Her Journey Begins

by Karen Einsel

  “I can do that if you want.”

  “Oh no, I’ve got everything under control.” Mrs. Clancy sees Chris wiggling her fingers. “If you want to help, you could set the table for me. Would you like to do that?”

  Chris smiles and nods her head. Pointing, Mrs. Clancy tells her, “The plates are up there and the silverware is in that drawer there. And…Brad should be home soon.” Looking over at Chris, Mrs. Clancy sees the puzzled look on her face and smiles. “Mr. Clancy”

  “Oh…so I need to set three places. Okay, I got it.” Chris places the plates on the table in the kitchen.

  “Oh not this table Chris, we are going to eat at the table in the other room tonight.”

  Done setting the table, Chris inquires with Barb,

  “Mrs. Clancy what else do you want me to do?”

  “Well first, you can quit calling me Mrs. Clancy, it makes me sound old and I’m only 29.” She confides to Chris with a chuckle and then begs. “Call me Barb, please? Then have a seat here at this table.” Barb dries her hands and pulls out the chair for Chris before grabbing a piece of paper and a pen. “And we will make a list of everything you need, and then go back through it and see what we can afford, and then narrow it down to what you can’t do without, while the potatoes are cooking.”

  With their heads bent over the list, they hear Mr. Clancy call out, “I’m home.” Coming through the door he stops when he sees Chris. “Well, hello. Who are you?”

  Barb gets up and gives him a kiss.

  “Brad, this is Chris, and she is staying with us for the weekend.” Brad holds out his hand to Chris.

  “Hi Chris.” Chris smiles a shy smile at him and shakes his hand. “Well I see you two have everything under control in here, so I guess I can go watch the news.” As he’s leaving he bends his head down next to Chris’ and whispers, “Watch her and don’t let her burn our dinner.” At first Chris is worried that Barb will get mad at him for saying that, but Barb laughs and throws the dish towel at him.

  “Get out of here and go watch your news or I will burn your dinner.” Brad walks out chuckling.

   Gulping down dinner, Chris gets up to take her plate in the kitchen.

  “Chris” Chris stops and looks at Barb. “Come back here a minute.” With her head down, Chris does what she’s told. Barb points to the chair. “Sit down.” Chris keeps her gaze down as she slides back into the chair.

  “Did you have enough to eat?”

  “I had enough.”

  “Didn’t you like it?”

  “No, I mean yes, I mean…it was very good.”

  “You can have more. We can’t let Brad eat it all, or he’ll get fat.” Not knowing what to say, Chris continues to look down at her hands. Barb reaches over and squeezes Chris’ hand. “Chris honey, help yourself to some more. It’s here to be eaten and you don’t want to hurt my feelings, do you?” Chris shakes her head and helps her self to more potatoes and gravy.

  As Chris is finishing off her second helping Brad belches and pushes his plate away. Chris figures this is a signal that she should start clearing off the table. Barb stops her again. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you go grab that book I seen you carrying in and have a seat on the couch and read for a little bit while I do up the dishes. Tomorrow, you and I will talk about you helping, but for tonight, just relax, okay?”

  Hearing a knock on the door Chris jumps. Brad gets up from the table, walks over, and opens it. He exchanges greetings with the man and woman standing there and then yells out to Barb.

  “Tim and Judy are here.”

  Barb walks into the living room,

  “Hi, what are you two up to?” They exchange small talk and then Barb introduces them. “Chris, this is my brother Tim and his wife Judy. Tim and Judy, this is Chris, she is staying a couple of days with us.” They say hello to her before Barb and Judy go into the kitchen. Chris goes up to her room to get her book and decides to stay there and read. An hour has passed and even though the door is open Barb knocks on it.

  “I was wondering where you wandered off to. Come downstairs with us for a little bit.” Chris slips her piece of paper in between the pages and follows Barb downstairs. Walking into the dining room Chris sees the other three sitting around the table. “Here, sit down here and I’ll be right back.” Barb pulls out the chair for Chris and disappears into the kitchen. As Barb is coming back everyone starts singing, “Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you” and Barb sets a cake with 12 lit candles in front of Chris.

