Hollowed feeling.

“Mommy, I want to see Andrea!”

Anna winced as the sound of her son’s voice somehow was louder than that of the other children in the company’s daycare. Even the lady at the front desk gave her a pitying look which made her feel all the more uncomfortable.

Kneeling down to pick up her unruly, stubborn genius of a son, she smiled down at Andrew as he screwed up his face. He didn’t like being picked up in public.

“We can go to pick her up when I close from work, okay?” She said to her son, whose face screwed up in discomfort even more. “Come on, don’t give me that face. Aren’t you happy that I came to see you on my break?”

“I thought you came to see me because you forgot to drop off my lunchbox.” Her son’s British-accented voice was somehow chastising.

Anna wondered briefly if she should be worried about his cognitive development being at a much faster rate than most other children she had seen his age, but let that thought go. She had to fi