She wrapped her leg around me, drawing me close.
“Get at it then, Van.”
I tugged at my collar. It felt warm in the room. I glanced toward Liv. She looked calm. Why wasn’t I calm? I tugged again, and she leaned toward me.
“Van, relax.”
“What if he doesn’t like me? His file says he has a hard time with new people.”
“Just be patient. Be Van.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I muttered, using Sammy’s favorite phrase.
She laughed and cupped my cheek. “Yes, you do. You do you better than anyone. He is gonna love you.”
The door opened and our caseworker, Angela, came in, smiling brightly at us.
Liv and I had decided to adopt another child. We had gone through the interviews, passed all the requirements, and were now ready for the next step. We had agreed we wanted an older child. One of the ones who was harder to place. I was shocked when I saw the number of kids waiting to find a family. The babies and toddlers were easy to find homes for most of the time, but as Angela explained, once they were no longer cute and cuddly, older kids were hard to place permanently.
We had looked at tons of profiles, both girls and boys, but somehow, when I saw the picture of this kid, my heart had kicked in. Together, we studied his file, and my chest ached the entire time. He was eight years old. His parents were killed in a car accident that he survived over a year ago. He was left with a limp that still persisted. He needed glasses to read. He stuttered at times. With no other family, he was put into the system. He’d had three foster homes and one attempt at adoption, but he hadn’t bonded with anyone and the last family found his constant quietness troublesome and felt they weren’t equipped to deal with his issues. His photo told me his issues. He needed love and understanding and a place to feel safe. He needed a home. I wasn’t a fool—I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but something about this kid made me want to make the effort. At least meet him and see what happened.
And the kicker?
His name was Reed.
I met Liv’s teary eyes.
“Yeah?” I asked.
She nodded in agreement, and I kissed her head.
“Okay. I’ll make the call.”
Now we were here to meet him.
“Okay, he’s here,” Angela informed us. “I’ll introduce you and you can visit.”
“Does he know why we’re here?”
Her expression became sad. “He knows there is a chance you want to adopt him. He’s been through this before. He’s a great kid, but a bit hard to get through to at first. His foster family is awesome, but he needs to find a real home and family. I think, in the right place, he’ll blossom.” She sighed. “He has so much potential, but he needs the right family to bring it out.”
I shared a glance with Liv. We knew all about potential. “Okay.”
We stood and followed her into the next room.
My heart broke at the sight of the child standing next to the window.
Slight of frame, he had wild and curly dark hair. It needed a trim. Heavy glasses sat on his nose and he pushed them up constantly in a nervous gesture. His clothes were too loose and hung on him, his sneakers worn and old. As we drew closer, his light brown eyes were apprehensive. His hands twisted and tore at the sides of his jeans. But he thrust out his chin and met my gaze, his bravado reminding me of Liv. His eyes widened as I moved closer, and he watched every move I made.
I stopped when I was close enough and smiled at him. “Hey.”
He said nothing.
Liv bent down, holding out her hand. “I’m Liv Morrison. This is my husband, Van.”
Still, he said nothing. To my horror, his chin began to quiver, and I took a step back.
“It’s okay, little man. If I scare you, I can go stand over there. You can talk to Liv for a bit, okay? She’s really nice.”
I began to move away, and he spoke.
“No!”
I froze. “Okay.”
“Are you—are you a giant?” His voice was low and raspy, as if it wasn’t used often. I wanted to change that.
I laughed and lowered myself to one knee. “You know, you’re not the first person who has asked me that question. My daughter said the same thing the first time I met her.”
“Your d-daughter?”
“Yeah. Her name is Sammy—I adopted her. But no, buddy, I’m not a giant. I’m just really tall.”
“I want to be t-tall.” He pushed his glasses up his nose.
“You probably will be when you grow up.”
He edged closer. “Really?”
I nodded sagely. “I was about your height when I was your age.”
“Wow,” he muttered.
Liv crouched beside me. “Would you like to visit with us for a while?”
He paused and my heart sank. I thought we were doing pretty well. Maybe my size was too much for him?
He looked past me. Angela was still in the room, waiting to see what happened before she left us alone.
He pushed his glasses back on his nose again. “Y-yes.”
“Good,” I replied. “That’s good. We’d like to talk with you for a while.”
“Remember what I told you?” Angela called to him.
His eyes went round, and once again, his chin trembled. “I was supposed to be p-polite and say my-my name,” he sniffed. “The way you did.”
“That’s okay,” I assured him. “We can start again. We have do-overs in our house all the time.”
“Yeah?” he breathed out.
“Oh yeah.”
I held out my hand. “Hi, little man. I’m Van and this is Liv.”
He rubbed his hand on his jeans and lifted it toward me. “H-hello.”
I closed my hand around his. It felt small within my grasp, and he trembled. But again, he lifted his chin.
“My name is Reed Armstrong.”
I shook his little hand. “Hello, Reed.”
Two hours later, I didn’t know how I was gonna leave this kid behind. I was on the floor, my legs stretched out with him on top of my thighs. Liv was beside me and we were answering Reed’s never-ending questions. I discovered, once he relaxed, his stutter was less frequent, his voice lost the raspiness, and his grin was brighter than the sun. And there was nothing quiet about him.
He wanted to know all about Sammy, our house, and the park. How I got my muscles. If I could drive the big trucks the way he saw when he watched TV shows on construction. If I had a hard hat. When I told him about my friend Reid and how he worked with computers, his face lit up.
“Can-can I meet him? I love computers.”
His face became sad, and his eyes clouded over. “I had one…before. My dad and I used to play games on it.”
“You miss your parents, Reed?” Liv asked gently.
He hung his head. “Yes.”
“You can talk about them, you know. Tell us all about them. It’s okay.”
“They died.”
I rubbed his arm, hating the fact that he was so thin. He needed some of Liv’s home cooking.
“We know. We’re sorry. And we’re sorry you were hurt.”
He rubbed his leg. “I walk funny now. And s-sometimes I talk funny. Kids laugh.”