Military Daddies’ Nanny (Lucky Women’s Daddies Reverse Harem #1)

Chapter 24

Drew

I'm at my breaking point. I can barely focus during the day, haunted by dreams of Nancy's warm smiles and the way her presence seemed to illuminate every corner of our lives. What am I doing, letting this charade with Karen drag on unchecked?

Dinner that night is a painfully awkward affair. Karen tries engaging the kids, chatting about the fun activities they'd done together that day, but her attempts fall flat. Jason and Bella both seem disinterested, pushing food around on their plates with hollow looks in their eyes.

I can't blame them. For all of Karen's enthusiasm, she really knows nothing about who my children have grown into over these past six years.

The goofy jokes that used to make them erupt into peals of laughter now elicit little more than strained smiles. The stories she tells, striving to relate to their current interests and hobbies, miss the mark by a mile.

She's a stranger to them, plain and simple. A well-meaning stranger, desperate to force her way into their lives and reclaim some semblance of the family she abruptly abandoned. But no amount of effort on her part can undo that fundamental disconnect.

The kids have picked up on it too, their hopeful excitement from Karen's initial return steadily curdling into confusion and detachment with each passing day.

I can see it in the searching looks they keep flashing my way, that same silent pleading for...what? Answers? Reassurance? A return to the stable condition they'd only just begun adjusting to before I ripped the rug out from under us all?

I have no solutions to offer, no profound justification for forcing us all down this path of manufactured domesticity. By the time we've picked at our food in tortuous silence, the tension is damn near palpable.

“So, Jason,” Karen tries again. “What’s going on at school these days?”

Jason glances at me as if seeking my help with the question. “It’s good, I guess. Not so much to talk about.”

He would definitely give Nancy a different answer to that question , I think quietly. Then again, Nancy would never ask him ‘what’s going on at school these days?’. She’d probably ask about what new math formulas he’s currently infatuated with or what science project he plans to try his hand at next .

I hate that I keep drawing parallels between Nancy and Karen, but the differences between the two women are so stark, it would take a herculean effort to ignore them.

The kids clear their dishes quietly, leaving Karen and I alone at the table. She tries for a smile that doesn't reach her eyes.

"Just like old times, huh?" she ventures, voice deliberately light despite the strained undercurrent. "I'm sure it'll get easier once we…"

She trails off, staring absently at the kitchen door which Jason and Bella have just gone through. I know exactly what she’s thinking. I’ve begun to see it too. For a while, I really thought fixing things with Karen was what the kids needed. I thought it could work. It’s beginning to feel like I was wrong.

“I’ll handle the dishes,” she says with an air of resignation.

I search for comforting words for her, but come up empty. Painfully empty. I watch her leave, then head to my office for some quiet time. The house seems eerily empty, a contrast to how things were weeks ago, where I couldn’t hope for quiet time in any corner of the house.

This room has become a sort of solace for me. Somewhere I can come to when I want to quiet my thoughts. I pull a bottle of whiskey from the shelf and pour myself a drink. I’ve barely taken a sip when I hear a light knock on the door.

I look up just in time to see Jason and Bella slide into the room. I lean forward in my seat, smiling. “Hey, guys. What’s up?”

Bella glances at her brother, then inches slowly into the room, her arms crossed in front of her. Jason follows close behind, shuffling behind Bella. Their posture and body language has me worried and I try to keep my concern out of my voice when I ask, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Bella says when she’s a few feet away. “Well, there’s something we’d like to talk to you about. Jason and I have been talking.”

I cock my head to the side. “Oh, yeah? What about? Come here, Bella. I’m not going to pounce on you or anything. Come on, talk to me. What’s up?”

“It’s about mom.”

That makes me frown. “Okay. What about her?”

Bella seems to be struggling to put her words mildly. “Oh, she’s…great. I used to think about her a lot before.”

“Me too,” Jason admits. “I wanted to know what it was like to have a mom like everyone in school.”

My throat feels tight. I knew it. As much as I tried, I knew the kids would have wanted their mother even though they didn’t say it. That was why I made the decision I did.

I give my children a smile. “You must be really happy that she’s back.”

Bella and Jason exchange a glance again. What’s that about? Am I wrong?

“Yes… it-it’s been nice. Especially at first,” Bella begins. “I was…happy because it felt nostalgic. My memories about the time mom was around had become faint…and then there she was here again…but now…”

Jason finishes his sister’s words. “Now it’s not the same. It was nice at first, but now it doesn’t feel very special. It’s nice to know Mom, but…we miss Nancy.”

That catches me by surprise. Of all the things I could have expected to hear tonight, this didn’t make the list. “I…what?” I stammer.

