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that meant slapping a cell phone into her hot little hand so she could dial
911 at the drop of a hat, well, so be it.
"Allie go to work?" Timmy asked as I came back inside and took a seat at the
table next to him. He held a spoon in one chubby fist, and was sticking it
repeatedly into a cup of peach yogurt.
"Allie went to school," I said. "Daddy went to work."
"Mommy go to work?"
"As a matter of fact, yes." I took the spoon (amazed that this didn't prompt a
huge tantrum) and aimed a bite of yogurt toward his mouth. "Does Timmy want to
go to school like Allie?"
"No," he said, giving me the puppy-dog eyes and shaking his head hard enough
that there was no way the yogurt was going to make it inside. "No school." A
little-boy-lost whine had crept into his voice, and my heart twisted in my
chest. Stay firm, I told myself. It's only temporary. Thousands of kids are in
day care every day without detriment to the kid or the parent.
Still&
I kept a perky smile plastered on my face. "No school?" I asked, feigning
amazement. "But school is great! You'll get to play with messy things like
paint, and you'll make all sorts of friends. And songs," I
said, pulling out all the stops. "I bet they sing 'Happy and You Know It' at
school all the time."
"No, Momma," he said. He shook his head once more. "
You go to school."
"Wish that I could, kiddo." I fed him the last spoonful of yogurt, then got a
paper towel to wipe the bulk of his breakfast off his chin, the table, and the
floor. "Would you give it a shot?" I asked. "For Mommy?
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School sounds pretty exciting to me. Lots of fun, and you get to play games."
Since I had the spoon, he stabbed his finger into the yogurt, then proceeded
to draw a line of goop on the tabletop.
Come on, Tim
, I mentally urged.
Say yes and make Mommy feel less guilty
.
"Buddy?" I asked. "What do you say?"
"Okay, Mommy." He sounded much perkier than he had only moments before, and I
wondered if in his little two-year-old brain, he was already off on some other
topic. I wasn't about to ask, though. His blessing (such that it was) assuaged
my guilt, and I headed into the living room to pack up our things.
Tim was his typical cheery self the entire ride to the day care center. I
plastered on a happy face, told him this was his school, then proceeded to
list off all the wonderful and exciting things he'd do that day. He eyed me
warily, my only clue that he might be less than keen on this plan the thumb
that went automatically into his mouth.
I got out and walked around the car to let him out. He was sitting there,
quietly sucking away, when I slid the door open. "You're going to have so much
fun at school," I said. "Aren't you, buddy?"
The thumb emerged, followed by a brief nod and an "Okay, Mommy." I called that
a victory, then proceeded to unstrap him from the car seat. I helped him down,
then held his hand as we walked inside.
So far, all was well.
I found Nadine behind a reception counter. I'd called her from the road and
begged to start Timmy today instead of tomorrow. She promised to arrange it
all, and sure enough, as soon as I arrived, she passed me a variety of papers
to sign and asked for the balance due on the month's tuition. Timmy behaved
throughout this entire process. But the moment I handed over the check, he
started to howl. It may have taken him a while to figure out exactly what was
going on here, but now that he'd clued in, he was having none of it.
"
No
," he howled. "No school. No, no school. Go home. Go.
Home.'"
Big tears rolled down his cheeks, and I tried to get a grip, reminding myself
that this was for his own good without day care, demons might take over the
town, and then where would we be?
I felt my cheeks flame, embarrassment battling with an almost physical need to
pick up my child and cuddle him. Nadine, of course, had seen this before, and
she passed Tim a toy truck from her desk, at the same time offering me a
reassuring smile. "He'll be in the Explorers classroom with Miss Sally.
They're on the playground right now. I bet that will help Tim get over his
first-day jitters."
As it turned out, she was right. After a few more minutes of clinging and
shouting "No, Momma, no!" at the top of his lungs, Tim discovered the sandbox
and soon settled in to shovel a beach worth's of sand next to a little boy in
Bob the Builder overalls.
Nadine tapped my arm. "We should head back inside while he's occupied." I
nodded, but didn't move.
My heart was all twisted in my chest, and my stomach hurt. How could I leave?
What kind of a mother was I?
A
mother who needs to stop a High Demon from raising an army and killing off the
population of
San Diablo
, I answered myself.
At the moment, though, as I left my baby in the care of strangers, that really
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didn't seem good enough.
I worked off my guilt sparring with Cutter. We started with a few basic
stretches, but quickly moved on to the full meal deal, focusing on jabs and
crosses, parrying kicks and quartering, and my favorite spinning back kicks.
This time Cutter was ready for me, and I had to work my tail off just to keep
from getting pummeled. I
still fully intended to nail him. I just needed to find the right opportunity.
"You're good," I said, parrying an expertly executed cross-behind side kick.
"I came to the right place."
"I'm motivated," he said. "Can't get shown up by a skirt twice."
"A skirt? Who are you, Phillip Marlowe?"
"Think of me as your worst nightmare, sweetheart," he said, in a full-on
Humphrey Bogart voice. I
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