Moonlight Road (Virgin River #11)(93)

Darla passed the envelope to her. “We’re moving on, Mel. This is our adoption packet. We’re still hoping God blesses us with a child, but I guess it’s not going to be one we make on our own.”

Almost in shock, Mel took the envelope. She was speechless.

“We got talking,” Phil said. “It’s pretty obvious there’s another plan for us. There must be a need for a couple just like us to help out or we wouldn’t find ourselves in this position. Truth is, if we’d had children we probably wouldn’t consider adopting.”

“You’re going to stop trying?” Mel asked cautiously.

Darla nodded. “We’re all done. If there’s money to be spent now, we thought it might be better spent on a lawyer.” She turned and smiled at her husband. “And on setting up a college fund. I imagine there are children out there who need us.” She laughed a little. “There are probably kids looking for a place to grow up with fresh whole milk, garden vegetables and maybe a hayloft to jump out of.”

“But what if you get pregnant again?” Mel asked.

“We’ve decided to go ahead and turn that off,” Phil said, shaking his head. “First off, it isn’t real likely. That doesn’t appear to be a special talent of ours. And second, the kind of pregnancies we have are just too traumatic. We don’t want to complicate a newly formed family life like that.”

“I hate to sound like I’m just a crybaby—there isn’t much in my life to complain about. But we don’t want to try to get over another miscarriage. Besides, Phil and I always had faith that the right thing for us would present itself.”

“You were never a crybaby,” Mel said softly. “You always had the best attitudes of any couple I’ve ever known.”

“We’ve been blessed in so many other ways,” Phil said. “I mean, the farm is solid, the land is good to us, we found each other at an early age. I can’t speak for Darla, but there hasn’t been a day in my life that I didn’t wake up and thank God for this woman. She’s the best wife a man could ever have….”

Darla got a little bit of a girlish flush on her cheeks. “You know why he says that, don’t you? If he’s real sweet and romantic, sometimes I make two desserts.”

He laughed low in his throat. “That’s not all she does for me if I’m sweet and romantic—but you don’t want to hear about that!”

“Phil!” she scolded. Then she looked back to Mel, serious. “Mel, could you look through that envelope, please? Tell us if we’ve included the kinds of things a person who has to place a child would want to know? And if anything is missing, we’ll add it.”

“Sure,” Mel said, almost numb. “Sure, let’s see.” She opened the envelope and pulled out some paperwork. There were several identical, copied résumés. “How did you know what to include?”

“We looked it all up online. Eventually I’m going to create a page for us so we can put this stuff up, too. So the next time someone is looking…” She shrugged. “We’ll be there, ready to be found.”

Mel scanned. It was all there. Personal information from ages to religious preferences to health reports. There was a description of their home life—large dairy farm, remodeled five-bedroom home, above-average income, savings and investments, clean legal history, long residency in the community, tons of community service. As Mel had known since the first time she met them—they were ideal. They’d spent a fortune trying to have a baby of their own.

“Are you at peace with this decision?” Mel asked, feeling a growing ache in the place where she’d once had a womb.

“We are, Mel. We have a real good life, a happy marriage. We’ve been trying too hard to make things happen our way when maybe that’s just not the plan. And you know what else? If we’re not meant to adopt, either, then a child won’t come our way—we did the paperwork, but we’re putting this in God’s hands. If he sees fit to assist us in this, he’ll send us the child we’re meant to raise.”

If God sees fit? Mel thought almost angrily. God hasn’t been much help so far! But she covered her anger and said, “Well, how flexible are you? It doesn’t say here just exactly what kind of child you want. That’s usually part of the packet. Most couples have preconceived ideas—like a male child under six months old, Caucasian, that sort of thing.”

They looked at each other and laughed again. “That would be us making out exactly what we’d have rather than us being open to what comes our way.”

“Well, that could be a six-year-old biracial child. Or how about a child with disabilities?” she asked.

“There again, about the only thing we could be guaranteed with our own baby was its race. You think if our own baby had come with disabilities, we’d turn it back in?” She chuckled and shook her head at the absurdity. “I’ll be honest, Mel—I’ve dreamed of holding a small baby close, of watching our child get teeth, learn to walk and talk, grow tall. But when you get down to it, about the only thing missing from our lives, our almost-perfect lives, is the laughter of children. I guess they come in all ages, shapes, colors and sizes.”

“Here’s something to kick around—a lot of young women who feel they have to place their child for adoption want to keep some kind of contact. They want to be informed regularly that their baby is doing well. They want pictures and stuff. And even if they relinquish custody for adoption, they might even want to turn up at a Little League game to see their child play ball,” Mel said. She was so hoping to scare them off.