Promise Me Sunshine

After Harper relieves Lenny of her babysitting duties in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Lenny takes the Staten Island ferry rather than going home to Brooklyn to face her and Lou’s apartment. As she takes a look at herself in the ferry’s bathroom mirror, she sees some sense in the things Miles had commented about her appearance while on the phone with Reese. Miles assumed that she had an addiction to drugs or alcohol because of her rumpled and strung-out look, which she understands but attributes to “having a debilitating mental health crisis while navigating the most excruciating chapter of [her] life” (23).

She sleeps on the ferry and returns to Reese’s apartment the next morning, where Miles also waits outside the door. Harper is on the way out as the two of them enter, and Ainsley immediately finds Lenny to show her what she has done with her stuffed animals overnight. As Lenny goes to make breakfast, she hears Ainsley questioning Miles as to why he is there. Unnerved by Miles’s presence, Lenny decides to take Ainsley out to a museum, tea, and a movie.

Lenny and Ainsley raid the latter’s costume trunk for their trip to the Museum of Modern Art, and when they return, Miles asks if Lenny really went out in public in a tutu and tiara. The three of them go to a diner down the street for dinner, where Lenny fantasizes about their waiter. Afterward, Miles also stays at the apartment until Harper arrives, and Lenny is relieved when she can leave him as well. On her way home, Lenny and a man on a bike in front of her are almost hit by a car. The man driving comes out to fight with the two of them, and Lenny fights back before Miles appears and tries to get her to step back from the driver. Miles gets Lenny and the man with the bike—who introduces himself as Jericho—to sit on a nearby bench and reveals that he got the driver’s license plate. Once Jericho thanks Lenny for standing up for him and leaves, Miles tries to make sure that Lenny is okay, even though she assures him she isn’t hurt. He follows her onto her subway, but she escapes when she gets to the Staten Island ferry stop.

She falls asleep quickly on the ferry and wakes up after riding back to the Manhattan port. However, she is shocked back to reality when Miles appears again and asks her why she is riding the ferry back and forth. Miles asks if she is okay and has a place to sleep, and Lenny reveals that she does, but she doesn’t want to go home. Miles also noticed from Lenny’s facial expressions that she has been fantasizing about another man on the ferry, just as she did with their waiter and him before, and he fears for her safety. He admits that he is worried about her, especially because she is taking care of Ainsley. Miles gives her the option to go back to Reese’s and sleep on her couch or his own in his apartment upstairs, but when Lenny says that she plans to stay on the ferry all night, Miles says he will join her. As Lenny begins to fall back asleep, Miles admits that he saw her book on grief yesterday and says that he, too, has read that book. He tells her that he will leave her alone if she wants him to, as he has been in her position with grief before, but Lenny doesn’t say anything.

At five o’clock in the morning, Miles pushes Lenny off where she has fallen asleep on his shoulder and begs her to let them get off the ferry. After having a large cup of coffee each, Miles brings up what they were talking about last night, mentioning that Reese might want to take Lenny on as a permanent babysitter. He is especially concerned because Lenny didn’t want to go home, and he is worried that she might be hiding from something. Lenny assures Miles that she is not in a dangerous situation. She tells him the truth: She doesn’t want to go back to her apartment because she lived there with her best friend, who died a few months ago. Unintentionally, she begins to tell Miles all her troubles and breaks down in front of him.

She is surprised Miles isn’t scared off, and he asks her what her friend’s name was. Lenny tells him that her friend was named Lou, and they laugh at the fact that both women have “old men” names. Lenny explains that her real name is Helen, but Lou had called her “Lenny” since they met in kindergarten. As Lenny pulls a tissue out of her pocket, she also accidentally pulls out the laminated Live Again list she always keeps with her. She shows it to Miles and tells him that she hasn’t done anything on the list. Miles reminds her that they need to get to Ainsley, so they start to head uptown, but Lenny doesn’t want to talk about her grief any longer. In another flashback, Lenny remembers a time when she and Lou felt happy together.

