Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
Early evening December 23
Jeff had no idea how to take care of a sick kid. He’d never babysat a day in his life. He didn’t have any siblings, least of all a younger brother. He knew nothing about eight-year-olds even though he used to be one. His personal memories of an upset stomach were few and far between.
“Do you think it’s something you ate?” Lizzie offered.
Or all the things he ate. A list of everything that child put into his body that day ran through Jeff’s mind. He’d chalked it up to a growing boy. JT had eaten almost as many calories as he had.
His thoughts were interrupted when Lizzie asked, “Jeff, is there any ginger ale in that little refrigerator?”
“Let me look,” he said as he stood. That was a really good idea. He suddenly remembered his mother giving him flat soda and saltine crackers when his stomach was upset as a little boy.
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” Lizzie asked as he opened the fridge under the tiny sink at the wet bar.
JT shrugged. “Maybe.”
Jeff found one can of ginger ale. Opening it as he stood, he carried it back to JT. “Why don’t you sit down on the couch with us and drink this then we’ll see how your stomach feels in a few minutes.”
The little boy looked so small sitting between the two of them carefully holding the cold, clear soda can in both hands.
“You had a very big day today,” Lizzie noted. “Are you sad about leaving the Cantrells’ home or concerned about meeting the Wolfs tomorrow?”
“Both.” JT’s voice was so quiet that Jeff almost missed the word.
“Tell me exactly what you’re feeling so we can help you.” Lizzie looked over the child’s head at him with imploring eyes.
Jeff felt like he needed to say something. “If you’re worried about tomorrow, I kind of know how you feel. I was very nervous, and excited at the same time, when I flew to Washington, D.C. to go to college and I was much older than you are now. Like you, I came from the same small town in Kansas that we left this morning. There were more students in my freshman class than in the whole county. I was worried about having to make all new friends, but I was anxious to start college and a new chapter in my life.”
JT’s eyes grew bigger the more Jeff talked. “You were scared?”
“Sure,” he admitted. “I knew I had to be brave, though.”
“I think I’m worried about tomorrow.” JT stared down at the can in his hands. When he raised his head and looked at Jeff then Lizzie, he was smiling. “Today has been so much fun...” His smile turned upside down. “Except for having to say goodbye to my brothers and sisters in the Cantrell family. And Momma and Poppa C.” His gaze returned to his lap, and he sniffed. Without looking up, he confessed, “I’m going to miss them.”
“I know you are.” Lizzie patted his small knee covered by his new pajamas. “Hopefully you’ll stay in touch with them.” Jeff wasn’t quite sure how that was going to happen since the Cantrells didn’t have either a landline or cell phone. Perhaps once they got back on their feet, they could get a phone.
“This feels different than before.” JT looked at Lizzie with hope. “With the Cantrells, I met them in the park for little bit the first time. We kids played on the swings and slides and Momma C brought lunch. Then I went back to the orphanage. The next time you took me to their house, and I spent a few hours with their family. The next time I got to spend the weekend and when you came to pick me up, they said they wanted to keep me. So, I stayed, and you brought me my stuff. Is that what’s going to happen tomorrow? Am I just going to meet Mr. and Mrs. Wolf then we’re going to go…go…where? You’re not going to leave me, are you?” His small little-boy voice broke on the last sentence, tugging at Jeff’s heart.
JT swung his head toward Jeff as though he knew what the navy lieutenant was thinking. “I heard you and Miss Lizzie talking. You said you have to go back to base right away.” His head rotated to Lizzie. “And you said you have to go to Florida to be with your parents for Christmas. Are we going to meet Mr. and Mrs. Wolf and then go back to Kansas? I don’t want you to miss Christmas with your parents and for you to miss work.”
Lizzie took his tiny hand in hers. “No, JT. Not only are you going to meet Mr. and Mrs. Wolf, but if everything goes okay, I’ll let you stay there for a few days. But just like I did with the Cantrells, I have to interview them to make sure they’re going to be good parents for you.”
