The doorbell rang at 9:14 on Saturday morning. I had two duffel bags by the front door, keys in my hand, and a three-hour drive to Keuka Lake ahead of me. My friend Meg had rented a cabin for Memorial Day weekend, and I wanted to beat the traffic out of Rochester.
Through the peephole I saw Kevin's Toyota Sienna parked against the curb. Three boys, two adults, a collapsible wagon loaded with diaper bags and backpacks. I took a breath and opened the door.
Jenna shoved a tote bag toward me before I could say anything. "Morning, Dana. We need to be on the road by ten. My cousin's wedding is in Saratoga Springs and it's adults only."
I didn't take the bag. "I'm leaving. I told Kevin last week I'd be out of town."
Jenna made a face. "So change your plans. It's not like you have a hotel reservation."
"Actually, I do." I hooked my duffel bag with two fingers. "And my friends are already on their way."
She let out a short laugh. "You'll see them some other weekend. This is family. You don't have kids, so what else are you doing?"
That hit me right below the ribs. I'd been hearing that for months. It started last fall, after the first time they'd asked me to watch the boys for a two-hour dentist appointment. Then it was a Saturday afternoon because Jenna needed a haircut. Then a Sunday because they wanted to "talk." Then they stopped asking altogether and just showed up.
The hallway outside my second-floor apartment smelled like garlic and old grease from the neighbors downstairs. The landlord still hadn't fixed the flickering bulb over the third stair. Last time they'd come, Owen had left one of his plastic dinosaurs wedged behind the radiator grate. I'd kept meaning to fish it out and never did.
Kevin spoke then, lowering his head. "Dana, just this once, okay?"
"Just this once was last month," I said. "You dropped the boys off for a 'quick run to the DMV' and came back five hours and twenty minutes later. I keep a log now."
Jenna's eyes got wide. "You keep a log? Who does that?"
"Someone whose weekends stopped being theirs." I took out my phone and opened the note. "Eleven Saturdays since New Year's. Six unannounced drop-offs. Your record is five hours and twenty minutes. That's not a favor. That's a routine."
Jenna's face turned a deep red. "You are unbelievable. You're thirty-eight, you live alone, and you're acting like we're taking something from you."
"You are taking something from me," I said. "My time. My plans. My whole Saturday."
She stepped closer, jabbing a finger toward my chest. "One day you'll be old and alone, and there will be nobody to even bring you a glass of water."
I almost laughed. "A glass of water? Jenna, you can't even drive two hours to Utica to see your own mother."
That landed. Her mouth opened and closed. The boys had stopped dragging their backpacks across the landing and were watching us.
"That's different," she said after a beat.
"It's not different. Your mother told me at Easter she hasn't seen you since Thanksgiving. Yet you have time for a wedding in Saratoga Springs."
Jenna's face went pale. Kevin shifted his weight and looked down at the scuffed linoleum.
I zipped my jacket and reached for the second duffel bag. "Have a nice wedding."
I locked the door behind me and walked past them down the stairs. Jenna yelled something after me. I didn't turn around. My Subaru was parked in the lot behind the building. I threw the bags in the back, turned onto Averill Avenue, and headed south.
The lilacs at Highland Park were already past their peak, but the air still carried that green, lake-fed smell. I stopped at Wegmans, bought a rotisserie chicken and a six-pack of hard cider, then kept driving. The winding roads through the Finger Lakes opened up, and I turned the music up loud enough that I couldn't hear my own thoughts.
I spent three days on the porch of Meg's cabin, drinking Riesling from a winery we'd found off the Seneca Lake Wine Trail, playing cards, and not once checking my phone. On Monday, I drove back to Rochester. Owen's dinosaur was still wedged behind the radiator grate.
That Wednesday, my phone buzzed. Kevin's name filled the screen.
"Hey, listen," he said, "Jenna has a work thing Friday night, and I gotta help my buddy Mike move his couch into his new place. Can you watch the boys from five to nine?"
I was standing in my kitchen, drying a wine glass with a dish towel. I put the glass down.
"My rate is twenty-five dollars an hour per kid," I said. "Four-hour minimum. Paid in advance through Venmo. And I'm sending the total for last month, too — every drop-off past the hours you asked for."
Silence on the line.
"Are you serious?" he said.
"I'm serious."
"Dana, we're family."
"Family doesn't leave three boys on my doorstep without asking. I have the log."
I hung up before he could shout. Then I opened Venmo. Friday: three boys, four hours, twenty-five an hour — three hundred even. "Friday babysitting, 5–9 PM. Payment due by 4:30." A second request, smaller: "Overtime hours, past 4 weeks — see attached log." I hit send on both.
Ten minutes later, a text from Jenna: "You are disgusting."
Twenty minutes after that, a Venmo notification: Kevin had declined the overtime request. No note, no explanation, just the red X. I didn't chase it. I took a shower, put on a pair of sweatpants, and watched a Red Sox game with the window open.
On Friday at 4:20, the doorbell rang. I checked the peephole and saw Jenna on the landing, phone already raised.
I opened the door. She thrust the screen toward my face. The Venmo request glowed on it. "What the hell is this?"
I raised my own phone. The same request, still unpaid. "Three hundred. That's the rate. And Kevin declined the other one, so I guess we're calling that water under the bridge."
She let out a short, ugly laugh. "You're actually going to charge us to watch your own nephews?"
"No," I said. "I'm not going to watch them at all."
Kevin stepped up behind her on the landing, the boys lined up behind him in wrinkled shorts, the youngest gripping a fistful of his shirt. "You'd really turn us away? For money?"
"For my time," I said. "The thing you told me I have too much of."
Jenna's whole body tightened. She started shouting — words like selfish, heartless, ungrateful — her voice bouncing off the stairwell walls. The boys looked up at their parents, two of them already starting to whine. I didn't raise my voice. I just stood in the doorway with the phone in my hand, the amount glowing on the screen.
She pointed at me, finger shaking. "You'll die alone, Dana. No one will even bring you a glass of water."
I leaned against the doorframe. "Second time you've said that this month. And you still haven't been to see your mother in Utica."
Her jaw went slack. Then she spun around, grabbed Owen's arm, and pulled him toward the stairs. Kevin followed, muttering something to the little one. Their footsteps echoed down the stairwell, fainter with each flight.
I closed the door and turned the deadbolt. Through the wood, I heard one of the boys ask, voice carrying up from the stairs, "Are we staying with Aunt Dana tonight?"
Kevin's voice came low and tired: "Not tonight, buddy."
A car door slid shut somewhere down in the lot. I walked to the kitchen, opened a bottle of Riesling I'd brought back from the weekend, and poured myself a glass.
