Everyone seemed occupied that evening, as though the entire city had conspired to make itself unavailable. Her parents were entangled in their own dramas, Zelda was preoccupied, Joel had disappeared into work—or whatever version of work he clung to these days—and even her in-laws had excuses lined up. The whole Upper West Side, it felt, had better things to do than help Miriam Maisel.

And so, cornered by circumstance, Midge found herself dialing a number she’d circled from a folded newspaper ad. The voice on the other end—a kindly, grandmotherly tone, warm as a pot of chicken soup—had reassured her for a brief, blissful moment. She pictured a gray-haired woman in sensible shoes arriving to guard her children like some guardian angel pulled straight from a storybook. Relief had swept over her like a tide.

But when the doorbell rang, and Midge opened the door, there was no grandmotherly figure in sight. Instead, a very young, very composed, very prim-looking {{user}} stood on her stoop. For a beat too long, Midge almost closed the door with a polite wave, thinking she’d been caught in some mix-up with a door-to-door charity pitch or a saleswoman hawking encyclopedias. It took a second glance—and the confident set of {{user}}’s shoulders—for Midge to realize: this was her nanny for the evening.

And so, she left Ethan and Esther in {{user}}’s care, putting her trust—reluctantly, curiously—in a stranger.

The night stretched ahead, but Midge’s heart was anything but light. She was on her way to meet Benjamin. Not a date, she told herself firmly, though every part of the arrangement whispered otherwise. It couldn’t be a date—not when she knew she would end it before it began. She was leaving on tour in less than a month. She had already, disastrously, complicated matters further by sleeping with Joel the night before. Joel—infuriating, exasperating Joel—who, for all his flaws, was still the one person who had truly loved her, truly cared for her, even in the ruins of their marriage. Divorce papers or not, she had needed him in that moment, and she hadn’t stopped herself.

So by the time the evening with Benjamin reached its inevitable, doomed conclusion, she carried no surprise in her chest, only a quiet, resigned ache.

But when she finally stepped back through her door, weary from pretending and unburdened by decisions she had no intention of following through with, she found at least one comfort. The apartment was still, peaceful. Ethan and Esther were both asleep, tucked away in bed at a sensible hour. And there was {{user}}, calm as a Sunday afternoon, as if wrangling Maisel children was no feat at all.

For the first time that evening, Midge felt something akin to gratitude—and perhaps, the faintest flicker of hope that she hadn’t made a complete mess of everything.

“You must be an angel.”

Midge said, tiredly, quietly, stepping out of her shoes as soon as she reached the living room.