To Build a Home

Chapter 13

Stiles was rearranging lessons early that Saturday morning when the door to his office creaked open just enough to catch his attention.

“Isaac? What’s wrong, baby?” he asked with open arms when he saw that the toddler was crying.

“I has a missing piece,” Isaac mumbled through his tears, arms wrapped tightly around his tummy.

“A missing piece?” Stiles asked, playing along as he leaned over in his chair towards his son. “Where’d it go?”

“H-heaven,” he said, voice small as he sniffled, and Stiles felt his heart collapse in on itself.

“Oh, Isaac,” he whispered as he pulled the toddler into his arms and held him tight as he sobbed with his entire body.

“I miss Mama,” he whimpered and Stiles lifted him up so that he could rock him from foot to foot.

“I know you do, baby. It’s okay to miss her,” he assured Isaac.

“Pwomise?”

“Promise.”

“Do you miss Gamma?”

“Every day,” Stiles admitted softly, knowing exactly what had to be done.

x

“These are yours, honey,” Stiles explained as he gently spread the pictures the case worker had given them out on the living room carpet for Isaac to see. “There’s only four, though, so we have to be careful with them.”

“Mama!” Isaac exclaimed as he reached a small hand out and picked up one of him and her touching noses. “Mama kisses!” he explained with a smile as he tried to show Stiles, tear trails drying on his red cheeks.

Stiles couldn’t decide how he felt about watching Isaac with the pictures; it was like every little string that had developed between them over the past five months was pulling tight, threatening to break. The toddler had mentioned Mama a few times before, but it wasn’t until ten minutes ago that Stiles realized that Isaac had been grieving, and how could he deny him that process?

Isaac grabbed another picture and let his blue eyes study it for a moment, one hand coming to his lips as he let himself get lost in the pixels. Stiles had to look away to keep the tears from coming, watching Isaac remember his mother making it feel like he was looking at a stranger.

It was a reminder that Isaac hadn’t always been theirs, that even though Stiles had spent his whole life wishing for a child as sweet and loveable as Isaac, he’d once been someone else’s. Someone else’s baby boy and universe, he’d hoped, the first thing on their mind before they fell asleep and upon waking in the morning.

Shannon Lahey hadn’t admitted to Social Services that the money issues they were experiencing were a direct result of her husband’s drinking. That Isaac’s medication was never refilled because she had no control over their finances. When they first questioned Paul’s excessive alcohol use, Shannon had promised that he was attending AA meetings despite the fact that the growing number of disorderly conduct police reports proved otherwise. He was suspended from his position in the firehouse after it was found that he was responding to calls under the influence, PBA card no longer helpful once his reputation had been soured.

Shannon had struggled with alcohol on-and-off herself, but it was Mr. Lahey that had been verbally and physically abusive; Isaac’s weren’t the only hospital records on file in the case. Stiles’ father had mentioned the one encounter he could remember with Shannon as he and his son went over paperwork concerning the adoption. How she’d seemed so afraid, nervous that the police and social services would find out her secrets. He’d sensed the abuse, had put in a call, but Social Services was already on it, he was told, and after he filed his report, that was it. The Lahey’s had slipped through the cracks; it was as plain, and sad, as that.