Last Chance

Chapter 16:

Joel had headaches for the rest of the week but didn’t get any more dizzy spells or issues eating after Monday.

Our lawyer said the papers should be back to us in a few weeks and we could start looking at kids at the end of the month. The nearest foster center was forty-five minutes away, the lawyer said he saw no reason why we shouldn’t get approved for adoption other than our unique situation of being a gay couple and Joel being sick.

I and Joel started discussing how we would break the news to Jamie. Joel seemed more worried than I was.

“He knows you want kids, it’s also our house. We could bring him so he can meet the kids before we decide to see if they get along, too,” I reason.

I think Joel was honestly just done with conflict with everybody and he didn’t want to create any with Jamie by getting another child.

“I can do it, if it’s going to stress you out,” I continue.

“Okay,” he replies.

So, when Jamie comes home with Sam on Friday I say I need to talk to him. Sam says he’ll be upstairs and Jamie follows me into the kitchen.

“Is Joel okay?” he asks. “I know he wasn’t feeling good on Monday.”

“This isn’t about Joel, not really,” he looked concerned when I said this, like it was about him or something. “We going to try and adopt a child. We haven’t gotten the papers back, yet but we wanted to let you know,” I explain.

“Good for you, I’m happy for you and Joel, of course,” he replies.

“We wanted you to come with us to decide on a child. Seeing as this is your house, too, we want you to get along with the kid, too. We want a girl about nine to twelve, so I know it will be difficult to relate any of them but I figured rather than bring one home and say you have to live together this would be better,” I continue.

“Sure, when are the papers getting back?” he asks.

“We probably won’t start looking till March,” I reply.

“Okay, you guys are going to his next appointment tomorrow, right?” he questions.

“Yeah,” I reply.

“Could you guys give me a ride to the mall before you do?” he asks.

“You meeting Sam there?” I ask.

“Yeah, we were going to do some shopping,” he answers.

“Yeah, okay,” I reply.

“Thanks,” he replies taking off upstairs.

I went upstairs where Joel was laying down in our bed.

“Did it go okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, he was fine with it, no worries. Like I said,” I reply kissing his sideburn.

“Do you feel okay sending her to the local elementary school?” I ask.

“Yeah, I’m just worried news will get back to my family and they’ll try to do something,” he replies.

“We haven’t done anything except live our lives, they couldn’t take the child away if they wanted to,” I reason. “Should we paint the guest room a different colour or do you think they’ll be over the whole pink or purple theme?”

“I think we should get some new toys for her,” Joel replies. “It’s indigo, I think she’ll like indigo, if she doesn’t, we can paint it a colour she likes later.”

“Okay,” I answer.

The next two weeks passed, and the appointments continued, Malcolm was informed of the sickness and dizziness that happened on the first Monday, and it was recorded but the treatment proceeded. Sophie was doing about the same. I informed Marie about the adoption. She was happy for us. We met the principal of the local school and he assured us he’d make our girl feel welcome when we were ready for her to start.

Our house was inspected to see if it was fit to raise a kid in and the papers came back to us by the end of the month. We made an appointment and informed Jamie it was on the next Saturday. We were excited to meet the girls.

Most of them seemed excited to have the potential of being adopted when we arrived, or at least the younger ones did. Jamie seemed weary, maybe he wasn’t used to so many kids because he didn't have any younger siblings.

The kids were sitting in the common area. We were taken around by a social worker and introduced to some of the kids. We got some curious looks and some questions since we weren’t the typical family but they were little kids so we didn’t mind and they didn’t seem to care. Jamie wandered off on his own over to a table where two girls were sitting colouring.

I wandered over well Joel stayed with the social worker asking questions.

The two girls looked about ten. One was Asian, with black hair in a single braid, and brown eyes, in a black and white polka-dot dress with white tights and the other had a darker complexation and I couldn’t pick up on exactly what she was, she was in maroon jeans and a black sweater with a short brown pixie cut.

“Hello,” Jamie said to them.

“I’m Jamie, what’s your name?” he asked.

“Aimee,” the polka-dot dress girl answered. “With an I and two Es.”

The other girl hunched her shoulders as if trying to hide.

“That’s Ash,” she replies. “She doesn’t like Ashley, she’s shy.”

“Hi, Ash,” Jamie said with a little wave.

Ash looked up at him but went about her colouring.

I smiled.

“I’m Luka,” I introduced myself to them.

“Are you his dad?” Aimee asks pointing to Jamie.

“No, but I do look after him,” I reply.

“What are you colouring?” Jamie asks.

“A rabbit,” Aimee answered holding up the rabbit stealing carrots from a garden. “Ash is colouring a dinosaur.”

I looked at Ash’s drawing of a Stegosaurus coloured red and green eating a fern.

I noticed some of the other girls playing with barbies and a dollhouse nearby were smiling, laughing and pointing at Ash. I saw Ash’s eyes drift from her picture to them and back, and her shoulders tense.

Joel noticed we’d left his side and are at the girls’ table. He and the social worker approached us.

