“I don’t,” Leo says nonchalantly, and I peek at him through my rearview mirror to see he’s gazing out of the window. For a three-and-a-half-year-old, he’s incredibly smart and tuned into his emotions. His tongue licks at his lollipop again, but his eyes are beginning to droop.
“You have one, she’s just not around at the moment.”
Panic begins to set in because I’m not sure if that was the wrong thing to say. What are you supposed to say to tell a kid when they inform you that one of their parents isn’t around? He’s too young and innocent to understand that his biological mother was too selfish to love him. That she became a mother, which is a responsibility for life, but then decided she wanted out, and left his father with the weight of being a struggling single dad.
“Will she come back?”
Tears prick my eyes at the question, and my teeth draw my bottom lip into my mouth. The car suddenly feels like it’s losing oxygen, and I open my window a little more, breathing in the warm summer Montana air. These are the types of conversations Evan is supposed to tackle. They need to be handled with care, and I suddenly feel as if I’m not qualified to touch this delicate situation.
“That’s probably something you need to ask your dad, Leo. He knows more about it than me.”
“Am I… a bad kid?”
What?
Has an invisible force just punched me in the gut? It sure feels like it. “Absolutely not, Leo. You are not a bad kid. Lots of people don’t have two parents, for many different reasons, so never think that it’s your fault, okay? Ever. You’re the best kid, and I love being your nanny.”
“I love you being my nanny,” Leo responds sleepily, smiling.
He thinks the reason his mother isn’t around is because he misbehaved? No child should ever be made to feel that way. Protectiveness swarms me. How dare someone make this little angel think of himself in such a way. I'm swear, I'm going to—
We round the corner to be met with a line of stationary cars, and I have to press my foot on the brakes, making my heart nearly launch out of my chest. The car behind me creeps up, stopping and adding to the line.
“What’s going on?” I mumble to myself, confused why we’re stopped on the small back-country road.
After a few minutes of waiting, I get out and see a large tree lying in the middle of the road, its bark bent and leaves scattered everywhere. It’s huge, and considering we drove this way only a few hours ago, it must have only just fallen.
A few men are working on it, using chainsaws to cut the tree into pieces so they can move it. However, due to the thickness of the trunk, it’s taking them a while even to dig the chainsaw into the bark.
“Sorry, darlin’,” one of the men says, wiping at his sweating forehead. “Fell down a little while ago. Must have been weakened by the storm we had. We’ll try to move it as quickly as possible, but just sit tight for now.”
“There’s no other way around?”
He gives a wave of his gloved hand. “Not that I know of. We’re working on it. You'll be on the move soon.”
How soon is soon, though? Sure, Evan’s place is only ten minutes from here, but if they can’t move the tree before it gets dark, I don’t know how I’ll cope. I haven’t even attempted to drive when the sun’s set since… what happened to Megan.
“Okay, Leo,” I say as I slip back into the car. “Little hitch in the road, but we’ll be back soon.” I try not to let my voice waver, and luckily, Leo doesn’t notice, offering me a piece of candy from the bag beside him. I take one, but immediately place the wrapped sugar in the cup holder beside me, where the rest of my emergency candy is.
My eyes are on the car clock, counting down the time until sunset.
Thirty minutes.
Twenty minutes.
Ten minutes.
Anxiety rushes through my veins because even if the men were able to move the tree now, it would still mean I’d be driving in the dark, and I feel a panic attack coming on from just the thought.
Leo’s eyes have been shut for almost fifteen minutes now, so it seems the sugar rush has now turned into a slump. I take the time to pluck the lollipop from his loose grasp so he doesn’t drop it, and slip out of the car to take a breather, resting up against the hood.
The tree is almost in five movable pieces, but the heat is slowing the guys down. I bounce impatiently until I can’t take it anymore, and my nose begins to sting.
With eyes locked on the disappearing sun, my heart thuds, and I pull my phone from my sundress pocket. I dial Evan’s number, and he picks up on the first ring.
“Flo? Is everything okay?”
“No.”