  

  Staring at the cake, Chris starts to cry. “I’ve never had a birthday cake before.”

  “Oh Chris, I didn’t know. Honey I’m so sorry.” And Barb puts her arms around Chris in a protective hug and whispers, “Blow out the candles and make an extra special wish.”

  Chris places the backs of her hands against her eyes to stop the tears and sniffles. Moving her hands away from her eyes she can see the candles are melting all over the frosting. Barb whispers again, “Want me to help you blow them out?” Chris nods. “Okay on three. One, two, three.” And they both blow. “Did you make a wish?”

  Whispering Chris tells her,

  “Yes, I wished for…”

  “Shh… You aren’t supposed to tell your wish. If you do, it won’t come true.” Giving her another hug, Barb tells her, “Happy Birthday Chris. Now who wants ice cream with their cake?”

  

  Chris is lying in bed when Barb knocks on her door. Before Chris can reply, Barb opens it a few inches and pokes her head in.

  “Can I come in?” Chris nods. Barb walks over and sits down on the edge of the bed. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

  “I’m okay”

  “Is there anything you need?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, but if you need anything, we are in the room just on the other side of the bathroom, okay?” Chris nods her head. Barb reaches under the bed and pulls out Chris’ book. “You can read for awhile if you want, just not too long.” Chris blushes, because she knows that Barb must have seen her shove the book under the bed.

  

  Chris wakes up early and sees its 6:15 a.m. Stretching and yawning she climbs out of bed and gets dressed. She tugs and pulls to get all the wrinkles out of the covers and then tiptoes downstairs to the kitchen. Opening cupboard doors she finds a skillet. Pulling the carton of eggs out of the fridge Chris notices a bottle of orange juice and decides to get that out also. Just as she’s going to crack the first egg into the skillet, Barb grasps her hand. Chris jumps and looks over her shoulder. Barb smiles and whispers,

  “It’s Saturday and its too early for breakfast, besides making breakfast on Saturday is Brad’s job. So let’s put these away…” Barb puts the eggs and orange juice back in the fridge. “And get you back upstairs and back into bed for another hour, okay?” Putting her hands on Chris’ shoulders, Barb marches Chris back up to her room. Opening the door, Barb feels bad seeing Chris has already made her bed and did a good job of it too.

  “7:30 a.m. okay?” Barb closes the door and goes back to her room. Chris looks over at the bed and sighs. She sits down at the desk and reads until she hears Barb and Brad going downstairs.

  

  Chris walks into the kitchen. Brad is scrambling eggs while wearing a white frilly apron and Chris giggles. Brad turns around and looks at her,

  “Hey!”

  Chris covers her mouth.

  “Sorry”

  He grins at her.

  “Are you laughing at my apron?”

  Barb looks up from behind the newspaper and winks at Chris.

  “Funny looking, isn’t he?”

  Brad goes back to stirring his eggs.

  “I hear you were up early trying to take my job away from me?” Again Chris tells him sorry. “No problem, next weekend I’ll let you make breakfast and I can go fishing with Tim, besides you are probably a better cook than I am.”

  Barb reaches back and smacks h
im on the butt.

  “Oh you can go fishing alright. After you make us breakfast. Here Chris sit down.” Barb pulls out the chair and Chris sits down. Watching Brad cook, Chris is thinking she has never been around people like this before. They are nice. They talk and joke around with each other. And they actually do things that she normally has to do. Barb puts down her paper, gets up and pours Chris a glass of juice, then pours herself another cup of coffee, before picking her newspaper back up. Chris notices that Barb has on a sweatshirt, a pair of sweatpants and no makeup and yet she is still very pretty. Chris turns her attention to Brad. She sees he is just a hair taller than Barb and has these amazing bright blue eyes, which are a big contrast to Barb’s warm brown ones. He has light shaggy brown hair, not really long, but not your typical man’s haircut. Dipping up eggs on a plate and placing a blueberry muffin next to them, Brad puts the plate down in front of Chris and then fixes the next plate for Barb. He snatches the newspaper from Barb before placing her plate on the table.

