Choices(Waiting for Forever BK 1) (29 page)

“They’re working on it, Brian. When I talked to Carolyn this morning, she was meeting with their attorney. It will be okay,” he assured me. This time, it didn’t feel so hollow.

Were you at the house?

“Yes, I stopped by to pick up your stuff, and Richard said that….” He stopped as I wrote frantically.

Why was Richard there? He should have been at work? Did they fire him?

“I don’t think so, but we didn’t get into any specifics. I didn’t want to seem too familiar with them, because it would have been looked on badly not only by the school but by this Hascomb fellow. He’s been around a few times to talk to me. I don’t think he knows I’m gay because he’s been very friendly.” Kyle shrugged and looked around once again to make sure everything was in place.

“Do you need anything?”

Just to go home.

I’
D
WORKED
late into the night after Kyle left, doing math problems I cared nothing about, working on an essay for a lot longer than it normally would have taken, and generally just dragging things out to give myself something to do. Again, I tossed and turned until dawn. It was virtually impossible to find a comfortable position on the rock-hard mattress. More than that, though, I was restless. I just wanted something to happen. It was like being on a building ledge for days not knowing if I was going to fall off or be rescued.

The door opened, and Mrs. Dillon popped her head in.

“Brian, there’s someone here to see you,” she said, opening the door with a flourish. There, standing behind her, were Richard and Carolyn. Hope reared its ugly head deep in my chest. My heart rate accelerated as the smell of Carolyn’s soft floral scent reached me.
Oh please God, please…,
I thought desperately as Carolyn rushed to my bedside.

“Are you okay, son?” Richard asked as Carolyn threw her arms around my neck. I nodded, not bothering to reach for the board. Looking back and forth between them, I was desperate for any news on the so-called investigation. Carolyn seemed to understand.

“We’ve come to bring you home, darlin’,” she said quietly, and relief flooded through me for an instant before I noticed her guarded expression. When I looked up at Richard, I noticed that his was just sad. It was almost as if they regretted their decision to do so, and my heart constricted painfully. I reached over the side of the bed and grabbed the whiteboard.

What’s wrong?

Richard sighed, and it sounded like a sigh borne out of frustration and exhaustion.

“Nothing is wrong, Brian. It’s over now; let’s just go home,” he said, and he sounded older, more weary than I had ever heard him.

Please, tell me?

“We can talk about it when we get home,” Carolyn said, smoothing my long, dirty hair off my forehead. “After we get you into the shower. They didn’t take care of you at all here, did they?” I could tell she was trying to keep the anger from her voice. They’d taken away her son and hadn’t cared for him; it was obvious that made her very angry.

We can really go home?

“Yes, they wouldn’t provide an ambulance even though they took you from us in one, but we can manage in the car,” Carolyn said as she began to pull the items off my bedside table and pack them into the suitcase. I don’t think I’d ever been so comforted in my life. When she got to the bottle they’d given me to urinate in, she snorted in disgust and left it right in the middle of the table, half-full. Richard walked out into the hallway and grabbed the battered wheelchair they’d borrowed from the hospital to help me get around. It took several minutes, but they helped me into the chair and out to the car much like they had when I’d been discharged from the hospital. I could have cried from relief and joy.

I was going home.

When we arrived at the house, they got me inside with some effort, and it seemed strange to me that nothing in the house had changed. My whole life seemed to have swung on its axis in just a few days, forcing my helplessness to the forefront. The fact that even my battered dictionary was still sitting in the same place I’d left it struck me as unreal. True to her word, the first thing Carolyn did when we got into the house was get me into the shower. I hadn’t had a proper shower or bath in days, and it felt really good to wash my hair and put on clean clothes. To be honest, it felt better than I could even have articulated to her, but she seemed to understand. Carolyn kissed my clean, wet hair after I put on my new T-shirt, and then wrapped her arms around my neck.

“I’m so glad to have you home where you belong,” she said, and I could hear the tears in her voice. I wasn’t sure if the tears were for what they’d gone through with the investigation or for the prospect of losing their foster son, but I just let her affection surround me like the heat of a warm fire after spending days in the snow. When they helped me back into my bed and pulled up the comforter that had been mine for the last six years, I felt like I was truly home.

“There’s something we want to talk to you about,” Carolyn said, and she sat on the side of my bed while Richard stood next to her, holding her hand. The fear, so ingrained in my reflexes that it was automatic, began to rise and made my stomach churn. I didn’t want to think that they had just brought me home only to send me to another family, but I didn’t know what else could make Richard look so damned defeated. Whatever it was, it looked like they had already come to a decision.

“This allegation, this horrible thing that caused them to take you away from us, it hurt so much,” Carolyn said, and I saw Richard squeeze her hand. They had done so much for me, and I had caused them so much pain, I thought caustically. I didn’t blame them for wanting to ditch me. “The very worst part was knowing that they were entirely within their rights to take you. They took our son, and there wasn’t a thing we could do about it. We don’t want that to ever happen again for any reason. We should have done it years ago, but we were so complacent, we’d never had any problems…. We’d never felt for the other children what we feel for you….” Tears fell slowly from her eyes, rolling over the deep lines in her face.

“What Carolyn is trying to say, Brian, is that we want to adopt you. Would you consider letting us?” Richard asked, holding my gaze. “I know you might consider it some kind of disloyalty to your birth parents, and we’ll understand if you don’t want to….” I looked around, frantic for my board. Carolyn took it from the suitcase and handed it to me.

