by JoAnn Ross
* * *
“ARE YOU SURE you’ll all be okay?” Chelsea asked before leaving for the meeting at the library with the other foster mothers. With Hailey helping with the sifting, she’d made two batches of brownies. One for the meeting and the other to leave at home for Gabriel and the children.
“Positive,” Gabriel assured her. “I’ve got things all planned. After we’re done playing with matches, we’re going to run down to the beach with scissors.”
“Matches aren’t funny.” Hannah folded her arms. “I’ve already been through one almost fire.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “That’s my bad. How about we all jump off the roof?”
“You are so not funny,” Chelsea scolded.
“I believe we’ve already determined that. Don’t worry. We’ll do great,” he assured her. “We’ll get a pizza and watch a movie.”
“I love pizza!” Hailey said with her usual enthusiasm, which Chelsea found rather amazing given what all she’d been through in her young life. Then again, she’d always been able to count on Hannah for taking care of them. Meanwhile, it appeared Hannah hadn’t had anyone to take care of her for a very long time.
“I don’t want mushrooms,” Hannah said. “Or pineapple.”
“I can live without mushrooms,” Gabe agreed. “And you’re absolutely right about pineapple, which is a heresy and disrespectful to pizzas everywhere.”
“Can we watch Mulan?” Hailey directed puppy dog eyes, which Chelsea doubted anyone could resist, up at him. And heaven help them all, she could even flutter her lashes. “She’s my favorite Disney princess. Because she has a dragon for a friend. And she ends up saving China!”
“But she’s technically not a princess,” Hannah pointed out. “Her father was a commoner and she marries a captain in the army.”
“You go argue that with Disney,” Gabriel suggested.
“Maybe she became a princess when she got the Emperor’s Medallion,” Hailey suggested.
“Maybe.” Hannah’s tone was doubtful. “Whatever, I have to admit that she’s a kick-ass girl who proves that being smart is just another way to be strong. The best part is when after shunning her for being a girl, the soldiers have to dress like women to help her rescue the emperor.”
Chelsea didn’t have a clue about the movie, but this was something she could bring into the conversation. “There’s a Norse myth like that. An evil Jotun—they were the enemies of people and the gods—stole Thor’s hammer and wouldn’t give it back until the goddess Freya married him. So Thor and Loki, Odin’s blood brother, dressed up like a bride and a bridesmaid to trick the Jotun at the wedding, and get the hammer back.
“It’s in a book of myths that Hannah and I could read you. But,” she said on afterthought, remembering Jarle’s comment about Norwegians being a passionate people, “they might be a little violent.”
“There are battle scenes in Mulan, and the armies burn villages and kill people,” Hannah said. “I think she could handle it.”
“Well, all right, then.” Chelsea decided that the movie princess franchise had definitely moved on from Snow White whistling while she worked and Cinderella attending the ball in a pumpkin coach. Though Snow White’s evil stepmother had made Chelsea cover her eyes when she’d been Hailey’s age. “I’d better get going. Have fun, guys!”
“You, too,” Gabriel said. “We’ll save you a piece of pizza.”
He walked her to the door, bent his head and brushed his lips against hers. “Maybe you’ll find out how people with kids have sex.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist. “I hope so.”
“Me, too.” His brief yet heartfelt kiss suggested a promise neither of them was prepared to make.
* * *
THE MEETING WAS about to start when Chelsea arrived. A group of ten women, ranging in age from midtwenties to, perhaps, fifty, all wearing stick-on name tags, were helping themselves to coffee and cookies. Chelsea recognized most of them as library patrons. Many had brought in children over the years that she never would have guessed weren’t their own.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Chelsea Prescott.”
“I think we probably all know you from the library,” a tall redhead, whose tag read Julie, said.
“Are those brownies?”
“They are.”
“Oh, yum. Now we’re even more happy to have you come tonight.”
“I sort of threw myself into the deep end before learning how to swim,” Chelsea admitted. “I’m hoping for some tips that will keep not just me but, more importantly, the kids afloat.”
“That’s a good analogy,” Susan, the branch manager of the Mannions’ family bank, said. “And don’t worry, even with the licensing classes, we all were you on our first day.”
“Especially if you come in through the kinship program, like you and my husband and I did,” a woman Chelsea recognized as their server from Sensation Cajun added. “We had no clue what we were doing when we took in a child who was in my daughter’s Girl Scout troop after her mother went to jail for shoplifting three hundred dollars of clothing from the Walmart outside town. It turned out to be a third-degree felony that comes with a possible maximum jail time of three-hundred sixty-four days and up to a five-thousand-dollar fine. She probably could have gotten off with a fine, but because she had a record for the same crime in Portland, the judge gave her sixty days in jail. He did waive the fine if she agreed to attend six weeks of counseling classes.
“Still, two months away from your mom is a very long time for a child, so it wasn’t easy. We’ve received a lot of help from this group, but we’ve also discovered that every child brings his or her unique set of challenges.”
