by Alana Terry
After breakfast, Pip beelined right back to his toy cars, working himself into an angry panic when he discovered one of his trucks kicked out of place. Kimmie finally managed to calm him, but she had a few new scratches on her arm for her efforts.
As far as fits went, this one was relatively calm. Once Pip was contentedly absorbed in his sorting work again, Kimmie made her way back to the kitchen where Jade was scrubbing down the table with disinfectant.
“Have you made any coffee yet?”
Jade glanced up from her work. “No, you go ahead. I could use a cup myself.”
Kimmie hated coffee until she started working at the daycare. Jade showed her the difference between a nice fresh roast and the generic stuff Chuck always bought. Kimmie was also pleasantly surprised to discover that her coffee didn’t have to be so strong it poured out like sludge and that a little bit of flavored creamer made a big difference in cutting back on the bitter taste.
Keeping partial attention on the kids playing in the common room, Kimmie pulled down the bag of Alaskan coffee and changed out the old filter.
“What time is it?” Jade asked.
Kimmie glanced at the clock above the sink. “9:45.”
“Is it me, or is this day dragging on?”
Kimmie was glad she wasn’t the only one who felt that way. A few minutes later, the two women were sitting in rocking chairs on the far side of the playroom with steaming mugs of freshly brewed Kaladi Brothers coffee in their chipped mugs.
“Here’s to you.” Jade held her cup high. “With prayers for peace and comfort for you and your family after all you’ve gone through.”
Kimmie had never seen anyone make a toast with a mug of coffee before, but she appreciated Jade’s thoughtfulness. Taking a small sip, she scanned the room to make a quick mental count of the kids. Jade’s daughter Dez was playing by the dollhouse, Noah was coloring at the kiddie table. The Abbot brothers and their cousin Chinook were climbing up and down the small indoor kiddie gym, pretending to be pirates.
“We’ll have to get ready for story time pretty soon. You want me to do it today?” Jade asked.
In the past, Kimmie took on reading duty. The kids loved to hear her do her voices, and Kimmie appreciated their enthusiasm and rapture. “I don’t mind,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
Jade glanced at her with what looked like the start of a question in her expression, but instead of saying anything she just took another sip of coffee. “That works for me,” she said. “I’ve got to go disinfect that bathroom at some point anyway.”
Kimmie would never complain about working with someone who would rather scrub toilets than read a few books out loud. They both finished their coffee, and while Jade helped the kids who needed assistance in the bathroom, Kimmie picked out a few books.
Everyone loved Dr. Seuss, and reading his books had become so second nature Kimmie could do it with only investing a small chunk of her mental energy. Another one of her personal favorites was There’s a Monster at the End of this Book, but she wasn’t sure she had the energy today. She had to get the voice just right to make it sound scary enough to keep everyone amused without actually frightening any of the littler kids. Kimmie had no guidebook on grief, but she suspected that the sooner she could get back to doing all the things she did before, the sooner she could say she had finally moved on.
With the monster book in her hand and a few other especially funny ones thrown in for good measure, she pulled the rocking chair to the center of the playroom.
“All right, guys,” she called out, wondering if her voice sounded natural. “Grab your magic carpet square and let’s read some stories.”
Noah came running first, eager to grab his favorite spot right in front of Kimmie. Chinook sat next to Dez, and the two girls giggled when one of the Abbot boys tripped over an untied shoe.
Everyone was here except for Pip. Kimmie glanced at the bathroom. Had Jade taken him to the toilet?
She leaned forward and laid the books out on the floor in a colorful spread. “All right, guys, if you promise not to touch these or fight about them, I want you to think about which story you want to read first. When I get back you can each tell me your choice and we’ll take a vote.”
Even before she got out of her chair, she realized she’d set the kids up for failure by making them promise not to fight. She hurried toward the bathroom. Jade was leaning over the toilet, yellow rubber gloves on her hands and hot pink earbuds on her ears. She glanced up. “Need anything?”
