Page 92 of Worth of Waste

“You like it there, don’t you?”

“Love it. I was lucky to get the job. Some days are just harder than others. You don’t get to pick and choose your clients most of the time, unless someone specifically asks for you. The boss kind of shoved a harder-to-deal-with mother on me, and yeah.”

Dino grunted under his breath. “Shitty.”

“I did okay.”

“That all?”

“No, Junior bit someone at daycare. They told me if he keeps that up, he’ll lose his spot.”

Dino’s brow lifted as he looked over to Karen, a million and one questions in his eyes. “Really?”

“Which part do you find hard to believe—the biting, or the kicking him out?”

“The kicking him out bit.”

Yeah, Karen found that hard to believe, too.

Their son didn’t bite people every chance he got, unless he was put under stressful situations or someone tried to hold him still, and he really did prefer to play alone, rather than with other children. She had a sneaking suspicion that the daycare was attempting to get Junior in situations where he needed to play more with other children. She understood why. It was good for his developmental skills, and team building, she supposed.

Still, the toddler likely wasn’t having it.

“I just apologized,” Karen said lamely.

“For what? You can’t control where his teeth go.”

“Apparently, I am supposed to.”

Dino scoffed. “That’s fucking stupid.”

“I thought so.”

“Listen, if they kick him out, we’ll figure something else out,” Dino said.

Karen’s chopstick froze on the way to her mouth, and she looked over at Dino. “Oh, will you be calling around to local daycares for me to get him a spot last minute?”

Dino sat his container of food down. “Karen.”

“Well?”

“Come on.”

She scowled at her food, knowing none of this was really Dino’s fault, but her stress was manifesting outwardly and he was the closest person for her to take her anger out on. He didn’t deserve it, as far as that went, but she didn’t know how else to deal.

“Sorry,” Karen said quietly.

In a flash, Dino had taken her food from her, sat it aside, and then he pulled her into his lap without a word. There, the stress seemed to wash away, and she was okay.

“I try to help all the time,” Dino said, resting his chin on the top of her head.

He wasn’t lying.

He did help, when Karen would let him.

She rarely took money from him, and he offered that a lot. He often came over at the drop of a hat when she asked him to, just because she needed a break. And then there were lots of nights like this one where she hadn’t eaten, she’d been stressed out to the max, and he’d showed up just because he heard the exhaustion in her voice over a phone call.

“You do help,” Karen said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”