The boy’s mother had looked us both up and down and given the job to me because she knew when her city friends came to visit they’d wonder how much she was paying and who’d given my references and how many languages I’d speak with the boy. I’d never taken care of a child in my life and only knew a bit of English from school but that didn’t matter, what mattered was that I didn’t look like a pauper a peasant a dunce who’d done nothing in her life but scrub floors. What mattered was that her friends would see me and think I must be charging a tidy sum. I could tell all that just from the way she
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