Ainsley is ecstatic when Reese returns home, and Reese offers Lenny a more permanent position. Lenny declines, knowing that more temporary work is what works for her life at the moment. As she is leaving, Lenny runs into Miles, who asks if she is going home tonight. Lenny says that she is not going home but attending an all-night dance party, to which she jokingly invites Miles. To her surprise, Miles wants to come, but he then stands in a corner all night. When Lenny leaves the dance floor, Miles reveals that he came because he wanted to talk to her about how she connected with Ainsley. Miles admits that he has known Ainsley for two years and can’t connect with her like that. Privately, Lenny wonders about Miles’s role in the family and why he has known Ainsley for only two years. Miles asks if Lenny will come back to babysit and teach him how to connect with Ainsley and Reese. When Lenny asks what would be in it for her, Miles says that he is a “grief expert” and can help her get through what she is going through and help her check off her Live Again list.

Lenny tries to caution Miles against his idea, but he isn’t scared off by her grief. He decides to show her that he is serious by helping her check off an item on the list, and Lenny is shocked by how easy it was for him after they check off item number seven. Miles tells Lenny that his mother and cousin were killed in a car accident 10 years earlier and that he has experienced the kind of grief that Lenny is experiencing now. Miles also reveals that he has a second studio apartment that he continues to pay rent on while he lives out of his current apartment, which was a gift. He tells Lenny that she can stay there while she avoids her own apartment, something he did after the death of his mother and cousin, with whom he lived. After taking a shower and sleeping fitfully in a real bed, Lenny texts Miles and agrees to his offer.

Lenny and Miles try to make a plan for how Miles can connect with Ainsley and Reese. Lenny learns more about Miles, like the fact that he is originally from upstate New York and worked as a bricklayer before coming into some money and moving to the city to be closer to Ainsley, whom he calls his only family. They run into a nosy family friend of Lenny’s named Marzia Marcutio, who always inserts herself into others’ business. Marzia ends up telling Miles everything about Lou’s first stage-four ovarian cancer diagnosis, hysterectomy, and second cancer diagnosis, and both Lenny and Miles are shocked by how casually she talks about such intimate details. Miles directly tells Marzia how rude she is being, stunning both women, and Marzia leaves both embarrassed and outraged. Lenny hugs him to thank him, and she wonders when the last time was that either of them was hugged.

Lenny trips on her way to Reese’s apartment, where Miles is waiting for her. Reese apologizes and tells Lenny that she double-booked today and needs to take Ainsley to a doctor’s appointment, so she will see her tomorrow. Miles sees that Lenny is bleeding from her fall, and he takes her upstairs to his apartment to bandage her up. When Lenny reveals that she barely slept last night, Miles asks why she didn’t call him to talk about it, which surprises Lenny. Miles goes out to get groceries and tells her that she can sleep on his couch, as he worries that she will not make it back to her apartment.

Lenny sleeps on Miles’s couch for five hours and then eats the dinner that he has made for her. Afterward, she doesn’t want to face the grief that is typically worse at night, so she takes Miles to a sporting-goods store to get something to use to bond with Ainsley. Lenny fantasizes aloud about marrying one of the salesmen there, and Miles criticizes her for never approaching these men. Lenny mentions that she has only been doing this since Lou died, and she begins to open up more about their relationship. Miles comforts her, telling her that there is nothing she could have done to prevent Lou’s death. Lenny remembers a time when Lou was losing her hair and felt ugly, yet she still took a selfie with Lenny.

Lenny, Miles, and Ainsley go to a park, where Lenny has to stop Miles from being overbearing and worrying about Ainsley’s safety. Lenny tries to teach Miles not to treat Ainsley like he’s afraid of her, but he struggles to play along with them. When they get back to Reese’s apartment, Lenny suggests that they give Ainsley some time on her own, as they had been talking about her mother’s absence and she seemed sad. As Miles looks at some of the pictures on the wall of Reese’s father, Carp Hollis, it finally clicks for Lenny that he was also Miles’s father. When she asks him about it, she learns that Miles only got close to his father in the last months of his life. Reese’s return prevents Lenny from learning any more about Miles’s family, and Miles leaves after asking Reese if it’s okay that he spends time with Lenny and Ainsley when she is gone. After he leaves, Lenny assures Reese that it is fine with her if Miles hangs around, as she knows that he only wants to get closer to Ainsley without disturbing her alone time with her mother. As she leaves, Lenny sees that Miles has left her a container of food so that she doesn’t have to cook dinner.