My Foster Mom Wanted A Daughter - Book 2 Of A Series

Chapter 15 : Reunion

Mary Elizabeth left work as soon as she got the phone call out about Angelo's incident. She had been called by Karen and although she didn't go into all the details of the attack, she did tell Mary Elizabeth that they would not be able to keep Angelo at the shelter until Saturday morning due to his being outed as a boy.

It was a little less than a two-hour drive from Mary Elizabeth's city to Denver, but due to the rush hour traffic in the greater Denver area at this time, it was after seven-thirty in the evening when she got there.
"I want you to understand, Mrs. Dayton is still your foster mother," Karen explained to Angelo, while they awaited Mary Elizabeth's arrival. "And as of now, she still has custody of you. Miss Pentecost hasn't been able to change that just yet. You aren't going anywhere but home with your mom. We will be safe in releasing you to Mrs. Dayton. What Miss Pentecost and your county welfare department does now will be entirely up to them. But don't give up, sweetheart. I have a pretty good feeling things are going to work out for you."

"Thank you, Miss Karen. You've been so wonderful to me," Angelo told her. "I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused you by being here."

"You haven't dear, no, not at all. It was the other girls, Maxine and Marie Jo that caused us the trouble, but they are being sent back to juvenile detention for their attack on you. We can not keep them here any longer."

Angelo was silent for a moment. He really hated to see anyone put in detention, but realized they had attacked him, handled his private parts and exposed his secret.

"I guess that's okay," he said finally. "But I'm sorry they have to be in juvenile detention."

"I know, Angela, but they did attack you, they sexually assaulted you and we can't have that going on here. It's for the best. This is supposed to be a safe place for all girls."

When Mary Elizabeth arrived Angelo was still dressed in one of the outfits he had borrowed from Tanya. He had changed into a pink, fitted, girl's athletic tee shirt, and Capri pants since the girls had ripped the jeans he was wearing when they attacked him.

As soon as he saw his foster mom walk in, he raced to her and she quickly embraced him in a warm hug. Tears were streaming down Mary Elizabeth's cheeks.

After a few minutes of Karen talking to Mary Elizabeth alone in her office, they were ready to leave the shelter and head back home.

Angelo gathered his bag from the room he had been staying in and they were on their way.

For most of the trip, it would be a quiet ride home. Although, Mary Elizabeth did briefly break the uneasy silence in the car early on.

"Angelo, you know I'm really upset at you, sweetheart. You scared me, well, all of us, half to death. None of us had any idea where you had gone or what had happened to you. I, of course, feared the worse. When you didn't make it home, I called the school to see if you had missed the bus, but they said you hadn't. Then I began to fear that Miss Pentecost and her group had found and picked you up or worse you had been kidnapped by really bad people. I was seriously afraid of never seeing you again. I finally called your friend, Tanya, and she said she didn't know exactly where you were but that she knew you were safe. She said that you had told her you would call me when you got to where you were going. That helped calm me a little but I was still very worried about you. If anything, you could have stayed hidden in the bushes and came home after they left."

"I know mommy, and I'm sorry, I really am, but I . . . I was so afraid they were going to take me away from you and make me live as a boy, somewhere else. I wasn't thinking very rationally at the time. I was just scared," Angelo explained.

Mary Elizabeth reached over with her right arm and took Angelo's hand in hers. "Oh honey, I love you and I'm doing everything I can, we can, all of us. I assure you that we are doing everything we can to ensure you can stay with me, and be who you want to be, as well. We all love you and want the best for you."

Mary Elizabeth briefly outlined the work that Heather and her boyfriend were doing with the ACLU, and said that for the time being, Miss Pentecost had relented. A lawyer from the ACLU had contacted her this morning and now she was saying that child protective services would take another look at Angelo's unique situation.

"Oh, so now they're afraid of having to go to court on this," Angelo asked.

"Yes, that appears to be the case, but until this is all over, you're going to have to remain as a boy and wear only boy clothes."

"Okay mommy, for now," He smiled, knowing that maybe he would be able to stay with Mary Elizabeth, after all.

For the rest of the ride home, Angelo sat in silence. He thought about everything that had happened to him since he had met Mary Elizabeth and how, even though it had not all gone as smoothly as he would have preferred, it was still a multitude of times better than anything that had happened to him before meeting her.

He also began to think about what the future held. He dreaded having to continue living as a boy, but he also wanted to believe that it wouldn't be much longer before everything would be worked out and he could begin the rest of his life as the girl he desperately wanted to be. He just hoped that, in the meantime, he would at least be able to find some moments where he could express his girly self.