The Village

Seth’s Perspective

It was Friday night, the end of the first week of the new year… and so far, it had been action packed. Beyond the day to day craziness of life, we completed our last Foster Parent training session and had passed our home visits so we were officially Foster parents and just waiting to get a call that we were needed… Max and Brody were waiting too. The Halls were back in town to help Riley and Eli move into their new villa and were staying with us. Of course, Kelly had the move perfectly organized and running like clockwork. Rodney had lined up a few interviews for RayRay so he was in town over the weekend interviewing and apartment hunting with Maverick. He seemed like a good guy and good friend for Maverick… and yes, he really did look like Max and Brody’s love child (and everyone recognized it).

“I’m so happy to be back here with you all, and the villa is so cute! I’m excited for the move” Kelly said as she sipped her red wine and looked at the boats in the harbor from the restaurant window.

“Thank y’all for inviting us out with ya’” Brody said as he sat next to Max at the big table for eight.

“One of our New Year’s resolutions is to go out to dinner at least once a week” Max added. The four of us had made a group resolution to get out more and enjoy life a little. We all had great lives, but we spent most of them working. I had a feeling that like every other New Year’s resolution it would last for a few weeks and then be forgotten, but so far so good.

“You’re family! I was as excited to see you boys as I was to see my own kids” Kelly said with a smile as she lifted her wine glass and her two children moaned and groaned a couple of ‘gee thanks, mom’ type comments as the rest of us chuckled. “So tomorrow we pick up the U-Haul early and move the big stuff into the villa. I took inventory of the stuff in the barn today and think we can do it in two trips. We should have everything over there by noon then we can unpack and set things up for the rest of the day.” Kelly said laying out the plan “and Sunday we can all pitch in to take down the Christmas lights.” Yup, Kelly was back in town and in charge. I decided to just let her do what she does and enjoy the evening. It was a nice, relaxing night with family and friends.

Saturday morning Kelly had me up before dawn making breakfast for everyone to energize the crew for a long day of moving. I loved being in the kitchen with my mother in-law. The first Christmas I spent with the Halls’, Kelly and I bonded while cooking together and over the years it had kind of become our thing, our special time together. As we were cooking, everyone else came into the kitchen including Max and Brody who showed up for breakfast and to help with the move. Petunia and Zoey were running around the yard while the rest of us ate breakfast and got ready for the busy day ahead. Kelly and I cleared the dishes while Zach, his dad, and Eli went to the U-Haul place to get the truck, and everyone else started loading the pick-up trucks. From that point on we were lifting and moving until everything Eli and Riley owned was in a truck and transported to their little villa a few miles away and all traces of them were out of The Witches house. Two U-hauls and 4 pick up loads later we were done. When they came to North Carolina from Phoenix a couple of months back, everything they owned fit into one U-Haul, but Riley had bought so much shit since they arrived that it almost doubled.

We worked under Kelly’s supervision all afternoon and into the early evening putting Eli and Riley’s home together, by nightfall there was a place for everything and everything was in its place. Kelly and Nathan even moved their stuff out of our place and into the guest room at the villa. The cute little villa was transformed into a nice home for my brother and my sister in-law. And… our house was empty! Just me, Zach, and Petunia. For the first time since we moved in, I couldn’t wait to clean from top to bottom and claim it for our own again. We said goodnight and all agreed to meet for breakfast in the morning.

That night we went home (a little buzzed), we cuddled, spooned, and I fell asleep in Zach’s arms almost instantly. I was in a deep state of sleep when my phone rang, I didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?” I answered in a state of about 95% sleep.

“Is this Mr. Westin-Hall?” Asked a pleasant voice.

“Yes” I responded in a gravely, still sleeping voice. Zach stirred behind me on the bed and asked, “Who is it?” I shushed him trying to wake up and listen to the voice on the other phone.

“This is Ms. Elkin with CPS; we are looking for emergency shelter for a boy aged 5 and his sister aged 2. I know you’re new to the foster program, but we were hoping you could provide immediate shelter.”

