2. Evan
EVAN
“I’m coming!” I called out to the person knocking on my door. I put the video I was watching on pause and went to answer the door.
“Mr. Morales?" the woman on the other side of the door asked me.
“That’s me,” I replied, quickly taking in her attire and the folder she held in her hand. I knew without even looking at the ID she wore on a lanyard around her neck that she was a social worker. Growing up in the system, I’d learned to spot one a mile away.
She smiled warmly. “I’m Lucinda Baines, and I’m here because you applied to become a foster parent, with a view to adopt and were approved three weeks ago.”
I grinned back at her. I most certainly had done that, applying seven months ago, the very next day after thankfully landing a better job three days after the robbery.
I’d made up my mind to make all my dreams come true, starting with becoming a dad.
Kid first, and then once I had a placement, I was going to apply for my farmland in New Haven, as they’d joined the Mylos treaty thing with our world and everyone knew the Mylos were allowed human foster kids that they then adopted.
I’d even looked it up to be sure that someone with a foster kid they were wanting to adopt had been allowed to take the kid with them before the adoption was finalized, and found three separate cases almost immediately.
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied.
“I’m here because once you were notified of approval, you selected a child from one of our public appeals.”
“Right! Please come in!” I urged her, standing to one side.
“I’ve brought Jason’s file with me to go over with you, but first, I noticed that you updated your paperwork indicating that you were looking to move out of state.
As you know, foster children can be placed out of state, but there’s an additional process for that, which is not always successful.
The odds of success are better due to the length of time it’s taken to place Jason.
He’s been available for adoption since he was two years old.
Personally, I find his bi-colored eyes quite striking, but many find it unnerving, enough so that even finding a long term foster home proved problematic, and so he’s been at the children’s home since he was six, and he’s about to turn ten in a few weeks. ”
“Oh! I’m not moving to another state,” I hastily explained. “I’m going to apply down at the Mylos-Dragonii Center for a farm on New Haven. The treaty allows foster kids being adopted to travel with their adopting parent, as well as for foster children to be placed with adopters out there.”
She stared at me for a long moment. “You’re going to apply for a farm parcel on New Haven, the Dragonii-human colony world.”
I nodded. “That’s right.”
“And you wish to take Jason with you.”
“Uh huh.”
“That’s wonderful!” she gushed, “but he’d be the first child placed that way, and unlike with the Bride Fleet, if the initial six weeks doesn’t go well, it would be quite the journey for him to return to us.”
“But why would I want to return him?”
“Sometimes it’s simply not the right fit,” she explained. “And what if you end up matched? Your new mate would need to be on board with adopting him as well, not to mention he’d need to be vetted.”
My heart sank. “So, if I apply to go to New Haven, I can’t take in Jason."
“You could maybe postpone your application for your land claim until the adoption is final,” she suggested.
“If you’re willing to do that, we can go over Jason’s file so you can decide if he’s right for you and if so, I can pick him up from the children’s home after school and bring him to you.
Your six weeks would start today, and if at the end of the six weeks everything looks good, you can submit your legal paperwork to the court requesting the adoption be granted.
That will probably take another six weeks or so to get on the docket, and once that’s all done, you can take him wherever you want to move to. ”
“I see.”
This really was a bummer. She was a nice lady and all, but what she was saying didn’t match up to what I’d read at all.
Okay, sure, no kid had been placed on New Haven yet, but surely the treaty covered this situation too.
And as for sending him back, no way! People who had kids born biologically didn’t get to change their minds because a kid wasn’t their ideal.
I knew she meant well, but I felt it deep within my soul that Jason was meant to be mine.
I’d known it as soon as I’d seen him on the news.
“So, the main reason he’s still up for adoption is because of his eyes?” I asked.
“It is. That, and he’s a very inquisitive kid.
He asks a million questions and is very active.
He was tested for hyperactivity, but it’s not that.
He just needs an active lifestyle.” She opened the folder.
