“I slipped down to Destin to see the house before I signed on it, and I didn’t tell Crista I was there, obviously.” He laughed softly. “You are one of a kind, Maggie Lawson.”
Jo Ellen stepped in, looking smug. “For the record,” she said, “Isuggestedestate planning when you got here.”
“Where are you staying?” he asked. “How long have you been here?”
“We were in Barbara Johansen’s house,” Maggie explained. “And we’ve been here…a long time.”
He dropped his face into his hand and shook his head in sheer disbelief, but Maggie slid the paper from his other hand to get another look at the new house.
“You bought this for her,” she whispered, awe in her voice.
“For us,” he corrected gently. “I knew she wanted to feel part of the whole Destin experience, which apparently is where the Lawsons live now.”
Maggie pressed the photo to her chest.
He gave her a look. “Next time, just ask me.”
“There will not be a next time,” she said softly.
“You say that now,” Jo Ellen muttered.
“Look, Maggie, I really do need to get back to work, but…” He hesitated as he led all of them outside. “Can you keep the secret? Until I can get down there and surprise Crista and Nolie and baby-to-be?”
Maggie’s lips curved slowly. “CanIkeep a secret?”
They all laughed and started walking down the street, but as they fell in step, Maggie leaned closer to her son-in-law.
“Anthony. Just one more thing.”
“What’s that, Maggie?”
“Can we talk about the roses?”
“Two years?” Tessa gasped as Dusty scrolled to the next page on the rabbit hole known as the Florida Department of Children and Families, the gateway site for the foster process.
They’d been digging through online information and Reddit threads and privatized foster services for?—
Tessa glanced at the time. “Oh, dear. We’re supposed to go to the Summer House for Vivien’s bridge-jumping thing.” She grunted and dropped her head. “Please, can I be sick and get out of it? Because this quagmire of acronyms and processes and home studies and a…what is that again? Asocial-emotional audit of my life—whoa. This is definitely giving me a headache.”
Dusty pulled off his glasses, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “Same, Tess. But if we want to foster, it’s a full-time job just to get considered.”
“And then, after two years of training and classes and interviews and references up the wazoo…” She pointed to the screen. “They prioritize one thing—reunification with the family.”
“Can you blame them?” Dusty asked. “Most times you support the child only to…”
“Pack them up and send them back to their parents,” she finished, her voice taut with a pain that was still fresh. “I don’t know if I can go through that again, Dusty.”
“We have to if we want to foster.”
“If we fosterkids. Can’t I just get a nice little puppy and call her Olive?” Her voice cracked on the last word. “Who I miss so?—”
“Yes, but…hang on.” He picked up his phone and put it to his ear, too quickly for her to see who’d just called.
“Is everything okay?” he asked, walking out of the room and lowering his voice. “Where are you now?”
She knew a patient emergency when she heard one, having been with him long enough to know his many clients called on the weekends more often than mid-week. She supposed that must be when grief hit the hardest.
Pushing back from Dusty’s desk, she blew out a breath. This wasn’t about loving a child and giving him or her a beautiful home. This was about navigating a system, and honestly, at fifty, was that what Tessa wanted to do?