  “Hey!”

  “Hey what? It’s time to eat.” and he carries his plate over and sits down across from her. Chris watches them as they begin to eat and Brad looks up at her. “Go ahead, eat. Like I said, next week you get to cook.” Chris smiles a sad smile at him, knowing next week she won’t be here, because they only agreed to keep her until Tuesday. Finished eating, Barb gets up and puts her plate in the sink.

  “Okay, I’m going to go get dressed.”

  “Want help?” Brad asks causing Barb to blush.

  “No, you get to stay down here and do the dishes.”

  Chris speaks up, “I can do them. That is if you want me to.”

  Brad hands Chris the dish towel.

  “I’ll tell you what Chris, I’ll wash and you can dry. Will that work for you?” Brad washes and rinses the first plate and hands it to Chris. Done drying it Chris looks around and Brad nods towards the cupboard. “So Chris, do you like school?“

  Not sure where the conversation’s going, Chris hesitates before answering.

  “Yeah…“

  “And what’s your favorite subject?“

  Chris thinks for a moment.

  “I think it would have to be math. I like numbers.”

  “Really? I would have thought it would be English or art.”

  “I like those too, but I think math is my favorite.”

  Brad hands her the last plate and pulls the plug out of the sink.

  “That’s it. That didn’t take very long at all, did it? From now on you can help me do dishes every Saturday. What say we sit down and read the paper. Sound like a good idea?” Chris nods and they sit down. “Okay what section do you want?”

  Chris grins. “The sports page.”

  “Hey! That’s the part I want.”

  Chris giggles, “I’m kidding…I want the comics please.”

  “Okay, here ya go.”

  Barb comes back into the kitchen. Looking at the clock, Chris sees that Barb was upstairs for about an hour and now has her makeup on and she‘s dressed in jeans and a sweater.

  “Okay Chris you ready to go shopping?”

  

  Tuesday morning Chris is up early. She makes her bed and folds up the clothes she came with and places them in the plastic bag. She has on a pair of jeans and a pullover sweater that her and Barb picked out from the thrift store on Saturday. Chris doesn’t know until years later, that Barb and Brad were struggling financially at the time and that is one of the reasons they decided to become foster parents. Originally Chris had thought it was just because Barb couldn’t have children of her own. Chris found this out while they were shopping.

  “Barb, why don’t you have kids?”

  “I guess God didn’t want me to.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but “everything happens for a reason”, even when we don’t know what that reason is.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Maybe he has better things in store for me.” Barb said and winked at her.

  

  Coming down the stairs Chris is telling herself not to cry. She likes it here and she would like to stay, but…Barb is just opening the front door as Miss Vetro comes walking up the steps. Barb seems to be in a chipper mood this morning as she welcomes Miss Vetro.

  “Good morning. How are you this morning?” Maybe she’s happy Chris is leaving. Coming in Miss Vetro sees Chris standing there clutching her bag and her book.

  “Good morning Chris. How are you this morning? I see you are all ready to go.” Barb looks over at Chris and sees the bag of clothes in her hand.

  “What’s this?” Barb asks as she takes the bag of clothes from Chris.

  “I didn’t take any of the clothes you bought me, except for these” Chris stammers and points at the jeans and sweater that she has on.

  “But how are you going to wear the clothes I bought you, if you leave? That is, unless you would like to stay here with us.” Chris gives Barb a quizzical look. “Come on, let’s all sit down.” Barb motions to the chairs. Sitting down Barb looks at Miss Vetro. “My husband and I have discussed it and we have decided that we want to keep Chris.”

  “But you had stated in your original paperwork that you wanted a child under five.”

  “We’ve changed our mind, besides “everything happens for a reason” right Chris? Now go put your clothes away where they belong, in your room. Chris looks at Miss Vetro who smiles and nods her head. Coming back to the living room Chris walks up to Miss Vetro and gives her a hug.