“Especially when they come with traumaversary,” Laura, a silver-haired woman in her fifties who managed Michael Mannion’s art gallery, joined in. “We’d been fostering for a few years when we took in a young boy who’d been removed from his family on Memorial Day weekend after a murder/suicide domestic situation. We were blindsided when he became angry and particularly disruptive while we were camping in the park. Although we were his third family in a year, no one else had reported that kind of behavior, and while we knew the date that he’d first entered the system, Memorial Day is one of those holidays without a consistent date like Halloween or Christmas, so we didn’t make the connection. That, of course, can happen with any child, but it’s especially important to know with foster kids.”
“I’m not a child,” Chelsea said. “But I’m personally familiar with anniversary triggers. This year was the first year since I was a freshman in high school that I didn’t get drunk on the anniversary of my sister’s death. It started as a way to connect with my mother, who became an alcoholic after we lost my younger sister to cancer and my dad left the family. But, even with therapy, it became a destructive pattern.”
“How did you break it?” a woman, whose tag introduced her as Karen, asked. “Or is that too personal?”
Chelsea was surprised she’d even brought up the topic she never talked about. But now that she had...
“It was a small thing. Last year I woke up feeling okay and decided that it was time to quit beating myself up over something I’d had no control over. Fortunately, it was a super busy day, which helped me hold the urge at bay. Then I stopped at Mannion’s and had chocolate caramel martinis on an empty stomach. Quinn tried, unsuccessfully, to talk me out of the third one, then cut me off. He called the single cab in town to drive me home after I threw up in the restroom.
“Sitting in the back of that cab I still felt the loss I know will never completely go away, but not only was my behavior embarrassing, if the bartender had been anyone else but Quinn, I could have ended up driving home drunk and possibly having an accident and causing another family the same horrible grief my family had been through. So, I guess you could call it being scared straight. This anniversary
I went out for dinner with friends after work, stuck with water, then went home and watched Gladiator.”
“That’s an odd choice,” the scout leader said. “I think I would’ve chosen a more upbeat romantic comedy.”
Chelsea shrugged, surprised at how she was already feeling a kinship with these women. “If you can’t feel better looking at a young, hot Russell Crowe in a tunic, you should check your pulse, because you’re probably dead.”
The group laughed, then settled down in chairs that had already been arranged in a circle, and began sharing how the past two weeks had gone. On the occasion of less than perfect incidents, empathy and advice were offered. Meanwhile, Chelsea madly wrote every bit of information she was gleaning on the blank pages in the back of her life planner. Then one thing struck home.
“The first thing I need to say is these are the best brownies ever,” a mom named Jess said. Which earned unanimous agreement. “I have a degree in child psychology, so I foolishly thought I’d be a natural. I already knew that we humans don’t bond or love generically. We bond to a specific person. Or, in the case of a family, persons. Many of the children are coming from very damaged families. Which makes it only natural that they’d bond with the first family that makes room for them, not just in their homes and lives, but their hearts.
“So, keeping that in mind, imagine you’ve been happily married for a few months when some kind and caring person, through no fault of your own, has inexplicably been put in charge of every aspect of your life. And that person, whom you’ve never met before, announces that it’s time to pack all your things because you’re going to go live with a different husband. And don’t worry, he’s a very nice man and lives in a very nice home.”
“That would be terrible.” Chelsea didn’t need to be a child psychologist to tell where this was going.
“Isn’t it? Yet that’s no different from telling a foster child that they’ll be moving to a new placement.”
“They don’t allow a child to stay in a situation where she—or he—is thriving?”
“That’s the ideal,” Susan said. “But the system is so strained at the seams that it’s not a guarantee. If a child from Yakima, to use an example, is fostered here due to lack of local space, then a family suddenly opens up in Yakima, that child will be moved back across the mountains. Because, typically, especially for reunification, placement near the original home is preferable.
“My husband and I often take in kids with special needs. So, if we have a child who’s finally doing well, if a new boy or girl with serious problems comes along, there’ll likely be a rotation. So our child will move out to make room for the more needy one.”
Chelsea thought about what Hailey had said about their constant moving. Her own roots were so deep in the glacial till and sand beneath Honeymoon Harbor, she was planted for life. But children like Hailey and Hannah were like tumbleweeds, blown across an arid desert by the wind.
“I have a question,” she said, as the allotted time wound down, all too soon to her mind. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”
“You’ve already told us about getting drunk every year,” the gallery owner, whose name was Diana, said. “Let me guess... Since you’re living with Gabriel Mannion out at the lake, and rumor has it Gabriel bought out the entire patio at Sensation Cajun so you two could have a private dinner on—”
“Which was so romantic,” Jess gushed, earning affirmative nods from everyone present
“You’re wondering how to have sex with kids in the house,” Diana guessed.
“It takes some management skills,” the mom with the Memorial Day boy said, after Chelsea had admitted that had, indeed, been her question. “One thing you’re going to have to embrace is quickies.”
“You’ll be surprised how erotic having sex hidden in the closet can be,” Karen said.
