“I’ll call them now.”
He twisted his neck, looked at her alarm clock then looked at her.
“It’s just going six thirty.”
“They’ll be up.”
“Will they be up and in the disposition to discuss takin’ on a kid when they not too long ago got their house all to themselves?”
“Yes,” she replied immediately.
He figured that was true too.
“Give me a kiss then grab the phone.”
She smiled even bigger so he felt it on her lips when she gave him her mouth.
When he broke the kiss, she moved in to give him another light one before she rolled out of his arms and reached for the phone.
Chace rolled out of bed and moved to the bathroom.
By the time he walked out, she was sitting at the side of her bed, off the phone, her dancing eyes came direct to him and her mouth moved.
“They said yes.”
Then she smiled big.
Chace smiled back.
Then he walked to the kitchen and made his girl breakfast.
* * * * *
“Chace, I get you but I haven’t had time to assess the situation fully yet. What I already know –” Karena Papadakis started.
She was a Child Welfare Officer and she was standing with Chace outside the Critical Care Ward.
“He’s a deacon at the church,” Chace cut her off to say. “She designs the Sunday programs. He mows the church lawn. Seriously, Karena, Sondra Goodknight won’t even let her twenty-nine year old daughter say ‘frak’, a made up curse word from a Sci-Fi TV show. They’ll do good by this kid.”
He’d already told her he wanted her to place Malachi with the Goodknights and she was rightly and not surprisingly balking due to procedure.
“They’re older,” Karena replied quietly.
“Yeah. They are. Which means they’ve already raised three kids so they know what they’re doin’. One of those kids is the Mom of two boys. One’s the town librarian who has a Master’s Degree. The last one’s in the Army serving our country,” Chace returned.
“They don’t have foster certification,” she told him.
“Then get it for them,” he told her.
“It would require home visits, foster parent classes –” she began.
“The state he’s in, Karena, he’s not gonna be discharged tomorrow,” Chace pointed out. “You have time and what you already know about that kid and the more you’ll find out, I know you, you’ll bust your hump to fast-track it.”
He was not wrong about this. There were people who found jobs. Karena Papadakis found her calling. Her caseload wasn’t exactly light but it also wasn’t what a person in a similar position in a city would be. This gave her plenty of time to do her job the way she’d probably break her back to do it even if her caseload was double. And that was, with care.
She held his eyes and then cautiously reminded him, “Medical reports say this kid may be special needs. The history you gave me tells me he already is.”
“You know I won’t let that kid down. You don’t know this but you can take my word my woman won’t let him down. They’re her parents. She’s got nephews close to his age. Her sister lives in Gnaw Bone. You place this kid with the Goodknights, he goes from livin’ in his own shit in a shed in the middle of nowhere to livin’ in a modified Brady Bunch house ten minutes out of town with a good, close family who, I assure you, can handle special needs. These people got so much goodness, Karena, they can handle anything.”