Bella shrugs.

“I don’t know,” she says. “It just seems like mom came and then Nancy left. Mom’s nice, but she doesn’t really know us. And it’s also about you. You’re sad all the time now. When Nancy was here, you used to seem happier. I don’t think we can be family with Mom like that again. It’s nice that she came back, and I want to talk on the phone and maybe visit her sometimes, but…we can’t live with Mom and you together.”

Jason nods. “Yeah, Nancy’s fun and she actually knows what I like!”

Bella smiles. “I made a friend because Nancy helped me. I didn’t realize how lonely I’d been before.”

I watch Bella quietly, a hundred thoughts spinning through my head. A glance at Jason shows him agreeing with his sister, and I can already tell this is not the first time they have had this conversation.

I feel silly. I’ve known deep down that it hasn’t been working, but I’ve been forcing it, claiming I made my choice for them. And yet, here they are, practically telling me that I made the wrong decision.

“It feels so weird not having Nancy around,” Bella continues, her voice soft. “She had become a part of our lives. Can she come back?”

I smile at my daughter, a smile that doesn’t touch my eyes. “Come here, baby girl. You too, Jason.” They shuffle forward, and I wrap them in a bear hug. “I’ll talk to Nancy. She can definitely come back.”

It could be a lie. I have no idea if I can make Nancy come back. I haven’t spoken to her since she left. How do I tell them that?

“Thanks, Dad,” Bella chirps. “I’m glad I could talk to you about this.”

“Of course, baby. Anytime. It’s getting late, though. Can you and Jason go up and shower for bed? Daddy has some things to take care of.”

Bella nods and leads her brother upstairs after giving me a kiss on the cheek. I recline in my seat when I’m alone again, sighing deeply. What have I done?

Another knock sounds on the door, and I snap my eyes open. It’s not the kids this time, but Karen. She pokes her head through the door, then enters the room, shutting the door softly behind her. “You busy?”

“Not exactly. What’s up?”

She settles into the seat across from me. She has a distant look in her eyes, and toys with a ring on her right hand absently. When she speaks, her voice sounds as if it’s coming from a far place.

“I stopped by a few minutes ago to ask if everything was fine. I was about to step in when I realized you had company.”

I let out a deep sigh. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Enough.”

“Well, they are kids. Kids tend to blurt out whatever they feel like.”

Karen smiles bitterly. “Except this time, they were largely right.” She rubs her hands across her face. “What are we doing Drew? Honestly. What are we really doing? You heard them. I don’t even know them anymore.”

“Karen—”

“I’m fucking struggling, Drew,” she spits in controlled rage, then erupts into a bitter laugh. “I have to be the worst mother in the world. What did I really hope to achieve coming back like this? What did I expect? That they’d just never grow up? That they’d jump into my arms and act like nothing happened?”

"Karen…" I don’t know what to say. While I believe that everything that happened is her fault, I can also see the raw pain in her eyes, and there are few things I’ve seen in this world as horrible as Karen’s overwhelming sorrow.

She holds my stare for a moment, something like resignation flickering through her expression, before giving a small nod. "I figured this was coming."

I'm acutely aware of the distance between us, a yawning chasm that six years' absence has seemingly rendered insurmountable.

Hell, if I'm being honest, there had been some smaller fractures between us for far longer than that. Some kernel of dissatisfaction or lack of true intimacy neither of us ever managed to rectify before the bottom fell out entirely.

Which makes this whole endeavor seem so much more futile, doesn't it? It’s like I've been desperately trying to sculpt something whole and perfect from the shattered remnants of what we once had. No matter how many times I try smashing the pieces back together, that hairline fracture remains.

Is that what this relentless fantasy has been about? One last grasp at saving the mirage of idyllic family life I somehow convinced myself we could still recapture?

"The kids..." Karen starts after an agonizing pause, her voice carefully measured. "They are never going to accept me as their mother."

It's not a question or even an accusation, just a plain statement of fact.

"You've...been gone a long time," I say at last, the words tasting like ashes on my tongue. "We've all had to find ways of...moving on, I guess. We adjusted to your absence until it became our new normal."

Karen's laugh is brittle, humorless. "And I came barging back in, like I could just insert myself into that dynamic without issue."

"You're their mother," I counter, needing her to understand this fundamental truth that seems to have gotten lost somehow. "Of course the kids were going to be excited to have you around again after so long. I think...we all got a little carried away in that feeling."

"You don't have to qualify it, Drew." There's a wealth of sadness in Karen's eyes now, mingled with that same resignation I'd glimpsed before. Like she's been slowly coming to terms with the same realizations now rattling around my skull.

