Chapter IIIa- A Whole New World
*** Saturday, June 7th, 1997 ***
Abby bounced up and down, pigtails flying. Absently listening to Mrs. Carter’s instructions, Laurie signed for Abby to get in the car.
“Just you make sure Abby wears that sunscreen and doesn’t eat too many o’ them sweets.”
Resisting the urge to reply ‘yes ma’am’ Laurie nodded. “We’ll be back around four this afternoon.” She tumbled down the steps before the overzealous foster mother could give her any more directions.
The woman certainly cared about Abby, but one look at the house and Laurie realized why the little girl was always dressed so poorly. Paint was peeling off every available surface and three other children were running in the yard. Laurie couldn’t remember if there were two or three more children in the house. She thought two.
Six foster children in one house. It wasn’t normal, but it wasn’t completely unusual either. And many foster parents were low-income families. They cared about the children but didn’t have resources or time to care for a child as deserved.
After buckling Abby - in the car seat borrowed from the school for the purpose - Laurie flicked the car keys into the ignition and pulled slowly out of the driveway. The forty-minute ride passed without any signed conversation, but the minute Laurie parked the car in the Woodland Park Zoo parking lot and unbuckled Abby, the imp began signing questions with a rapidity that surprised Laurie. Both still “spoke” only rudimentary sign language, but Abby used her few words with alacrity.
‘Can we see the?’ she pointed at her shirt, bearing an image of Tigger. Laurie laughed and paid for entrance before signing yes. She handed a map of the zoo to Abby and was immediately directed to go to the rainforest house.
*
Four hours, the rainforest house, the monkey area, the nocturnal house, the reptile house, the bear island, Africa Area, the wolves, otters, elk, deer, and eagle sanctuary later, Abby was starting to wind down. She had liked the monkeys the best of all the animals they had seen so far. Every few minutes she would dart ahead of Laurie to a railing and swing on it, trying to imitate the spider monkeys.
Laurie scooped her up and deposited her in a chair, handing her a chocolate ice cream in the same movement. Abby stared at it quizzically for a few moments, as if trying to figure out how a monkey would eat an ice cream cone. Then she smiled and handed the cone back to Laurie. Lying in the chair, her head dangling below the seat, she reached for the cone again.
Laurie handed it to her. Abby proceeded to eat about half the cone. The rest of it ended up on the ground beneath her head. Laughing, Laurie watched as Abby tried to get one of the falling drops of melting ice cream to land in her mouth. It missed and hit her square on the nose. She looked like a rabbit; russet pigtails hanging upside down like floppy ears and brown ice cream giving her a button nose. Abby righted herself and clambered from her chair to Laurie’s lap. Laurie tried to wipe the sticky cream off of her face, but gave up. She pulled Abby off her lap and headed for the bathroom.
Leaving the bathroom a few minutes later, Abby no longer resembled Bugs Bunny’s cousin. They were going to make one more stop before leaving the zoo. Abby danced in little circles, occasionally falling over her own feet and other times tripping over Laurie’s.
There was a line for this attraction, as always. Laurie had been to Woodland Park several times before, but had never waited for this particular ride. Abby queried as to the nature of the queue, so Laurie picked up her up.
Abby clapped her hands in delight. It was a pony ride.
‘I ride on horse?’ She signed, looking hopeful. Laurie nodded and Abby began to squirm in an imitation of a victory dance, waving her arms about like a daft duck.
‘Do you want me to walk with you?’ Laurie asked. Several of the other parents were walking around the outside of the ring while their children were led around the inside on a pony. Abby pondered for a moment.
‘No thank you.’ Smiling, Laurie handed her the three dollar bills to pay for the ride, then stepped out of line. Abby clutched the money, then carefully smoothed out the wrinkles, before handing it to the teenager who lead her pony.
As she clambered gently onto the animal, her eyes held a mixture of sturdy concentration and flyaway happiness. She flashed a brilliant grin at Laurie as she went by, a smile few people had been privileged to see in her poor life.
Laurie allowed herself to dream for a few minutes. What if Abby were actually hers? What if Abby were her daughter and they didn’t have to wait months and years before it was final?
