Fledglings Of The Cruz

Episode 1 -- How we Became a Family

It's a typical evening at the Cruz household. Fred sits on the long grey couch in the living room, to the right of Stella and Chuck, rather aggressively tapping at the kids' shared tablet.

"Did you know Max Power doubles when you run and jump at the same time?" He half-shouts.

Chuck turns toward Fred, excitedly.

"No...!" He says, like it's the most significant discovery ever.

Silvi, who had been idly staring at her lap, asks with clearly fake interest. "No... is Max Power worth a lot?"

Fred gives Silvi a disappointed look, as if she didn't give the reply he wanted.

Kayleigh sits alone in the armchair in the corner of the room, scrolling on her phone, looking solemn. She looks up from her phone and at her kids, putting on her usual cheerful, child-friendly act.

"Y'know, I think it's about time for you guys to run and jump to bed," She announces.

Fred eagerly jumps up from the couch.

"Not literally."

Fred, Chuck, and Stella hastily half-run up the stairs, Fred and Stella fighting over who gets the sink first. Bob and Silvi, however, are a little slower to comply, both of them slowly getting up off the loveseat, staring at Kayleigh, halfway hoping she'll let them stay up a little later.

"Goodnight, now," Kayleigh says sweetly, "I can't let you be too tired to play for tomorrow."

Silvi and Bob, secretly embarrassed by Kayleigh's rather babying comment, being 4th and 5th graders, respectively, silently head upstairs.

Now that the kids are out of her sight, Kayleigh slumps in her chair and sighs. Bob and Silvi are already acting less like little kids and more like tweens. But how? They're still in elementary school! When Kayleigh was their age, she was begging for the latest Barbie doll. But now, they're acting more self-sufficient, and even a little rebellious sometimes. She, as usual, wonders if she's done something wrong as a parent. As a single adoptive parent in her twenties, she often stresses that she isn't good enough for her kids. Maybe she's too young, maybe she's taken on too much, maybe she works too much!

But then, as usual, she reminds herself of the terrified, hopeless faces of the small children she adopted in the past several years.

Her mind goes back to 8 years ago, on a cold, clear November evening, when she first carried a two-year-old Bob Bardot from a short-term foster home for good. She still distinctly remembers that look in his deep down in his dark, round eyes. He clung to Kayleigh, who was carrying him, staring at her like he was trying to look in her soul, attempting to find out whether or not she could be his guidance, his rock, someone he could finally turn to. She stopped in her tracks, looked at him directly in his eyes, then put her mouth to his right ear, and whispered "I will."

Bob had never had anyone he could truly trust, Kayleigh knew, as she had been told by the adoption agency that the toddler's mother had died in childbirth, causing his father to spiral out of control, taking poor care of his infant son. After child services inspected the littered house and examined the untended baby, Bob had been moved from one foster home to another. About six months into his journey, CPS had been informed that Bob's father had overdosed and passed away.

So now it was all up to Kayleigh, a 20-year-old jewelry store clerk, to be the one that Bob could always rely on, even twenty years down the road.

Or so she hoped.

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Kayleigh thinks of who Bob is now,  a highly responsible, yet introverted, ten-year-old boy.  She wonders who Bob would have been if he had never met Silvi, Fred, Chuck, and Stella. Her thoughts shift to how they joined the family.