Synergy by Georgia Payne Page A

kid’s
head.
    “ Fire trucks don’t
fly, baby,”  she commented, as she
smiled contently.
    The receptionist sitting behind the desk to her right
laughed.  “He’ll figure it
out,”  she replied.
    After a few minutes, she saw Miss Lowsley, the mid-thirties
pre-school teacher helping Tushaun into his jacket and taking him
by the hand. As she walked him to the door where Dee stood, he
spotted his mom through the glass and immediately started to toddle
faster to the door. Upon the door being opened by Miss Lowsley, Dee
exclaimed  “Hey,
baby!”  as Tushaun flung his arms up
in the air and Dee swooped him up. She kissed his forehead and
smiled at the pre-school teacher, who was watching them with a
smile on her face.
    “ Bye Tushaun, have
a good day !” she said, and he waved his
little hand at her before turning back to his
mom.
    He was
wearing jeans and a Detroit Pistons jersey which was covered with a
jacket. He also wore a children’s backpack and had the latest Nike
airs on his feet. Considering how warm the day had turned out, Dee
put him down on the floor and knelt in front of him to help take
off his jacket.
    “ It’s too warm for
a jacket today, ” she told him as she
unhooked the backpack from him and then took off his jacket. She
stuffed the jacket into his backpack before fishing in the bottom
for a juice box she knew she’d packed this morning. She put the
backpack back on him and then pierced the juice box with the straw
before handing it to Tushaun.
    Tushaun
automatically held out his free hand for his mom to take, and
sipped on his juice box with the other hand. When he’d had a few
sips he looked up at Dee.
    “ Where
going?”  he asked in broken
English.
    “ We going to the
park before we go home.”  Dee
explained, and Tushaun smiled enthusiastically.
    “ And then nana’s
gonna make us some dinner, that sound good ?” she asked.
    “ Yay!”  he cheered, almost
dropping his juice box in the process and Dee
laughed.
    “ Come on clumsy
ass, don’t make a mess. ” She joked, as she
picked him up off the ground, deciding they’d get there a lot
quicker if she carried him.
    It was a
short walk from the pre-school to the nearest park and she
preferred this one to the one nearer her house. There were more
kids and fewer bums that hung out here so the chances of finding a
needle or two were a lot less. Still, she had to watch him like a
hawk to make sure he didn’t go anywhere but the jungle gyms and
swings designed to be played on. Tushaun was a happy kid, and
though he was only young, he played well with other kids, even if
he didn’t know them. He was a little gentleman too. She watched as
he let two little girls go before him on the slide even though he
got there first. Part of her wondered whether it was because he
wanted to check them out first as they went down, but then she
laughed realising how ridiculous it sounded. As she relaxed on the
bench watching him, she took her phone out of her pocket and
checked it for the time. As she pressed the home screen button, she
saw she had a text and it only took her brain a second to register
the name ‘Trey.’
    Before
she even opened the text, her heart started to pound.
    ‘I wanna see Tushaun, can i have him dis weekend plz? x
’
    First
off, she was surprised he had put the word please at the end of
that sentence. She was also surprised he’d offered to have his son
on a weekend, when it was prime partying time. Honestly, the fact
she got the text at all surprised her because lately he’d been
seeing less and less of his son, and she wondered if he’d
eventually cut off contact altogether. She looked up from her phone
to see Tushaun running around the jungle gym having the time of his
life and sighed. She wondered if it would be easier to just cut off
all contact, but she knew it wasn’t her decision. She couldn’t not
let them see each other, it wasn’t fair to Tushaun. He had every
right to know his dad whether she liked it