The Christmas Hope(50)

There were a few people in the office who were pretending to be busy but they were mostly talking about what they did for Christmas. I avoided them and went to my desk to prepare Emily’s file. You’ve done this for years, I thought. Just do it and get it over with. I pulled out the forms and began to file my report, filling in all the necessary blanks: Deceased, orphan, five years old, no legal guardian, foster home. I stopped writing and shook my hand. It felt as if I were moving a twenty-pound pen around on the page. I typed into my computer about the night I was called to take Emily into protective services and meeting the police at her home before reporting the phone call from Karen Delphy and explaining their situation. I stared at the words on the screen: December 21. Had it only been five days ago? The phone rang at my desk. I considered letting it ring but thought it might be Mark. I picked up the receiver.

“Patricia,” a young voice said.

“Justin?” I thought, Oh, please don’t let anything be wrong.

“We decorated a Christmas tree.”

I sighed. “That’s great, Justin. Is it pretty?”

“It’s awesome,” he said, describing it to me in detail. “You can come see it if you want.”

I told him I would.

“I got a lot of cool presents, too, and my mom made a turkey.”

“How is your mom?” I asked.

“She’s cool,” he said.

I was relieved. Justin and his mother were doing well. “Thanks for calling me,” I said.

“I just wanted to wish you a late merry Christmas and tell you happy New Year, too,” he said, mumbling into the phone. “And say … thanks for, uh … for bringing me back.” He hung up before I could say anything. There are still happy endings, I thought, reminding myself.

“What in the world are you doing here?”

I jumped in my seat and spun around to see Roy.

“I have to file a report on Emily,” I said, turning back to my computer. I should have asked how Roy’s Christmas was but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to talk with anyone, not even Roy.

“Is she going into a foster home today?”

I nodded but kept working.

“How does she feel about that?”

I shrugged, keeping my back to him.

“How do you feel about that?”

I stopped typing. “I’m sick about it,” I said. “But there’s nothing we can do. You know that.” I started to type again. I was determined to finish the report.

Roy tapped me on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” he said.

I ignored him.

This time he tapped harder. “I said excuse me.”

I rubbed my shoulder. “Ow! What are you doing?”

“I think the better question is what are you doing?”

“I’m trying to get this report ready.”

He sat down on the edge of my desk. “Well, somebody might be able to help you if you’d just stop working for a second.”

“Help me with what? I’ve done these reports a thousand times.”

He sighed and threw his hands in the air. “You women drive me crazy. I don’t know why I ever asked Barbara to marry me. Now I’ll be having conversations like this for the rest of my life!”

I jumped out of my seat and hugged Roy. “You finally did it! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you? You can’t keep a secret. For days we planned a surprise birthday party for Glenda and she never had a clue until you blabbed.”

“That was ten years ago!”

“It left a mark!” I sat in my chair and looked up at him. He was happy and proud.

“Is the ring pretty?”

He held his fingers in front of him and then pretended to shine them on his sleeve. “I don’t like to brag but she cried when she saw it.”

“Because the diamond was so small?”

He slapped the desk and laughed and then picked up the paperwork on my desk. I watched him read through it.

“How was Christmas?” I couldn’t tell Roy everything; it would take too long.

“I hated to see it end.” He shuffled the paperwork in his hands and studied what I’d written. He rested his forehead on his thumb and middle finger and read through each line again. I continued working but could hear Roy rustling the papers behind me.

After several minutes he rested the papers on his knee. “She has a living grandmother, grandfather, and uncle?”

“Yes.”

“And none of them are legal guardians?” I didn’t know what he was getting at.

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“I called them the morning after the accident. None of them could take Emily.”

“They couldn’t take her. What does that mean exactly?”