They would climb in the car and go home and Laurie would cook dinner and Abby would draw a picture of her day at the zoo, and then they’d read Red Riding Hood and Laurie would tuck Abby in bed and sing her songs, and then turn on a nightlight so it wouldn’t be too dark and give her daughter nightmares. Her fridge would be covered in macaroni noodles and the walls with finger painted pictures. She’d carry photos in her wallet and she could look forward to sticky hugs and sloppy kisses. Who knew? She might even buy a pony for Abby. Lord knew she had enough land to. Shopping at the store would be yelling battle over chocolate bars and bananas and Laurie’d have to deal with temper tantrums and fights.
It sounded wonderful.
It sounded like a family. A wonderful family, the type she’d always wanted. One full of love and compromises, fights - but resolutions.
A young tornado almost knocked Laurie over. Abby was jumping about like the little Amazonian frogs they had seen, her hyperactivity a mix of sugar and excitement. On one of Abby’s upward bounds, Laurie caught her and tossed her onto her shoulder for a pick-a-back ride. Abby grabbed Laurie’s ears and used them to steer her around. They ran in circles for a few minutes, then headed to the car.
Laurie had a time buckling her frog into the car seat she had borrowed, but finally managed and they were ready to go home. Abby rattled the whole car with her bouncing, but fifteen minutes into the ride, she was fast asleep.
They were going home to macaroni and cheese and a story. Tomorrow they would find a church to go to. Little girls were supposed to go to Sunday School. Then they would come home and play games and cook lunch and go for walks and feed the chickens and pick flowers…
Laurie’s dream was interrupted when she realized she needed to get off the freeway to take Abby home. Not to her home, but to Mrs. Carter’s home. Abby wasn’t hers yet. But she would be soon.
*** Wednesday, June 11th, 1997***
Kyle slammed a file down on Clark’s desk. “There’s those articles Chief wanted you to read.”
Clark inattentively waved the young errand boy away. Kyle was so different from Jimmy - friendly, but not over eager - and he hated photography. Clark shoved the thought out of his mind. He was getting talented at that, throwing out unwanted thoughts.
He opened the file, a hideous orange one that the Planet had bought back in the early 90’s and was now too cheap to replace, and pulled out the articles. Some of them were dusty newsprint, clipped from the various papers that the Planet received. Others were on printer paper, having been pulled off the Internet. He selected an article at random and read through it at normal speed, needing something to fill his time.
He burst out laughing. The collective newsroom swiveled around to stare at him. New employees began whispering. Clark, laughing? This was the first time in three years he had, at least in anyone’s earshot. Clark read the article again.
It was one of the worst pieces of writing he had ever seen, worse even than Ralph’s, and that was saying something. He tried to resist the urge to go through and edit it, but in the end he grabbed a pencil and did it anyway. One sentence, in particular, was, um, rather interesting.
“The old apartment building was about to be condemned when it collapsed because the people in it was in danger of falling onto the apartments below them if the building was not closed to people, but then it collapsed by accident and killed two children and three goldfish, only no one cares about the goldfish.” After surveying his editing job, he decided it was simpler to scribble red crayon over the whole article.
Picking up the next clipping, he began to peruse it slowly. This one held more promise; it was solidly written and had a nice twist to it. It wasn’t Kerth material, but the reporter definitely had an edge. He took down the name, scribbling it on his pad.
“Elizabeth Barrows, NY Times.”
It was about corruption in the CPS offices and obviously had a lot of research behind it. The next article took a quick trip to the trash, as did three of its companions. Clark set aside a few well-written ones and took down the names of a few reporters to watch over the next week or so. There weren’t that many stunning articles, not unusual for the middle of the week, but it did make it harder to find potential partners.
Booting up his computer, he connected to the Internet and navigated to the NY Times site. Barrows had a number of articles that were good and had strong research. One series, the one that the CPS article fit into, was about the foster care system and its downfalls. There was another series about candidates for governor, and still another on charities operating in New York City. They were all hard-hitting, well thought out, articles. He grabbed his pad and strolled over to Perry’s office, remembering halfway there to go back and get the Barrows article too.
