?’
There was breathing. And something else. Silence that lasted too long.
‘I’m scared,’ he whispered. His voice broke in the middle, as if something inside him had cracked.
‘Where’s Ruby, baby? What’s she doing?’
‘I don’t know… she was standing there, and then… she was gone.’
My heart sank and my hands shook. I turned on the speakerphone.
‘What do you mean? Is she hurt?’
‘I think so. She fell. I tried to help her, but she won’t wake up.’
Oh, God.
‘Where are you now, baby?’
‘I’m hiding in the closet. I didn’t know what else to do. The glass of water fell out of her hand, but she wasn’t moving. Her eyes were open, but not like usual.’
‘Ben, stay where you are. I’ll be right there, okay? You’re not alone. Just hang in there.’
I didn’t log out of the system. I didn’t tell my boss. I just grabbed my bag and ran. Every light turned red. Every second dragged on too long. I drove as if I could bend time if I pressed the accelerator harder.
When I turned onto our street, everything looked… still.
The door was locked. The curtains were drawn, which was nothing new. Ruby and Ben did that when they wanted to watch something.
For a moment, the world seemed… different.
I burst through the front door.
‘Ben?! It’s Mum!’
Silence.
I tried again, louder, completely forgetting that he had said he was in the cupboard. Panic rose in my throat.
Then I heard him. Faint. A cry.
‘In the closet…’
I found him curled up in the hall closet, hugging his dinosaur as if it were the only solid thing in the world. His knees were pulled up to his chest. His little fingers were trembling. I sat down on the floor and hugged him.
‘I didn’t know what to do,’ he said, his voice muffled as he buried his face in my shoulder. ‘I tried to help her.’
‘You did everything right,’ I whispered, brushing his hair back and trying not to break down.
He smelled of sweat, fear, and the earthy scent of a little boy that always reminded me of dough and chalk. His body was shaking. But he wasn’t crying.
Not then. Not yet.
‘Where is she, baby?’
He pointed to the living room. And everything inside me turned upside down.
I stood there, my heart pounding in my throat, moving slowly, as if one wrong step could wake up the nightmare.
And then I saw her.
Ruby.
Why hadn’t I called an ambulance? In my rush to get home to Ben, I had completely forgotten. Now I felt useless.
She was lying on her side, one arm twisted, the other pressed against the carpet as if it didn’t belong to her. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth was slightly open, as if she was trying to say something.
A dark stain spread from the broken glass of water. A folded pillow lay next to her head.
And on her forehead — Ben’s doing — was a cold pack from the freezer, which I used to treat bruised knees and elbows.
The scene seemed wrong, too quiet, like a photograph left in the sun too long. It was flat. Surreal.
I rushed to her. I pressed my fingers to her neck. There was a pulse.
‘Thank God,’ I muttered.
Ruby was breathing shallowly, her skin was clammy. She was alive, but barely responsive. Her eyelashes fluttered once, then fell still.
Ben saw it. He saw her fall. Perhaps he thought she was dead.
And in that moment, I felt something break inside me.
Because I wasn’t just scared for Ruby. I was terrified for him.
My boy, only six years old, tried to wake her up, ran for a cold pack, spilled water trying to help. He must have dragged a chair over to the rubbish bin where the old phone lay. He fumbled with the cords and broken handles. And when nothing worked, he called me.
Then he waited. Alone. In the closet.
Because he didn’t know if she would wake up. Because he was too scared to be in the same room with her, but he couldn’t leave her either.
This is not something a child should have to carry.
And suddenly I was no longer in the living room. I was two years ago.
Bananas, milk, mint ice cream with chocolate chips, and other random items in the boot. Ben insisted on dinosaur-shaped pasta, and I gave in.
We laughed as we carried the bags onto the porch. Ben held a baguette in his hands and pretended to slice the air with it.
‘I’m going to fight the bad guys with this bread, Mum,’ he said.
I remember what the sky was like that day — cloudless, too blue. I remember unlocking the door and calling his name. I remember the silence.
It was too quiet.
And then we found him.
Richard.
He was lying on the bed as if he had decided to take a nap. Only he wasn’t breathing. And there was something about his open mouth, the way his arm hung off the edge of the bed, limp, wrong, and lifeless.
Ben asked why Dad wasn’t waking up. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My knees buckled before I could reach the phone.
Heart attack. Sudden. Massive.
