Page 7 of Hiding Rose
I leaned back in my special desk chair I use at the table and rubbed my belly. The icepack was still attached to my hip, and the medication was starting to make me fade. The edges of the room were getting fuzzy and I couldn’t stop yawning.
I put my hand over my mouth until the yawn ended. “Excuse me,” I apologized. “It’s not you, it’s me,” I assured him.
He chuckled and leaned over, kissing my cheek. He stood before I had a second to react, and grabbed the dishes off the table to stack on the tray. “Sure, the old ‘it’s not you it’s me’ line. I can take a hint.”
He was joking, but I put my hand on his arm and he paused in his work. “I had a great time tonight, but I’m exhausted. I’m not trying to be rude.”
He knelt in front of me and swiveled the chair until I faced him. “I know you’re not being rude, Rose. If anything, I’ve overstayed my welcome, but I’m worried about you. I wanted to be sure you had a good meal before I left you for the evening. Let me help you to bed and then I’ll take my leave. Can you stand up?”
I motioned at the crutches laying on the chair behind me. “I can with those.”
He stood, but instead of getting the crutches he picked me up again and swung me into his arms. I clutched his shirt and held on tight around his neck. “This is getting to be a habit,” I said breathlessly.
He took his time carrying me to the bed then laid me down slowly, as if he was savoring every minute of me in his arms. He leaned down and braced his hands on each side of my face. “You’re a habit I could get addicted to quickly, Rose,” he whispered.
I hadn’t let go of his shirt, but the medication made me too tired to do much about his obvious interest in me. “We never talked about the daycare kitchen,” I mumbled, my words running together as my eyes started to close.
His face loomed in my vision. “We can talk about it in a few days when your leg is feeling better, and you’ve had some sleep. Rest now, pretty lady,” he ordered, laying his lips on mine in a kiss I didn’t consent to, but didn’t stop.
The daycare was in the basement of the hotel, housed in a small, converted conference room. Since we had to squeak out every square inch of space available, we bought tables with built in highchairs. When the kids weren’t eating, we could use the same tables for other play and keep the kids in one place. They worked out great, at least for the younger kids, and saved space we didn’t have. When we opened the center, our intention was to make it a trial run, to see if the service would be taken advantage of by the employees, and to test the waters as a service to offer guests. Since we have remained small, we don’t need a full-time director. Instead, I’m the acting director since I work full-time in the center. Gideon and I meet several times a week to discuss how things are going, what we could improve on, and the logistics of expanding the center. In order to expand, we’d have to move it out of the basement. I saw three benefits to a move, one of them being having a functioning kitchen. It wasn’t always easy to distract the kids when they were hungry, but the food didn’t get to us from the main kitchen in a timely manner. The other benefit would be windows. There were no windows in the basement or any way to take the kids outside to play. The third benefit to moving would be having bathrooms inside the center. Right now, the bathrooms are directly across the hall, which isn’t a big deal, unless you’re working alone.
Thankfully, today I wasn’t alone. Kate had come in at seven as promised and we’d been running after the toddlers and rocking babies all day. When Winifred isn’t here we have one less kid, so it helps, but we still have five, the youngest being the marketing director’s son and daughter, then Lei’s special needs son, Bim, who is two and a half, and Kate’s little girl Hope. We have several more on staff who are waiting to put their kids in the center, which meant I would have to have a sit-down meeting with Gideon in the next few days about the proposed expansion.
I helped Bim stack blocks into a tower, something he struggled with because of his lack of stimulation as a young baby. He has blossomed since Lei and Niko adopted him a year ago, but with two club feet and what they now realize are clubbed fingers, he struggles with small, intricate tasks. He added a block to the tower and when it didn’t topple over, he clapped enthusiastically. “Yay!” he yelled, his face glowing.
“Yay for Bim,” Kate called from where she sat reading to Hope while the other’s napped. I lifted Bim from the highchair and sat him on the floor next to Hope.
“I better get ready for snack time,” I said, rubbing Hope’s head as I walked past.
In a few minutes Kate joined me as I cut up apples and cheese cubes. “How’s the leg?” she asked as she lined up juice boxes on the small counter.
“Better. Thanks for coming today. I should have backed out of dinner last night, but I didn’t realize how bad it was until I sat in those chairs at Kupid’s Table. Who knew they were torture devices?”
Kate laughed and put her hand on her hip. “I’ll have you know those chairs cost big bucks and everyone thinks they’re luxurious.”
I grinned. “Big bucks doesn’t necessarily mean something is comfortable, but the others are probably right. The seats are long and my legs are short. They don’t always bother me, only when my leg is sore.”
“Or, say if you weren’t sitting in them at nine at night with a date?” she asked slyly.
I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t a date, Kate. It was a working dinner. At least it started out to be.”
She paused in her work. “How did it end up?”
I waved my hands for a moment. “I meant it was still a working dinner, but we didn’t get much work done. We ate dinner and he left. Forget it.”
Kate rubbed my back for a few moments while I stared at the cutting board full of cheese and held back tears. “You’re struggling again, aren’t you? Are you sleeping?”
I bit my lip. “Friday marks the day my life should have changed for the better. Instead, it changed for the worse.” I sucked up a breath. “Well, except for coming here and being with everyone. I’m sorry,” I apologized, forcing those thoughts back into the recesses of my mind.
She shook her head and kept an eye on the babies for a moment. “Don’t apologize, Rosie. I know exactly what you meant and what you didn’t mean. Whatever I can do for you, I will. Gideon and I are concerned about this job being too stressful—”
I grasped her arm frantically. “No, I’m okay. Don’t take the job away from me, please. I need it. I have to be here.”
She pulled me into a hug, my chin over her shoulder. “No, we aren’t taking it away from you. We’re worried about your leg. It would make us feel better if you saw the doctor again. Let him check it out. It’s been a few months and maybe he’ll have some new treatment options.”
I stepped out of her arms and finished with the cheese, carrying it to the table. “I can’t afford the doctor again,” I said, holding up my hand, “and Gideon can’t keep paying for it. He can’t.”
The babies started clamoring for food, and diaper changes, and we drifted off to take care of our charges. While I heated bottles and sang songs, I forced myself not to think about Friday, and the loss of the one thing I wanted most in this world.
