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“She’ll be fine,” I assured Lyric.
“Oh, I know. She’s my kid. She adapts to whatever is thrown at her. Doesn’t mean I’m happy about the circumstances that led us here.” A blush rose on her cheeks as I walked her to the door. She stopped me in the doorway. “I want to pay half of Amelia’s fees. Will that be a problem?”
I shook my head. “Not at all. We do split accounts often.”
She nodded determinedly, then winced. “How much is this place?”
I reached over to a board full of pamphlets and flyers. Most were helpful tips that parents might need to know about allergies, choking, the benefits of exercise, and the like. But there was also some information on the center itself. I plucked the one with our daily fees and handed it over to her.
She glanced down at it, then her head jerked up, her eyes wide. “Are you serious?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Is this a daycare or college?”
I didn’t disagree. The prices were ridiculous. They reflected the affluent area, the money the church had spent on the center, and the high quality of the teachers and programs that were run here. But it was an eye-watering fee. More than any of the other centers around, as far as I knew.
There was no charity from the church here.
For the most part, people seemed to like that the fees were so exorbitant. I was sure they saw it as yet another status of wealth and importance in a town that seemed to thrive on it.
But it clearly wasn’t like that for Lyric.
“Lleyton and Katherine have committed to paying the full amount. You don’t have to—”
She glared at me with fiery eyes. “I need to have a say in my daughter’s education. I said I’ll pay half.” The anger dropped from her expression. “Right after I sell a kidney.”
Her attitude was admirable. But it was clear this was going to put her under financial strain, and that gnawed away at me. I wanted to help her. She wasn’t Tammie and her boys. She wasn’t a stone’s throw away from living on the streets. But she still needed help. Her ex and his girlfriend clearly got to run the show when it came to money, and that left Lyric in a vulnerable position.
I instantly knew though, if I showed up with a bag of money, perhaps gained by chopping up a certain shiny red convertible and selling it for parts, she would reject it.
Helping her wouldn’t be as easy as helping Tammie.
A tattered flyer on the board caught my attention, and I pulled it down and handed it to her. “We need a cleaner, if you’re interested in picking up some extra work.”
She gazed down at the paper in her hand, then back up at me with a wrinkled nose. “How much does it pay?”
It paid minimum wage, because Father Byron, who oversaw all the churches in the district, was cheap.
“Not much,” I admitted. “But it does come with the bonus of your children being able to attend for free.”
“Seriously?”
I nodded, making a mental note to work that into the contract which currently said no such thing.
Her face fell.
“Problem? You don’t have to interview. If you want the job, it’s yours. We really need someone.” I mentally added in, “So I can stop cleaning the bathrooms every night.”
“No. No problem. It’s petty, really.”
“What?”
“Promise you won’t judge me.”
I raised three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“A part of me wants to say no, because then Lleyton doesn’t have to pay for anything. He doesn’t pay me child support. He’s supposed to, but I made a deal with him that he didn’t have to if he got Amelia into daycare in Providence. In hindsight, that was stupid. It gave him total control over her education, and that’s too big a thing to let him make all the decisions on.” She looked me up and down. “No offence, but if I’d had a say in it, I wouldn’t have put my kid into daycare here with all the Jesus loving. I’m kind of an atheist.”
