The Fix (The Carolina Connections, #1)(8)

“What’s a commercial building? Will it sell toys from the TV?” asked Rocco as the oven dinged—time to put in the pizzas.

“Uncle Gavin will explain.” I turned back to the kitchen to make dinner for my guys. Baby steps, Laney, baby steps.



My phone rang an hour later. Gavin was busy holding a giggling Rocco upside-down in the living room and shaking him to get the pizza to reappear. I was adding dishes to the growing pile in the sink, telling myself I’d get to them later. The number on the caller ID was unfamiliar, but I pressed Accept.

“Hello?”

“Oh hi. Is this Laney Monroe?”

“Yes.”

“This is Mellie Jordan from Cornerstone Daycare. How are you?”

Rocco’s daycare teacher.

“Oh hi, Mellie! I’m good—how about you?” We exchanged pleasantries.

“I’m just fine, Laney. Listen, I’m sorry to bother you at home. I was hoping to catch you when you picked Rocco up this afternoon, but I think I just missed you. I wanted to touch base on a couple things—nothing’s wrong, so don’t worry,” she reassured me.

“Okay, what’s up?” I asked.

“Well, first of all, I wanted to tell you that we all love Rocco here. He is just such a sweet little guy.”

My chest wanted to swell at this, but my motherly instincts were sensing a “but sandwich” on the horizon—your kid is great, but he’s pantsing all the other kids on the playground and we’ll have to expel him, but did I tell you we really think he’s great?

“But,” Mellie continued.

Here it comes.

“I’m just the teensiest bit concerned about him, socially speaking,” Mellie said.

My hand that wasn’t holding the phone went to my cheek and the rubbing began.

“He seems to spend most of his time playing by himself, and when we try to encourage him to join in with some of the other kids he says he doesn’t want to,” she continued.

Rub.

“I wouldn’t mention it since he’s new to the school and I know kids can be shy, but we just haven’t seen any improvement yet—I catch him looking at what other kids are doing so I think he’s interested, but he won’t go that next step. Sometimes one of us teachers will play with him to get the ball rolling and he’ll talk to us just fine. But not with the other kids.”

Rub rub.

“I’m not trying to scare you or anything because this is probably something we’ll look back on later and laugh about, but at his age, he really should be engaging in interactive play with other kids instead of parallel play we see with the younger ones. I wanted to ask, does he have friends in the neighborhood or from his old school he interacts with regularly? Am I just bothering you for nothing?” She laughed lightly.

Rub rub rub rub—oh, Jesus Christ, somebody just bring me a loofah!

“Um, hmm. Well, you see, Mellie, we just moved to a new neighborhood as well as the new school and we really haven’t gotten a chance to meet too many people …” I trailed off.

“Oh, you poor thing—that is a lot of change all at once. Rocco probably just needs a few more weeks to get in the swing of things, then. Is he getting a chance to see any of his old friends?”

Crap. How did one explain this? Of course my five-year-old has friends! There’s his uncle who is great fun and is always offering to share his Playboy collection. Sure, his brain could probably be traded with an orangutan and nobody would notice, but who doesn’t like monkeys, right? And then there are Rocco’s grandparents! His grandma lets him help grade exams and tells him all sorts of interesting tidbits about late twentieth-century American history—what kid doesn’t love to chat about Vietnam?! Let’s not forget Grandpa either—he takes Rocco to the Farm and Fleet to talk to the three-fingered manager about riding mowers, because that guy is the one to ask about machines with sharp blades. And, sure, a couple of these besties just moved four hours away, but there’s always Skype and everyone knows that is interactive as hell—nothing parallel in sight!

Rub.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to go over well. Time to fess up.

“The truth is, Mellie, what you’re talking about has pretty much always been the case. He’s not really been into kids his own age. He’s an only child and has always seemed content to hang out with adults. I’ve tried not to worry about it before. I guess I just hoped it would resolve on its own.” How could I have missed this apparently huge red flag?

“I understand. And, again, I don’t want you to worry. But maybe we could try to help things along a little more. Why don’t you ask him if there’s a child in the class he would want to have a playdate with? Then you could arrange it at your house so Rocco would be more comfortable and see what happens from there,” she suggested.

“That’s a really good idea. I will definitely talk to him about it.” I switched hands so the other cheek could get in on the action.

“Okay, good.”

“And thank you for calling about this, Mellie. It’s reassuring to know that you guys are looking out for the kids so carefully.” I truly did appreciate it even if this particular phone call added one more turd on the shit sandwich that was my motherhood resumé.

“Of course. You have a great night, Laney, and we’ll see you and Rocco tomorrow!” she finished brightly, proving once again that people who work in daycare are born with a different set of genes than the rest of us.