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“You and I do that, Nora.”
“But you have to work lots.”
I’m so pissed at him right now!
I told him to let her be, but I hold it back and take her hands. “You know John Paul isn’t here for a long time. He is just here for a little bit to visit. Then, he’ll be gone for a very, long time again. The last time he was home was three years ago, Nora. In three years, you’ll be in second grade. You might even be big enough that you don’t need your booster seat anymore.”
She smiles. “But he’ll be back and I’ll see him again. He’s my friend.”
I do not have time for this right now, I think as I try to figure out how to redirect this conversation and get us out the door without her being upset.
“Did you pick out which stuffie is going to school with you today?”
“Squeakers.” She bends down and picks up the darn thing I busted my butt on and smiles.
That smile tells me I either did a great job of redirecting or she didn’t hear what I said.
At the Stop sign, I immediately see where the annoying freaking noise came from that woke me up. I mean, yes, I needed to wake up, but still, freaking annoying. Also annoying is that I have to turn and drive past his house to get Nora to school.
Nora squeals, “Roll down my window, Mommy. I wanna wave to my friend.”
“It’s cold out,” I tell her. “Wave with your window closed.”
“No, he can’t see me. He has to see me!”
Not wanting a breakdown right before school, especially when we’re running late, I cave like a three-foot-tall tower of blocks when Nora decides to be a wrecking ball … but only halfway down.
Waving her little heart out, she screeches, “He doesn’t see me, Mommy. He doesn’t see me!”
“Looks like he’s working on his house.”
“’Cause he’s gonna be in Walton lots, right?” she asks, still waving.
“Little slugger, I’m not sure.”
“Popa B said he’s our neighbor.”
Great, just great.
“John Paul has a job and house in New York, too, so he won’t be here lots.”
She finally stops waving and crosses her little arms over her chest and legit quirks a brow at me. “He will sometimes, Mommy. He’s our best friend.”
“When he’s in Walton, you and Popa B can see him, but remember, we both have jobs, and we have Kal too.”
She doesn’t say a word.
Drop-off went well, considering how the morning had started, but as soon as I walk through the automatic doors at the Med Center, I realize that was the calm before the storm.
“Two ambulances on the way in,” Laurie calls to me as I pass by the front of the desk and circle around to get behind it. “We need to move a couple of patients out of the rooms and relocate them.”
I drop my bag under the desk and slide the hair tie off my wrist, pulling my hair up into a messy bun. “Which rooms?”
“Twelve’s been treated for strep, and seven is a baby with asthma, but someone is supposed to be coming to take him to the pediatrics wing. We’ve been waiting fifteen minutes.”
“Oxygen tent?” I ask as I head toward seven.
“Yeah.”
