cole
nine
The weekend passed without incident.Incident meaning, running into Lisa. I hoped to catch a glimpse of her coming back from her afternoon run, but I either missed her or she skipped this weekend. Theresa came over and interviewed with Mom and me. CJ seemed to like her, so that was good. She'd start in a couple of days. It had been almost two months since I'd lost Crystal and found CJ, and things were finally starting to feel normal.
“Cole.” Natalie popped her head into Thursday’s morning meeting. “It’s the daycare.”
Shit. I jumped up and shot a quick glance at Smith, who gave me a terse nod as I slid around the exterior of the conference room.
I hauled ass towards the daycare as soon as the elevator doors opened.
“Hey, Cole Simmons.”I gasped for breath. “I got a call about CJ West. Is he okay? Where is he?”
Cindy put a calming hand on my bicep. "Yes, CJ is fine. He just went down for a nap." Her tone was soothing, but she wasn't smiling, and she still hadn't explained why she called me down here. "Come into my office."
I followed her down the hall and took one of the chairs in front of her desk. She seated herself in the chair next to mine and turned to face me.
"Unfortunately, there was an incident. I'm very sorry, but we won't be able to keep CJ at the daycare."
I felt the blood drain from my face. “What? Why not?”
“He bit another child.”
“Okaaaaay…and…” This was it. This was CJ’s big crime.
"We have a zero-tolerance policy for biting."
I laughed. "A zero-tolerance policy. Are you kidding me? He's a year and half old, and he's been having a lot of problems teething. Have you been giving him the teething stuff? This is ridiculous."
"Look, Cole. I know this is frustrating, and I understand how important the daycare is for you and CJ. Your circumstances…"
My face must have gone cold and hard because Cindy's voice trailed off at my expression. This wasn't the first time she tried to get me to open up about the way CJ was brought into my life. I was tuned in enough to know that it was a hot topic for the rumor mill around the firm, but I was smart enough to tune it out.
"Look, Cole. I'm going to be straight with you. It took a lot of hard work to get this daycare. Did you know this used to be a cigar room?” She waved an arm around her office. “This daycare is the culmination of five years of fighting for every dollar of funding and every square inch of space. This is a building full of lawyers. What do you think would happen if CJ bites another child, and it comes out that he'd done it before and we allowed him to stay? What if another child bit CJ? How would you want us to handle it? I can't take that risk."
“Did he draw blood? Is the other kid okay?” I couldn’t believe this was happening.
“The other child is fine. That’s not the point.”
“What if I talked to the other kid’s parent?”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t allow that.”
“Cindy, please. I need this.”
“Cole, it’s above me now. There’s nothing I can do.”
I leaned forward and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to focus. What the fuck was I supposed to do without a daycare? "What are my options? How long does CJ have? I don't exactly have a backup plan, and I'm putting in sixty hours a week upstairs."
Cindy pursed her lips and sighed. "I can give you a list of great daycares near the office, and we'll keep CJ until the end of the day."
“The day? Jesus fucking Christ.”
"I'm sorry, Cole. Like I said, we can't take the risk."
Back at my desk, I sank into my chair and put my head in my hands. Every few weeks for the last two months, I kept getting the rug pulled out from under me. CJ and I were just starting to get acclimated to this new normal, and I felt like I was free-falling. My email pinged with an alert. Cindy had sent the list of local daycares as promised, and it made me furious all over again.
Who the fuck kicks an eighteen-month-old out of daycare?