Kimmie peeked behind the bathroom door as if her brother might be hiding there. “Have you seen Pip?”
Jade took off her gloves and paused whatever she was listening to on her phone.
“What?”
Kimmie repeated her question, then glanced back at the circle of kids, half expecting him to have joined the group.
“I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.” Jade’s statement of the obvious only made Kimmie’s hands clammier.
“I’ll check the kitchen,” Kimmie said. “Can you see if he went to the nap room for some reason?”
Jade tossed her rubber gloves onto the sink, and Kimmie glanced at her brother’s box of cars by the front door. Where had he gone?
She poked her head into the kitchen. “Pip?” After glancing under the table and sink, she checked the broom closet and even the lower cupboards.
“I didn’t see him in the nap room.” Jade licked her lips. Kimmie knew she wasn’t in a strong enough emotional state to determine the exact time to freak out, so she took her cues from her friend.
Jade fingered her chin, glancing sideways. “Think he could have gone outside?”
“I’ll go check.” Kimmie hurried toward the exit. He knew he wasn’t allowed to play outside by himself, and most of the time he was terrified to be away from Kimmie even for a few minutes.
She glanced at his cubby. If he had gone outside, he’d forgotten his coat. Where could he be?
Her heart started pumping wildly, and she didn’t know if the surge of terror she felt was a rational reaction or not. How could she? She’d never lost her brother before. In fact, until last summer when he discovered his love of matchbox cars, he’d hardly ever let Kimmie out of a five-foot radius from wherever he was.
“Pip?” A cold blast of air confronted her when she stepped outside. It didn’t make sense. Pip was the kind of kid who threw fits when anything in the daily routine changed in even the slightest detail, a kid who had until recently refused to be away from his sister’s side while she was at work. Why would he have gone onto the playground by himself?
“Pip!”
She leaned down, peeking in all the tube slides, checking and double-checking anywhere a three-year-old Pip’s size could conceivably hide. The choices were fairly limited. Two minutes later she was back in the daycare building, and Jade’s nervous shaking of the head revealed that her search had been just as fruitless.
Kimmie’s breath grew short. The daycare began to spin in her periphery.
Her brother was lost.
CHAPTER 8
Kimmie stood paralyzed in the entrance to the daycare.
Pip … lost?
It didn’t make sense. The concept was too complicated for her brain to register or compute.
He couldn’t be lost. He was playing a game. That’s what this was. Of course, he was the only kid in preschool who never caught on to hide-and-seek, but maybe he’d finally figured it out and wanted to prove how well he could do it.
“Pip!” Kimmie called out, her voice infused with false cheer.
The children stared at her from their seats in the reading circle.
“Maybe we should do the books later,” Jade suggested, and Kimmie couldn’t figure out why her co-worker was worried about story time when her brother was missing.
“Pip!” Kimmie hurried to the nap room, retracing the steps Jade must have made just a few minutes earlier. “Pip?”
Her
voice was shaky. Uncertain. So were her tentative steps. Was she worried that she’d trip over her brother if she weren’t careful? He wasn’t that tiny. He couldn’t have turned invisible.
“Pip!” She tried not to sound irritated. Wasn’t that some sort of dog-training rule? She couldn’t remember where she’d heard it. If your dog takes off, don’t sound angry or he’ll be scared to come back to you. She forced herself to smile. Made her voice higher than natural. “Pip?”
Nothing.
Back to the bathrooms, running now. What if Jade left out the cleaning supplies, and her brother got into them? She flung open the door. No Pip.
She ran back outside, onto the playground then past the daycare fence. Searching everywhere, racing through the parking lots, haphazardly running up the side street. He wouldn’t have come all the way out here, would he? And why hadn’t she seen him? Was she so busy drinking her coffee she stopped paying attention? Or had she gotten complacent, convinced he would never voluntarily move away from his box of cars? Was she just as guilty as Chuck, who thought that since Pip didn’t talk he was incapable of making decisions for himself? Of having an opinion?
