Page 56 of Wildflower and Whiskey
“Hi, my love,” I breathed.
His head snapped up, recognizing my voice, then a slow smile spread his lips filled with warmth and love. One of his hands windmilled while he used the other to hold himself steady. His teacher took hold of both of his hands and helped him walk across the mat to me. I scooped him up, pressing his warm cheek to mine, breathing him in.
“He had a great day,” Ms. Patty said smiling. “He ate well, napped an hour, played a lot. He likes the musical toys.”
“Yes, he does at home too.” I kissed his temple, whispering so only he could hear, “Mama’s here.”
We went through the routine sign-out sheet. They returned his empty bottle and his sippy cup. I was given a baggie of art that was mostly orange smears labeledBraden pumpkins.
“Oh, one quick reminder?” I said at the door, trying to keep my voice even. “It’s just me who picks him up. No one else.” I’d told them during enrollment, told them again yesterday. Today I said it softer and tighter.
“Of course,” Ms. Patty said unfazed.
Back outside, the air had shifted from warm to that late-afternoon cool Val-Du-Lys gets when the wind comes down from the hills. I tucked Braden’s blanket around him, thinking about what to make for supper, about warmer clothes for winter because he was growing so fast, about how Phoenix promised to stand by us, protect us.
And then I saw it.
The door of my small car, slick with wet, dripping paint. Red. Loud. One word, so big it swallowed the whole panel.
SLUT.
For a second, I didn’t hear traffic or the daycare laughter behind me, or even Braden’s quiet babble. Everything went silent, except my heart punching at my ribs. The paint ran in fat tears down the metal, pooling along the crease of the doors. Fresh. Whoever had done it hadn’t been gone long.
Heat shot up my neck, shame and rage arriving in the same breath. Shame, because that word knows how to aim. Rage, because someone had chosen this at a daycare, of all places, to mark me. To humiliate me as a warning.
My knees wobbled. “It’s okay, baby,” I said, except my voice didn’t sound like mine. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Braden blinked up at me, thumb pushing at his mouth, reassured by nothing but the fact I was there.
This wasn’t random. Colette’s voice from lunch rang in my mind. She knew which daycare Braden attended; ice rolled down my spine. She’d come to gloat, to remind me she knew where he was. To bring up my mother like a weapon and now this was just plain cruel. I shouldn’t have been blamed for my mother’s mistakes. Only I made a bunch of my own mistakes too. With shaky hands I placed Braden into his car seat, buckled him with fingers that couldn’t stop trembling, then wiped my palms on my jeans and gripped the wheel hard enough for my fingers to ache. I didn’t think. I just drove. Street after tree-lined street, down past the edge of Maple Valley where the orchard rows began and across the paved drive to the garage with the loft above it. The place I’d started to allow myself to think of as home.
Phoenix’s truck was already there, tailgate down, neat stacks of boxes and a toolbox lined up like soldiers. He was at the foot of the stairs, sleeves shoved to his elbows, hair mussed from the wind. He took one look at me climbing out of the car and went very, very still.
“What happened?” His voice was low and panicked.
“At daycare. Someone…” The word stuck like glass in my throat. I couldn’t bring it up again, couldn’t give it more space in the air. He was beside me in three strides, lifting Braden from the car seat with surprising gentleness for such big hands, then tugging me into his chest with his free arm. The solid line of him, the way he tucked my head under his jaw and braced us both, as if he could take every ounce of shaking from my body and hold it himself.
“You’re trembling,” he said.
“I. . .I,” I couldn’t connect thoughts to words. “It’s so… loud. Everyone could see. At a daycare.” The last word fractured.
“I know.” He pressed his mouth to my hair. “You’re home now.” The wordhomeslid under my ribs and loosenedsomething. Braden made a little hiccupping sound between us, and Phoenix rubbed his back in slow circles. “Let’s get inside.”
He walked us up the stairs, one arm full of my son, the other around me, and I let myself lean. Inside the loft the world narrowed to ordinary objects that suddenly meant everything: the futon, the neat line of Braden’s stacking cups, the crib Phoenix had built in an evening. Phoenix set my son on his play mat with his toy fox, then turned back to me with that dark stormy focus that always finds me where I am.
“We’re calling my dad,” he said simply, already reaching for his phone. “Now.”
“Phoenix, I. . .”
“No,” he asserted. “We do this properly. Riley and Colette Jansen are not going to bully you.”
He put the phone on speaker, and when Pierre’s deep voice answered, Phoenix’s tone didn’t waver. “Dad, It’s Phoenix. I’m with Elyna at the loft. Someone vandalized her car at the daycare. Red paint. A slur.”
Silence.
Then Pierre’s voice flattened into cold steel. “Is she safe? Is Braden with you?”
“Yes,” Phoenix assured, his tone steady and unwavering while I felt completely choked up. “I’m installing cameras and extra locks tonight.” His hand brushed my arm, an anchor. “We’ll leave the car as is. You’ll want photos.”