  “I bet you want to know if Jason’s okay?” Chris nods. “He is with a very nice family also.”

  Chris finally lets the happy tears fall as she whispers,

  “My wish came true.”

  

  Sitting at the courthouse Chris is twiddling her fingers.

  “I don’t understand. Why do we have to see the judge?”

  “Because after a year we have to have the judge’s approval for you to remain with Brad and I.”

  “I didn’t have to do this when I was at the last home.”

  “That’s because they didn’t follow the rules.”

  Barb reaches over and places her hand on Chris’ hands.

  “Now quit fidgeting. It will be okay.”

  Miss Vetro comes out of the judge’s chambers.

  “Okay Barb, you’re up.”

  Barb squeezes Chris’ hand and gets up to let Miss Vetro sit down.

  “Hi Chris. Are you doing okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. Miss Vetro?”

  “Yes?”

  “How’s Jason?”

  Miss Vetro smiles and puts her arm around Chris’ shoulder.

  “Jason is doing great. He’s been adopted. And he’s in kindergarten.”

  Before Chris can reply Barb comes out of the judge’s chambers and smiles at Chris.

  “Your turn.”

  Chris sighs and goes into the judge‘s chambers.

  “Hi Chris, please have a seat.” The judge whistles while he looks over Chris’ paperwork. Closing Chris’ folder he folds his hands and looks over and smiles at her.

  “You can stay another year, but… you have to keep up your grades at school and stay out of trouble. Can you do that?” Grinning the biggest grin he’s probably ever seen, Chris tells him,

  “Yes”

  

  When Chris was fourteen the judge asked her one additional question.

  “Chris you are at an age where you can make some decisions on your own. So I have to ask you this question. Do you want to know who your birth mother is?”

  “No”

  “Chris you might want to think about this.”

  “No”

  “Okay, but if you change your mind, let Miss Vetro know and I‘ll have the records unsealed, okay?”

  Chris stands up and smiles as she shakes the judge’s hand.

  “I’ll see you next year.”

  In the car on the way home, Barb asks her,

&nb
sp; “Did he ask you?”

  Chris looks at Barb out of the corner of her eye and then asks innocently, “What?”

  “You know what. What did you tell him?”

  “The same thing I’m going to tell you. No.”

  “But Chris honey, don’t you want to know?”

  “No”

  Barb knows Chris well enough now, that once she sets her mind to something, there’s no way to change it and Barb doesn’t ask her again.

  

  Chris has been with Barb and Brad a little over 5 years now and has taken over Brad’s Saturday job of making breakfast. In the kitchen she lets her mind wander while thinking about school. All of her friends have been talking about how exciting senior year is going to be. Chris isn’t excited. She hasn’t been excited about school since she started high school. Well maybe a little this year, but that’s just because it will be her last year to have to go there. Just before her first year of high school the school district decided to change the boundary lines and since Chris lived on this side of the street and her friends lived on that side of the street, she was bussed to the new high school where all the upper class snobs went and she didn’t fit in. Lost in thought Chris doesn’t hear Barb walk up behind her.

  “Smells good. What are you making?” Chris jumps.

  “Hi mom, you scared me.” Mimicking Brad, Chris tells her, “I am making French toast and snausages.” Barb gives her a kiss on the cheek.

  “I’m sorry I scared you, but I will never get used to you getting up so early on a Saturday. So what were you daydreaming about?“

  “Just about school starting next week. I can’t believe I’m a senior already.“

  “Me neither. Time seems to have flown by.”

  “I know. Where’s dad at?”

  “He’s in the bathroom shaving.” Barb grabs a cup of coffee and sits down at the table to read her newspaper. Saturday and Sunday are the only days Barb ever reads the paper. Saturdays it’s here at the kitchen table and Sundays it’s sprawled out on the living room floor. Chris has been calling Barb, mom, ever since that first visit with the judge. It took her a little longer to be brave enough to call Brad, dad. She remembers his reaction the first time. She was changing the oil in his car, “Something he had thought every girl should know how to do”, and she was lying under the car trying to get the oil pan off.