CHAPTER 19: Dawn
We were in the living room playing Yahtzee one afternoon in early August when the phone rang. "I'll get it," I said as I hurried to the kitchen.
It was a woman from Children's Services. "Good news," she said. "We have a child that we'd like for you to take in."
"Really? That's great!" I grinned. We'd been interested in foster parenting for a long time, and ever since we'd taken the classes last year, we were wondering when a child would be placed with us.
"First of all, I think you should be made aware that this child came from a home where she was physically abused," the woman said.
"How's she doing?"
"Well, she's doing all right, for the most part," the woman answered. "However, she's still going to need special care."
"We understand," I said. "When should we expect her?"
"Tomorrow afternoon, about 3:30."
"Okay, thanks for letting us know. We'll do our best."
When we hung up, I found Sunny standing over the stove and getting ready to start dinner. "Who was that?" she asked.
"Children's Services," I answered. "They have a little girl for us to take in."
"How is she?"
"Fine, for what it's worth," I said, handing Sunny the lemon salt. "But with her previous situation, they say she's going to need a little extra help."
"I'll bet you're glad they thought of us, huh?"
I nodded and gave Sunny a kiss. I couldn't wait to meet this little girl, and I knew we'd just love her.
The next afternoon, the doorbell rang. Sunny was putting on some clean clothes (I told you she likes to run around naked), so I went to answer it.
There stood a woman with graying hair and pale green eyes, and she was wearing a teal business suit and carrying a tan leather briefcase. "Hi, I'm Mrs. Evans from Children's Services," she said. "We spoke on the phone yesterday."
"Hi," I said, shaking her hand. "I'm Ms. Schafer. Come on in."
Mrs. Evans let herself into the apartment. Behind her was a little girl who looked about five or six years old. She had long jet-black hair—almost as long as mine, and in a French braid—a dark tan, and dark brown eyes, and was wearing a white Mexican sundress and matching leather sandals. And you know what? I never thought it was possible for any child to be that beautiful.
"This is Tina," Mrs. Evans said.
"Hi, Tina," I said. "Nice to meet you."
I held out my hand to shake hers, but she shrank back and clung to Mrs. Evans' wrist. Apparently, she was still a little shell-shocked from all that she must have been through. "It's okay, I'm not going to bite you."
Tina looked anxiously at Mrs. Evans, who said reassuringly, "It's all right, Tina. She's just saying hello."
At that moment, Sunny came back into the living room. "Hi," she said.
"Mrs. Evans, this is Ms. Winslow," I said as they shook hands. Then, putting my hand on the little girl's shoulder, I added, "And this is Tina."
"Hi, Tina," Sunny said. "You're just going to love it here."
Still looking at the floor, Tina answered her with a barely perceptible nod.
"Here, let me take your bag," I said. I took her suitcase into the spare bedroom, then returned to the living room.
"Now, remember, Tina came from an abusive home, so she may be a little scared to be around so many people at once, especially if she doesn't know them," I heard Mrs. Evans explain. "So it would be best if the two of you gave her some time to adjust, and let her approach the two of you when it comes to giving her hugs and that sort of thing."
"Makes sense," I said. Even though I was no longer living in Stoneybrook at the time, I still remembered when Claudia told me about baby-sitting for the Nicholls', who had moved into the Addisons' old house. I'm told that Mr. Nicholls was very uptight and obsessively neat and tidy, basically making Richard, my stepfather, look like a total slob. I'm told that he'd get upset whenever the slightest little thing was out of place. Once, Claud told us that she heard Mr. Nicholls hit one of his boys for—of all things—his newspaper being in the recycling bin. Erica Blumberg, who had been in our class, had even baby-sat them, and she even helped Claud and her parents make sure that Mrs. Nicholls and the boys, Nate and Joey, get the hell out of the house. The last I'd heard, Mrs. Nicholls took the boys and went to live with her sister. I've wondered about them since then.
I know Claud still does.
Oh, sorry to get off the subject here, but I recently got a Facebook message from Erica. She and her fiancé are touring with a production of Wicked, where they're the understudies for Elphaba and Fiyero, respectively. So far, she's only gone on once, and he's gone on for a whole week of performances when the regular actor went on vacation.
Okay, back to us. As soon as Mrs. Evans left, after giving us her business card, Sunny and I were standing there with this little girl, looking around the room and at us. I had a feeling that she was a little scared of being left alone in a strange place, but I also couldn't help wondering what she thought of both of her foster parents being women. (In fact, as time went on, she would adopt me as a mother and Sunny as an aunt. Sunny was all right with it. As an only child, she never would've become an aunt, anyway.)
