Such a Fun Age(81)
“That’s correct.” Peter let out a small laugh. “I’ll let Emira speak for herself, as she can shed much more light on the situation than I can, but I would like to say this . . .”
At this moment, Briar looked up at Emira and said, “That’s Dada.” Emira nodded with a finger to her lips and whispered, “Shh.” Briar put her own finger to her lips, looked at Alix, and with the same volume as before, she whispered, “I hear Dada.”
“Before anything else, I’m a father,” Peter confessed from the WNFT stage. Alix stared at her shoes as his voice came through the speaker. “My wife and I hired Emira last summer to watch over our children, and she’s been with us ever since. We try to keep our girls out of the spotlight as much as possible, but on the night of September 19, that wasn’t so easy. It’s been a strange couple of days and my wife and I appreciate all the incoming support for our family, Emira included. Today, my wife, my oldest daughter, and our babysitter, Emira, are going to answer some questions about that night, and hopefully put the matter to bed.”
“On September 19, a rock was thrown through the front window of the Chamberlain house.” This was Laney’s voice, prerecorded. When Laney heard the sound, she perked up in her seat and looked to Alix and Emira to mouth, Here we go. Alix couldn’t remember if Emira knew if it was a rock or an egg, but Laney had assured her that a rock would read better and amplify a heightened sense of desperation from Peter and Alix, an obvious reason to reach out to a sitter. All this time later, it seemed almost silly that Alix’s biggest concern for months was whether or not Emira knew why said rock/egg was thrown. But Alix told herself that it didn’t matter, and to take a deep breath. In four minutes, she exhaled, this will all be over. Laney’s recording went on.
“Peter and Alix Chamberlain quickly called Emira Tucker, their part-time babysitter, to take their toddler out of the house while they called the police, but Emira ran into a situation of her own. A Market Depot customer and security guard accused her of kidnapping three-year-old Briar, and refused to let her leave the store.” The sound of Emira’s voice radiated into the room through a small speaker, and Alix felt the sofa shift. Emira’s entire body rose half an inch. Alix had seen the video enough times to know that while Emira said, “What crime is being committed right now? I’m working,” she could be seen placing a hand to the side of Briar’s head. Alix listened to the video skip to the part at the end where Peter jogged down an adjacent aisle and placed his hand on Emira’s shoulder. She could tell that they had raised the volume on Peter’s voice so that it could be properly heard by people other than the regular viewers. “Our correspondent Peter Chamberlain,” Laney went on, “was called to the scene to set the record straight. Today we’re sitting down with Emira Tucker, Alix Chamberlain, and the oldest Chamberlain daughter, Briar.”
As Alix heard her own name, one of the cameramen looked up with bright eyes and began to dramatically count down from five with his right hand. Alix’s pulse went into her ears, and her toes seemed to numb as she watched him go from three, to two, and then point directly at Laney.
“Alix, Emira, thank you for sitting down with us.”
Emira nodded and Alix said, “Absolutely.” Her voice came out a bit too eager. She sounded as if she were being interviewed for a job and not by the news. And so she tried to silently sit deeper and find her normal register. Briar, still hung up on the cameraman’s sudden countdown, raised both her hands in the air and announced with an air of defensiveness, “I can count too.”
“And thank you, Briar,” Laney said. She gave a kind kids-say-the-darnedest-things expression, and then got right back to business. “Alix, let’s start with you. Could you have ever foreseen this happening when you called Emira late that night?”
“Ohmygosh, not at all.” Alix felt herself start to breathe. Laney was smooth and curious in a way that implied the four of them had never met, much less rehearsed. Her conviction made the room seem less staged, their words much less studied. “We were very new to the city and it seemed like a no-brainer to call Emira to see if she could help out. I think other parents can understand that life gets messy sometimes, and that the grocery store is typically an excellent place to kill time with a toddler.”
“So, Emira.” Laney turned thoughtful and grave. “You and Briar are at Market Depot. What happens next?”
Unprompted, Briar sadly put her hands to her cheeks and said, “What happen?” Alix smiled and smoothed Briar’s hair down her back.
“Well . . . we were walking around and about to go look in the nut section . . .” Emira said this more to Briar than to Laney. “And then a security guard asked if she was my child.”
As if Emira had just recited an ancient proverb, Laney put her elbow to her knee. She squinted, cocked her chin, and intoned, “Hmm.”
“I told him that I was her babysitter, but he said that I didn’t look like I’d been babysitting, and then he refused to let me leave.”
“I think it’s important to point out that Emira had been attending a birthday party, which she left to come and help us out.” Alix transferred her hand from her daughter’s back to Emira’s shoulder. This remark had not been practiced, but the gesture came to her so naturally that she didn’t want to stifle it. “And since it also seems to be a source of confusion, this video was taken way back in September. Emira was dressed very appropriately for the evening she planned on having.”