She nods. “It’s all I’ve ever known. I nannied for other families after yours. I also substitute-taught for a while. Even did some tutoring. Basic stuff, like addition and spelling. It was a real treat when you texted. I love seeing what you kids are up to now, but mostly I lose touch. People move, phone numbers change. I’m not on Facebook or any of that either. Honestly, I hardly touch my computer.” In the stroller, Lola yawns and turns, sucking on her lower lip as she brings her blue floral blanket closer to her neck. I fight back a yawn myself.

“Nannying can be very lucrative in New York,” I say, stupidly. I am not a parent. I’ve never even babysat. My only experience with anything regarding childcare is an acquaintance who nannied our first year out of college.

Anneliese nods. “Right now, I’m focused on these kids. At some point, I’ll need to get a job, but I have a little nest egg to keep me going.” She reaches into her bag, the same faux leather one, and takes out her phone, an older iPhone model. “Just so you know that I’m not completely insane,” she says with a chuckle, flipping over to her photos.

And I have to do a double take to fully process it, because there I am by a lake, during late fall or early spring, the tree branches skeletal, held in a younger Anneliese’s arms, her flow of red hair vibrant in the somewhat grainy picture. I am pointing up to the sky, to something outside the frame.

“I have pictures of all the kids I’ve nannied,” she explains, and stretches, rolling her shoulders, before propping one leg up on the bench and facing me, finding my eyes. Though it’s sunny, we’re in the shade so I have no excuse but to look back, get swallowed whole by her gaze. “But enough about me. I want to hear about you.”

I tell her the basics, that I grew up in Manhattan, my birthplace, after my mom’s death. That my dad never remarried. Where I went to college. That after my father’s death last June, I sold his apartment and started renting a studio. That I work in marketing at a beauty start-up, a job I’d inexplicably landed after college and don’t feel passionate about. That I love to paint, but I never thought I could make a career out of it.

She drinks it in, never once interrupting me. And I realize that having Beth as my main point of contact has made me quieter, that I haven’t spoken nonstop in over a year, that Beth’s presence has absorbed mine. That never used to happen.