A Past Betrayal

I was ready to leave for work when the phone rang. It was from the hospital. Karen, our nanny, had died after falling down the stairs. She had listed us as her immediate contacts because she had no one else.

After the funeral, I was left with the task of finding a new nanny. A few days later, I was visited by an 18-year-old girl called Janice, who said she was Karen’s daughter. She said that Karen had given her up for adoption when she was an infant. I was suspicious of her story; Karen said she had a stillborn child in the past, but she never mentioned giving one up for adoption.

However, Janice showed me a photo of a young Karen holding an infant that couldn’t have been more than two weeks old. After a long conversation, it seemed to me that she was genuine. Janice asked if the vacancy for a babysitter was still open, and that she would be willing to fill Karen’s spot. I was reluctant, but she said she had experience taking care of her adoptive siblings.

I kept an eye on her for a few days while working from home until I was fully confident about her. My husband and I decided to let her stay in our guestroom. Things looked good: Janice got along really well with my two-year-old son, Nathan; and was always hardworking and quick. Everything was going smoothly until one day, while I was on a business trip, Janice called to say my husband Clive had collapsed.

I immediately flew back home only to hear the doctors say he had overdosed on sleeping pills. I didn’t know what to think; it was all too sudden. Did Clive have issues I didn’t know about? My mind spiralled from one scenario to another, and I could barely keep myself calm. There was a letter on his laptop that said he had been depressed for a long time, and that he couldn’t hold on any longer.

Weeks passed as Janice helped me through that hard time. She took good care of Nathan and checked on me at all times. However, one night, I woke up to Nathan crying. Janice was trying to console him, but he looked sick. We took him to the hospital and the doctor said he had been given too much cough syrup. Had Janice tried to poison my son?

The second I thought that, she accused me of giving Nathan too much cough syrup to make him sleep. The police were called, and I was arrested for child endangerment. I was perplexed by her sudden shift in behaviour. Had she been conning me all along? But why? I spoke with my lawyer, and he said he’d dig into her past. I was told a day later that Nathan had recovered; that was a heavy weight off my chest. However, a couple days later, another equally heavy one was dropped on me; Janice wasn’t Karen’s daughter—she was mine.

The memories from 18 years ago came flooding back like a storm. I gave Janice up for adoption when I was just 16. My boyfriend at the time refused to support me, and my father didn’t want me to keep her. I had no choice but to give her up for adoption. Did she go through all that just to get back at me?

The police were alerted about her, and she was soon arrested. Janice said she despised me for what I did, and that she would hate me forever for never trying to reach out to her. The photo she showed me before had been edited; she had killed Karen to take her place as my nanny, and she had killed Clive and tried to kill my son to make me feel how alone she felt. I had never felt so defeated in my life; I could only watch as my daughter was taken away by the police. The only comfort I had that day was knowing that my son was healthy.