“Immediate as in right now?” I asked in sleepy shock.

“What’s going on?” Zach asked in a sleepy whisper.

“Hold on one minute, Ms. Elkin” I said before hitting mute and filling Zach in on what was going on. When I unmuted the phone, I put Ms. Elkin on speaker and let her know Zach had joined us and she shared all the information she had. There was a late night drug bust that involved the kids single mother who was arrested and brought to jail, and the children were removed from the house. The agency was trying to track down the father (or fathers) or any other family, but hadn’t had any luck yet. “The mother sees the judge on Monday morning, so the kids need a safe home for the weekend, and possibly longer term depending on what happens Monday. The charges include child endangerment, if that sticks, we’ll fight to keep the kids away from her.” She explained. We asked the woman for a few minutes to discuss the situation and promised to call her back. We hung up and instantly started talking logistics, it was never a question of whether we wanted to help or not, the question was COULD we on such short notice. The next day was Sunday and we were both off so that gave us a day to figure things out. Ms. Elkin had told us that the five year old was in preschool and the two year old was enrolled in childcare. If we needed to take Monday off or work remotely, we both could. We also talked about supplies… we’d need diapers, car seats, all that stuff. There was a lot to figure out but we were both willing to do it, so I called Ms. Elkin back and told her the kids were welcome at our home. She planned on dropping the kids off in an hour or so. Zach and I prepared the two guest rooms and got Petunia settled in the barn, we thought it would be best to keep her away from the kids until they got comfortable and we got a read on them. Once they settled in, we would introduce her and they would all hopefully fall in love, but for now she was on her own. Petunia rolled with it, she was a good girl and a team player. At approximately 3AM Mrs. Elkin showed up with our first two foster children and a police escort, Zach and I were standing in the driveway when they pulled up.

Ms. Elkin opened the front passenger door of the SUV, stepped out and introduced herself, a man got out of the driver’s seat and she introduced him simply as Larry, another case worker with her agency. We discussed the situation quietly as the two yet unseen children slept in the back seat. The police officer stood by the SUV listening to our conversation and standing at the ready. Finally, Ms. Elkin opened one of the backdoors and we got our first look at our tiny houseguests, it was dark and we couldn’t see much of them while they were fastened snuggly in their car seats passed out. “They’ve had a rough night” Ms. Elkin said empathetically as she started to unbuckle the little boy. His brown eyes opened wide as looked around, then he wrapped himself around her and nuzzled his cute little face into her shoulder. On the other side of the vehicle, Larry unbuckled the little girl from her seat. She opened her eyes for a second then rested her head on Larry’s shoulder and went back to sleep. It was dark out in the yard and I couldn’t see their faces too clearly. “Zach and Seth, meet Frederico and Isabela… also known as Freddy and Izzy” she said as Larry passed Izzy to Zach, she grabbed onto his neck and fell back asleep on his shoulder. He kissed the top of her head… I could see it on his face, he was already in love. “Let’s go inside and get them settled, then we can talk details.” Ms. Elkin said in a quiet voice as Larry grabbed a couple of bags filled with their meager belongings and followed behind.

