He hugged her tightly. “I love you, Janine.”
“Even though I can’t cook, can barely boil an egg and I had to ask Julie where we kept the bread?”
He chuckled. “Especially because of those things.” He looked up and saw his charter group walking down the dock.
“Looks like you’re on!” Janine whispered before climbing out of the boat and walking toward the road. She turned around one last time to give him a thumbs up sign and blow him a kiss before disappearing.
“You the charter captain?” one of the men asked. William paused for a moment.
“Yes, sir, I am. Welcome aboard.”
Dawson sat there, his hands on the picnic table. “So, you're telling me the process for adopting one of these kids wouldn't really be that hard?”
Amy nodded. “Most of these kids don't really have any options. They've been in the foster care system for a long time, and their situations aren't likely to change anytime soon. As you can tell, most of them are older, and we see a lot of people wanting to adopt out of the system but they usually want babies or maybe toddlers.”
“What about…”
“Dylan?” Amy asked, smiling slightly.
“Yeah.”
“He's been in the system for several months now, as you know. We've tried to reach out to his birth mother, but she hasn't responded and she lost her rights a long time ago. Unfortunately, even Dylan's extended family has a lot of turmoil. Drugs, prison. He's had a very difficult start in his life.”
Dawson shook his head and felt his jaw clench. If there was anything that upset him, it was when children were mistreated. Having lost his own child, he couldn't imagine how anyone could mistreat theirs. Of course, he also understood addiction. He had friends with that very problem, and he certainly didn't want Dylan to be put in that situation.
“I’ll have to give it some thought. It would be life-changing.”
“For both of you,” she said with a wink. “Look, I am never interested in pushing anyone to adopt a child. But I've seen you with Dylan this last week, and there's been a change in him. He's smiling more. Much more interactive. Eating again.”
“Eating?”
“His foster parents were having a lot of trouble getting him to eat. I think he's just been really sad about losing his father. Even though his dad was a complete screwup, that was all Dylan ever knew. They were having to give him nutritional shakes to keep him from going into starvation.”
“Wow. I had no idea. I saw him eat three hotdogs yesterday.”
Amy laughed. “Because he's happy here. He likes you. He likes this place. He lived in a single wide trailer on the outskirts of town. This must be like a mansion for him.”
“Nothing wrong with living in a trailer.”
“Of course not. But there is something wrong with living in one in a drug infested neighborhood and having no heat or air. When we picked him up, he was wearing dirty clothes and had no running water either.”
“Oh my goodness. Please don't tell me anymore.” Dawson didn’t think his heart could take it. And the fact that there were thousands of children out there in the same situation made him feel helpless. He wanted to help them all, but it was impossible. The system was so broken that it was hard to imagine anyone could ever fix it.
“Am I interrupting?” Julie asked as she walked over to the picnic table. Dawson quickly looked at his watch.
“Hey. I didn't expect you until this evening.”
“Well, Meg got out of class early so I thought I'd come and see if I could lend a helping hand.”
“Hi. I’m Amy.” She reached up and shook Julie’s hand.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Amy is the director of the foster care system. We were just talking about some of the kids and their situations.”
“You do good work. I'm not sure I could know about all of these sad stories without it breaking my heart.”
Amy nodded. “It breaks my heart every day, but I feel like God called me to do this work so I continue on. The best part of my life is when I see one of these kids get adopted into a good home.”
“That must be very rewarding.”
“It certainly is. Well, I’d better go and see how the kids are doing on their craft project. Colleen and Tucker should be finishing up soon, and then we will go down to the beach for a little free time.”
“I’ll be over in a little bit,” Dawson said, waving as Amy walked away.
“I can't believe tomorrow is the last day. I'm sure you'll be excited to get a little downtime.”
Dawson nodded. “It's been pretty exhausting, for sure. But I've enjoyed every minute of it. I wouldn't trade this experience for anything, honestly.”
Julie looked like she wanted to say something. “Listen, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Are you thinking about adopting one of these kids?”
He swallowed hard. “I… don't know.”
Her face softened and she reached over, putting her hand on top of his. “Dawson, you would make a fantastic father. You deserve to have that kind of unconditional love from a child in your life. If that's what you want to do, I support you, fully.”
He let out a sigh of relief. “Really? You'd be okay with that?”
“Of course. I mean, being a single dad is going to have its challenges.”
Single dad. She wasn't saying that she wanted to be Dylan's mother. She was saying that she would continue dating him even if he adopted Dylan.
In that moment a swirl of emotions welled up inside of Dawson. Was she planning on just dating him forever? Did he want to adopt a child and be a single dad for the rest of his life? No. He wanted Dylan to have everything, including a mother who loved him. A mother who would teach him how to treat women. A mother who would bake him cookies and smile as he gave her a homemade Mother's Day card.
But Julie was already a mother of two grown daughters. It wasn't fair to ask her to start all over and parent somebody else's child that she didn't even know.
Was he going to have to make a choice? He didn't know what to think, so he just kept a fake smile on his face.
“Yeah. I'm sure it will be hard. Listen, I really need to get over there and help corral these kids so we can take them down to the beach. Do you mind?”
“Oh,” she said, looking surprised. “I thought maybe I could help out?”
“I’m not really sure what to tell you to do. Maybe check with Colleen?”
There was a tension between them, and he knew that Julie didn't understand it. Maybe she would just think he was tired, and that was okay. He didn't want to have a big emotional conversation right now. He wanted to clear his mind and figure out what to do next, but he couldn't seem to do it. It seemed like he had nothing but questions in his head with no answers.
“Okay. I'll do that. See you later?”
He nodded as she stood up. “Sure.”
As he watched her walk away, he wondered how he was ever going to live without her if it came to that. Or should he make the choice to live without Dylan? Could he ever forgive himself now that he knew how much Dylan needed him? Right now, he wanted to walk far out into the ocean until his mind cleared.