“I see you met Aimee and Ashley,” the social worker says smiling.

Ashley looks up at this social worker clearly annoyed with the full use of her name but doesn’t say anything.

“They’re great kids, right in the middle of the age you wanted, too,” she continued.

We’d come in looking for only one kid but I feel like if we took only one of these two the other would suffer. We had the space and the money, honestly. I didn’t want to take away either of their friend, either. I took Joel’s arm and guided him a few meters away to the edge of the room. Jamie continued to talk to the girls or Aimee more so.

“I like them,” I say rocking back on my heels.

“Are suggesting we get two?” Joel asks. “Can we handle that?”

Joel looked back at Jamie and the two little girls.

“Luka, are you sure? We don’t want them to end up back here if I don’t get better,” he reminds me.

“I’m sure, are you?” I reply.

“We’ll need to go buy a bunkbed and more clothes and toys,” he replies looking back at them.

I smile. We told the social worker and she went off to make up the papers. We sat with the girls for a while longer. Aimee seemed excited when the social worker came back with the papers. Ash seemed indifferent. They led us to the room they shared with two other girls and they packed what little they did have into garbage bags. We took them out to the car. Joel helped Aimee into the back seat before offering a hand to Ash who just climbed in by herself. We drove back home and showed the girls up to their room.

“We’ll go shopping for a bunk bed tomorrow after Joel’s appointment,” I inform the girls. “You’ll have to share the bed tonight. We’ll get more clothes and toys for you then, too.”

“Are you hungry?” Joel asked looking at Ash.

“Yes,” Ash stated, I was surprised, it was the first word she’d said.

The story the social worker had given us was that Ash's parents were religious fanatics and when they found out she was autistic and had some other interesting character traits like wanting to be called Ash rather than Ashley they gave her up for those reasons among others. I thought she’d fit right in here. Aimee on the other hand had been abandoned at a fire station at a week old.

They explained that Ash was most of the time non-verbal and that Aimee often helped with communication. Joel led Ash back downstairs to feed her. I helped Aimee settle in. She took her clothes out and put them in the top draws of the dresser we’d put in the room she opened the bottom draws where we’d put some of the dresses and shorts we’d bought for them, she took them out and moved them up to her draws and put Ash’s clothes in the bottom.

“You know you two can share clothes, right?” I ask.

“Ash doesn’t really like dresses or flowery things,” Aimee replies.

I look over Ash’s other clothes, mainly plain-coloured jeans, neutral gender-coloured sweaters, and shirts.

“Right,” I replied.

Ash also owned a few hundred Yu-gi-oh cards, some Hot Wheels and remote-control cars and dinosaurs, a far cry from Aimee’s barbies, stuffed animals, and books.

“Do you guys like the color of the room or would you want to paint it another color?” I ask.

“No, this is a good color for both of us. It reminds me of the ocean,” she replies.

“Luka, I have a question,” she stared down into the drawers of clothing when she said this as if she were scared. “Are you going to keep us?”

“Yes,” I replied.

I knew then I was keeping my promises to Joel no matter what. I didn’t want to break my promises to him as well as these little girls.

“But Joel’s sick,” she continues.

“He is. But no matter what happens to him, this is your home now, okay?” I reply. “I promise.”

“Okay,” she replies.

“You guys know you start at your new school on Monday?” I start. “Do you need supplies?”

“No, I think we're fine right now,” there’s a quiver of nervousness in her voice now.

“If anyone bothers you two, you know you can tell us, right? We’ll talk to the teachers or principal if kids are bothering you, you don’t have to endure it like at the foster house, okay?” I explain.

She turned around ran and hugged me like no one had ever fought for her or Ash and in reality, nobody ever had probably. I returned her hug and notices some burn marks on her back near her spine as if someone had used her as an ashtray or something. I hugged her tighter and kissed the top of her head.

“When are your birthdays?” I asked when she stepped back.

“Ash’s is November 24th, mine was deemed to be February 8th, a week before I was found,” she replied.

“Maybe we can go out for a late birthday, too, sometime,” I continued. “Do you want to go see a movie or something?”

“Ash always wanted to play laser tag, I want to go bowling,” she answered.

“Okay, we’ll see if we can find a place with both, it’ll probably be a few weeks before go though, okay?” I reply.

“Right,” she stated.

I left Aimee to her own devices in her room and went to see how Joel was fairing with feeding Ash.

Ash was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of apple juice, she seemed lost in the rising air bubbles rather than interested in drinking it. Joel was standing going through the cupboards looking for something that Ash wanted to eat.

“It’s true, kids are picky,” he whispered with a smile looking back at Ash.

“How about pancakes?” Joel asked.

No response.

“Okay, what if I put chocolate chips in them?” he then asked.

“Okay,” Ash finally piped up.

Joel smiled, “Got it.”

He pulled down the pancake mix, and the chocolate chips and then went to the fridge to get the eggs, milk, and syrup.

Maybe getting through to the kids wouldn’t be as hard as we thought.