We took the two sleeping innocents upstairs to put them to bed, we had planned on putting them in separate rooms but decided it was best if they stayed together at least for the first night, that way they could wake up and see each other in the morning and know they weren’t alone…  so, we set them up in Eli and Riley’s old room. There was an overstuffed chair in the corner of the room and Zach sat down still holding Izzy, he didn’t want to leave her. I got Freddy ready for bed and tucked him in, then I left the three of them to rest in the quiet of the guestroom while me and the others went to the kitchen to talk details. Ms. Elkin gave me all the information she had on the kids schools, routines, likes, and dislikes. She had some paperwork for us to sign, I signed my name then took the papers to ach and he reached his arms around the sleeping Izzy to put his John Hancock on the documents. The officer promised to email Zach the police report when it was ready so he could assess the charges and try to figure out what their mother was dealing with. When she called earlier, Ms. Elkin had talked about this being very short term, she kept calling it an emergency shelter for the weekend, but based on the charges against the mother, and her prior record it was doubtful it would just be for the weekend; it could easily turn into long term. We finished up and Ms. Elkin and her entourage left around 4:30AM. I went up to the guest room to find Zach asleep on the chair in the corner, still holding Izzy. Freddy was curled in a ball and asleep on the big bed, I laid down next to him, put my arms around his tiny little body and tried to sleep… no luck. The adrenaline was flowing and I couldn’t sleep after all that had happened, I got up and went through the kids bags… oh my god their clothes smelled like mold, cigarette smoke, and pot. I put everything in the washer and while the washer did its thing, I cleaned every nook and cranny of that house, then took inventory of our groceries, made lists of what we needed to buy, what we needed to do, questions I had to ask, etc. What the hell did they even eat???! Our world had been flipped upside down with one phone call and we needed to roll with it. I had several lists in front of me and at the top of each one I wrote “stability and love” those were the two most important things we needed to provide for Freddy and Izzy, the rest were just incidental details. I didn’t want to lose sight of that fact.

The laundry was done and spread out on the dining room table where I was folding and sorting when I heard a tiny voice behind me, “where’s my momma?” I turned back to see Freddy in his well-worn Spiderman PJ’s rubbing his eyes with his fists trying to get rid of the sleep. That was the first time I had heard his sweet little voice.

“She’s not here, I’m Seth” I said. He nodded as if he remembered meeting me in the middle of the night, although I doubt that he did, he was pretty out of it.

“Is momma with the police again?” he asked now looking at me with those incredible brown eyes, his soft, out of control curls almost covering his eyes. ‘again’ I thought to myself, these poor kids. Ms. Elkin told me this wasn’t his first rodeo, she also said it may be his last since his mother was threatened with losing her kids by the last judge.

“Yeah, but that means you get to stay with us” I said excitedly, “and we’re really excited you and Izzy came to stay with us” he just continued to rub his eyes and nod. I doubt he was buying it. “Hey, you hungry?” I asked as I walked away from my folding and knelt down in front of the little guy. I couldn’t help but hug him. I just wanted to squeeze the horrors of his past out of is tiny body. But I had to admit… he stunk. How someone so cute could smell that bad I had no idea. First breakfast, then bath time I decided.

“Yeah” he eked out then said, “pancakes” with a sob. So, goddammit I took him to the kitchen and started making pancakes. I would’ve give that boy anything. One of the things they kept emphasizing in foster care training was that the hardest part was the emotional attachment. It is hard not to get emotionally attached but you need to remember that the relationships are often short term, and frankly not much more than ships that pass in the night. You’re there when they need you, then they move on. I could already tell that I was going to have a problem with that part of it. I lifted Freddy’s little body onto one of the barstools at the counter and adjusted it so he could reach okay. I started pulling out all the ingredients and tried to engage him in conversation about what he liked to eat, what he liked to do, I asked about school… anything I could think of. I just got some nods and short answers, occasionally he sucked in air and quivered his bottom lip like he was choking back the tears. This kid was killing me! I poured the batter onto the griddle in shape of Mickey Mouse, something Kev had taught me when I used to babysit Matty and Baby Scotty. As the batter was browning Zach walked in with Izzy on his hip. She was rubbing her eyes too. “Good morning, Izzy” I said cheerfully. She just turned away and buried her face in Zach’s shoulder.

“She stinks” Zach mouthed above her head. “him too” I mouthed back as I went to the griddle to check on Mickey. I flipped the pancake and asked Izzy, “are you hungry? I’m making pancakes.” She nodded and Zach set her down on the other stool next to Freddie and adjusted it. I was happy we were able to make do without a highchair or a booster seat, but I added both to my list of shit we needed to pick up. I poured the batter onto the grill for another Mickey after I took the first one off and flipped it onto Freddy’s plate.

