Growing Together

Chapter 16

The next morning after dropping the boys off to school, we're back in the police station, in the same exact office, this time a woman from child services is there too.

"There aren't any other possibilities, Mrs. Jones," the woman tells me, all of us sitting down on chairs, Emily on Jug's lap, ignoring all the questions and I don't blame her. "The girl needs to come with us. We've already informed the foster family."

"There has to be someone," Jug insists. "It can't just be a father. What about grandparents?"

"Grandma died in a car accident," Emily tells him quietly. Jughead sighs and kisses her hair worriedly. "What's a foster family?" she asks us.

"It's a family who is ready to take you to live with them."

"Are you my foster family?" she asks me and Jug with a curious look. I hold my breath, ideas running through my head as I meet Jug's eyes.

He just goes ahead and asks it straight forward. "Foster family means getting paid, right?" he asks. The social worker nods with a frown. "And adoption means not getting paid?"

"Right. So?"

"How long do the adoption papers take?" I ask.

The woman chuckles. "Are you actually trying to say you want to adopt a girl after a day of meeting her? That seems suspicious..."

"Are you saying a family who doesn't know her even for a day is going to take her in without abusing her?" I ask back the same way. "Because I have heard of many situations like this..."

"What are you trying to tell me, Mrs. Jones? That you want to adopt this girl? How would you know how to be a parent? You couldn't handle the trauma she's going through," she accuses. God I hate that woman.

"Actually, we have twin boys, 7 years old," Jughead protects me, knowing the woman is mad at me that he is hot and we're married. "And if anyone knows how to handle this drama it's us. We've both gone through similar things. We know what she's feeling."

"Are you hearing this, Officer Smith? They just think that they could adopt her today," she snorts.

"We're not thinking that," I sigh. "There's going to be a trial and all, but... She could keep on living with us until then."

"You have no papers! You have no rights!" the woman yells at me. Jug raises his eyebrow at Mr. Smith and he clears his throat, knowing he got the money from us so he has to help us and pretend that we're actually decent persons.

"Actually," he starts. "There are always faster ways... It would just cost a lot, but you could do these things in a small office. Kind of an illegal way but not really..." he says carefully and the woman looks at him with fire in her eyes.

"Great. Where are some offices like that?" Jughead asks.

Four hours later, we have no idea what we've just done. We've registered ourselves as appropriate for adoptive parents, we're put in some list where we're also able to foster. And now we're eating in a cafe to get some food into our bodies.

"Am I going to live with you?" Emmy asks with a small frown.

I breathe out. "I'm not sure, honey."

"Betts," Jug says, looking doubtful. "Do you understand what we've just done?" I chuckle in confusion, feeling the same way. "We have no spare rooms... We just decided to have a daughter randomly with few hours," he murmurs.

I breathe out sharply, looking at the sad but excited look in his eyes. "I mean, we were pretty bored, right?" I ask carefully, making the both of us laugh and Emmy frown again, not understanding anything.