Kyra slammed her phone down hard on the glass coffee table. She had just gotten off the phone with Orbalina, her former maid, who had resigned, saying that her sister was about to have a baby and that she was moving back to Mexico to help her.
"I find it hard to believe my luck, and with you about to leave town for some nature-geek convention, too…" Kyra trailed off at the look of exasperation on her husband's face.
"Don't start, Kyra," warned Delaney. "My publisher said that if I didn't show up at this meeting he'd have to 'start looking for another person to fill my position'. How could I have known that he would have a problem with what I was writing? I was just trying to inform the readers with how I felt about a wall being put up."
"No, honey, of course you couldn't know, but maybe if you showed up to a town meeting every once in a while, you would know that he and his wife were both voting in favor of the wall! Your job is more political that you'll ever admit." Kyra stood, hands on her hips, looking into her husbands eyes. She was frustrated because she now lacked a babysitter for Jordan, and that meant that she wouldn't be able to take on the gold-mine of a listing she was just offered. However, Delaney, as usual, looked into her upturned eyes and saw only himself and her concern and affection for him. He walked up to her, gave her a sweet kiss, and grabbed his coat, already heading out the door.
"I'll be back before you know it!" The door slammed. Kyra surprised herself by emitting a sigh of relief. Since when did she need a respite from her own husband? Why was this sense of freedom overtaking her dread over finding a babysitter? Her phone buzzed, and she saw a text message from her estate appropriator: "I need an answer, or this listing is going to the competition." She sighed and replied, "I'll make it work." Then she kicked off her silky house slippers, trading them for classic black pumps, and called for her son.
"Hi, mommy," said Jordan. Seeing that she was getting ready to go somewhere and assuming that he had been summoned to accompany her, he asked, "Wherever we're going, I can bring the cookies, right?" Kyra sighed once again and nodded in agreement. She watched her son skip into the kitchen in pursuit of sugary goodness, and she mentally went through any babysitter options of which she could think. All of Jordan's old babysitters had moved away, and she hadn't searched for any new ones since her success in finding Orbalina. As Jordan returned, mittens in one hand, cookies in the other, Kyra realized what she needed to do if she wanted to move quickly.
Five hours later, Kyra returned to her home, smiling. The listing had been aptly described; she had not been disappointed. As she hung up her thick, camel-colored coat in the hallway, she listened apprehensively for noise coming from the family room. When she heard nothing, she felt the slow onset of fear, cursing herself for resorting to the Mexican labor exchange. It had seemed like the only option, and there had been a small, polite woman there who had been very agreeable and cooperative. Kyra shook herself, thinking about how she had questioned the woman in the car, just to make sure that she was putting her son in acceptable hands. She had made sure of it. She looked down, taking deep breaths, reassuring herself that there was no need to worry. The woman had barely been able to speak English, but had explained that her broken abilities were due to the novels that her husband had bought her. That had been a clue to Kyra; if the woman was intelligent enough to teach herself a language, surely she could responsibly handle a six year old boy for a few hours. But the house remained silent, and Kyra knew what an anomaly it was whenever her son was this quiet. Bracing herself for destruction, she crossed the hallway and peered into the family room.
She could not believe her eyes. There, on her very own designer couch, lay her son, sound asleep, with his head in the lap of his new babysitter. He was smiling, and holding a stuffed animal that he hadn't thought about for years, as far as Kyra had known. The woman was staring at his face, brushing back his hair, and rubbing her own stomach as if she were hungry. Kyra gasped audibly at the scene, finding it hard to believe that anyone on the planet could neutralize her son like this. The woman looked up at the sound of Kyra's gasp, and pointed at her stomach in explanation, saying, "I grow baby. Hope he be like this." Kyra nodded and smiled, realizing that this woman's secret was none other than a love of children, which her current pregnancy could only have amplified. Kyra stepped quietly over to the side of the couch on which the woman sat, trying not to wake the slumbering Jordan. She took the woman's hand in gratitude and said, "Thank you. You will be a wonderful mother." The two shared an affectionate smile, and as Kyra went to get her wallet, thinking that she would give this woman more than she had promised her, she asked her, "What's your name?"
"Amḕrica," replied the woman, her voice warm with maternal affection. "Me llamo Amḕrica."