Baylee Breaking

Chapter 3

Chapter 3By the time Baylee got to the daycare, her stomach was not just growling, it was aching. But today she'd hit the jackpot: a $20 bill left abandoned near one of the bookshelves. No one had been around, so she didn't feel too guilty for pocketing it.

She walked quickly down the echoing green-tiled hallway with a Noah's Ark mural on one side and multicolored handprints on the other.

She turned left at a door marked 3-5-year-olds and stepped in. Immediately a sea of small people swarmed around her. “Miss Andrews! Miss Andrews!” all the little ones shouted. She patted their heads and squeezed their shoulders gently, but her eyes scanned the room.

“Hello there, Baylee,” Mrs. Fields, a black woman in her early sixties said from the corner, where she was supervising the putting up of crayons in a white plastic tub. Once the four sets of tiny hands had finished their task, the teacher placed the tub along with several of its fellows on a low, canvas rack. Above, a wide window revealed an autumn sunset of brilliant orange. Baylee smiled at the view.

“Hello, Mrs. Fields,” she said, reaching down to collect an escaped burnt sienna. She handed the runaway to her friend, still searching the faces.

“Dylan had a good day today. He ate all his lunch and played nicely with the other kids. He and Tim did knock heads, but they're both okay.”

“Where is he?” Baylee asked at last.

“The bathroom,” Mrs. Fields replied.

“Oh. Okay. Knocked heads? Did they cry?”

“You know, I think they were planning to, but then they looked at each other and they had this little 'I'm the bigger man' moment. Then they got up and ran to the slide.”

Baylee smiled.

“Mommy!” A small, golden-haired missile shot across the room and crashed into her legs, nearly knocking her over. Baylee scooped him up.

“Be careful, Dylan,” she said, giving her son a kiss. “Don't hug me right down to the floor! Come on. Let's go to the store.”

“Yay! Store! Bye, Mrs. Fields.” He waved to his teacher. She blew him a kiss. Dylan pantomimed a wild catching movement from her arms and plastered his hand to his cheek. Baylee was still laughing at his antics as she carried him out to the street.

The grocery store was only a couple of blocks away, so rather than waste money on the bus, they walked, hand in hand, enjoying the coolness of the growing evening. We'll have to hurry though, if we don't want to walk back in the dark.

“How was your day, baby?” Baylee asked her son.

“It was good. Did you have a good day too, Mommy?”

“I did, thank you,” she replied.

“Did you make any new friends?”

Typical of a child to ask such perceptive questions in total innocence. “Not today, honey. There was a gentleman who wanted to be my friend, but I told him no.”

“Why did you tell him no, Mommy?” Dylan asked, looking up at her with his big brown eyes.

“Because I don't want to waste any time I could be spending with you,” she replied honestly, if somewhat simplistically.

He released her hand and hugged her leg again but said nothing.

At the grocery store, Baylee hung a small basket on her arm. No need for a shopping cart. Dylan behaved like any other child, racing along the aisles and earning the glares of scowling, elderly ladies with plastic handkerchiefs tied over their hair.

“Mommy, can we get cookies?” Dylan asked, scooting away from an old woman who had tried to poke him with her cane and hurrying back to his mother's side.

“No, baby, I'm sorry. No cookies,” she replied.

“Come on. You always say that,” Dylan whined.

Baylee swallowed hard. There was no way to explain, so she didn't try. Instead, she picked out two big red apples and a small bag of baby carrots that had been marked down. What else? Fruits and veggies. A salad kit that had also been marked down joined the other produce. She was long past worrying about a few brown leaves. Protein. That was always tough. Her food allowance never quite stretched to the end of the month, and cheese was so expensive. Peanut butter she didn't trust. Too many chemicals. She settled for a can of tuna. I think there's still mayo in the fridge. Her crackers had been discovered and devoured, so she added a cheap loaf of bread. Mentally adding up her purchases, she realized she still had no dairy. Damn it, I had hoped to get four days of food out of that twenty. But it needed to be done. Milk was too hard to manage, so she picked out a carton of plain yogurt for herself and let Dylan select his own. The little tub of strawberry mango made him almost as happy as a cookie would have. Almost. Okay, only a dollar over. Not too bad. She walked to the checkout and let Dylan pile the groceries on the conveyor belt, a tricky proposition when she had to hold him and the basket to do it. Baylee scanned the display screen with careful eyes. No way can I be lackadaisical about the price. Counting her change, she called goodbye to the cashier and trudged slowly out into the dusk.