Band-Aids

Jenny did pretty well with handling two kids on her own. She could get them to laugh and be happy but also she taught them valuable lessons and was protective of them. Her kids were funny, friendly and smart. The one thing Jenny wished she could change sometimes though was their aptitude for being overly social and loud. Even for toddlers.

After the family of three was finished with the X-rays, they exited the exam rooms and Carrigan led Jenny, who was carrying Daniel, out the waiting room with Carrigan talking excitedly the entire way.

“Now we can go sledding! Just like you said! Right?” The little girl started hopping from tile to tile as they walked down the white hallways, repeatedly cutting off Jenny because she was keeping to only a certain color tile on the patterned floor.

Jenny struggled with the bags and Daniel in her hands but smiled nonetheless. “Yes but we get to have lunch first. And then we can go to the sliding hill.” Jenny held the door that led to the dentist’s office waiting room area and walked over to the tiny coat rack where the three of them hung their winter coats.

“OOoo! OOoo!”

“Carrigan, stop yelling. You need to use you inside voice,” Jenny reminded the girl as she struggled to get the four-year old to cooperate and slip her arms through the sleeves of her winter jacket. Carrigan was too occupied with something much more interesting outside and wasn’t being much of a help. Instead, the little girl made it more difficult on Jenny as she squirmed to look out the window.

Once Jenny got Carrigan bundled up with her coat, hat and mittens, she turned to Daniel who was waiting patiently beside her for his own coat. It only took a second to put the tiny coat on Daniel, but that’s all Carrigan needed to dash away from Jenny and towards the door.

The front door was heavy and a struggle to push open due to its weight, but Carrigan persisted and managed to get it open to run out to the blurry body that was retreating across the parking lot in to the grey winter sky.

“Carrigan?” Jenny questioned alarmed, looking around the tiny room for her. Muttering a curse under her breath, she swept up Daniel and all the bags and dashed to the exit when she saw her little girl just disappearing in to the outside. “Carrigan!” she yelled again, not receiving the attention from the person she wanted, but from everyone else in the dentist’s office. The girl quickly mumbled a “thank you” and “goodbye” as she tore through the door out in to the eerie winter air.

“…and where’s your mom?” Alex was bent down in front of Carrigan by the side of the building. Jenny saw Carrigan shrug at his question as she burst out the dentist doors. The wind was blowing in Alex’s face, whipping his hair around and nipping at his nose. He shivered in to his coat and looked around for any sign of Jenny. As soon as he looked up, he saw a body run out of the doors and glance around hurriedly, finally eyes landing on them and she walked over swiftly.

“Carrigan. You can’t run out like that; I didn’t know where you went. You have to make sure to tell me,” the older girl lightly scolded, more as a lesson. “I’m so sorry,” Jenny said more tiredly towards Alex. He shrugged casually and moved his arm over to place Carrigan’s mittened hand that was clasped in his, in to hers.

“No biggie. I think I made a new best friend though,” he joked, winking down at Carrigan. Carrigan smiled widely and Jenny was surprised that Carrigan remembered Alex. She was assuming that Carrigan would have been so occupied by the X-ray and the sledding promise that Alex wouldn’t cross her mind again, but Alex had made a larger impression on the little girl that thought before. “My other friends are going to be so jealous,” he joked with a smirk.

“Can I meet your other friends?” Carrigan asked excitedly.

Alex tilted his head back and laughed amused. “Probably not. They’re all at their houses right now, cutie.”

“My name’s Carrigan,” she said, not fully understanding why Alex kept calling her “cutie.”

“Of course it is. I wouldn’t forget your name! It’s too pretty.”

Carrigan smiled proudly once again and tugged on the bottom of Jenny’s jacket as Jenny tried to secure Daniels hat on his head. Jenny bent down and Carrigan whispered a question in Jenny’s ear, not knowing the volume of her whisper, meaning Alex heard even though she wasn’t intending him to.

“Can Alex come sledding with us?” she hissed.

Jenny laughed and they all started making their way to the appropriate cars. “Probably not, Carrigan. I bet Alex has other things he has to do today.” Carrigan pouted, truly disappointed that this was the last time she would see her new acquaintance that she’d had grown so fond of. “But you can ask him,” Jenny said, giving in and turning back to the car where she was strapping Daniel in his car seat, not thinking Alex would agree.

“Alex?” she asked hopefully. He turned around from unlocking his car and looked down at her with a sparkle in his eye, waiting expectantly for her question. “Will you go sledding with me and Daniel today?!”

The look at the girl’s face was priceless. The way little kids can trust and put so much faith in to someone, someone they just met, is amazing. They put their heart right out on a set of railroad tracks and it’s up to the train to decide whether they can bear crushing a child’s wish. How someone was supposed to say no to Carrigan’s face was beyond question and obviously Alex wasn’t able to reject her.

“Of course, I would love to go sledding with you all. Where do you--”

“Alex,” Jenny said understandingly. “You really don’t have to do this. Don’t feel obligated; Carrigan just gets clingy.” That was the truth. Maybe Carrigan might talk about Alex for a day or two, but soon enough he would blow over her mind and she would forget about him and be fine with it. Jenny didn’t want to pressure the man, but she also didn’t want him to toy with her kids’ emotions. If Alex said he would show up and didn’t, she wouldn’t be happy that he got their hopes up.

“Really, I want to,” he said sincerely, peering deep in to Jenny’s eyes. A smile crept on the girl’s face at the earnestness Alex showed. “I actually just got back from a very, very long road trip. It would be nice to be a kid again.”

Jenny shook her head and laughed, not believing that a complete stranger would agree to accompany them to go sledding all day. “If you’re sure…”

“Positive.”

“Okay…well we’re going to Meadow’s Park. It’s about…twenty minutes from here. You know it?”

“Yeah, it’s right by my house actually.” Jenny nodded and Alex shuffled his keys around in his hand. “And I’ll tell you what, Carrigan. I’ll bring one of my friends with me. How’s that sound?”

Jenny hesitated when she heard him say that. Yeah, Alex came across as nice, but she couldn’t know for sure, and now that he was bringing a friend, she just didn’t know if she could trust him. But Carrigan cheered, very pleased at how the day was turning out and Jenny picked her up and placed her in the car seat.

“Um, so I guess we’ll meet after lunch? Around three?” Jenny offered shyly.

“Sounds cool. See ya later, Jenny,” Alex said before he hopped in his pick-up truck and drove off. As he sat at a red light, Alex couldn’t believe he had just made plans with a total outsider. He loved kids, but he never had an attachment that big and so fast so he wasn’t really sure if he could say no to the little girl. Alex was almost positive he sounded like a total creep to Jenny. He could tell she didn’t like the idea of someone she barely knew, running around with her kids and he wouldn’t either if he was in that position.

Alex sighed and dug out the phone in his back pocket. He then dialed a too familiar of a number and waited for the person to pick up. “Hey man…You home?...Awesome…Yeah…We’re going sledding.”