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solution.”
    The woman nodded. She drew in a breath. “If you haveto be late like this again, just call me. I have a girl who left to raise her own children. She’d be happy to keep Markie and she’d pick him up for you. Would you like her phone number?”
    â€œYes,” Joceline said at once, and wondered how she’d afford it.
    She wrote the number down and gave it to Joceline. She smiled. “It won’t cost you an arm and a leg.”
    â€œYour fees are unbelievably reasonable,” she pointed out.
    The older woman chuckled. “Because I had to afford day care myself,” she replied. “I thought there should be a way to make it affordable to people on strangled budgets.”
    â€œI’m very grateful.” Joceline grimaced. “My budget has gone past strangled to near homicide.”
    â€œYou could ask that handsome boss of yours for a raise.”
    â€œHow do you know he’s handsome?” she asked.
    â€œHis picture was in the paper after he and another agent caught one of the human traffickers they were looking for. Makes me sick what some people can do to helpless poor people in the name of profit. Imagine, using little kids in brothels…” She smiled. “Sorry, I hate people who exploit children. I tend to stand on a soapbox on the subject. I’ll get Markie for you.”
    She brought the little boy out a couple of minutes later.
    â€œMommy!” Markie laughed, holding out his arms to betaken. “I learned how to draw a bird. Miss Ellie taught me! She said I did it real good!”
    â€œYou’ll have to show me. Tell Mrs. Norris good-night.”
    â€œGood night, Mrs. Norris,” he said obediently, and smiled at her before he did a nosedive with his face into his mother’s throat and held on tight.
    â€œThanks,” Joceline said.
    The older woman shrugged. “Men have no idea how tough it is on women who work,” she replied.
    â€œNone at all,” was the quiet reply.
    â€œI had fun!” Markie said when they went into the small, sparsely furnished apartment and Joceline put the three door locks in place. “I got to show you my pictures!”
    He handed her a file folder.
    She sat down, worn to the bone, and opened it with no real enthusiasm. What she saw shocked her.
    â€œMarkie!” she exclaimed. “You drew this?”
    â€œYes! I saw that bird outside and I drawed him.”
    â€œDrew him,” she corrected absently.
    â€œIt’s a…”
    â€œâ€¦a goldfinch,” she said for him, noting the bright yellow color of the small male bird and its subdued black markings. In the winter, the coat would turn from yellow to the dull green that characterized females.
    â€œYou like birds,” he said, leaning on her knees while she looked through the drawings. “You got all sorts of books about them. And binoculars.” He rubbed his head againsther arm. “Couldn’t I look through the binoculars again? I want to see if we got any of these birds at our house.”
    â€œWe probably don’t have goldfinches,” she replied, because there was no room in her budget for the special seed that constituted the best finch feed. It was outrageously expensive.
    â€œYou could cook some bread for them,” he said. “You cook real good.”
    â€œThank you, sweetheart,” she said, and bent to kiss his thick black hair.
    â€œI like pancakes. Couldn’t we have pancakes?”
    She looked at his rosy cheeks, his big eyes, his sweet expression. He was her whole life. Amazing how he’d changed it, from the first time she looked at him. “Yes,” she said, indulging him as she always did, probably too often. “Bacon and pancakes and syrup. But only because I’m so tired,” she added.
    He smiled. “Thanks, Mom!”
    â€œYou’re welcome.”
    The other drawings were also of birds. Just sketches, but they showed