MidReal Story
Liam Anderson is a single father in a small town
Scenario: Liam Anderson is a single father in a small town looking for a nanny, and Sophia Ramirez, desperately in need of a job, applies for the position, but Liam is rude and uninterested until Sophia stands up for herself and demands a chance to prove herself.
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“What do you mean you can't come in?”
The voice on the other end of the phone was loud and grating, sending my headache into overdrive.
“I'm sorry, Nick, it's just been one of those mornings.
Evie's been sick for the last week, and we have no one to watch her,” I told my business partner.
Nick let out a long sigh, and I knew I was in for it.
I'd missed a few days of work already to take care of my daughter, and as much as he said he understood, I knew it was starting to wear on him.
“I can't be there until at least ten,” I told him, glancing at the clock on the dashboard of my truck.
It was already nine-thirty, and I was still fifteen minutes from the garage.
“We have that meeting with the bank at eleven, and I still need to go over the numbers one more time before they get here.”
“Don't worry about it.
I'll handle the meeting and fill you in later,” he said in an unconvincing tone.
“Thanks, man.” I tossed my phone into the passenger seat and sighed.
I hated missing work, but I had no other choice.
It wasn't easy raising a three-year-old by myself, but when our nanny up and quit on me a few weeks ago, I'd been stuck in a bind trying to find someone else.
I lived in a small town, and I'd gone through all the applicants a few times already with no luck.
I knew there weren't many qualified people left for me to go through.
It wasn't like I could just call a temp agency and have someone there within an hour.
I'd asked my mom if she could take Evie for a little while longer this morning so I could get some work done, but she had plans of her own and couldn't help me out today.
I'd started to worry that I wouldn't be able to find anyone to watch her, but she'd surprised me by coming over for a couple hours so I could go into work.
I was already running late, and now Evie was giving me a hard time about going with her.
I walked around to the passenger side of the truck and opened the door, scooping up my daughter in the process.
I'd been trying to get her to leave the truck for ten minutes now, but she was in a mood and didn't want to listen to me this morning.
I just hoped this wouldn't be an indication of how the rest of the day would go.
“Evie, you know Daddy has to go to work.”
“But I wanna come with you,” she whined, wrapping her arms around my neck and burying her face in the crook of my neck.
“I know, baby, but you can't today,” I tried to explain as calmly as I could.
She pulled back from me, her lips puckering into a pout that would have worked on most people, but not me.
Her fiery eyes glared at me, her hands on her tiny hips as if she was telling me that she meant business.
“I don't want Stacey to come over,” she huffed.
“But you can't stay home by yourself either.” I sighed, hoping that we could come to some sort of compromise so I could get out of here and get to work before it was too late.
“Why can't I come with you, Daddy?”
“You know why, sweet girl.You can't come to work with Daddy because it's not safe in the garage,” I answered, rubbing my eyes in frustration.
I'd been trying to get her out of the truck for twenty minutes now, and all she wanted was to come to work with me.
She'd never been like this before, and I didn’t understand why she was being so difficult this morning.
I had to get her out of the truck so I could take her inside to wait for the nanny we found last night, but it was quickly becoming apparent that that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
Her bottom lip quivered as a few tears welled up in her eyes.
“I want to watch Blue's Clues,” she cried.
My heart broke as I realized why she was so upset.
I knew that she'd be fine at home watching her favorite show while we waited for Stacey to show up.
But she needed to get out of the truck so I could go inside and get us all ready to leave.
“I'm sorry, baby girl,” I said softly.
“You can watch your show at home while you wait for Stacey.”
She shook her head adamantly.
“No, I want to come with you.”
“Evie, I don't have time for this,” I growled, my patience wearing thin.
I knew this way of talking to her wasn’t ideal, but I was running out of time.
“If you don't get out of the truck right now and stop having a temper tantrum, you're not going to watch Blue's Clues at all today.”
“NO!” she shrieked loud enough to make my ears ring.
“Fine,” I said before pulling her from my neck and setting her on the ground.
“You want to do this the hard way?We'll do it the hard way.”
I opened the back door of my truck and reached for her backpack but stopped before I grabbed it.
It was too quiet.
“Evie?”
I called out, scanning the parking lot around me.
My heart stopped when I turned around and saw her standing on the driver’s side step of my truck, her hand on the door handle as she tried to get inside, her backpack still on her back.
“Get down from there right now!”
I yelled, afraid she would fall and hurt herself.
She shook her head at me, a small smirk covering her face as she continued to try to get inside.
“Damn it,” I cursed under my breath before walking over to get her down.
The second I reached for her, she let out a blood-curdling scream, tears running down her face as she kicked and wailed at me.
After a few minutes, I was finally able to get her down from there and into my arms so we could go back to the truck to get her stuff.
We were both in tears by the time I walked back to my truck, but I didn't have time to worry about that right now.
I had to get us both ready so we could get out of here.
