When Shade Pays

Because I'm a teacher, I get the whole summer off, right?  Not exactly.  For the past five years, I have worked as an English tutor for Upward Bound.    During the summer, they have Summer College for five weeks, where students take academic classes, attend enrichment events, and visit colleges.  It's a good gig and I enjoy it very much (or I wouldn't do it).  

This summer, I was sitting in orientation.  It's really orientation for the kids, not the teachers, but I like to show my face and be a team player.  Go me.  We were on a break, and I glanced down at my phone.  I had a voice mail.  It was The Agency.

Now remember, they had no idea that Bram was still with me five days a week.  As far as they knew, my house was empty. Kid-free.  Open for fosters.  Of course, it could be another foster... and I was NOT doing that again.  Ever.

But maybe it wasn't.  Maybe another baby was coming my way.  I excitedly listened to my voice mail.

"Hi, Rebecca, this is XX from The Agency.  It looks like Baby O and W are in need of a new foster placement.  I know you had expressed interest in the past, and we were wondering if you were still interested.  Please call me back."

At this point, they had been with the other family, the couple I had gone to foster class with, for almost two months.  After The Agency told me that they weren't going to move them back with me, I disassembled the toddler bed and put it in the attic.  I did text the couple every other week and ask how the boys were.  I asked if I could see them too.  I never got a response.

In retrospect, I don't really blame them.  After all, I pretty much went after those kids hard and tried to have them taken from them.  (Shade.) They probably thought:  we won; leave us alone.  There was a very good chance they could adopt.  Who the hell was I to even ask?

I listened to the voice mail twice to make sure I heard right before I called back.

Turns out that the couple wasn't interested in fostering the boys anymore because the three year old was "too difficult."  She then described some relatively typical three year old behaviors (tantrums, talking back, not listening) that were "unbearable" for them. Without checking with Darryl, I told her I was indeed interested in still taking them, but I needed a day to prepare.  She told me that the foster dad would call me to arrange a time for me to pick them up.

He called within the hour.  He wanted to know if I could pick them up that day, but I said I couldn't.  I had to get their room ready and work out daycare with Tiernen.  Had I known that I was getting the boys, I probably would not have agreed to work seven hours a day five days a week.  But I had, and now I needed to figure things out.  Reluctantly, foster dad agreed to keep them for one more night.  

How kind of him.