Stevie’s preschool let out at 2:00 p.m., so I had to switch to the early shift at the cinema. We got up early together, ate blueberry toaster waffles together, and then waited at the end of the driveway for the bus together.

It was a predictable schedule, with me manning the popcorn machine and scrubbing toilets while the matinees played and then rushing out at 1:45 p.m. to my car. I’d toss the half-eaten box of sour gummy worms onto my dashboard, stick the plastic cup of root beer into the cupholder on the door, and leap into my car thinking about how there better not be a train or ducklings in the road because Stevie hated when I was late. He wouldn’t cry or complain, he was just quiet. The way he was quiet when I had to correct people and tell them that I was not his mom.

Stevie was my sister’s kid. Sadie and Stevie. They looked just like each other. Sadie couldn’t pick him up from preschool, though. She was an obstetrician, loved her job, maybe a little bit more than she loved Stevie. She always told me never to have kids.

Don’t have kids, Harley, she would say, they suck the life out of you. Don’t have kids, you’ll never have fun anymore.

I told her I wouldn’t, but I wasn’t sure. I guessed I wouldn’t have kids until I had met someone anyway, but I wasn’t really good at that. I used to have a thing for the boy working at the record store down the road from the preschool, and sometimes after Sadie got home and when I didn’t pick up extra shifts at the cinema, I would go there to look around, maybe flirt, and hope he would ask me out. He never asked me out though. 

After my shift at the cinema, I drove to the preschool. I sang to whatever was on the radio and cracked the windows open even if it was cold. When I got to the preschool, I’d find Stevie waiting. He’d have coloring sheets and paper plate animals, sometimes for me, sometimes for Sadie, or sometimes for someone else, like his dad. There didn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to it. He would just hold out the craft with a grimy little hand and declare what it was and who it was meant for. I always said it was great even if it wasn’t and shepherded him to my car with my hand on top of his downy hair.

Stevie always ate the rest of my gummy worms on the way home. He would be disappointed if I got something else like popcorn or chocolate, so I stuck to gummy worms.

When we got home, Stevie had his quiet time. Sometimes he slept, but sometimes he played with his toys and tried to talk with me. When he slept, I usually took a nap myself, and sometimes I slept on the rocking chair with the TV playing soap operas or talk shows.

When Stevie’s quiet time was over, sometimes I took him to the park, sometimes I played red light green light with him in the driveway, or sometimes we played hide and seek in the house. We always watched cartoons together, and then I made us macaroni and cheese or chicken nuggets with apple slices. Stevie always drank chocolate milk, and I always drank sugar free iced tea.

            That was when Sadie came home, and I was free to do whatever I wanted. Sometimes I just hung around and aimlessly straightened my hair or painted my nails to look good for no one in particular, and sometimes I did go out. Sometimes I hung out with friends I didn’t actually like all that much where I never talked about Stevie, but I always thought about him. I thought about that time I had to pick him up from preschool early because he was sick, and we lay on his bed together looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.

            It was right when I thought he had fallen asleep that he had said, “Harley?”

            “Hm?” I had said back.

            “I love you.”

            I had paused before turning my head to face him, looking at him for a moment, then saying, “I love you too, Stevie.”