This is what happens when you rely on strangers.No matter how dependable they seem, people can be unpredictable. One slip, one missed pick-up, and suddenly, your five-year-old is the last kid waiting at school with a teacher, trying to stay calm.Fuck.
As much as I’d love to lean on family, I can’t. Not really. My parents are creeping toward their seventies. They’d take him in a heartbeat, but they’re not built for full-time care anymore. My sister, Sandra, is already juggling two kids and a career two hours south. Everyone else I trust is either too far away or already stretched so thin, they don’t have anything left to give.
This is on me.
Across the office, Bradley’s watching me carefully, with furrowed brows. “Daniels?”
“It’s Teddy,” I say tightly. “He’s still at school. Tara never showed.”
Bradley doesn’t question it. “Go.”
I nod, already moving, gut twisting the whole way out the door, praying my son isn’t sitting there, wondering if I forgot about him. By the time I hit the ute, my chest is tight. The drive to Wattle Creek Primary isn’t long, but every red light feels like a personal attack. My hands drum against the steering wheel, restless. I’ve seen things in this job most people wouldn’t be able to stomach—accidents, fights, calls that end the worst way possible—but nothing knots me up like imagining Teddy sitting on a bench, waiting. Wondering why Tara didn’t come. Or me.
I grip the wheel tighter, reaching for my phone, thumb already hovering over Tara’s name. It rings a few times, then kicks straight to voicemail. I curse under my breath, jaw clenching.
I try again. Same thing. No answer, no explanation, just silence where there should’ve been a message. My fingers tighten around the phone before I toss it onto the seat beside me and press my foot harder than necessary on the pedal. Whatever the hell Tara’s excuse is, it can wait. Right now, the only thing that matters is getting to my kid.
When I finally pull up outside the school, it’s almost four.
I jog across the front of the building, boots pounding, sweat prickling under my uniform shirt. And there he is.My boy.Sitting on the wooden bench by the front office. Mrs. Carter sits beside him, but his eyes are glued to the ground. When I call his name, his head jerks up. His gaze skims past me first, then lands on my chest, not my eyes. He slides off the bench, clutching the straps of his backpack. I crouch and pull him in, tucking him against me. He lets me, stiffens for a second, then relaxes when I press my hand to the back of his head.
“Hey, champ.” I manage through a dry throat. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”
“Where is… Tara?” he replies softly.
My chest cracks. “Tara couldn’t make it. So I’m here, buddy.”
He nods once, and Mrs. Carter stands. “He waited very patiently. We played I Spy for a while.”
“I didn’t win,” Teddy murmurs quietly.
“You did fine,” she assures him, and smiles at me. “I thought it best to call you directly.”
“Thank you,” I say, meaning it. “I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
She doesn’t press. Just nods and heads back inside. It took me a long time to figure out Teddy wasn’t just “quiet” or “shy”. At the age of three, he was lining up all his toy cars and blocks in perfect rows on the lounge floor and lost it, and I mean a full meltdown, if anyone nudged one out of place. He hated loud supermarkets, or any loud noise for that matter, clung to routines like lifelines, and sometimes, he’d go days barely saying a word to anyone but me. Even then, it was minimal.
At first, I thought it was the fallout from her leaving. His mother. A woman I’d been seeing casually. A few nights, a few blurred weeks, nothing solid. She disappeared for years, only to show up again with a baby on her hip and no intention of raising him. Teddy was sixteen months old when she left him on my doorstep like he was nothing. I was thirty-two, deep in my career, running on adrenaline and shift work, with no fucking idea what I was supposed to do with a toddler who barely knew me. For a long time, I blamed myself. For the meltdowns. The silence. The way he pulled inward. I thought I was doing something wrong. That every stumble, every hard day, traced back to me not being enough.
But the doctors saw it clearly.Autism Spectrum Disorder.Suddenly, it wasn’t blame anymore, it was understanding. At least that’s what I continue to tell myself. It hasn’t been easy. Figuring out what works, what doesn’t. Reshaping my entire world around his needs. But it’s not just him. It’s me too. Because when a routine breaks, when someone forgets pick-up,or his day goes off-track, I’m the one who has to hold it together. For him. For us. Days like today remind me how easily it can all unravel. Teddy leans back in my arms, eyes fixed on my badge.
“Can we… have nuggets?”
Relief breaks through the tension in my chest. “Yeah. Nuggets it is.”
“Twenty,” he says.
I choke out a laugh. “Twenty might be pushing it. How about… five?”
He hums again. “Ten.”
“Deal,” is all I can say, even though I know he won’t eat them all.
Because what the hell else am I supposed to say? No? That I don’t know if I can trust anyone to care for him the way he needs? That I’m barely keeping up myself? That every time he looks up at me with that serious little face, when it hits me how much he depends on me, it scares the shit out of me?
I carry him to the car, his fingers now curled around the Matchbox Holden like it’s the only thing grounding him. Once he’s strapped in, he lines it up on the edge of his booster seat, tapping it back and forth. Back, forth. Back, forth. He mumbles something about it being faster than the rest. As I drive, he narrates the world around him in bursts—how Liam’s car at show-and-tell had a missing wheel, how tomorrow, he’s going to build a Lego tower taller than the fridge, how this car is a Holden and not a Ford.
I answer back where I can. “Good thing you know your cars, mate.”
