For Fiona

6. Our Daughter

The second Madison reported that Fiona was in the hospital, Tim and Lucy felt a kind of fear they had never known before. Anxiously, they climbed into his truck and peeled out of the furniture store's parking lot to get to St. Joe's as quickly as possible.

Without really thinking, because rational thought could not withstand the worry for Fiona, Lucy reached for Tim's hand for comfort, and she gripped it tightly while remaining perfectly silent for the entire drive.

He was navigating the streets as quickly as he could, but it did not feel fast enough. He wished he had sirens to turn on to reach Fiona faster. Finally, after a painstakingly long time, they arrived at her hospital room where she looked so small in the comically large hospital bed when she was such a tiny girl.

"Oh my God," Lucy said, thinking she might collapse when she saw tubes sticking out of her little hand and machines connected to her. Madison tried stopping her from entering the room, but she shouldered past with determination. "Fiona? Are you okay, honey?"

"Lucy!" Fiona exclaimed brightly, overjoyed enough by receiving a visitor that she forgot about her hospitalization for a moment. "Hi, silly goose!" She greeted Tim as well.

"What happened? Are you okay?" Lucy asked and searched the room for any sign of a chart or details about her condition.

"My tummy hurts," Fiona explained.

"Your tummy hurts? I'm sorry," Lucy apologized.

Madison provided a better explanation, "It seems Fiona has food poisoning. One of the kids called 911 when they saw how sick she was feeling, and she was brought here for care. It's not severe, but any emergency call from a foster home initiates certain protocols."

"Who would poison her?" Lucy wondered, and then another woman appeared in the hallway who she recognized as Fiona's foster mother that she only knew as Mrs. Crowne. She turned on her heel and barreled into the hallway to angrily snap, "What the hell did you to our girl?"

"I-I didn't mean to," she tried to explain.

"Fiona is in the hospital!" Lucy pointed behind her, and Tim took it as an opportunity to hold her forearm.

"I want her out of that group home. Fiona will be safer with us," Tim said gruffly and definitively.

"That's why I called. A hospital visit is grounds for an emergency placement of a foster child. Once she gets discharged in the morning, you can take Fiona home if you're ready," Madison chimed in.

Both Lucy and Tim knew they were not ready considering the new furniture had yet to be delivered to their house, but they would figure everything out for her.

"We've been planning this since we met her. We're ready," Tim assured on their behalf. When Lucy gave him an appreciative smile, he curtly nodded at her.

"Okay, so the protocol is that we require an overnight stay for observation to ensure there are no other health concerns that pop up, then a full examination by a doctor that I'll be present for, and then I have to interview her privately to ask about her experience in the group home. After we complete all of that and Fiona gets discharged, you can come back to the hospital and take her home," Madison informed them.

"Come back? We're not leaving Fiona and coming back later. We're her family," Lucy insisted. She refused to leave Fiona's side for even a second, so she went into the hospital room with Tim in tow. "Hey, Fiona, can we get anything for you?"

"You don't have to worry about me. I'll be okay," she promised sadly.

"Well, actually, we want to talk to you about that," Lucy began then her eyes flitted over to Tim for a second before resuming looking at Fiona and telling her, "Tim and I think you're the most special girl in the world, and we would love to foster you, so we would live with you, and take care of you, and tie bows in your hair, and color with you, and talk about animals all you want. How would you feel about that?"