I was told later that he wouldn’t have felt anything. But I felt it.
And now, as I looked at Ruby’s motionless body, the room spun. My throat tightened. The edges of my vision curled like burning paper. My heart pounded so loudly that I could barely hear Ben’s breathing behind me.
Not this. Not again…
The smell of spilled water mixed with the sharp metallic taste of panic, and I felt bile in my throat. My hands were shaking. I could feel the old terror rising again, fast, hot, and thick.
My child had already found one body. He couldn’t find the other.
I swallowed the scream that was rising in my throat, blinked, and forced my hands to move.
Call. Right now.
I grabbed the phone, my fingers numb. I pressed too hard on the screen. I missed the call icon. I tried again.
‘911, what’s happened?’
‘My nanny has fainted,’ I said in a voice that was too high-pitched. ‘She’s breathing, but she won’t wake up. It’s been about 15-20 minutes. Please. Please send someone.’
Ben came out into the hallway. Now he was standing behind me, holding his dinosaur like a shield.
And I realised that this time he was watching me. So I steadied my voice. I had to be calm in this storm.
‘Ruby,’ I said softly. ‘Help is on the way, sweetheart. Ruby, can you hear me?’
A few moments passed. And then Ruby slowly came to. Confused. Disoriented.
Her lips were dry, her voice hoarse. She blinked as if she couldn’t find her bearings in the room.
‘I…’ she began, then shuddered.
‘It’s okay, sweetie,’ I said softly. “Don’t try to talk or move yet. Just breathe. Breathe deeply, slowly.”
Later, the paramedics told me it was dehydration and a sharp drop in blood sugar. She hadn’t eaten all day and hadn’t told anyone she wasn’t feeling well. It happened quickly, just as she was about to make Ben some popcorn.
Her body just gave up.
But it changed something. In me. In Ben…
That evening, when everything had calmed down again, when Ruby had been taken away, when the living room had been tidied up, when I finally remembered to breathe, I put Ben to bed.
He was unusually quiet. Still too alert, as if his brain couldn’t switch off.
‘Is Ruby dead?’ he asked. ‘Like Daddy?’
‘No, sweetie,’ I replied. ‘She was conscious when they took her away, remember? She said goodbye to you and said she’d see you soon!’
‘Then what happened?’ he asked.
‘She fainted,’ I said. ‘Her body was tired and thirsty. Remember I told you to drink water and juice when it’s hot? Ruby didn’t do that.’
He stared at the ceiling.
‘She made a sound when she fell. Like a thud. I thought maybe her brain was broken.’
Tears welled up in my eyes. This was on the list of things a child should not carry inside. The innocence in his voice haunted me.
‘I wanted to shake her, but I remembered your words. That you shouldn’t move someone if they’re injured. So I took a pillow. And a cold thing. But she didn’t wake up.’
‘You did so well,’ I said, my voice breaking.
‘I felt very lonely,’ he said, looking at me seriously.
I swallowed hard.
“I know. And I’m so sorry. But you weren’t alone, Ben. I was already on my way. As soon as you called, I was already on my way.”
‘You have the same eyes as her,’ he whispered.
I didn’t know how to respond.
‘Would you like some ice cream?’ I asked. ‘I know it’s late. But we’ve had a stressful day, haven’t we?’
He nodded.
I went to the kitchen, and the full weight of what was happening came down on my shoulders. I divided the ice cream into bowls and added chocolate sauce. The sugar gave Ben a seizure, but it was worth it.
He needed to eat.
Later, he fell asleep, still holding my hand.
I sat on the edge of the bed, watching him. I watched his chest rise and fall. I noticed the little freckle near his ear, the way his lips parted in his sleep.
The thing is, I wasn’t thinking about what might happen.
I was thinking about what had happened.
My son had seen something terrible. And instead of falling apart, he tried to help. He remembered everything I had taught him: to stay calm, call for help, don’t panic.
But in doing so, he left childhood behind, even if only for a moment. He became calm in the storm. And it broke me when I thought about how proud I was of him and how my heart was breaking at the same time.
People think that parenting is about protecting your child.
But sometimes you have to watch them show courage when they shouldn’t have to. And to realise that this is not just someone you are raising. This is someone you will spend the rest of your life trying to deserve.
I didn’t sleep that night.
I sat next to him, holding his hand in the dark. Because at that moment, when it mattered most, it wasn’t him who needed saving.
It was me who needed saving.