Jeff wondered for the first time if he’d done the right thing by bringing JT to Washington. Should he have let Lizzie take control? Should he have let her do it her way? What would she have done? How would she have dealt with the situation? He had looked at handing JT over to Alex and Katlin the way he would a mission. He’d grabbed the boy and plowed through. He was the reason they were sitting in a Guardian Security apartment in Chicago at that precise moment. JT had been correct. Jeff had to be on base before December twenty-fourth to take duty starting at midnight on Christmas. His plan had been to get JT to Washington on the twenty-second, turn him over to Mr. and Mrs. Wolf no later than the twenty-third, and make his way to Virginia Beach on the twenty-fourth. He hadn’t considered how this would normally have gone. He had no idea that there were several visits before the child stayed at the foster home. Looking back, he probably should have asked Lizzie about the process.
Was it too late to readjust?
Yes. The Wolf family had expected him to bring JT to them today. Jeff looked out the window as fluffy snowflakes continued to fall like tiny white polka dots on the cones of yellow shining down from the streetlights. For a second, he wondered if they’d be able to get out of Chicago tomorrow.
“Lieutenant Jeff.” JT tapped him on the arm, pulling him out of his self-recrimination.
“Sorry, I was just looking at all the snow accumulating outside.”
“Do you still have the letter from my dad?” There was so much hope in that sentence.
“Of course.” Jeff was then reminded that he had paraphrased his father’s words. Oh, well. The young boy was going to eventually learn the truth about the kind of man his father had been. Hopefully, Jeff would be long gone so he wouldn’t have to be the one to explain his father’s infidelity with his mother that resulted in his birth.
“May I get them back, please?” JT swallowed hard. “My dad wrote those and that’s the only thing I have from my dad.”
“Yes. But I’d like to show them to Mr. and Mrs. Wolf first.” He’d decided last night that those letters would make a better introduction for JT than he ever could verbalize.
It took a minute before JT nodded. “That would be okay. But I’d really like to get them back. It’s all I have from him.”
At that declaration, Jeff decided that he would make sure the little boy got the letters back.
“Do you have anything to recall your mother?” Lizzie asked.
JT nodded. “Yeah. I have some pictures in my remember box.”
“What’s that?” Jeff raised an eyebrow. “What’s your remember box?” he clarified.
The little boy, carefully holding the can of soda, wiggled his way off the couch then gently set the can on the side table next to Lizzie’s now warm and diluted rum and Coke. “I’ll show you.”
She leaned over and spoke quietly as soon as JT was beyond hearing distance. “Most of these kids have practically nothing when they’re taken from their home, but almost all of them will grab the most precious item they have and keep up with them as they’re moved from house to house.”
“That is so fucking sad,” Jeff said just above a whisper.
Lizzie nodded. “But true. For some of them it’s nothing more than a penny they found on the street or a stone from a creek that brings back good memories.”
JT walked out with a battered children’s shoebox. “This is my remember box.” He smiled up at Jeff as he sat back down on the couch between the two of them. “This is where I kept the envelope that I gave to you.”
He gently lifted the torn-at-the-corners lid as though it might fall apart in his hands. He took out a picture of a man beside a woman holding a tiny baby. Both adults were standing outside in ankle-deep snow wearing Navy uniforms. He handed the picture to Jeff. “This is my mom and dad.” He giggled. “And that baby is me.” He pointed to the infant in the picture. Jeff flipped it over to see the writing on the back. Veterans’ recognition Sunday at church . It was dated over eight years ago. He handed the well-worn photograph to Lizzie.
“Aunt Nellie took that picture.” JT dug in the box and came out with another. This time an older woman was holding him, and he was a little bit bigger. “That’s my Aunt Nellie. We lived with her when my mom got sick. She had cancer and died.” His statement was so emotionless as though he was saying it was raining outside. “Aunt Nellie told me that’s why she took so many pictures of me and my mom, so I’d never forget her.” Jeff exchanged photographs with Lizzie and stared at the photo of his parents. “I don’t remember my mom or dad. Sometimes lately, I don’t remember what Aunt Nellie looked like. That’s when I pull out my remember box and look at all the pictures.”