“His last foster family reported that the days they took him to T-ball or out on hikes with them, he spent enough of his energy that he settled down to watch TV quietly and went to bed without asking for multiple drinks of water or another story. The workers at the home note he is often scolded for running up and down the stairs, and he was caught trying to slide down the banisters just last week.”
I immediately imagined Jason running across a field, a dog at his heels.
Yup, Jason was going to be a perfect frontier life kid.
I gazed down at his photo. His one almost colorless blue eye and the honey brown other one looking wide-eyed at the camera, his shock of brown hair in disarray as if he’d just been called in from playing outside. I smiled, touching the picture.
“Tell me more about him,” I said, and she did.
His parents and grandparents died in a car crash with a drunk driver when he was two, no other family, so social services had picked him up from the babysitter next door.
He was a B student with some Cs, which told me that he was bright but needed some help with his homework so he could stay focused.
I’d been the same, and I knew that in no time, he’d be pulling solid Bs and a few As.
Or the equivalent there on New Haven, I reminded myself.
“So, what do you think?” she asked me.
That I’m having you bring him here, and tomorrow while he’s in school, I’m going down to the Center to ask a few questions.
Not that I said that out loud. Instead, I smiled warmly and said, “That tonight, Jason and I will be going out for pizza, and tomorrow, I need to go do some more grocery shopping.”
“Great! Now, is the income amount correct? I saw you changed jobs recently.”
“Yes. I currently work from home from nine to five, Monday to Friday, for Calamity Calls. They are a third party customer service call service who are contracted with several major car insurance companies. I deal with customers who’ve rented a car and need to use the insurance coverage they purchased.
I get a tow truck sent out, arrange a new vehicle for them, that sort of thing.
I’m off today because we had online training for a new company this morning, which only took me two hours, and I got the rest of the day off. ”
She nodded, still smiling. “That sounds like it can be a very interesting job.”
“Oh, it can be,” I agreed. “Last week, I had a woman call because she’d rented a car from the airport, and while she was parked at her motel, a guy driving a Hertz rental truck backed into her while trying to park. Stove the back right in.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my goodness.”
I nodded. “Yes. I know I’ll never rent a car without taking out that extra insurance, for sure. This job has made me a believer.”
“Right. Well, I see you make enough for your household expenses. According to the figures I ran before coming, though, adding Jason will put you within the SNAP threshold, should you wish to apply. Now, he also comes with a stipend from the state, which will be paid to you every month until he turns eighteen, and that is not dependent on your income.”
“You’re going to pay me to keep him, even though he’s going to be my kid and no longer a foster kid.”
She nodded. “It’s a subsidy that all children adopted from our state’s foster care system receive. In addition, your stated income means you’re eligible for a fifteen hundred dollar reimbursement of legal fees incurred by you for the adoption itself.”
“Let me get this straight. I’m to foster him for six weeks, then I can apply to the court to adopt him.
And while he’s my foster kid, I get paid the foster parent subsidy.
Then once I pay the legal fees to adopt him, I also get reimbursed for those, so it will basically cost me nothing to make him my forever son.
And once he’s my forever son, I’m going to get paid money to help raise him until he’s eighteen. ”
She nodded. “Indeed. Which is yet another one of the many, many reasons we are so careful vetting foster parents and adopters,” she said.
Getting the money after I adopted him didn’t feel right. I made up my mind to set half of whatever it was into a savings account for him and to donate the other half to a local family relief fund. Local to here, because it was here that was paying me the money.
“Once your adoption is final, if you both go to New Haven, be sure to send me a postcard or a photo of you both there,” she said, rising.
Mmhmm. I bet after I talk to the folks down at the center, that’s gonna turn out to be sooner than you think, and completely legal too.
Oh, I’ll wait the six weeks so Jason and I can get to know one another and make plans together about what we want to do on our farm.
I’ll take him to get a dog before we go, even.
“Sure thing,” I replied, rising as she stood up.
“It’s nearly three o’clock now, so I’ll make it to the home just before he gets there. We’ll be here around four-thirtyish, if that’s alright?”
“Perfect!” I replied, holding out my hand to shake hers. “I’ll be here.”