"So, Tina," I finally said, "what would you like to do first?"
I almost expected her to say that one bit from Annie, because not only would it have broken the ice, but it also would've gotten some laughs. Instead, she just shrugged.
"How about something to drink?" Sunny suggested.
"Sure," Tina said. She also noticed that Sunny and I were barefoot, and gave us a puzzled look. Then she unbuckled and kicked off her own sandals. I guess she knew that we did own shoes, but just didn't wear them very often.
That's when we first noticed her feet. The tops of them were a mess of scabs and bruises, and on her right ankle was a small scar about the size of a pencil eraser. That could only mean one thing: a cigarette burn. Sunny and I have always thought that cigarettes were disgusting, but seeing this poor child with that burn mark on her poor foot made me hate them even more.
"Okay," I said, trying to hide how repulsed and enraged I was to see this. "This way." And we led her to the kitchen.
Upon entering the kitchen, Tina said, "Ohh, that's cold."
"Hmm?" I asked.
"Your floor," she answered.
I could tell that Sunny was also surprised to hear this. "You mean you've never went barefoot before?" she asked, kneeling down to Tina's level.
Tina shook her head. "At my old house, the floor was too dirty, and you could get sick," she explained.
A shiver went down my spine. I tried not to imagine what it must have been like to not only grow up in an abusive home, but also a filthy one.
"Well, you don't have to worry about that here," Sunny smiled. "These floors are so clean that you could almost eat off them. But I wouldn't try it, because it's really gross."
"I won't," Tina giggled, as did we. I was glad to see that this little girl, with all the hell that she must have endured, could still laugh, let alone smile.
I opened the fridge and got out a bottle of organic ginger ale. After I poured each of us a glass, Tina took a sip of it, and a huge grin spread across her face. "Wow, this is really good!"
"Glad you like it," I grinned. "And best of all, it doesn't have any sugar, sweeteners, or any of that other crap, like the regular kind."
We took our drinks into the living room and set them on the coffee table. That's when Tina's eye wandered over to the mantle. "Is that you?" she asked, pointing to a picture on the far left.
Sunny went to get it, and sat down on the futon. "Yup, that's us, all right," she said, patting the seat beside her. Tina over and sat down.
"Why are you wearing those funny clothes?"
"Those are our costumes, honey," I explained as I sat on the other side of her. "You see, this picture was taken during our college production of Godspell."
"Godspell? "Tina said excitedly. That was the second time we'd seen her smile since she got here, and she had the prettiest smile you ever saw in your life. "My uncle was in that one!"
"Really?" Sunny asked.
Tina nodded as she sat up on her knees and tucked her feet under her dress. "He was Jesus! He had the Superman T-shirt and everything!"
"So did our Jesus!" I said.
"What's that one song they sing?"
"'Day By Day'?" Sunny guessed.
"Sí, that's the one!" Tina said, then she started singing, "Day by da-a-ay, day by da-a-ay, oh, dear Lord...um, wait, how's it go?"
"Oh, dear Lord, three things I pra-a-ay..." I prompted her.
"Yeah, that's it!" Tina said, then Sunny joined in. "To see Thee more clearly-y, love Thee more dearly-y..."
As they sang, they counted with their fingers, just like the person who sings the song in the show usually does.
"Follow Thee more nearly-y, day by da-a-ay..." we all sang as we counted with our third finger.
"You sing really pretty," Tina said as she leaned against Sunny.
"Thanks, honey," Sunny grinned, putting an arm around her. "So do you."
"I used to do that a lot after everyone fell asleep, and it helps me a lot," Tina said as she sat up. "My abuela used to sing to me all the time when I was a baby. Well, that's what Mama told me before she died."
"Your grandmother?" I guessed. I'd taken Spanish in eighth grade—both in Stoneybrook, and during my six-month stay with Dad—and that was one of the words I remembered. Since Sunny and I moved here, we'd been taking online Spanish and sign language courses through the community college, because hey, you never know when it will come in handy. (Speaking of which, I learned a little sign language from Jessi after her experience with baby-sitting for Matt Braddock, who's profoundly deaf. The last I heard, Matt had cochlear implant surgery about this time last year, and he's slowly learning to speak.)
"Sí. She said any time I was sad or afraid, singing would make everything better. And you know, she was right. The only problem was, at my old house, I'd be singing for just a minute before someone would be banging on the door and telling me to can it, whatever that means."
"Well, you can sing all you want here. We won't mind, as long as you don't keep us awake all night," I smiled as I took a sip of my ginger ale. "You seem to be feeling a little better."
Tina nodded, and we gave each other a hug.
We both knew we'd love having Tina live with us.