You want me to be your son, your real son? Like forever?

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Yes, we want you to be our son, forever,” Carolyn said, smiling through her tears. “Will you let us?”

Are you crazy? Of course I will!

I threw the board onto the bed and pulled them both into a hug, my shoulders heaving from the effort not to cry. They wanted me. Forever. They wanted me to be their son. I couldn’t even describe how wonderful that made me feel. It was like someone had inflated a hot air balloon, full and warm, in my chest.

Are they going to let you? I mean I’m almost eighteen, and with their questions?

I looked at Richard, and he nodded.

“This makes us really happy, Brian. You have no idea,” Richard said, finally smiling. “Now that I’m retired, we’ll be able to do more things together; I can even help you….”

What do you mean retired?

Richard let out a sharp breath, one more of resignation than anger.

“In light of the allegations the state was investigating, the hospital thought it might be best if I took my retirement a little early. I’d been planning to do it next year anyway, so it’s not a terrible hardship. I just…. I wasn’t really prepared to give up my career. We’ll be fine financially, I’m just… restless, I guess,” he explained, shrugging. “We’ll be okay.”

I’m so sorry,
I wrote out on the whiteboard, and truly I was. Even if they were going to be okay financially, it really came down to the fact that he’d been forced out of his career because I was gay.

“There isn’t any reason for you to be sorry. It wasn’t your fault this happened,” he assured me, but I still felt unconvinced.

If I weren’t gay, they wouldn’t have thought what they did about you.

“Maybe, but Hascomb, who is now unemployed, by the way,” he said with vindictive satisfaction I wouldn’t have expected from Richard, “was a religious zealot. One of that old preacher’s little disciples; he even went to that Bible college. We had a great case of discrimination, and our lawyer explained that to Hascomb’s supervisor. The detective, Miller, I think his name was, backed us up. He said that aside from some very minor scarring which on its own isn’t a significant indicator, they didn’t find any evidence of sexual abuse. Nothing in your attitude or your answers to their questions gave them any reason to think you were being abused. Hascomb tried to defend his outrageous reasoning, but they didn’t buy it.”

Yeah, he told me about the scarring.

I looked away, embarrassed that my sex life seemed to be a popular topic of conversation. I had done so many things wrong.

What happens now?

“Well, we have to go to court and tell a judge that you want to be our son,” Carolyn said, taking my hand.

For the first time in my memory, I squeezed the hand of my mother.

18

“S
O
, M
R
.
Brian Schreiber, I think that’s it for math. What subject did you want to cover next?” Kyle asked.

The adoption wouldn’t be finalized for a few weeks, but he got a kick out of calling me that. Maybe because he was thrilled I’d finally found a permanent family who loved and accepted me. I could easily admit that I really liked the way it sounded. After nearly fourteen years of being alone, I was going to have parents. They may have been in their sixties, and it was less than a year before I was going to be an adult, but I’d still be able to call them Mom and Dad long after I was no longer a foster child. I’d be their son. Carolyn’s worry that I’d think it was disloyal to my birth parents, while justified, was simply not an issue. There was very little I remembered about my childhood, but my parents had died; they hadn’t abandoned me, they’d loved me.

Let’s go over Gym next,
I wrote, and he quirked one eyebrow at me behind his thin-rimmed glasses.

“I’m not sure gym is on your home curriculum,” he said, obviously curious. The night before, Richard had brought up the subject of self-defense again, and I had to say that after my stint in Hudson House, I was more inclined to agree with him. My biggest problem was that I didn’t trust Coach Williams at all. Not that he’d given me any reason not to trust him, but in my life, I’d learned to be very thrifty with my trust. The one thing that would go miles towards that trust was Kyle’s approval.

Richard wants me to take self-defense with Coach Williams at his dojo. Do you think it’s a good idea?

“Honestly, I don’t really know him very well,” Kyle said as he started looking over my math test to make sure I’d answered everything. “He came to the school a few years ago, and I’m not exactly a social butterfly at work. Most of the teachers feel I forced myself on them by threatening the school board and don’t want to have anything to do with me.” He shrugged, like being ostracized at work was really no big deal. Undoubtedly, he’d had a lot of practice at it; I was sure it had been happening to him his whole life—just like it was going to happen to me, and to Jamie, our entire lives.

Has he ever given you crap about being gay?

He read my question from the board and said, “No, he mostly keeps to himself. If you’re asking for my opinion, Brian, I don’t know that you really have anything to lose. I don’t think he’d hurt you, and your parents are right, it will probably help. If nothing else, martial arts also helps with confidence, stress, and strength. Everyone can use a little pick-me-up in those areas.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and went back to my test. “It looks like you’ve answered everything, so I’ll turn this in to Mr. Butler tomorrow and get your work for next week.”

I nodded, thankful that Richard was taking me tomorrow to replace the steel wiring on my jaw with rubber bands, and then at least I’d be able to talk slowly. He was also going to remove my cast, which would make my life a little easier. There was still more recovery time, so Richard had fought with the school, and I wouldn’t have to go back until my jaw was completely healed. It would have been hard trying to answer questions or fend off stupid teenagers.

“Do you want to work on the essay for English or the homework for history?” Kyle asked as he looked down through the list he’d made of my assignments. I picked up my board to answer him.

You don’t have to stay. I can get through this stuff.

“Are you sure? Would you rather just talk instead? Maybe you can tell me why you’re worried about taking self-defense with Coach Williams.” He set the papers he’d been looking at on the table beside him.