036:

It was while we were on the train that my phone buzzed. I recognized the number as an extension of ABCSC and answered, with my heart pounding. Would I go if they called me? If they needed me? If I was still on the roster? If someone was dying?

"Hello? This is Aubrey."

"Aubrey? This is Simonette Florrie. I'm a nurse at ABCSC. I don't think you know me, but I'm calling because Taylor Hart, one of our midwives suggested you as a possible candidate. We have two older child adoptions--- they've been in before---- both births were the same incapable, unreliable biological--- and this time they're being taken away. No kinship claims, and no prospective adoptees. They are part Hispanic, they both speak Spanish, and they will need special care. Since you have a part Hispanic daughter, our counselor, Carmel Appleby also suggested you might be interested."

"Why are the parents unfit?" Now my heart was beating out of my chest. Literally out of my chest. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I looked at Rafe who was cradling Felicity on the seat between us. His eyes were on the tops of the trees we were going by. Looking at birds. Felicity was quick to spot birds, and say the word too.

"Drugs, abandonment. This time, the mother presented early and lost the baby--- but the boys were locked in a room in their apartment, and had been there for possibly a week."

"Oh, my God." I whispered, my heart thudding to a wild and ferocious stop. Rafe had caught those hissed words, and since I don't use the name of God in vain, it had to be a prayer of some kind. His eyes penetrated mine deeply, so I closed them.

He took the phone out of my unresisting fingers. "This is Rafe."

I heard him making understanding noises as if from far away, then I heard him tell the nurse that we were not stable enough ourselves just yet, what with a recent miscarriage and the less than a month old adoption of our daughter.

Then I heard him say: "By Christmas. Okay, yes, will do. I have your number. Thanks for considering us. Yeah, Thanks." He clicked off and gave it back to me. His eyes were deeply troubled as he stared into mine.

"You weren't seriously considering....?" He began.

I shook my head. "I just feel terrible for those children."

"I do too. I do too. I told them if they haven't found suitable parents by Christmas--- that's four weeks, then we'll take them."

I felt my world rocking. Reeling. Rocking and reeling.

"I think Grandpa needs to babysit tomorrow and we need to go to the temple." I said. Rafe was nodding. Ben chimed in that he wanted to go---- the permanent tag-along.

After a moment Rafe turned to me. "What will happen to them? Right now, I mean?"

"They'll keep calling their contacts."

"Were we on a list of contacts?"

"No."

"Then why did they call us?"

"I don't know. Because we were willing to take a Hispanic child and an older child. Two things a lot of people won't do. There is a definitive lack of foster parents all over the country as well. I don't know really. I don't think the gal I talked to today, Dianna, would have recommended it. But Carmel was the counselor who saw Felicity."

"How old were they? Boys, right?"

"I don't know." I held the phone out to him. He took it, still staring at me, and then leaned forward on his knees.

He closed his eyes and then pressed the redial buttons. I heard him ask for Simonette Florrie and then he asked his question. I heard him again making all those appropriate affirmative noises and then he clicked off with barely a good-bye.

The train pulled to a stop at the main petting zoo area, and we got off. I could see that Rafe was a little unsteady.

He had Felicity in his arms as we started inside the gates to the petting zoo, and hiked her up on one hip to put an arm around me.

"They are six and three. They've never been to school, and likely haven't been out of their apartment. Their parents were druggies--- at least the biological mother was an addict, and the father is questionable, or unknown. They have a prospective adoptive parent for the three-year-old, but don't want to split the boys up, as the older one is very protective of his brother--- and they feel it would do a lot of psychological damage to separate them." He blew out his breath, his eyes searching mine.

I swallowed hard, too stunned to even think about it logically. There was nothing logical about what was happening to us.

Inside the petting area, zoologists were scattered with little animals they were showing to any and all who wanted to see them. Felicity squirmed to get down--- as the little kinkajou named Chiquita was being shown. She was right, it looked as furry soft as a rabbit. It's lovely little dark eyes were light with interest and it's darker brown round little ears looked like the softest fleece. It had funny jointed finger claws that wrapped around a stick of something it was chewing on, but it watched the children as they approached.

Rafe took Felicity over to see it, and they knelt as he guided her little hand in petting the tiny creature. She did this quiet squeal that sounded like the oooh or ahhhh you might hear at a fireworks display. Her delight won my frantically beating heart over and I started taking pictures, concentrating on the darling child we already had, and not on the two whose lives were in such terrible upheaval at the moment.

It would have been easier not to know about them.

It would have been better to just go about my life thinking I was doing the world a favor adopting Felicity. I'd done my good deed.

It would have been less selfish not to be thinking along these lines.

After the petting zoo area, Ben and Shellie announced they had to go, and wished Rafe luck on his interview tonight. Ben gave me a hug and said that whatever the call had been it would all work out okay, and that he really wanted to go to the temple with us in the morning.

The walk back to the car was dusty, our shoes were covered in light gray specks so closely packed they clouded over when we stepped down. Felicity was fascinated by the dust clouds. She easily got in her car seat though and we turned on the AC when we got going.

After a few minutes, Rafe turned the radio on. He started flipping stations until he found one playing some Fray, and Script and Adele. We listened in rapt silence--- meaning we sang along under our breath so absentmindedly we were hardly aware of it. You could say we were lost in thought.

"I was uh--- going to take Felicity to the cemetery tomorrow, and try to explain about death. You know...." My voice trailed off.

"I was thinking of planning a trip to Tijuana, to see if we could pick up some of the souvenir items we'd lost in the bus explosion. The settlements on our personal belongings came in today." Rafe said. "I have to work tomorrow. Rehearsals. TV."

"Is it something we can come to?"

"It would be after the temple."

"Everything is after the temple. We are usually home by nine."

"I was hoping for a longer yoga session tomorrow." Rafe said.

"That sounds promising." I knew that meant that Felicity and I would have to find something else to do for a little while. We had games we played on the kindle, or the play station. Or we could go to the park. There was a little jungle gym park in the community, near the manmade lake and clubhouse walking trails.

"Or we could go up to ABCSC and take a look at the boys." Rafe said.

I nodded, feeling incredible relief when he said it.

Rafe tapped the arm of my chair and I gave him my hand. He rested it on the console, watching the road ahead, but his thoughts were on those two little boys, as were mine. Two abandoned little boys. Two hurting---- parent-less orphans.

He looked at me and his lips spread into a slight smile. "Is this really our life? Is this what Father has in mind?"

"I don't know, Rafe. It's all happening so fast. I just don't know."

He grunted and then laughed. "If it is---- I swear to you--- I swear Aubrey on a stack of Bibles--- I'm perfectly at peace with it. We can do this. If this is our trial or our blessing--- we can do it."

"We can do it!" Felicity yelled in English and we both laughed, breaking the tension in the car with the proverbial two by four. I turned and high-fived her, blowing kisses, and she blew some in return.

*******