Nothing Lasts Forever

Chapter Twenty-Two

K A S H M E R E

Instead of spending the day with her dad Kaliyah tagged along with me to work since August was busy today. He's been busy a lot this past week and since I was so used to seeing him nearly every day and have him pop up on me I missed him and so did Kaliyah. But he did make sure to call and check in on the both of us.

Today was like any other day and since school had just started I was getting a lot more younger students coming in for our after school care program. I knew how expensive child care could be and I knew that a lot of women were single mothers and were struggling. The buses would drop kids off at my center where then I had hired staff who would watch them, play games, give snacks and help with homework and do other fun activities until they were picked up.

We were still working out the kinks but I could see the program was already becoming a success. I was at the front desk talking to Judy when an old familiar face walked in. At first I didn't recognize her but when we made eye contact all the old memories came flooding back, good and bad.

Crystal walked in holding the hand of a little boy who looked to be a little bit older than Kaliyah. By the time I cut her off a few months later she dropped out of school and I found out she was pregnant but I never cared to find out more about her situation.

She walked up to the counter and it was obvious that life wasn't doing her to good by how tired and run down she looked. When she made it over to the counter she hesitated before saying anything.

"Hi Kashmere."

"Crystal," I nodded my head, I took my attention off of her and focused it on the cute little boy in front of her.

"This is my son Jayson. Jayson say hi."

"Hi," he gave me a small wave wave. He was a bit darker than her in tone and had hazel eyes and his hair was braided back in two thick braids.

"Hi Jayson. He's so handsome."

"Thanks. His teacher told me about this program that you had here. I don't get off work until six and he gets out of school at three and I don't really have anyone reliable to come and pick him up everyday."

"We do have a program for that," I explained everything I needed to explain to her about the program and that it was free, a first come first come type of thing and that we had three more spots open.

"It's free for you but I do pay the women that run it but there are penalties if you don't pick up your child on time," Judy handed me a form and I handed it over to her, "It's all in the packet, you can read it look it over and turn it back in here signed when your done looking it over."

She nodded her head, "Can I look it over now?"

"Sure take a seat," I motioned to the sitting area in the lobby and she walked over and took a seat. I couldn't help but think about how ironic this was.

It didn't' take her long to read it over and she walked back over and signed it right there and I looked it over making sure she filled out all of the important things. Like if her son had any allergies or illnesses and emergency contact numbers just in case and the numbers I could reach her by.

"Mommy," I looked up in time to see Kaliyah running away from Braeden.

"Get your child," Braeden pointed at Kaliyah before turning back around to finish teaching his class.

"What did you do now," I asked her.

"Nothing," she shrugged her shoulders, "I was just trying to give him some ideas."