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“Thank you again. I’ll text you her info. Bye.” Avery says, hanging up the phone.
As I pull into Avery’s driveway, my phone pings with a text from Avery.
Avery: Okay, I don’t know the address, but the babysitter is Madison King. I’m sure you remember her from school. She lives in the white house next door to our old Junior High Science teacher, Mrs. McBride. She has a cute little blue welcome sign and a 15 passenger van out front.
I slowly blink twice. Is she for real right now?
Me: Wouldn’t it have been faster to just ask her for her address instead of all of that? Small-town people are so damn weird.
Avery: Not like you’ve ever known what half of the street names were, anyway.
Me: Valid point. But I have this fancy thing called GPS. It even works in Nowheresville.
Avery: The playpen is in the closet. Thank you again.
I enter the code on Avery’s door and run inside. Quickly, I locate the playpen and lug it to my car. Of course, even after rearranging everything in my trunk, I still can’t get the thing to fit back there. I sigh and carry it around to the backseat until I remember that I have to put a baby back there. Dammit, this must be why all moms drive giant cars. It isn’t because they have that many kids, it’s because their kids just have that much shit.
Within a few minutes, I’m on the other side of town, pulling up in front of a cute little white house with a blue welcome sign just like Avery told me I would. As soon as I get out of the car, I glance over at Mrs. McBride’s house. Nothing on her porch has changed since I was probably seven years old, including her concrete goose that she dresses up for every season. It’s currently wearing a yellow rain jacket with a matching hat. That damn goose is more stylish than I am, and I bet it has more clothes than I do. I pause to wonder if it has its own closet, but then quickly remember I have a task at hand.
I walk up to the door of the home daycare and it swings open as soon as I step foot onto the wooden porch.
“Tyler Burris! How are you?” A skinny blonde girl bounds out of the house and attacks me. Okay, maybe she doesn’t actually attack me, but she definitely pulls me into a hug that kicks my fight-or-flight response into overdrive. Why does everyone in this town think I want to hug them? Does no one have personal boundaries here? Has it always been like this and I just blocked it out?
“Hey! How are you?” I say, trying to search my memory for whatever Avery told me this girl’s name was, but I come up blank.
“I’m good!” She beams and stands staring at me for a beat too long. “Thank you so much for being able to come pick up Juliet. Avery’s lucky to have a friend like you.”
“It’s not a problem at all.” I smile softly. “I am in a bit of a hurry though….”
“Oh yeah, of course,” the woman says, opening the door wider and handing me a diaper bag. “She’s already had breakfast and she should be about ready for a nap around 10. Just give her the bottle in the side pocket around 9:45.”
“Perfect.” I say, taking the bag and baby carrier from her. I glance down at Juliet, to get an idea of how she is actually feeling. Juliet looks up at me and shows me a wide gummy grin.
“Hi, sister. Want to go to Aunt Tyler’s?” I ask her.
She coos in response.
I smile down at her before turning towards my car. The weight of the carrier almost takes me down. Sheesh, this thing is heavy. I wonder how Avery totes the carrier all over the place. She made it look effortless at the coffee shop this morning. I would probably never leave my house if I had to carry this contraption everywhere.
“Nice seeing you!” I yell over my shoulder, not stalling to see if the sitter says anything back. I’m too busy fighting for my life to carry Juliet down the stairs.
I get back to my car and heave the carrier into the backseat, making sure Juliet is facing backwards. It’s only then that I realize I have no clue how I’m supposed to belt the car seat in. I try to remember how Avery does it, but I feel like she has a plastic base in her car that this thing snaps into. I’ve spent plenty of time babysitting over the course of my life, but it’s never been with any actual babies. Every kid I’ve ever watched has been at least in a booster seat. I sigh and grab Juliet again, lugging her back up to the daycare provider’s house.
After one quick knock, the provider sticks her head back outside.
“Hi.” I say. “Do you know how to buckle this into my car?”
She stares at me, bewildered for a second. “Oh, like with the lap belt?”
“Sure? I have actually never put a kid in my car before.” I laugh.
“Umm… you just pull it across and…” She stops talking when she notices the look of confusion on my face. “You know what? I’ll go do it. Can you just stand in here so I’m not leaving these kids unsupervised?”
“Sure!” I say, stepping into the living room.
She grabs the car seat from me and slides through the front door.
I smile down at the kids sitting on the carpet staring at the television. A cartoon about a blue dog mesmerizes most of them.