“Just make sure you lock the bedroom door first,” Julie advised. “Kids never recognize a closed door. We’ve taught ours that sometimes we just need some Us Time. Then stick in a video for them to watch.”
The list continued. Chelsea dutifully noted them all. Wearing sexy underwear to get in the mood, the same way you did when you dated. Which brought her back to really needing to buy some sexy underwear. Whispers and blanket tents could be every bit as sexy as headboard banging. Playing music to get you in the mood can also muffle noise.
“A sound machine,” Julie advised. “After a few weeks, I could almost orgasm by myself walking on the beach at the coast, because I identify the sound of ocean waves with sex.” Everyone, including Chelsea, laughed at that.
“If you have a home office with a guest bed, every parent knows it’s really a sex bed,” Susan said.
More suggestions followed. Making out in the car like you did back in high school. Chelsea had never had an opportunity to do that, so hey, maybe it was time. A camper or travel trailer, which drew some heartfelt votes from several women. Locks on every door. Appointment sex.
“You’d be surprised at how sexy anticipation of a scheduled time can be,” Teri, a county prosecutor, said. “I put fireworks stickers for sex days on my planner and just looking at the page while I’m at the office can turn me on.”
Nooners while the kids were at school or day camp. Something she and Gabriel could easily do.
Flirt with him. “Squeezing my husband’s butt while we’re in the kitchen cooking dinner always works for us,” Diana said. “Also, get a long tablecloth for warmups. Like playing around on date night in restaurants.” Another thing Chelsea had never done, but if Sensation Cajun had had tablecloths on the patio tables, given that they’d been all alone out there, she might have been up for that.
“A special word. Like a bat signal, to let your partner know you’re up for some sexy time,” another woman suggested.
Sex in the pool at night while the kids were sleeping. Sex without taking your clothes off. As she wrote that one down, Chelsea felt the heat warming her cheeks. She could definitely check off that box.
“And,” Susan wrapped up the discussion, “the most important reason God created baby monitors was so parents...”
“Could have sex!” everyone shouted together, causing much shared laughter to ensue.
As she left the meeting, thanking everyone and promising to be back in two weeks if the girls were still fostered with her, Chelsea was feeling much more confident. Also, just imagining all those scenarios while driving back to the lake had her ready to jump Gabriel the minute she walked into the house.
She found them in the library where Hailey was sitting on a couch with her stuffed dragon next to her, a library book she’d brought with her from their previous house on her lap. “After my princess bedroom, this is my favorite room,” she told Chelsea. “It’s just like the library that the Beast gave Beauty. I’m reading Daisy a book about dragons. So she’ll know where she came from.”
“What a good idea,” Chelsea said.
“She’s really not reading,” Hannah said, looking up from an antique table where it appeared Gabriel was teaching her chess. “She’s memorized it from all the times she’s made me read it to her.”
“That’s a good start,” Chelsea said. “You all seem to have survived without me.”
“We did great,” Hannah said. “The movie was okay. But I could live in this room.”
“Me, too.” Chelsea decided against telling her about the books having been bought by the crate. “I never learned to play chess.”
“I’m going to be a writer when I grow up,” Hannah said offhandedly. “And Gabriel could teach you chess. Though since you’re an adult, he might not let you capture his pieces so easily.” She diagonally moved a white pawn, taking Gabriel’s black off the board.
“Hey, that was great strategy for a beginner,” he argued, causing the girl to roll her eyes.
“So,” Chelsea said, “you want to be a writer?”
> “Yeah. I have all these emotions that sometimes feel like they’re going to explode inside me, you know?”
It was a rhetorical question, but Chelsea answered it anyway. “Very well.”
“But when I read books about girls like me, I realize that I’m not alone.”
“That’s one of the wonderful things about books. While they can take you to faraway places, sometimes they speak to something about ourselves.”
“That’s what I want to do. I want to write stories to help other kids like me.”
“That’s a wonderful goal,” Chelsea said. Hadn’t she been that same lost, lonely girl at Hannah’s age? And hadn’t books been a lifeline? “I’ll be so proud to have your books in my library.”
That earned a rare smile, the first Chelsea had seen that lit up the girl’s eyes. “That would be so cool,” she said. “Having a book I wrote in a library.”
“Even better than cool,” Chelsea agreed. “Even though I’m surrounded by books every day, I don’t get to meet many writers, and when I do, they’ve already written their book. But I’d be able to tell people that I knew you when you first decided to become a famous writer. That would give me some serious cred in the library world.”
That earned an even brighter smile than the first.
“Break time,” Gabriel said. “Why don’t you practice some of your moves, Hannah, while I talk with Chelsea about her meeting.”
They’d decided, after the sandcastle excursion, that Mr. Mannion and Ms. Prescott were too formal for their situation. Although Hannah had learned at the meeting that some foster parents choose to go with mom and dad, especially when there was no chance of reunification with their birth parents, that didn’t feel quite right for the short-term.
While Hannah studied the beginner chess book Gabriel had somehow managed to unearth in the color-coded library and began experimenting with moving different pieces, Chelsea moved with him into the hallway.