4. Isaac

Chapter four

Isaac

Early October

A t my wits end, with applesauce on my formally clean white shirt, I was ready to pull my hair out. If I did, I’d be competing with a certain needy little girl whose hair was all over the place from a prolonged tantrum.

Dezi had been kicked out of my building’s day care for the second time in a week. For biting.

“Will you eat some of the frozen peaches for Daddy?” I implored, but Dezi only cracked one eye and ramped up her screeching.

Dezi might be teething again, but according to the daycare director, Dezi needed socializing. She told me this like I was an idiot while I dragged my normally sweet little girl kicking and screaming.

The woman did not appreciate me pointing out how sending my daughter home meant she wasn’t getting socialized. Dezi only went a couple days a week so I could have meetings, but now we would be looking for a new place.

“Banana?” I asked, pulling one out of the fruit bowl and catching Dezi’s attention. She loved a certain series of movies with little yellow men, so I repeated my question in imitation of their silly voice, “Banana?”

“‘Nana?” Dezi confirmed, her eyes half-swollen from crying. She made grabby hands, but I needed to cut it up. Peeling the fruit, she started yelling and pounding her fists. “‘Nana!”

“I know, sweetheart. But I need to cut it so you don’t choke.” Because that had been a fun lesson to learn when she was with me for a few weeks and I didn’t cut her food small enough. I never wanted to see her lips turn blue like that again.

They really should require a crash-course in parenting to all adults, but blogs and videos helped. I’d also joined a few online parenting groups, but they seemed to be full stay-at-home moms and weren’t so welcoming to a single dad.

“Almost ready,” I tried soothing words while I cut the fruit. Dezi did not care for my safety measures and only yelled louder. I was going to get a complaint again, I could tell. “Banana time!”

Dezi took in the fruit I’d chopped into bite-sized pieces and started crying in a new way. Instead of being frustrated, she sounded sad. “‘Nana,” came out plaintively, as if I’d just chopped up her best friend. She squashed the banana bits into mush and started throwing them.

Some days it felt like I couldn’t do anything right.

Giving up on the snack, I decided a bath and nap was in order. I let her wail while I lifted her, grabbed a sippy cup, and made my way to the en suite bath off of my room. Dezi was finally distracted by bubbles, and I got her to drink some Pedialyte so she wasn’t dehydrated.

When I finally got Dezi asleep in her room, all I could do was collapse on the couch. It wasn’t only three in the afternoon, and I knew Dezi would have a messed up sleep schedule, but I needed the break.

My meeting had ended abruptly, and I was meant to pick it up in two days, but I had a bigger problem. It was October, and preschools were full.

There was one person I could call…

Picking up my phone from the coffee table, I ignored the work emails and found the contact I’d saved in case I lost his card. I wasn’t sure why I felt compelled to make sure I could call Leo after our paths crossed a second time, but something told me I’d want to talk to him again.

After checking I was calling his cell and not the main school line, the dial tone rang twice before he answered. “Hello?”

“Hi, this is Isaac. Isaac Quintel,” I clarified before realizing I didn’t know who answered the phone. “Is this Leo Ibarra?”

“Hi! It is,” Leo’s enthusiastic voice replied, and I could imagine him smiling. I may have looked him up on the school’s website. To confirm his story, only. Of course. “You’re Dezi’s dad.”

Nodding against the back of the couch, I remembered he couldn’t see me and sat up. “I am. And she’s why I called, actually.”

“She’s not teething again, is she? Those molars can be so difficult,” Leo chuckled, but it felt like commiseration and not mocking.

“Maybe,” I told him, standing to get myself something to eat. “The issue, besides her irritability and general discomfort, is that she got kicked out of daycare for biting.”

“Oh, dear. Poor baby,” Leo cooed, and he didn’t have an ounce of judgment in his tone. I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders. He got how something as simple as a toddler biting could cause such a big problem. “Was this her first offense?”

“Second time biting,” I admitted. Rubbing a hand over my face before deciding on a banana, I put Leo on speaker. “Though if you count her inability to share toys, and the daycare lady did, it’s three strikes and she’s out.”

“Not sure if that’s a baseball or prison reference,” Leo huffed out a laugh I could almost feel through the phone and I found myself laughing along with him.

Sitting back on the couch, I replied, “Definitely prison, and I’m the warden in charge of her.”

“Dezi getting a head start on the Terrible Twos?” Leo asked, and I wondered if he was still at work or had already gone home. There were no sounds of children in the background, so I assumed the latter.

“If she is, does that mean it will end sooner?” I mused before taking a bite.

“Sadly, three is a whole other ballgame,” Leo told me, making me groan. “But do you need a new place for Dezi to go?”

“I do, actually. Know anywhere?” I added, desperate for him to give me a list. “I’m at three-oh-one Mission, if that helps narrow it down?”

“The Millennium building? Fancy,” Leo whistled. “My school is only a couple blocks away from there.”

“That would be convenient, but I’m sure the charter is full. I saw they have wait lists and lotteries to get in,” I added before realizing how much I was revealing.

“We do,” Leo admitted. “But how many days do you need?”

“Mondays are my most needed day, some Fridays and Wednesdays, too,” I told Leo my current schedule, a kernel of hope building. I put my half-eaten banana down and picked up my phone to add, “But I work from home, so I’m flexible.”

“While we’re at capacity for full-time care… We just had a little boy move away, and his part-time spot was going to be impossible to fill,” Leo mused out loud. “If you fill out the application online, I can put in a good word for you, though.”

“You’d do that for me?” I asked before my brain remembered not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “I mean, thank you.”

“No problem,” Leo’s smile was evident again. “Let me know when you finish the forms?”

“I can do them tonight,” I assured him. “I’ll text you.”

“Any time. Hope to see you and Dezi at school,” Leo said by way of ending the call.

We said our goodbyes and I texted Leo straight away when I was done with the layers of applications for his school. He sent a thumbs up emoji followed by an article on curbing biting in toddlers.

Leo was helping me with my problems, and the feeling of shared camaraderie had the anxiety of Dezi’s meltdown washing away. I’d always been the patient one, the one with knowledge and authority. But the young nanny had something unique about him.

Finishing off my banana while I read the article he sent, I couldn’t help hoping Dezi got into Leo’s school. Not so I could see him again, but so I had a reason to get his advice. And for Dezi. She needed socialization.

My subconscious said I could use social interaction as well, but I could ignore that thought. Dezi was my priority. I didn’t have time for anything else.