“Mickey” Izzy squealed in delight. Up until that moment I had no idea if she could even talk. Just then Freddy giggled. He actually giggled and it was cute as hell. I didn’t know if this was a turning point or just a momentary lapse in his youthful judgment but I was happy as hell to hear it. Zach got the butter and syrup out… hell I had no clue if I should be feeding them all that, but that’s what they wanted so I obliged.

I was finishing up Izzy’s pancake when Zach went into the cupboard and came back with a piece of bowtie pasta and put it above Izzy’s pancake and said, “Look. It’s Mini.” Now Izzy giggled and clearly called my husband ‘silly.’ That was about as much talking as we got from the two of them, but it gave me hope that they were getting comfortable. I made pancakes for me and Zach, some bacon, and scrambled eggs too and we stood on the other side of the counter and ate with them. They gobbled down the pancakes, and we put bacon and eggs on their plates… those two little shits ate more than we did!!!

“When was the last time you guys ate?” I asked. Freddy just shrugged. They were obviously starving. As we were eating, I heard Petunia barking. I had completely forgotten about her with everything that had happened last night. “Shit. I forgot she was outside” I blurted out.

Both kids looked at me with wide eyes, then Freddy giggled again “That’s a bad word.” Yup. It was, and now that there were kids in the house, I’d have to watch my mouth… we both would. Petunia barked again.

Izzy made a little “woof” noise, then said the word ‘doggy.’

‘You guys like dogs?” Zach asked. They both nodded with smiles. “Finish breakfast and we’ll go outside and feed the dog.” Freddy started shoveling the food in as fast as he could then said, “done” Izzy followed her big brother’s lead. When breakfast was over, we bundled the kids up and went out to the barn. Izzy screamed when she saw the big, overly friend Petunia coming at her and grabbed onto my legs. I lifted her up and held her for the first time. She perched on my hip and waved and yelled to the dog, she was excited but cautious. We let the kids feed Petunia then we all went into the yard and played fetch with a random stick Zach found on the ground. After we played for a while, I carried Izzy into the house for an overdue bath. While Izzy was in the tub, I could hear Zach and Freddy kicking the soccer ball around, I looked out the window to see the two of them running around the yard with Petunia chasing them. I scrubbed Izzy good and got the stank off her and put her in some clean clothes.

I could hear Zach and Freddy bounding up the stairs, Zach was talking on the phone. “We totally forgot about breakfast, Mom. I’m sorry” Zach said as he led Freddy into the bathroom for his bath then shut the door to continue his conversation with Kelly out of the room while I got Freddy ready for his bath and finished dressing Izzy. The call from Ms. Elkin came in the middle of the night and things moved so fast that we didn’t have time to call anyone and we completely forgot about meeting everyone for breakfast. By the time Zach got off the phone I was drying Freddy off. “Well, Mom and Dad are on their way” Zach said as he walked in.

“What did she say?” I asked, and before he could answer I said, “Go down to the dining room table and grab an outfit for Freddy.”

He ran down to the dining room yelling to me as he did “she’s excited.” Then he bounded back up to the bathroom with the clean clothes and continued. “They wanted us to meet them for breakfast but I told them we couldn’t take the kids out until we had car seats, so she said they’d come here.” I finished dressing Freddy while Zach primped Izzy. I was just happy they were clean and smelled good. The two of them were still quiet, but they were starting to warm up to us. Once the kids were dressed Zach took them back out to play with Petunia and kick around the soccer ball some more, meanwhile I went to town on cleaning the house. I had stayed up all night cleaning, but just two hours after the kids woke up the place looked like a damn hurricane hit! Clothes all over the dining room table, the bathroom was a mess, there were dishes in the sink, and that awful stench that was on them and all their belongings still lingered in the air. I washed the rest of their clothes and did my best to get the house back in order and smelling good before Kelly, Nathan, Eli, and Riley showed up. I called Max to loop him and Brody in while I was working, and let him know I had to take the kids to school and daycare in the morning and wouldn’t be in until later in the day. We didn’t talk very long before I was interrupted by Kelly and Riley bursting into the house with their arms full of bags and packages.

“Where are they?” Kelly yelled.

