Bring Your Daughter To Work Day
What turned out to be what Fin and Melinda Tutuola thought would be the saddest day of their lives, had later turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Looking back on it, they were grateful. They wouldn't have had it any other way.
Melinda didn't think she would ever be able to recover from the doctor's horrible words, that she would never be able to have a child. It was devastating. She would never be able to have a child with her husband, Fin. Maybe they were being ungrateful. After all, both of them had kids with their previous partners. However, Melinda's daughter and Fin's son were both in college. Maybe they were selfish. They already had each other, and they wanted a child to be the icing on their cake. Was that honestly too much to ask?
That's why they had decided to adopt a child. In their line of work, they had seen enough children go through hell in the foster care system. Maybe this was some higher being's way of telling them to rescue a child from that fate.
And that's how they met Chell.
When they applied for adoption, they were sent the files of at least twenty different kids. However, they didn't like the idea of carefully choosing a child, as it would only make them want to adopt all of them. Instead, they scattered the files on the counter, and picked on at random.
That's how they found themselves in a meeting at the park with a social worker.
"She's mute," the social worker explained to them, "She's having trouble learning sign language. She would be difficult to raise. Quite frankly, I'm surprised you even picked her to meet with. Most people can't get over the fact she can't speak."
They were watching the different kids play on the playground, the girl in question playing in the sandbox. She was a pretty girl, win a light olive complexion, and brown hair. She was working hard on an elaborate sand castle. At least, she was until a boy came in a ruined it. He jumped on the sand castle, and laughed as she looked devastated at her fallen masterpiece.
The Tutuola's were expecting the child to cry. However, she simple walked away from her wrecked creation, and went to the top of the jungle gym.
"How did she end up in the system?" Melinda asked. The lady they were talking to merely sighed.
"She was abandoned on the doorstep as a baby," the social worker said, "No identity, no idea who the parents were. She was named Chelsea, because that's the name of the street she was found on."
"Poor thing," Melinda sighed. She looked to Fin. They felt bad for the girl, they honestly did. However, neither of them had any experience in raising a mute child. What if they screwed it up? What if there was a couple out there more used to raising children with disabilities. Besides, neither of them knew sign language.
They looked back to the five year old. She was standing on the top of the jungle gym, looking alert. Suddenly, the boy who had destroyed her sandcastle came running by, and before he knew what hit him, she pushed him down the slide, and satisfied grin on her young face.
The two of them laughed, as she gleefully skipped down the jungle gym.
"What do you think," Fin asked, looking at his wife. Melinda grinned.
"She certainly has the spitefulness of a Tutuola," Melinda joked, "She must be our daughter."
They once again looked back at the girl, who was going back to her sandcastle. Fin grinned. He felt a bubbly feeling in his stomach, as he heard the words come out of his wives mouth.
"That's our daughter."
The social worker smiled at the two.
"Are you sure?" she asked. The couple eagerly nodded.
"Yes," Melinda said. She could learn sign language easily enough, she decided. One of Casey Novak's brothers was mute, so she knew that the ADA would know the unspoken language. She could teach them easily.
"I'll get paper work started immediately," she said, "Would you like to meet your new family member?"
The happy couple nodded, and the social worker lead them down to the mute child. She was happily making her sandcastle, without a care in the world. She had solved her biggest problem.
"Chelsea," the social worker said. The girl looked up, with big doe eyes, "Chelsea, this is Melinda and Odafin Tutuola. They're going to be your new mommy and daddy."
She stared blankly at them, examining the two. She was processing the situation. Then, she started to making gestures that the two of them could only assume was sign language.
"I believe she's asking if you will buy her cake," the social worker said. Fin bent down to her level, making eye contact with the young girl, and smiled.
"Chell, honey, today, we'll give you as much cake as you want. No lie."
The young child embraced her soon to be father, a wide smile on her little face.
It was the start of what would be a happy family.
Haha...after I forced Kimblee Whitehead to write a Portal/SVU crossover, my muse started going wild, so I wrote this.
Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed it. There will be a couple more chapters coming ahead, so stay tuned.
Thank you for reading!
Fayth