Where could he have gone?
She was sprinting now but halted at a stop sign on top of the hill. There was no way Pip was all the way out here. Not without his coat. Not without her. He was scared of just about everything.
Including being alone.
She spun around. She had to find him.
Racing downhill was harder than running up, when the rush of adrenaline helped her defy gravity. Her early sprint had been fueled by the hope that she might find her brother and catch up to him. But she couldn’t dawdle now. She had to keep looking. Couldn’t slow down.
She pictured him lost and alone, wandering alongside the Glenn Highway. Maybe he’d gotten hurt and freaked out. Maybe he ran into the woods behind the daycare, scared and bleeding. Or worse, what if someone grabbed him? She would have heard if someone came into the daycare, but what if Pip wandered off and was at this moment in the back seat with some predator …
She wanted to throw up. Emptying her stomach would at least make more room for her stinging lungs and racing heart. She hurried back toward the daycare, praying Jade had found him. Something was wrong. Something in the parking lot.
A trooper’s car? What did that mean? Had Jade called the dispatcher to report a missing child? Or what if it was even worse? What if Pip had tried to cross the Glenn? What if he’d been hit by a car? What if …
“Don’t you work here?” asked a tall man in his crisp, blue trooper uniform.
She knew that voice, but she was so distraught she had a hard time placing it.
He stretched out his hand. “Taylor Tanner. Nice to see you again.”
Warmth rushed through her as his palm touched hers, loosening her voice. “I’m so glad you came. I don’t know what happened. He was with the cars all morning …”
He stared at her quizzically, and she realized she was about to start crying. It was too much. Couldn’t God see that? Too much. First her mom’s death, then Pip getting lost, now this trooper looking at her with so much compassion and empathy.
“Kimmie! Is that you?” Jade called from the open doorway. “Come on in. We found him.”
Breath rushed back into her lungs, and she was too relieved to acknowledge the trooper’s questioning expression. She ran past him and into the daycare. Falling onto her knees at the sight of Pip, she wrapped her arms around her brother, burying her face into his dinosaur T-shirt.
“He crawled into the dollhouse,” Jade explained. “Poor thing must be exhausted. I found him in there taking a nap.”
Pip looked at Kimmie. It was rare that she could be entirely sure what he was thinking or feeling, but if she had to guess, right now she’d say he looked scared. “It’s okay,” she told him. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”
She studied his face. What was he looking at? She glanced over her shoulder.
“Oh, right.” She stood and faced the trooper. “Thanks for stopping by. I guess we’ve got everything under control. I’m so sorry we bothered you.”
His gentle smile spoke of both bemusement and curiosity.
“Trooper Taylor’s come here to talk to the kids about stranger safety. Remember?” Jade was staring at Kimmie as if those words should make an ounce of sense. “We talked about it at our last …” She stopped herself. “Oh, right. You weren’t there. You mean I didn’t mention it to you this morning?”
Kimmie shook her head.
“Well, that’s what’s on the schedule for today. Kids,” Jade called out, “I want you to grab your magic squares one last time, and we’re all going to listen to Trooper Taylor. He’s come all the way over here today to talk to us about staying safe, so I know you’re all going to put on your listening ears and give him your full attention, right?”
Kimmie was glad for the commotion to get Taylor’s focus off of her. She was glad that Jade was here to take charge and tell the children what to do. More than anything, she was glad to have her brother here, safe and sound. He’d never played near that big dollhouse before. Maybe it was a good sign. Maybe it was a positive step forward in his development if he was starting to show interest in something other than his cars.
The kids were staring at Taylor with rapt attention, and Kimmie realized they were quieter and more disciplined than she’d ever seen them. Even Pip had grabbed his carpet square and was sitting down quietly with the others.
