The Perfect Child(26)

FIFTEEN

CHRISTOPHER BAUER

I watched as the man, Carl, squeezed Janie’s cheeks playfully.

Don’t do that. She doesn’t like her face touched, I wanted to call out. It was so hard not to say anything. All of this was so painful to watch, but I couldn’t walk away. I couldn’t just leave Janie with a stranger. I didn’t care if the stranger had been screened and thoroughly investigated by the Department of Children’s Services.

His wife, Joyce, stood next to the bookshelf in the living room talking to Hannah, but Hannah’s eyes were glued to Janie and Carl just like mine. She didn’t trust him any more than I did. It didn’t matter that they looked harmless in their worn jeans and tucked-in T-shirts, but they weren’t doing things the way Janie liked. They weren’t in tune with her. Carl still hadn’t noticed that she flinched each time he spoke because it was too loud. Janie looked back and forth between Hannah and me, chewing on her thumbnail, something she only did when she was uncomfortable.

“Janie, sweetie, do you want to come over here and talk to Joyce?” Hannah said, right as I was about to create a similar diversion. I grinned. She wanted to rescue Janie as badly as me. Janie nodded and quickly walked over to Hannah. Joyce knelt in front of her before she reached her.

“Do you like playing outside?” Joyce asked. She was in her early fifties, slightly on the heavy side, and wore a long red cardigan despite the heat today.

Janie froze.

It’d been like this for over an hour, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. These people might have looked good on paper, but they were not good with her in person. Hannah scooped Janie up, and she laid her head on Hannah’s shoulder.

“I think she’s overtired today,” Hannah said, looking apologetic. “Maybe we should set up a visit for another time.”

Joyce huffed, clearly offended.

I shook Carl’s hand. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Likewise. I’m sure we’ll be in touch,” he said.

He seemed like a nice-enough man, just not the right match for Janie. I walked over to Joyce and put my arm around Hannah’s shoulders. “It was nice to meet you as well, Joyce.”

“It really was,” Hannah said. It sounded genuine if you didn’t know her like I did.

I excused myself and headed to the backyard, where I walked to the far corner. I didn’t want to take the chance of someone overhearing me. I called Piper, pacing back and forth as I waited for her to answer. Relief washed over me at the sound of her voice.

“That was awful,” I blurted out, skipping all the small talk. “They looked like they walked out of a car-insurance commercial.”

Piper laughed. “Really? They were that bad?”

“Yes. Janie froze every time they talked to her.” She’d been that way from their first hello. She’d refused to move from her spot behind me during introductions. It’d taken over ten minutes just to get her to show her face.

“In their defense, she probably would’ve done that to anyone regardless because she really likes you guys.”

The next set of prospective parents was even worse. The woman had terrible breath, and Janie plugged her nose every time she came near her. Her husband had shifty eyes, and I didn’t trust anyone who had trouble with eye contact. I stepped out to call Piper like I’d done before.

“Where do you find these people?” I asked.

I expected her to laugh again, but there was silence on the other end. It was a few more beats before she spoke. “I think you need to lower your standards for parents.”

I was taken aback. “What do you mean? Neither of these couples was a good fit for her. It was obvious immediately. They had no clue how to interact with her.”

“You’ve seen two of the best sets of parents we have.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope.”

This time the silence came from me.

“What if I said we were thinking about becoming her permanent foster parents?”

It wasn’t exactly true. I hadn’t even considered it until I blurted it out, but I realized as soon as I did that I meant it. I wanted to be her dad. What if she was the child we’d been waiting for all along? Maybe this was the reason things had worked out the way they did.





SIXTEEN

HANNAH BAUER

I gripped the edge of my seat and glared at Christopher. “Are you serious? How could you? How could you possibly make that huge of a decision without asking me first?”

His eyes widened in shock. “I didn’t . . . I just . . .”

“Spit it out. What? What were you thinking when you told Piper we wanted to keep Janie?” I stood up, my chair slamming into the wall behind me.

“Keep your voice down,” he hissed. “She’s going to hear you.”

I worked my jaw back and forth, too furious to think straight. “How could you assume you knew how I felt about something like this?”

I watched as the realization hit him. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “You don’t want to keep her?”

He looked like he was going to cry, and Christopher rarely cried. I’d only seen him do it a handful of times in all our years together.

Shame washed over me, making it hard to speak around the lump of emotions in my throat. “I just . . . I mean, I know it sounds silly, and I get that we’d be great parents for her, but I . . . I want a baby.” I couldn’t look at him. I stared at an imaginary spot on the tiled floor instead.