“Out back with Zach and Petunia” I answered. “Where are Dad and Eli?”

“Installing the baby seats in your car!” she yelled as she ran out back to get her hands on the kids… she was so excited that you’d swear they were her grandchildren.

“What?” I asked Riley in disbelief.

“Oh my god, Seth. She made us stop at Target on the way in, she bought the damn place out. Car seats, a highchair, a booster seat, clothes, dolls, Legos, every freaking toy she thought was cute!” Riley said with a laugh.

“Jesus! They’re foster kids, they may be going home tomorrow for all we know!” I said. I appreciated the hell out of Kelly, but he was out of control. Riley and I moved all of Kelly’s purchases to the den before the kids saw them then I put on my winter coat and we went outside to join the others. I said good morning to Nathan and Eli were who were hard at work installing the car seats in the Audi, they had it under control. Then I went over by the barn where Kelly stood with Izzy in her arms as the two watched Zach and Freddy kick the soccer ball and cheered them on. I sidled up next to Kelly and said, “Mom, you went overboard. It’s too much.”

She looked at me while she bounced Izzy on her hip, “You’re foster parents now, you’re going to need all that stuff. You need to be ready to help.” She put the antsy Izzy down and she ran into the middle of the action with her brother and the others. “Even if these kids leave tomorrow, there will be others. I think it’s amazing how the two of you open your home like you do… this is my way of helping, just let me have this. Okay?” Kelly was a good soul with a generous heart. I just sighed and put my arm around here, it was a battle I wasn’t going to win. Kelly and I spent the rest of the day going through everything she bought and organizing. We even broke-in the new car seat by taking the kids grocery shopping as I tried to figure out what they liked. While we were gone the others stayed back and took down the Christmas lights, we got back just in time to make dinner… meat loaf, brussels sprouts, and mashed potatoes (FYI, brussels sprouts: Izzy and Freddy were not fans). At about 7:00 everyone left to go back to the villa… we had to kick Kelly out, she wasn’t happy about leaving the kids. By 7:30 the kids were in bed and fast asleep… separate rooms this time, and Petunia was asleep in the hallway before the.

Zach and I were wiped out and got into bed. We lay on our sides facing each other, “holy shit” Zach whispered.

I laughed and repeated, “holy shit” then added “is right” with a sigh before our lips met. We whispered about the amazing turn of events that had happened in the last less-than twenty four hours and the two scared, timid, indescribably adorable creatures that were now in our care. I only slept a couple of hours the night before and the day was stressful. Zach held me and the stress began to melt away, we were still face to face and flaccid meat to flaccid meat. The heat from his soft manhood emanated against mine and I started to rise to the occasion. Kelly had turned our den into a playroom, but the only toy I was interested in playing with was within my reach, my hot blonde jock of a husband. I reached between him and stroked his Lincoln Log until he was hard… it took all of about four strokes to get him there. Damn the heat and hardness in my hand awakened and excited me. I moved under the covers and took him down, loving the feeling of his bulbous cockhead hitting the back of my throat and choking me. Zach’s hands instinctively held my head as his hips pushed up to drive his tinker toy deeper and deeper.

“I’m cumming” he whispered.

Zach was about to shoot and I was zoning out on the euphoric pleasure of his cock pummeling my throat when there was a faint knock on the bedroom door.  “We’re scared” a little voice cried out in a whisper and another little voice that just repeated the word “scared.”   

Zach pulled out of my mouth then jumped up. We both scrambled to find our sweatpants and cover up our hardons as we leaped towards the door. Zach opened it a crack to see Fredrico standing there in the new Paw Patrol PJ’s Kelly bought him. He was holding Izzy’s hand as she stood there in here new Moana nightshirt holding Petunia’s tale in her other hand. The three of them stared up at us; three sets of sad, brown eyes begging for comfort.

Zach and I got back into bed, this time with the Freddy and Izzy curled up between us and Petunia snoring at our feet. In less than twenty-four hours’ time our entire world had changed.                        

 

To be continued…