Walking up to the door, I placed my phone in my back pocket. I wasn't half expecting the security guard to be standing there as I walked into the building."Thank you."
"You're welcome." The man was maybe in his early fifties. His dark-rimmed glasses were just a little darker than his skin. "I've never seen you here before. You must be new?"
"I just enrolled my daughter here yesterday. She's in the after school program?"
"Ah. Then we'll just need to check you in. What's your name?" He grabbed his clipboard that had been sitting on the edge of his chair.
"Hailey Upton. My daughter's name is Eva Busby."
"Perfect. I'm just going to have to see some ID." He informed me as I pulled my driver's license out of my wallet and handed it to him. Having this extra security actually made me feel a little more at ease knowing they didn't just let anybody walk into the school and take a kid home.
"Hailey Upton. Here is your card back." Holding the card between his fingers, I took it and placed my wallet back into my jacket.
"Thank you."
"It was nice meeting you, Hailey. I hope you have a wonderful night." He said most pleasantly as he opened the door for me to walk through.
"You too." Walking through to the hallway, I looked over at the office that was now dimmed and empty. I made a mental note to ask the front desk how today had really gone as I walked another few feet into the gym. Children were busily scattered around, participating in different activities. Some were playing with basketballs or soft dodgeballs, while another large group was running around the gym playing tag.
I had hoped she was somewhere in that crowd, laughing and having fun. Instead, I found her with her notepad on her lap, head down and focused as she worked on her latest drawing. She wasn't too focused on what was happening around her, so I had the element of surprise on my side. "Hey, you. What do you have there?"
"It's a lilac." Eva hesitated momentarily as it took her a minute to realize it was really me, then grew animated as she described the flower she had drawn."Here's the stem that holds all the little tiny flowers. I messed up a couple of times, but I got it now."
"I like it!"
"Thanks." Her eyes fluttered up to two boys standing more by one of the moveable basketball hoops "Did you do anything else while you were here?"
"Not really. I was bouncing a ball around for a while but my arms got tired and I'm not really good at playing basketball." She frowned up at the moveable hoop before throwing all her markers into the bottom of her bag.
"You know what? Neither am I."
"Really?"
"Really. I never played basketball when I was in school. " Stretching out my legs, I stood back upright. "What do you say we get out of here and go eat some dinner?"
"Like what?"
"Well, I was thinking we could have spaghetti again tonight and go to the store after dinner. Any ideas?"
"Mm." Her lips twisted in thought as she grabbed her bag off the gym floor. "Tacos?"
"Tacos. Okay, I can go with that. Anything else? We should probably plan on more than one thing for the week so we don't have to go to the store every other day."
"I don't know." Shrugging her shoulders, we slowly walked out of the gym as we made conversation. "What do you usually eat?"
"Working a lot sometimes means I have to grab whatever I can eat, which means a lot of easy meals, like tacos, spaghetti, or stir fry." Pushing open the door, we nodded goodbye to the security guard before stepping outside.
"That's all you eat?"
"No, those were just examples of some things I eat."
"Oh."
"So I know today was a rough start." I braced myself for what was to come, knowing how much of a struggle it was to get her off to school in the first place. "I wanted to check and see how you were feeling about going to school."
"It's okay, I guess."
"Yeah?" Unlocking the door, we crossed from the parking lot to the car. "What's one good thing that happened today?"
"I had tater tots for lunch." It took her a few minutes to think of something, but she finally did as she pulled her seatbelt across her body.
"Tater tots. I don't think I've had those since elementary school."
"They're good. We also had carrots, some kind of chicken and a chocolate chip cookie."
"That sounds like a delicious lunch." My stomach rumbled at the mention of food, which was sort of a welcomed sight since I hadn't much of an appetite lately. Closing the door, we went on our way. I could tell there was still something bothering her as I peered at the backseat through the rearview mirror. "Anything you want to talk about?"
"No." Shaking her head, she went back to watching the passing scenery out the window until we got home. I shut off the engine and closed the garage door as she sat there before breaking from her thoughts and slid out of the car.
"Why don't you go in and wash up." I left my door open so I could reach over and grab my gun and badge out of the glove compartment. "I'll be in in a minute."
"Okay." With a sigh, I watched her drag her bookbag behind her into the house. I slipped into the house a few minutes later to lock them up in the safe in my room and to change out of the clothes I had been in all day.
I chose a dark blue flannel shirt and grey sweatpants to lounge around in and let my hair fall around my shoulders as I returned to the kitchen to heat up some leftovers. It felt like a particularly long day, so it was nice to just relax for a little while before we had to do this all over again. I was already concerned that tomorrow would be another repeat of today, but that was still left to be unseen.