“You are a remarkable young lady, Miss Isabela Hernandez,” Titus said, sound choked up. “You truly amaze me. I think that would be a wonderful thing to do.”
“I still want to keep the clothes and maybe one of the dollies,” she said, sounding hesitant. “But not everything.”
“It’s absolutely up to you what you keep, honey,” Titus said. “We bought all that for you, because we love you. And it’s yours do whatever you want with.”
“Okay.”
Two hours later, we were following Mena down a side street in a not-great part of suburban LA, with Jeremy behind us in the big red truck, the bed of which was full to overflowing toys that Isabela had decided to give away, supplemented with more stuff Jeremy and Bex’s kids had decided they didn’t need anymore. Not just the bed of the truck, either, but a whole flat-bed trailer of the type used by landscapers—Jeremy had made a few calls and gotten some friends to kick in even more.
Mena immediately had a list of recipients, and we were on our way to the first stop. We pulled up and gathered around the truck and trailer.
“Okay, so this house has two little girls, sisters,” Mena said, mainly to Isabela. “They’re about your age. Why don’t you pick three things for each girl. Do you know how many that would be?”
Isabela counted to three, and then three more. “Six?”
“Wow, you are so smart!” Mena exclaimed. “Good job. This is your plan, so I want you to help me give the toys to them.”
Isabela looked equal parts nervous and excited. “What should I say?”
Mena thought a moment. “Tell them…it’s extra Christmas.”
“I love Christmas!” Isabela said. A frown flitted across her features—probably the realization that the next Christmas would be her first without her mother, but she rallied with admirable swiftness. “Extra Christmas.”
Titus lifted her up to the bed of the truck, and she picked out two dolls, two packages of doll clothes, a collection of Little Golden Books, and a big pink Jeep for the dolls.
Titus and I watched as Isabela and Mena carried the items in question up to the front door, and Mena rang the doorbell. A moment passed, and then the door opened, revealing a young Hispanic woman with two small black girls peeking out around her legs, their hair in box braids with colorful beads on the ends. We could hear a word here and there, and then the excited squeals of the girls as they realized what was happening, and that it was really happening.
Isabela came back glowing, chattering. “Daddy, Mom-la! That’s even more fun than getting presents for me. They were so excited!”
Mena watched Isabela chatter excitedly. “Mom-la?” she said to me, in a quiet murmur while Titus crouched and listened to Isabela.
I smiled. “It started when she tried to say my name but it came out ‘Laur-la,’ and then earlier this morning after Titus and I got married, she asked Titus if she could call him Daddy, and then I think she realized that might’ve hurt my feelings so she called me Mom-la.”
“That’s really sweet,” Mena said. “She’s adjusting remarkably well.”
“She really is. She has sad moments, of course. But…I think because Titus immediately was just, like, so full of love for her, it made it easier.”
Mena nodded. “Best possible outcome for a scenario like that.” She nodded at the door of the house, where the foster mother and the two little girls were waving at us. “This? It’s amazing. Those little girls have probably never gotten anything like that in their entire lives.”
“It was all her idea,” I said. “We didn’t, like, try to talk her out of it, obviously, but we didn’t bring it up—she did, all on her own.”
Mena shook her head. “Really amazing.”
“She put it all together herself, that there were kids out there like her who had a lot less, and that she suddenly had a lot, and that she could do this for them.” I glanced down at Isabela. “I’m a pretty proud Mom-la.”
“You should be.” Mena sighed, ruffled Isabela’s hair. “Well, we have a lot of stops to make before all this stuff is given away. You ready for the next house?”
Isabela nodded, jumping up and down and clapping. “Can we do this all the time?” She looked up at Titus. “You’re famous—you probably got a whole lot of money. Couldn’t we give stuff away to people all the time? It’s so much fun to see them so happy!”
Titus blinked, seeming stunned by the suggestion. “You know, Monkey…you might just have a point, there.” He glanced at Jeremy, who watched with a knowing expression on his face. “Jeremy—”
Jeremy held up a hand. “The moment you called me about this, I called a friend who’s a lawyer specializing in nonprofit corporations to start drawing up paperwork to set up a 501(c)3. Just need a name and the funding.”
“Isabela’s Extra Christmas,” Titus said. “Pull whatever funding we need.” He glanced at Mena. “I don’t suppose you have any interest in running a newly founded nonprofit startup, do you?”
Mena bit her lip, grinning. “Wouldn’t you know, that’s been a lifelong dream of mine?”
I arched an eyebrow. “You’re kidding.”
She shook her head. “I was a foster kid. I’ve been trying to work my way up to management so I could someday get a job running a nonprofit, helping kids like me. There’s not enough out there designed to help fosters. It’s a really hard, thankless job, and they don’t get enough support.”
Titus held out his hand. “Welcome to Isabela’s Extra Christmas. Set it up to make the biggest impact possible on the most amount of people. You’ll have more funding than you know what to do with, I promise.” He looked at me. “Can you get your crew in on this?”
I was already on the phone. “Way ahead of you, babe,” Lizzy answered, then. “Lizzy, hey. Is Braun with you? Good, put me on speaker. Oh, you’re with Autumn and Seven, even better! So, we’re starting a nonprofit for foster parents and kids. Providing toys, clothes, food, I don’t even know—everything you can think of. No, like we just had the idea right now, we’re getting it all worked out. But I want to know if you guys are in. Financing, obviously, because we’re gonna need funding to get the ball rolling, but just…. involvement in general…yeah. Yeah. Good, great, I knew you guys would be in. Okay, cool. I’ll put you in contact with our point person, Mena. Yeah, I’m calling Kat next.”
I hung up, and grinned. “Well, Lizzy and Braun and Autumn and Seven are in.”
Titus laughed. “Between Braun, Seven, and me alone, that’s, like, two-and-half billion dollars in financial power behind this.”
Mena’s eyes bugged out of her head, and she coughed around a shocked laugh. “What, what?”
I just laughed. “Two of my best friends are married to Braun Bennet and Seven St. John. And I’m married to this guy.” I jerked a thumb at Titus. “That’s a lot of money. And my girls and I are obviously not hurting ourselves. This is gonna be huge, Mena.”
She took a deep breath. “Well, this went from zero to sixty in a hurry—Toy giveaway inspired a six-year-old, to a fully funded nonprofit.” She shook her hands and grinned. “Let’s get these toys given away, and we’ll tackle the rest as we go. I have cases, still, obviously, so it’s gonna take a few months before I can transition to running it full time. Just so we’re all on the same page.”