Page 84 of Justice

Dream had been counting down to career day all week long. And I couldn’t lie, I was excited about helping her.

Every night at dinner it was the same. “Don’t forget my ’scope. Don’t forget my scrubs. Should I say I’m an RN or CNA?” The questions were adorable. But I knew she was mostly excited about dressing up.

That baby was going to be a nurse if it killed both of us. She’d picked it the second the teacher announced it, no hesitation, none of the flip-flopping the other kids did between astronaut and rapper and whatever their daddy was. A nurse. Like me. She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

So, the night before, I washed the child sized scrubs I found online. They were a teal color and they looked adorable on her. I even included a toy nursing kit I found online for her. She was so excited she made me pinky promise nothing would go wrong.

I pulled the scrubs out of the dryer the next morning to lay them across her bed before she woke up. I couldn’t wait for her to see them. She was going to be so happy.

Then I actually looked at what was in my hands.

Something was wrong. There were white splotches eating right through the teal, one big ugly bloom across the chest and a trail of little ones down the pant leg, the fabric gone chalky and stiff where the color used to be. They were completely ruined.

“No.” I actually said it out loud to an empty laundry room. “No, no, come on.”

I stood there trying to walk it back in my head. I’d run Rita’s whites last night. There’d been bleach on the counter. The cap was probably not screwed on like always. I must’ve set the scrubs down in something. Must’ve splashed the drum and not rinsed it. Must’ve done a hundred things I’d have caught if I wasn’t running on no sleep with my mind a thousand miles away.

Because that was the truth, wasn’t it? My mind hadn’t been in that laundry room last night. My mind had been on that construction sign and how many hours I had left in this house. And while I was off somewhere planning my own disappearance, I’d bleached this child’s scrubs. Or did I?

Some nurse. Couldn’t even keep my own laundry alive.

“Miss Skye?” Dream padded into the doorway in her socks, hair already brushed, face shining and ready. “Is it time to put on my nurse clothes?”

She saw them before I could hide them. Saw the white splotches. And I watched that beautiful light in her face just… dim.

“What’s wrong with them?”

“Baby, listen⁠—”

“They’re ruined.” Her voice went small and wobbly. “That was gonna be my costume. Everybody’s bringing a costume. Now I’m gonna be the only one with nothing.”

“Hey. Hey. Come here to me.” I got down on her level, both hands on her little shoulders.

“I can fix this. Don’t worry, sweetie.”

“Are you sure?” She gave me the world’s most skeptical six-year-old face, lip still trembling.

“Yes, I’ll get you right.”

She nodded but she still didn’t believe me.

Right then, Storie came drifting past the doorway on her way to the kitchen, taking a nice long look at the whole scene. The scrubs in my hand. Dream’s crumpling face. Me down on the floor.

“You ruined her costume? It’s literally the one thing she’s been talking about all week. Don’t you know how to wash clothes?”

“We’ve got it handled, Storie.”

“Mm. Doesn’t look handled.” She plucked a grape off the counter and popped it in her mouth. “The driver’s coming in like fifteen minutes, by the way. We’re gonna be late ’cause of this.”

She strolled off to the kitchen without another word. I let it go. I did not have the time or the spare heart to go a round with a teenager who woke up looking to start shit. I had a heartbroken baby and we were racing against the clock. Everything else could wait.

I have never in my life been able to sit still in a disaster. Some folks freeze. Not me. Something breaks, I go straight to work with my hands, and I have ever since I was little. So that’s what I did.

“Okay. New plan, and it’s better. We’re not doing boring old scrubs anyway.” I was already up, already pulling my phone out, already thinking three steps ahead like the courtroom taught me. “We’re going vintage.”

“What’s vintage?”

“Vintage means old-school. Fancy old. Back in the day, before scrubs, the real classic nurses wore something way cooler, and that’s what you’re about to be. The kind they put in the old movies.” I pulled up a video, propped the phone on the dresser, and grabbed a sheet of white cardstock out of her craft bin. “Gimme two minutes. Watch this.”