Kimmie pulled one of the rocking chairs behind the semi-circle of kids and sank down into it. With the trooper maintaining the children’s entire focus, maybe Kimmie could take the next few minutes to decompress.
Maybe she could finally relax.
CHAPTER 9
Jade stood in front of the circle of carpet squares, clapping her hands together to hold everyone’s attention. “All right, students, what do we tell Officer Taylor for coming to speak to us today?”
A melancholy chorus of thank yous sounded around the room. The children were dismissed for playtime. Jade stepped up to Kimmie. “I’ll get lunch ready if you’re all right handling things out here.”
Kimmie’s eyes were on the trooper. Taylor had stopped to help Jade’s daughter tie her light-up shoes. “Hmm?”
“I said I’ll get lunch ready,” Jade repeated. “That okay with you?”
Kimmie pried her eyes away from the touching scene. “Yeah. Sounds good. You need help?”
Jade shook her head. She looked as if she were about to say something, then just shrugged and walked off. Kimmie scanned the room to make sure she kept better track of her brother. Pip was by the dollhouse again, watching two girls playing make-believe. Maybe he really was starting to move past those cars. It would be a huge step forward for him. She just hoped that Chuck would never find out if his son liked to play with dolls.
“It’s Kimberly, right?”
She let out a surprised, “Oh,” when she realized Taylor was standing right next to her.
“Kimberly?” he repeated.
She nodded, flustered. Hadn’t he already left? “Kimmie,” she told him. “Or Kimberly. Whichever you prefer.”
She cleared her throat and pulled her eyes away from his, focusing again on Pip. Her heart was starting to swell. He’d never shown an interest in imaginative play before, and with what limited knowledge she’d gleaned from the daycare’s scarce resources on child development, she knew make-believe was a huge milestone in cognitive development. What if he actually picked up one of those dolls and started to play with it? For the first time, she realized why all those daycare moms and dads were obsessed with carrying their smartphones around to get pictures commemorating all their children’s proud achievements.
Jade’s daughter noticed Pip staring at her. Kimmie was afraid she’d say something mean and braced herself to jump in and intervene. Instead, Dez held out the doll. Pip stared, and Kimmie held her breath, waiting to see if h
e’d reach out for it.
“He’s a cutie.” The trooper’s words yanked Kimmie back to reality. He smiled down at her, and she flushed.
Taylor held her gaze. “I just wanted to tell you again how sorry I am about your mom. How’s the little one taking it?”
Kimmie glanced at her brother again. He’d taken the doll but just stared at it as if he weren’t certain what exactly it was doing in his grasp.
“He’s all right,” Kimmie answered, and then fearing that her answer sounded too dismissive added, “all things considered.”
Taylor nodded as if he understood exactly what she meant, which would be a small miracle seeing how Kimmie didn’t even know what she was saying. How is he? All things considered? How was a three-year-old supposed to act and feel and think after his mom commits suicide to free herself from an abusive husband? Kimmie felt her hands balling into fists. At least anger gave her a sense of power, however false. It was far more comfortable to feel fury than grief. She couldn’t pinpoint who or what she was mad at — her mother for killing herself, her stepfather for being a monster of a human being who couldn’t even make his own coffee sludge, God for allowing so many misfortunes to steal away any chance Kimmie had for hope or joy. Maybe even the earth itself for continuing to exist and spin and function normally even though Kimmie’s entire world had been shattered.
Taylor cleared his throat, and Kimmie braced herself for some kind of senseless remark — all things happen for a reason, or some other unhelpful platitude like that. Instead, he held her gaze and said, “You know, if I’d have known you’d be working here today, I would have planned things differently. I was going to stop by your house a little later this afternoon. I need to talk to you. It’s important.”
Something flopped inside her gut, and she was pretty sure it had nothing to do with Taylor’s kind features, his intense stare, and his perfectly pressed navy-blue uniform.