JT withdrew other photos. Some were of Tyler Malone holding him as an infant. Others were the developmental kind of pictures that a mother would send to a father away at war, so he didn’t miss his son’s growth, especially that first year. In all of those, his mother’s head was wrapped in a scarf or bandanna. As the child grew larger, the woman seemed to shrink. An invisible hand gripped Jeff’s heart and squeezed tight as he watched through the photographs as the once impressive female in the Lieutenant JG uniform withered away.
From the bottom of the box, JT pulled out a necklace that held a gold ring with three different colored stones. “Aunt Nellie said the blue one in the middle is for my birthday. I was born in September. The brown one,” he pointed to the stone on one side, “that’s for my mom. I don’t remember when she was born.”
“That looks like a topaz, which means her birthday was in November.” Lizzie gave him a warm smile. “And this one looks like alexandrite. Is your father’s birthday in June?”
Never lifting his eyes from the ring, JT just shrugged. He finally admitted, “I don’t know. I didn’t even know my mom’s birthday was in November.”
“That makes a very pretty necklace,” Lizzie added.
“Aunt Nellie told me that during Mom’s chemo she couldn’t wear the ring anymore because her body swelled up, so she took it off. The next time my dad came to visit me he brought her this necklace.”
It was then Jeff saw the unusual heart-shaped pendant.
“That’s so sweet.” Lizzie held the jewelry in her hand, smiling at it. “Your birthdate is engraved on this mother and child pendant. See.” She pointed to the smaller ball. “This is you and this one is your mother. Together you form a heart.”
“What a nice gift,” Jeff said as he leaned back.
In silence, JT collected all the memorabilia and carefully placed them back inside the box. The three of them sat quietly for what seemed like ten minutes, but in reality probably wasn’t more than thirty seconds. “What if they don’t like me?” JT asked just above a whisper. “What if after I get there, and maybe a week, everything changes, and they decide they don’t want me?”
Jeff’s doubts once again reared their ugly heads. He had circumvented the normal process for fostering. The typically slow introduction and blending of the child into their family wasn’t going to happen. He had bulldozed his way into the situation, and it wasn’t something he could fix if it didn’t work out. He’d be down in Virginia Beach getting to know his new team and entrenched in training. He might even be outside the country on a mission. He couldn’t leave and come rescue JT from an uncomfortable circumstance.
“I’ll be checking up on you.” Lizzie reassuringly patted his knee. “It’ll take a few weeks to get your new foster care situation established.”
Jeff felt like an idiot for not realizing that she would have to stay in touch with JT. “I’ll give you my cell phone number and we can put it in the remember box.”
“Great idea,” Lizzie agreed and moved to the desk where she retrieved a pen and paper. She wrote her name and number down and handed the pad of note paper to Jeff. He instantly memorized her number as he wrote his own down.
“Although I might not always be able to answer the call, please leave a message and I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can.” He handed the child the piece of paper and watched as the boy slipped it into the abused cardboard box. “I will be training every day with my new team but just as soon as I get to my messages I’ll call you back. I promise.” That was the only promise he was willing to make because that was the only one he had control over. He was not about to promise the boy that everything would be okay because Jeff was now aware that all kinds of shit could go wrong.
“Thank you.” JT leaned over and hugged Jeff first then twisted to hug Lizzie.
“Does your tummy feel better now?” she asked.
The small child nestled between them nodded and yawned at the same time.
“You ready to go back to bed now?” Jeff asked. The child stood, gently holding the box in both his hands. “Want me to carry that back to your bedroom and tuck you in?”
JT nodded. “Yes, please.” He took two steps and glanced over his shoulder. “You too, Miss Lizzie.”