You can be as different as you want after I leave, Auntie Mei thought as she bathed Baby; your son can grow into a lopsided squash and I won’t care a bit. But no mother or baby could deviate just yet. The reason people hired a first-month nanny, Auntie Mei told Chanel, was to make sure that things went correctly, not differently.

‘But did you follow this schedule when you had your children? I bet you didn’t.’

‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t, only because I didn’t have children.’

‘Not even one?’

‘You didn’t specify a nanny who had her own children.’

‘But why would you … why did you choose this line of work?’

Why indeed. ‘Sometimes a job chooses you,’ Auntie Mei said. Ha, who knew she could be so profound?

‘But you must love children, then?’

Oh, no, no, not this one or that one; not any of them. ‘Does a bricklayer love his bricks?’ Auntie Mei asked. ‘Does the dishwasher repairman love the dishwashers?’ That morning, a man had come to look at Chanel’s malfunctioning dishwasher. It had taken him only twenty minutes of poking, but the bill was $100, as much as a whole day’s wages for Auntie Mei.

‘Auntie, that’s not a good argument.’

‘My job doesn’t require me to argue well. If I could argue, I’d have become a lawyer, like your husband, no?’

Chanel made a mirthless laughing sound. Despite her self-diagnosed depression, she seemed to enjoy talking with Auntie Mei more than most mothers, who talked to her about their babies and their breast-feeding but otherwise had little interest in her.

Auntie Mei put Baby on the sofa next to Chanel, who was unwilling to make room. ‘Now, let’s look into this milk situation,’ Auntie Mei said, rubbing her hands until they were warm before removing the heating pads. Chanel cried out in pain.

‘I haven’t even touched you.’

Look at your eyes, Auntie Mei wanted to say. Not even a good plumber could fix such a leak.

‘I don’t want to nurse this thing any more,’ Chanel said.

This thing? ‘He’s your son.’

‘His father’s, too. Why can’t he be here to help?’

‘Men don’t make milk.’

Chanel laughed, despite her tears. ‘No. The only thing they make is money.’

‘You’re lucky to have found one who makes money. Not all of them do, you know.’

Chanel dried her eyes carefully with the inside of her pyjama sleeve. ‘Auntie, are you married?’

‘Once,’ Auntie Mei said.

‘What happened? Did you divorce him?’