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Adam had asked me out at least once a term since I’d started working at P.S. 058 as a Teach For America recruit. Really, he was probably the best someone like me could do. A single-mom and third-grade teacher didn’t exactly scream out “hot catch!” on the dating scene. But not once had I said yes.
The truth was, I hadn’t had a serious boyfriend in, well, ever.
No, Sofia’s dad didn’t count. A four-week affair that ended in heartbreak and an illegitimate child doesn’t count. A dashing lothario who had a secret fiancée the entire time he was making the moves on me doesn’t count.
It didn’t matter if his kisses lit my soul on fire or just thinking about his touch set the rest of me aflame. It didn’t even matter if he was the one to take my long-overdue virginity and I hadn’t managed to have a single satisfying sexual encounter in the five years since.
He. Doesn’t. Count.
“You all right there, teach?”
Adam’s voice pulled me out of the daze I always seemed to fall into whenever Xavier Sato came to mind.
I shook my head. “Sorry. Just lost in a daydream for a moment.”
“Want to tell me more about it over dinner tonight?”
And…there it was. Right on schedule.
I cocked my head to the side and affixed the craft-paste smile. It wasn’t any use pissing off a coworker. “I appreciate it, but I have the guppy to pick up.”
You would think being reminded constantly that I was a single mom and not at all interested in dating would throw the man off his scent.
But Adam just smiled jocularly and held up his coffee mug like he was toasting a glass of champagne. “Next time, then.”
I sighed as I swept the rest of my mail out of my box and turned toward the door. “Sure, we’ll see. Have a good holiday.”
“You too, honey. You too.”
* * *
I drovemy brother’s car through Carroll Gardens to the daycare center about ten blocks from the school. Matthew generally took the bus to his office in downtown Brooklyn, allowing me the freedom of his car to cart Sofia around on days like these when we had a lot to do. It was one of the many ways we patched together a life of incoherent pieces to make something almost whole.
It was annoying, really, how much I’d come to depend on my brother just to survive. Five years ago, I was on track to fly myself. My older sisters had done it. My brother had done it. Carved out their own careers, their own families. And just when I was about to do it too, Sofia came along.
Suddenly, there was a lot more to pay for than just my little self, and I couldn’t ask my seventy-something-year-old grandmother to raise yet another child that wasn’t hers. Nonna had brought up all six of us after our dad died in a car crash and our mother chose the bottle over her kids. She deserved a break.
But there were bedrooms needed. Daycare. Clothes. Diapers.
The list of things I couldn’t afford as a poor grad student, then teacher, went on and on. It was either accept Matthew’s help or find Sofia’s dad. One of those things was absolutely out of the question.
“Mama!” Sofia squealed when I stepped into the daycare center. She beelined from the sensory table to launch herself around my legs.
“Hey, bean,” I greeted her with a kiss atop her head. “Good day?”
“I thought you’d never get here,” she informed me in her adorable way. She still couldn’t quite pronounce Rs correctly when she was excited. And since she was just four, that was often. “Billy Hendrix wouldn’t stop pulling my hair!”
“Well, you were also stealing his hat,” pointed out her teacher as she handed me a clipboard to sign Sofia out.
I smirked and signed. “That sounds about right.”
“That’s different,” Sofia said. “His hat was ugly. My hair was pretty!”
“Sof,” I chided. “That’s not for you to decide.”
“Don’t worry,” said her teacher. “We had a long talk about it. Didn’t we, Sofia?”
My daughter nodded, but I recognized that stubborn expression. It was the same one every other member of my family wore when they absolutely knew they were right and no one else would sway them. It would take nothing less than an act of God to convince Sofia anything other than her current logic.
