Raising Isla | ENGLOT AU

Chapter 8: New Routines & New Faces

It was worrisome leaving Isla at Daycare, but it was near impossible to get her to leave when Calypso returned a few hours later.

Discovering Isla sat around the same table, but now with an enthralled group of toddlers surrounding her as she recounted, in patchwork pieces, the myths and folklores Emery had read to her a few days ago, illustrated by the scribbles of characters Isla had brought to life with crayons over coloured paper. They were awful drawings, but endearing all the same.

Calypso asked one of the nursery workers if Isla had made any friends.

"I think what she's made -" She'd began, her voice lighthearted. "Is a bunch of disciples."

Calypso thought, as she walked her home, her hand in hers - that maybe roots were finding soil, that maybe they were finally starting to get the hang of this.

...

Emery's phone chimed mere minutes before she'd planned to leave work. A text, rather than a call. And she was familiar enough with Calypso's habits to know that most likely meant she was held ransom inside the echoing walls of a courtroom. She'd guessed its contents before she even unlocked her phone.

Would you possibly mind picking Isla up? I'm gonna be stuck here for a few more hours.

It wasn't much of a question really, though Emery was starting to think Calypso was too oblivious to realise how readily she would have bent over backward for either of them.

Will they let me? She sent back - It would have been a pitiful daycare if they let anyone off the street show up and wantonly claim a child.

Calypso's reply came quickly. Yes, you're on her list.

Oh , she thought. Staring at her phone for a few moments as she tried to rationalise why the concept had made her so giddy.

...

It was a foreign experience for Emery, and one that immediately registered as daunting, the moment she stepped into the nursery's reception. The deep breath was almost involuntary. Steadying herself as she became aware of the toddlers and infants held in the arms or by the hands of their parents. Something unexpected kicking her in the heart, and a rebellious lump of emotion forming in her throat at the reminder of everything she would never be able to have. Before her hand, as instructed, signed Isla out for the day on the sheet handed to her.

"You're her other mother?" The young man behind the desk asked, not impolitely, but the question was still startling enough to make her head snap up.

"No," Emery shook her head, aware he had not intended that question to sting so much. "I'm a friend of..." Her guardian's? Her mom's? "Calypso's."

"My apologies, I had assumed from Isla's drawings... Nevermind." He smiled, his expression kind, before he led her down the corridor towards the toddler playroom.

Her drawings?

The spark of grief that had turned to a flame in her heart died the moment Isla's eyes found her's, watching as the little girl climbed onto her feet before rushing towards her, smiling almost uncontrollably as she heard the sound of her own name spoken by the voice of a three-year-old that seemed unjustly happy to see her.

"Hey," And she wasn't sure how it happened, but Emery suddenly found her arms holding a toddler over her hip for the first time in her life, reacting on what she assumed was instinct as the little girl raised her hands towards her, asking. But oof, she hadn't expected Isla to be so heavy - how did Calypso manage this ? But then she recalled how much stamina and how lean the other woman is, and the question seemed obsolete. "Calypso couldn't come because she has to help people at work."