Maia's First Heartbreak

Last Saturday, I fired Maia’s nanny – the only nanny, I should add, that Maia has ever known. Lea abused my kindness and indulgence and treated me with such disrespect as I had never been the object of.

My fault probably. I admit that my ex-husband’s accusation is true: I did handle the girl with “kid gloves”. I was anxious of losing this maid, you see, because she knew me, my house, my daughter, our routine, the run of the household. She was reliably always on “auto-pilot” and was exceptionally good at anticipating our every need before we ourselves knew we had any. And my daughter loved her. And I believed she genuinely loved Maia in return.

I will not bore you with the domestic details. The long and short of it is she threw a tantrum that night because I had refused to give her permission to take the entire weekend off (It was punishment for her having taken “overnight” liberties on 2 previous occasions without my prior permission). She answered back, defiant, raised her voice at me, and then threatened to leave. I called her bluff and told her to pack her things right there and then. I also told her in no uncertain terms that I will not be threatened and that my generosity will not be abused. She cried and called me and my husband “bad people” (“Masasama kayong tao …”).

Maia was livid. With me.

She ran to me and, while tugging on my shirt, began yelling over the din for me to stop. I couldn’t mollify her right then and so she ran crying to her room where I soonafter found her lying facedown on her bed, screaming into a pillow, her hands covering her ears. I sat beside her on the bed and tried to explain. “Yaya Lea did something wrong and so I was angry and had to scold her,” I said. I reached out to pull her to me, to hug her. She screamed louder and kicked and pushed me away. She then raised her head and, with a pained look I can only describe as that of someone betrayed, she yelled at me, in a throaty, injured, accusing voice, “WHAT DID YOU DO TO YAYA LEA?!! YOU WILL NOT LIVE IN THIS HOUSE FOREVER!” Then she hit me on the arm with her palm, as hard as her little body could, looking instantly guilty and confused afterwards, knowing she shouldn’t have done it, but not knowing how else to lash out, to let me know just how angry I made her...

I had never seen her that way before. She’s losing her yaya, I told myself … her friend, her constant companion, the person who takes care of her practically 24/7. It was heartbreaking – the pain, the panic, and the anger in her face. But the anger … the anger … That I could lose my daughter’s trust and affection because she thought it was my fault somehow, that I was the bad guy, was terrifying. I began to cry and told her I was sorry.

I tried to hold her again. She kicked and screamed. So I cried some more. Then I said, very gently but firmly, pulling myself together, “Yaya Lea won’t be your yaya anymore. She won’t work here anymore. Yaya Lea wants to leave, too.” Then I added, unable to control my sobbing now, “You and Yaya Lea will still be friends … You can talk on the telephone … and she can visit …”

She buried her face in the pillow again, still crying, but slowly I was able to stroke her. I kept saying, “It’s okay … it’s okay … It will be okay …” – as much to her as to myself. I felt her pain so acutely I thought my heart would burst. “Mama’s here. I will always be here.” Then, I asked her, “Do you want to say goodbye to Yaya Lea?” She looked up at me and with the saddest look I have ever seen on a child’s face, she nodded her head. I sent her off to the maids’ room where Lea was packing her things.

She came rushing back just a few seconds later, crying and screaming again. “YAYA LEA DOESN'T TALK TO ME!!! SHE DOESN’T WANT TO TALK TO ME!!!”

She ran to me and this time allowed me to hold her. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Did you say goodbye to her?” She nodded. “That’s good,” I said as I rocked her slowly. “You will have a new yaya. A yaya who will be gentle, and kind, and who will love you too. I promise. Won’t that be nice?” She nodded her head. Before long, she stopped crying and was calm. And she let me kiss her.

After a few minutes of quiet (making sure she was okay), I let go of her and left the room to inspect Lea’s hastily packed belongings (she had accumulated a lot over 4 years) in the hall. Maia followed me. Lea did not even look at her, or acknowledge her; much less say goodbye to the child she claimed she loves. The girl I had trusted with my child’s care from since Maia was 2 months old, the girl who claimed to have genuine affection for my daughter, the girl I treated as family, was now making a point of looking and acting defiant in the minutes – the minutes! – before she was to leave her young charge of 4 years forever. I thought, To miff me, she would break my child’s heart … How could I have believed she ever loved my Maia?

Pretty soon, perhaps because Lea was ignoring her, Maia started to playfully jump around and over the pile of bags on the floor as Lea was removing her things one by one for my inspection. Then making a game of it, Maia would rush to and from the kitchen with her own bags in tow (Lea had packed the little girl’s things earlier as we had planned on sleeping over at my mom’s that night), including plastic grocery bags with her cookies, and milk, and snacks, and stacking them as Lea’s things were stacked on the floor (I had to keep track of which bags were hers). She eventually ran out of bags and, tired and perhaps bored with the game, she retreated to her room to play with her dolls.

I finished my inspection and after much lugging to the elevators, Lea went out the door for the last time. No sorry’s, no thank you’s, no goodbye’s. Just turned and left. Just like that.

I went to see that Maia was okay. She was reading (pretending to, at least) to her dolls when I entered her room. She seemed to have gotten over her sadness, at least for the meantime, and got me quickly up to speed on the elaborate plot she had pieced together from the pictures in the storybook she was “reading”. When Lea’s name came up (as I expected it would inevitably), I told her as dispassionately but as gently as I could that yaya had left. I saw momentary panic on her face. “No, let me see, let me see …” she said as she jumped off the bed and rushed to the foyer to confirm that Lea was indeed gone. I followed her.

She stared at the now empty hall with a look that was neither sad nor sorry nor angry. It worried me. After a few seconds, she looked up at me and said, “Is Yaya Lea getting married to her Life?” (Maia refers to everyone’s significant other as his or her “Life” – I don’t know where she got it.) “Maybe,” I said, smiling. I learned from my other maid later that Lea did in fact have a boyfriend. I figured Maia knew more about that than I did.

Then she asked, abruptly changing the topic as if to say, Well now that that’s done … “Are we going now to Abu’s house? [her grandmother's house]” I nodded. “Can I have candy first? I will brush my teeth again [after]…”

So I gave her a jelly bean, though I shouldn’t have as it was late ...

and another ...

and then another …

to assuage my guilt, to win back her affection ...

and as a reward to her for much growing up in a single night ….