When it came to little kids, though, Joss tended to be the leader, barking out orders, expecting them to be obeyed. Taking her boss babe gene from her mama. And some kids just didn't appreciate it.
So it was a big deal that she seemed to find a little playmate that wasn't in some way related to her to pal around with on the playground.
"I think he likes her telling him what to do," Chris mused, head tucked to the side as Joss threw her arm out, pointing to the top of the jungle gym, instructing her friend to get up there. Which he jumped to do.
"Is that your little girl?" a woman asked, moving in close to us, giving us a tentative smile.
"It is. Joss," I agreed, getting a squeeze on the thigh from Chris, who was a firm believer that strangers shouldn't know details about our kid.
"Evan has had a rough time finding friends," she told us. "He is really shy. He never knows what to do with other kids. He has much older siblings only. So he's used to them guiding him. I think he's liking that your little girl is very assertive."
"Well, then, they will be fast friends. She loves telling people what to do. Even us," I added, getting a smile from her.
"It's killing me standing over here," the woman added, giving Chris a grimace. "My husband keeps telling me to stop hovering, that I am going to stunt his growth. But he's my first baby. By the time I came into my other kid's lives, they were already around middle school age. I'm a hoverer. I mean... do you see all the shady characters here today?" she added, eyes moving around.
To that, Chris and I shared a private smirk.
"Wait... where are they?" she asked, voice bubbling up into a panic.
"Right here," Chris said, hopping off my lap, showing the other mom the screen of her cell, making me realize she'd been tracking Joss ever since I dragged her down to sit with me.
"Looks like right by the water fountain," she added, walking away with the other mom.
"That is really neat. Where did you get that?"
It looked like Joss wasn't the only one who made a friend that day.
And Joss and Evan? Well, that was a story for another time.
Chris - 8 years
It was been a secret I'd been keeping for quite a while.
Why, I wasn't sure.
It wasn't like it was shameful or anything.
I guess I was keeping it to myself until I thought things through, plan things, make up lists.
In short, I needed to get my head fully around it before I brought it up to Finch.
But today was the day.
Because I had been on the site again.
Like I had been for weeks, months, close to a year.
And I don't know, something was different, something clicked for me.
"Hey, angel," Finch called as I walked out onto the back deck to find him and Joss suspiciously hanging out around a very familiar ugly chair. That they seemed to be taking apart. And if I knew my man and my little--though not so little--girl, they were attempting to make it even uglier than before. Because they liked making my life difficult.
"Can I talk to you for a second?" I asked as Joss turned to the notebook that was always at the ready, having inherited her fathers' hands, making museum-worthy drawings since she was in first grade.
"Anything for you, princess," he agreed, getting an eye roll from Joss because she was at that stage where her parents being in love was suddenly gross. "What's up?" he asked as we moved into the living room.
"I want to show you something. And I want you not to react immediately. I want you to actually think about it, okay?"
"Alright," he agreed, brows drawing together. "Show me," he said, taking my phone, looking at the page I had opened.
Not just a page.
A profile.
Of a kid in foster care that needed a home.
It took a long moment for it to sink in, for him to see what I was getting at.
"Sweetheart..." he said, voice apologetic.
Apologetic?
He didn't want to adopt?
I wasn't sure I had fully considered that outcome. Because Finch always wanted to try new things, always talked about expanding our family. But, quite frankly, I was not willing to go through childbirth a second time. Once was enough for me.
Besides, he knew how important Cash and Lo were to me, how much having a family had helped me become the woman I was today.
"You don't want to," I concluded, feeling my chest deflate, my heart hurting.
I'd been so sure he would jump in with both feet. That was how he approached everything in life.
"I didn't say that. I think, maybe, this is the first time that you have ever not thought things all the way through."
"Somehow, I doubt that," I told him, even though he couldn't have known exactly how long I had been thinking about this.
"The adoption process is insane."
"I'm aware of that."
Interviews and home studies and inspections and even physicals. It was overwhelming to think about, let alone go through.
But, in my humble opinion, it would all be worth it.
"I'm an ex-con, love," he reminded me. "Can't figure they would put us through all the other background shit without looking at my record."
I had considered that.
Of course, I had.
I had considered my own position too, mostly leading Hailstorm since Mom decided to semi-retire a few years back.
And, of course, no agency would give a child to someone who had been accused of harm to children, or to rapists, or to murderers.
But there was a gray area with some violent offenses.
"The general rule is that so long as it has been five years, they will consider you. I'm not saying they will approve us, but the conviction won't exclude us completely. It is a case-by-case thing."
And, I thought, on paper, Finch looked like a hell of a success story. Poor kid with a criminal dad who was constantly in and out for drug-related offenses, who got a rough start, fell in with the wrong people, and served his time. Then came out and made a huge fortune for himself, settled down, and started a family.
That money launderer he'd found had done a hell of a job. No one could trace the fake cash. And everything Finch--and therefore I--had to his name was legit, the product of a very good knack for the stock market.
Out of curiosity one day, I had made a pet project of trying to trace his money. I failed spectacularly.
And I think we both knew that if I couldn't find it, no one could.
Finch McAwley was a self-made millionaire.
He was, too.
But not in stocks.
"I'm not saying this is absolutely going to happen. I just want to think about it. We both know that adoption is something near and dear to my heart."
The more we talked about it, too, the more real it felt, the more possible.
Pretty soon, Finch was as excited as I was.
Which only made the fact that we failed our home study all the more devastating.
We'd both been crushed.
For weeks.
Months.
I was sure a small part of me would never recover from the loss.
But, eventually, life went on, we went on.
Then, nearly six years to the day of getting turned down, on a frigid day a few days before Christmas, with freezing rain pelting down on the shipping container walls, I was called out to the front gates, was told we had a situation.