The Best Years

7

"Elise?" Calum asked, approaching the woman he'd met earlier.

The brunette turned to him, eyebrows raised in silent question.

"What do you know about Chloe?" He asked, jerking his thumb in the direction of the girl still cutting flips just outside of the window of the room the pair were speaking in.

"She's a sweet one. She had a rough start, her parents were both heavy users and they both OD'd with Chloe in the house." The woman said sadly. "She wasn't found for three days. Should have seen her, poor thing was practically starving by the time the neighbors heard her crying and broke down the front door."

"Oh my God, that's awful." Calum exclaimed. Elise gave him a soft smile in silent agreement.

"Yes, and she doesn't have any other family so she's just been here for three years now. She's quiet and has trouble making friends, she got really attached to one little girl named Mara but when Mara got placed with a distant relative Chloe really retreated into herself and now she mostly plays alone. I've wondered if she would be happier if we were to place her into a smaller care facility where she could be more comfortable with the people there and it wasn't such a revolving door but those places can be hard to get a kid into." Elise said somberly, her eyes trained on the dark skinned girl outside.

"Has she ever done any activities? She seems to be great at tumbling."

"No, we've never put her in anything but she's always out there dancing and flipping. She loves the trampoline out back too..."

"I know some of the boys play club soccer and such, would you be opposed to me seeing if I could get her into some gymnastics classes? I have pretty tight connections with a great coach who's been looking for young talent."

Elise stared at him contemplatively before releasing a heavy breath.

"It's not that I'm opposed to it, I just know those classes tend to be really expensive and I don't know that it would be in our budget right now. I'd hate to get her hopes up."

"What if I told you it would be paid for? We'll either get her on a scholarship or I'll take care of it."

"I'd say that's very generous of you, and if Chloe is interested then, we'd have no problems with it."

"Can we ask her?" Calum questioned.

"Be my guest." Elise said, falling into step behind Calum as he once again approached the little girl.

"Hey Chloe!" He said to her, bending down to her level so as not to loom over her.

"Hi." She replied, her eyes moving between the faces of he and Elise as she obviously wondered what they wanted.

"Chloe, do you know what gymnastics is?" Calum asked her.

"Uh-huh. We watched it from the Olympics." She replied easily. "They do lots of jumps and flips and run really fast."

"Yeah, they sure do." Calum said with a grin before a thought occurred to him. "Hey, you watched the Olympics, do you know who this is?"

Calum pulled his phone from his pocket and showed her another picture of Holls, this one was one of his favorites and was actually from the Olympics."

"Yeah, that's Holland Mayfield. She won medals." She said sheepishly.

"Her name's Holland Hood now, and she's my wife." He grinned.

"Really?" Chloe asked, her eyes growing wide in excitement.

"Yep! Would you like to meet her sometime? I saw your cartwheels, they're really good. I bet Holland would show you some other tricks too."