Page 9 of Broken SEAL'S Secret Baby
Me:That’s an extra 45 minutes. I have Small Business Management now.
Grace:Tell me again, why are you taking that?
Me:Because someday I might want to own a daycare instead of just working at one.
My phone pings with another message. This one is from Gabrielle, one of our classmates in kiddy psyche.
Gabrielle:Do you understand question six in the chapter discussion?
Gabrielle is an au pair from France, living in New York, and taking classes online at KU. She spoke and read English well, but sometimes the teacher’s sentence construction made it hard for her to understand. On top of that, Gabrielle is my role model for the life-style I didn’t want. As an au pair, her time is almost never her own.
Me:It’s a comparison between Piaget, Montessori and Fraud. Just make a Venn diagram and fill in the blanks.
Gabrielle:How can I do that? No. NVM. I see it.
Grace:Are you still there?
Me:I’m here.
Grace:Is James being an ass?
Me:Kind of. But this whole dorm closing thing was unexpected.
Grace:Tell me about it! My sisters are home, too.
Me:Oh, wow. Hey, I gotta get some work done. Catch you later?
Grace:Ok. Laters.
I focus on the questions. I had forgotten how slow the farm’s vintage satellite connection could be. With the miserable, wet weather and the cloud cover overhead, theancient dish takes nearly five minutes between page downloads.
I suppose I could count myself lucky that dial up wasn’t an option. The farm is on one of the last existing party-line telephone services. It cuts getting DSL right out.
As I wait between downloads, I amuse myself by doing a jigsaw puzzle on my reading tablet. It is an old-style, buy-it-once game that worked off-line. Unfortunately, it isn’t much of a challenge and does very little to engage my thoughts.
Why had Cece tried to stand on one leg when her father had called her his “steadfast little soldier”? And why had Charles Emory insisted the child stand on the damp ground, wearing a dress and a pair of dress slippers?
Charles is a handsome man. Tall and lean, with finely chiseled features. He was immaculately dressed. Although, come to think of it, he had also worn dress shoes rather than boots or overshoes.
Had he simply not given any thought to the blustery outdoor conditions? Or was he practicing some kind of Spartan training for himself and his daughter?
I contrasted Charles with my high school crush, Gregory Jones. Greg has three younger sisters he walked to school each day until he got his driver’s license, and then he had provided rides for them in his rattle trap old Chevelle. Sometimes, I got to ride with them. Greg would never have left any of his sisters standing in a rain puddle, no matter what the cause.
I shake my head to loosen my thoughts and head back into my next batch of questions. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to finish this semester. By then, surely this crazy pandemic thing would be over, I would sign up for my practicum, then get a job.
There isn’t any point in daydreaming about Greg. He’s married now, and his wife is pregnant with their first.
So much for foolish dreams. I would focus on my goal ofhaving my own business. I’d been praised for my work at Bit o’ Heaven Preschool and Daycare where I’d earned my certification and had held an almost full-time job until it had closed.
The Internet access indicator at the bottom of my laptop screen blips and changes from the wi-fi symbol to the round off-line symbol.
Thunder booms outside. I quickly unplug my laptop and power it completely off. With the heavy cloud cover, there would be no satellite signal, so there was no point in risking ruining my laptop with a power surge.
Rain drums on the tool shed’s metal roof. Dashing out in that, I would be soaked in minutes, and my laptop would be ruined.
I turn the ancient desk chair so I can see out, pull over a nail keg to use as a footstool, and settle down to wait out the storm. The yard light illuminates the driving rain. Yeah, that’s right, Mother Nature, rain on my world, just like everything else.
This is going to be a long semester.