He walked in, before realizing that Perry was on the phone. The editor waved him to sit down, but Clark merely set his pad and clipping on the table and began to wander around the room. The walls were covered with posters of Elvis, pictures of Elvis, Elvis record albums, and Elvis news articles. But there was one picture that was of a slender, brunette woman, smiling at the camera. Clark waited for his gut to clench and his eyes to burn, but strangely, he felt only the golden warmth of a good memory. Perry slammed the phone down in its cradle, breaking the moment.
“What’d you find?”
Clark spun about. “Huh? Oh, um, here,” he shoved the article at Perry. “I looked her up online. A solid portfolio, nothing spectacular. Solid writer, at least. ”
Perry mused over the article. “It’s well written. Decent editor.” Trust Perry to notice details like that. “Kyle!” The boy appeared. “Tell research to look up Barrows, Elizabeth. Want everything I can get on her.” Kyle nodded and disappeared. “Find anything else?”
Clark shook his head. “No, that was it. The rest was mostly junk or run of the mill stuff.”
“Okay, I’ll have that info by tomorrow morning. You can call her then.”
“Excuse me?”
“You can call Barrows in the morning.”
“No emails, no letters, just a call?”
“Yeah, hit her over the head with an interview. Then she won’t have prepped answers and you can find out what she’s really like. We’ll go from there.”
Wide-eyed, Clark nodded.
“Now, get out. Don’t want to see you before nine o’clock tomorrow.”
*** Wednesday, June 11th, 1997***
The last droplets of tea splashed onto the floor on the other side of the dishwasher. Laurie groaned, dropped the mug into the dishwasher, and slammed open a drawer, grabbing a dishcloth in the same move. She knelt to clean up the mess, shoving Molly out of the way as she did so.
Molly immediately jumped onto the counter. Laurie glanced up half a second too late. The kitten knocked over the carton of milk and it cascaded over Laurie, the dishwasher, and the floor.
Laurie gasped and sat back on the floor, cold milk streaming down her front. She glared at Molly, who began licking up the milk that was still on the counter. Maya ran out from the bedroom to join her.
“Maya!” Laurie scolded, “You’re supposed to keep Molly in line, not join her in her sins!”
Dripping, she headed to the bathroom. ‘Milk might be good for my skin,’ she thought sarcastically, ‘but it’s not good for my temperament’. She had shucked off her sweater when the phone started ringing. Luckily her T-shirt hadn’t gotten soaked. She pulled off her shoes and socks, ignoring the phone.
The answering machine droned on in the background.
“Hello, you’ve reached Laurie Smith. I’m not available right now. Please your name and number and I will call you back as soon as I can. Have a pleasant day!” The machine beeped.
“Hello Laurie, this is Shina. I’m calling about Abby and the Foster Adoption Paperwork - ” Laurie slammed on the speaker phone.
“Shina, it’s Laurie - ”
“Hello, Laurie. I’m calling about the paperwork we filled out a couple of weeks ago. I mailed it the day after we finished it and I’ve been corresponding with the social worker handling the case, Rachel Greene. I just received a call from her - ”
“And?” Laurie broke in abruptly.
Shina laughed. “And, she says that the paperwork is almost processed. She’ll give me another call by Friday. After that you’ll just have to meet with her. She’ll go over the Foster Adopt goals and the game plan for proceeding from there. She’ll also ‘interview’ you to make sure you have Abby’s best interests at heart. She has to do it for legal reasons.
“But your home is already foster approved so, once that meeting is complete, Abby should be able to move to your house. Probably before the end of June or beginning of July, right around when school gets out.”
“Really?”
Shina laughed again. “Really. That meeting will probably be some time next week, and you can get Abby a couple of weeks after that. After Abby moves in with you, Ms. Greene or another social worker will start to check up on you regularly and we can get going on the adoption phase of the paperwork.
“I don’t think we have to worry much about Abby’s legal freedom. There’s no way her dad would get her, even if he wanted her. He’s been deemed “irresponsible” by the CPS. He’s also the only one who hasn’t had his rights formally revoked so I think I can tell you in 99.9% assurance that Abby is yours.”
Laurie smiled. “Great! Thanks so much, Shina.”
“No problem. Talk to you later.”
“Okay, bye!”
“Bye-bye.”
