One little boy was scribbling bright green crayon on the cream-painted wall like it was his life’s masterpiece. Another girl sat stubbornly chewing on a purple crayon, her cheeks puffed out like a squirrel. And over in the corner—oh no, please no—David had his hand stuffed down the back of his diaper. The guilty look when their eyes met told her exactly what he’d found.
“David,” she said firmly, “get your hands out of there.”
Sure enough, he obeyed… and sure enough, she flinched.
Poop. On. His. Fingers.
Fantastic.
He took one look at her horrified face, looked at his hand, and started crying pitifully. Now she had two criers, a wall she would need to clean, a parent she would need to explain about the purple poo that was sure to follow from eating a crayon like it was a candy bar, and now –even more poo. Just how she wanted to finish out her work week – with fecal matter, tears, and snot.
A perfect trifecta from hell.
“Why do you hate me so?” she whispered at the ceiling, juggling a sobbing baby and praying the Lysol wipes hadn’t mysteriously vanished again.
Her phone buzzed again on the counter.
Gina – the Impatient One.
Nettie wanted to ignore it, but she knew Gina. If she didn’t respond, her best friend would march into the daycare and drag her out, sobbing teething baby and all.
“I cannot do this, Gina,” Nettie hissed under her breath. With a long sigh, she shifted gears into damage control. “David, let’s go wash your hands. Eugene—no, no, we color on paper, sweetie,not the wall. Madeline! Crayons don’t go in mouths. Out. Out. Right now.”
It was like trying to plug holes in a sinking ship with bubblegum and wads of tissue paper.
And yet, as frazzled as she was, Nettie couldn’t deny it—she loved kids. Loved their sticky fingers and messy giggles and the way their little eyes lit up over the simplest things. She just wasn’t meant to have her own. She knew that. Too much baggage. Too many cracks in her foundation. Not to mention, she wasn’t exactly anyone’s dream girl.
Too short.
Too round in the hips.
Too… old-fashioned.
While the world moved on with fast apps and faster relationships, Nettie still dreamed of being wooed. She wanted flowers… just because. Handwritten notes. A man who opened the door not because shecouldn’t, but because hewantedto. But the world didn’t have men like that anymore.
The last date she’d been on—what, two years ago now?—had been a disaster. The guy had proudly declared himself the champion of equality by letting her pay half the bill and striding through doors without a second glance.
The worst part?
She hadn’t even balked, hadn’t spoken up, hadn’t demanded better. She’d smiled politely, gone home, and cried into her pillow like some tragic heroine in an old black-and-white film – complete with a back of the hand resting on her forehead dramatically and everything.
Love and children were not in her future - and now here she was, wiping poop off a toddler’s fingers while her best friend flaunted a shiny new car and a picture-perfect life - just outside the window.
Life had a cruel sense of humor.
Still, when she thought of her beloved Gigi—her grandmother, her anchor, her everything—her throat tightened. Gigi had loved her fiercely, unconditionally and had believed in her even when Nettie didn’t believe in herself.
Losing her last year had cracked something inside Nettie wide open. And discovering afterward that Gigi had confessed to her friends, she worried Nettie would “end up alone”… well, that wound hadn’t healed yet.
Not even close.
She swallowed hard, fighting back the sting in her eyes as she carried Samson toward the sink with David trailing behind, hand extended for cleaning.
“Don’t touch anything,” she ordered, leaning carefully only to be rewarded with a wet shoulder that immediately clung to her, soaked with moisture through her T-shirt.I don’t want to even look to see if that is slobber or snot right now. “David – hand – now.”
“Poohey?”
“Yes – we don’t play with the poohey,” she chided in frustration, which only made David cry harder as he realized that the foul mess was something he wasn’t supposed to touch – and it was stuck to his fingers. “Don’t shake them. Just put them under the water and let’s get some soap.”
