Chapter 51
Luca
Three years later
“Do you have any openings?”
I’m on the phone with a staff member from Child Protective Services.
We know each other well, she’s Mika’s guardian and the boy lived with us for a long time before he moved into a foster family five months ago.
It was hard for us to say goodbye, but we were more than happy that he now has a chance at a family.
Contrary to all our worries, Mika has developed wonderfully, so we unanimously decided he was ready to leave.
“We filled the last spot two weeks ago. If everything goes smoothly, we’ll have a return in four weeks, but I can’t say for sure just yet.”
“Shit…” One word, followed by a deep breath. That doesn’t sound good.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s about Mika. We have to take him out of his foster family.” My heart stops for a moment and breaks for this sweet little guy whom I’ve wanted so much to have a home.
“What happened?” She has guardianship, she’s not bound by confidentiality, but we haven’t heard anything since Mika left. That’s not unusual, which is why we thought everything was fine.
“It was difficult from the start. He cried a lot, screamed and started wetting himself again. He barely slept at all except at preschool, where he’d break down in the morning.
He only spoke at preschool, too. We’d hoped he’d pull himself together over time, but now he’s showing self-harming behavior and we have to intervene.
I’d hoped he could go back to his familiar environment.
At preschool, he talked a lot about your husband. ”
That doesn’t surprise me, the two of them had a special bond from day one.
There wasn’t just one night when we got a call from the night shift saying Mika wouldn’t calm down and Noah went over.
Every single time. Hearing how bad he’s doing hurts.
It hurts so much that my next sentence just slips out of my mouth without me even thinking.
“Can Mika come to live with us? Not as a child in the children’s home, but as some sort of foster care with my husband and me.” There is silence on the other end of the line. “Of course, I’d have to discuss that with my husband first.”
Now she doesn’t hesitate. “When can you let me know?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll call you right back.” Then there’s a click on the line.
I find Noah in the kitchen with Jonah. “No, you can’t throw a party of that magnitude here, and certainly not with alcohol.”
“But I’m turning fourteen!” Jonah begs and pleads. That would’ve definitely won me over, but my husband is a tough nut to crack.
“That’s exactly why. And there are much younger kids in the house.”
“Then I’ll celebrate at your place. Just like Linus.”
“Linus lives with us.”
“And why don’t I live with you? I’ve been here longer than Linus was.
I can’t go into foster care, and I can’t be adopted because I have a fucking mother who doesn’t want to see me but prevents me from finding a family.
I’ll never go on vacation. I’ll never bring home friends because I don’t have a home.
” He’s right about everything he says, and I understand his wish.
I had the same one. Except that by the time I was fourteen, I finally had a place.
Jonah sees the others coming and going here, and even though we have a family-like setup, we don’t replace a family. No one knows that better than I do.
“Noah, we need to talk.”
“No, I’m not done here yet!” Jonah yells in frustration, and I put my hand on his shoulder to calm him down.
“I understand, and I promise you, we’ll find a solution for your birthday, okay. I just need to put that conversation on hold for a few minutes.”
Noah looks at me in disbelief as we retreat into the office.
Putting off conflicts isn’t our style—usually.
“What’s going on? How could you just leave Jonah hanging like that?
He’s desperate, and you, of all people here, should know why.
He’s been here for five years. And he has no perspective that anything might change for him in the future. ”
“Mika has to get out of his foster family.”
“Comment?”
“You heard me. His guardian called, she’s looking for a place and was hoping we might be available.”
All the color draines from Noah’s face. “But why?”
I give him a brief summary of the phone call. “Fuck. What now?”
“I have an idea, but you have to be on board with it too. It will affect the both of us and it’s going to change our lives.” I wrap my arms around him, knowing that change unsettles him, knowing that we’d actually decided against having children.
Big hazel eyes look at me expectantly. His left eyelid twitches, which is how I know he’s super stressed even though he seems completely calm on the outside. “Should we take Mika in as a foster child, if that’s possible?”
Noah’s eyelid stops twitching; he holds my gaze and presses himself a little closer to me. “And Jonah too?”
***
The last few months have been turbulent, but things are slowly settling down.
I’m grateful for our big house, which now provides a home for three children.
Last year, Papa and Paps expanded and renovated the garden shed into a small house and moved in there, so we have the big main house all to ourselves.
At almost twenty-two, Linus isn’t a child anymore.
After graduating from high school, he decided to go to Strasbourg to university, just like Noah and I did, and lives with friends in a shared apartment in Noah’s old place.
Of course, he still needs his room here for his regular visits.
He recently got a girlfriend, and the two of them are really cute together.
Mika clings to Noah as if his life depended on it. That moment when Mika saw Noah, when he ran toward him and fell asleep in his arms just ten minutes later from exhaustion, that moment is forever etched in my memory.
He’s getting better at going to preschool now, but the first few times were very difficult because he was afraid Noah wouldn’t pick him up later.
Now that it’s clear Noah is coming and Noah is taking him home again, everything is fine.
My husband has been his primary caregiver since he was three weeks old.
Maybe a foster family would have worked for him if he’d been placed sooner, but that’s a moot point now, because nothing can be changed.
Mika is with us, already turning our lives upside down, and whenever I see that slight smile playing on Noah’s lips when he looks at him, I know we did everything right.
Jonah is still planning his party for next week.
We didn’t make it in time for his birthday, because bringing him to us was harder than expected.
As it turned out, his mother was against a foster family, and his guardian accepted that decision.
He wasn’t badly cared for in our group, which is exactly why Jonah never got to leave us, something he had so desperately hoped for.
The fact that he’s with us now is entirely his own doing.
He called his guardian, set up an appointment, and told her he wanted to be with us.
It was his wish. In the end, the guardianship court ruled that his wish took precedence over his mother’s and granted us total guardianship.
Now there are five of us. Something we could’ve never imagined, but it feels incredibly right.