Page 36 of Despite It All
My phone digs and my heart jumps, scrambling for my phone. I pull it out so hard that I accidentally send it flying and it hits the floor with a nice thud.
“Damn it,” I mumble.
I reach down to grab it, but Matt beats me to it. “Calm down, killer. What’d your phone ever do to you?”
I force a nervous laugh. I’m more focused on finding out if that ding was a text for help. Matt holds out my phone. “You doing alright, Wyla? You seem a little tense today.”
I take my phone, not caring to inspect any potential damage. The ding was from Jett but it was just a picture of Stevie sitting at the kitchen table with her paint t-shirt on smiling ear to ear with a message.
Jett
Turns out I have a number and Stevie knows it. All is great here, Wy. See you soon.
I physically feel some weight lifting off my shoulders as they drop down from being pinned up.
“Wyla?” Matt asks, drawing my attention back to him.
“Oh right, sorry. Jett had to pick up Stevie from my mom today. I guess I’m a little bummed that I couldn’t be the one to go get her. They seem to be having a lot of fun though.” I lock my phone and put it back in my pocket.
“I’m sure Dr. Daines will understand, Wyla. Why don’t you go and get Stevie? Hell, bring her here. We’ve got coloring books for kids in the lobby and she could take some to the break room. She’s done it before.”
“Yeah, for like an hour. It’s okay, really. Jett seems to have it under control, plus it will be good for them to get some quality time together.” Even if it is without me. Not that I want quality time with Jett, per se… I want quality time with my daughter.
Matt huffs. “Are you sure it’s such a good idea for Stevie to have so much time with this guy? I mean, how well do you really know him, Wyla? And you’re just going to let him be alone with Stevie?”
Was that a bad mom jab? It felt like a bad mom jab. “Matt, this is not your place. I think I am perfectly capable of deciding who my daughter can be around.”
I walk away feeling confident in my response at first, but then that voice takes over, whispering all the bad mom jabs it can think of.
They’re fine. She’s fine.
I keep myself busy for the next few hours and manage to ignore that asshole in my head—at least the time being. By the time five o’clock hits, other techs start to leave while I finish up. I grab a leash and start taking the kenneled dogs out one at a time. This part feels like muscle memory at this point. I check my phone it’s a little after five and no emergency calls from Jett. I sigh, half an hour at best and I’ll be home.
Once all the boarded pets are taken care of, I go back into the treatment area to take care of our hospitalized patients.
“Hey,” Matt says as I walk in. He has all of the treatment sheets pulled out and medicine sorted.
“Hey, what are you still doing here? We don’t have that many tonight. I can handle it.” Usually I welcome his help, but he irritated me today.
“Thought I’d lend a hand.” He shrugs.
“Alright, thanks.” I guess him helping won’t hurt, but if he starts with the mom guilt again, I may throw one of the cat litter boxes at him.
“I’m sorry about earlier. I overstepped,” Matt says with what I feel like isn’t a lot of remorse in his tone.
I know arguing about this is silly and a waste of time, so even though I want to tell him it’s not okay, I opt for the non-confrontational option,this time. “It’s fine, help me finish this up and it’ll be water under the bridge.”
He gives me a quick nod and wisely chooses to stay quiet while we work. After about fifteen minutes we give the last pup his medicine and we’re clocking out.
“Thank you for helping, I appreciate it,” I say as we walk out to our cars.
“You’re welcome,” Matt responds quietly. “Have a good weekend, Wyla.”
“Yeah, you too,” I mumble back, feeling weird about this whole day.
Work was insanely busy and we were already short a tech which was why I couldn’t leave to go get Stevie. Then Matt making that comment put me in a bad mood. I’ma good mother, I might not be perfect but I try pretty damn hard to be.
I pull in my driveway and shut off the engine. I take a deep breath and sit in my car for a minute. I need a mommy minute. Those usually happen in the bathroom with a chocolate bar when I’ve heard the word “mommy” for the millionth time, but the car will do for now.