"I'm the one who took off without warning, who left you to pick up all the pieces alone. I don't get to just...walk back into the lives you've all rebuilt and expect to slip right back into those roles without issue."

The words hang heavily in the air between us, finally giving voice to the elephant in the room that's been looming over this regrettable reunion from the start. Karen seems to deflate a little as she expels a shaky breath, her shoulders slumping.

"I really thought I could make this work, you know?" she murmurs, more to herself than me. "That if I was just patient, put in the effort to reconnect..." She shakes her head slowly. "But I think that ship has sailed."

There's no bitterness or resentment in her tone, just a somber acceptance that twists like a knife in my gut. Because she's right. For all the desperate, futile clinging I've done to make this picture-perfect, my kids are strangers to the woman I once vowed to love forever.

And Karen, for all her remorseful overtures and attempts to reinsert herself into our lives, she's just as much a stranger to the family we've become in her absence.

A heavy silence stretches out as that reality settles over us both, nearly suffocating in its weight. I find myself searching Karen's eyes, wondering if she can perceive the obvious truth I've been so stubbornly refusing to acknowledge.

That as nice as this reunion has been on paper, we passed the point of no return years ago. That no amount of manufactured bonding or wistful nostalgia can unmake the indelible stamp her leaving forged onto the structure of our entire lives.

The words crawl up my throat, bitter and clinging like ash on my tongue. They burst free before I can rein them back.

"You were right earlier." My laugh is a cracked, reedy thing as I drag a hand down my face. "About the kids. About how excited we all were for you to come back and be part of their lives again."

I pause, swallowing hard as I struggle to meet Karen's steady, inscrutable gaze. "I think we all just got way ahead of ourselves. And in my case...I let that excitement blind me to way too much."

I expel a shuddery exhale, feeling the vice-like tension finally starting to ease from around my chest. Like I'm finally refilling my lungs after being trapped underwater.

"Jason and Bella…they grew up faster than any kids should've had to after you left. And as badly as I wanted to be enough for them, to give them that normal family experience..."

The words fracture, splintering on the jagged lump of guilt and self-reproach lodged in my throat. I squeeze my eyes shut against the sudden burning pressure building there, ashamed at how they sting.

"I failed them pretty miserably in a lot of ways, Karen." The confession scorches like acid on an open wound. "I tried so damn hard, but at the end of the day...I'm just one person. It wasn’t until Nancy showed up and helped me that we got the ship back on course."

There's a hitch of indrawn breath from beside me, subtle enough that I nearly miss it over the sound of my own pulse thundering in my ears.

When I finally blink my eyes open, Karen is staring at me with an expression I can't quite parse. It’s mournful understanding and something darker and thornier, stirring beneath the surface.

"So that's what this was really about, then?" she asks, so softly I have to strain to make out the words. "Me trying to reprise the mother role for a family that had long moved on and found its own cadence again?"

The raw, naked pain in her voice lances straight through me, shearing away every last gossamer thread of delusion still clinging to me.

Because she's right. This whole ill-conceived reunion has essentially amounted to me forcing her into a mold she never could fit as we are now. It’s a role she couldn't hope to play believably even if she tried with every fiber of her being.

"I'm so sorry," I rasp. "Jesus, Karen. For what it’s worth, I really did think we could make it work."

She's silent for a long moment, processing. Then the dam breaks, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears as she reaches out and clasps my hand in a grip with the familiar, steadying weight of a distant warmth, almost forgotten.

"I don't need apologies, Drew," she whispers, voice thick and hoarse, and yet still managing to convey that unshakable strength that drew me to her so fiercely all those years ago. "We were just two lost souls for a while, trying to find our way back to something resembling home. I take full accountability for my role in that illusion, but you...when I showed up again, you were so determined to give this another go. And I wanted to believe in it just as badly as you did."

Her fingers tangle with mine, clasping firmly as her eyes bore into mine with intensity. "But it’s time to be honest with ourselves.” She waves her hand around absently. “All of this, we tried. We had a good run. But that run has come to an end. You have given me way more than I deserve. More than I could have ever expected. Please, let that be good enough for you. Because it is for me.”

Smiling, she gets up, and walks slowly toward me. She plants a soft kiss on my forehead, the faint scent of spicey perfume wafting up to my nose. And then without another word, she turns and strides out of the room.

I watch her go, mourning what we lost. All the dreams and promises. They will die today, and I mourn that death. I feel something break inside me watching the door shut behind Karen for the last time.

And yet, deep beneath the murk in my heart, there’s a warmth blossoming through me. The lessening of a very heavy load. I feel free. Released. And I have just one priority right now. Finding Nancy.