Page 74 of From the Embers

Hope giggles and then her face falls ever so slightly. “My grandma made really good potatoes,” she whispers.

Oh jeepers, my heart could break more than it already has this past few weeks. I stare up at Denver as tears rock my eyes. He presses his lips together and takes a breath. “You know she will be watching down from Heaven, sweetheart. Like we said, remember?”

“They are angels in Heaven!” Hope declares.

Carrie gives me a squeeze on the shoulder and I take a much needed deep breath.

“Maybe you can give Uncle Daryl some tips on your grandma’s potatoes,” she says behind the back of her hand. “Sometimes he can’t seem to get it right.”

Hope giggles again and we all join in. It’s so sweet to see her little face light up.

“She’s gonna be okay,” Denver says, sliding an arm around my waist, planting a kiss on my temple.

“Are you sure?” I say. “It’s early days yet.”

“Her name is Hope,” he says simply. “In many ways that’s all we need.”

“I love you,” I whisper.

He gives me a sneaky little pinch on the butt and I refrain from squealing.

“I love you too, Red Robin.”

And looking around as everyone mingles and helps get ready for Thanksgiving, I can’t help but think that moving back to Chicago was the best move I ever made. In fact, I know it.

Denver

One year later

Time flies, or so they say. The past year has gone by in the blink of an eye, but I’ve loved every moment of it. I’ve been able to cut back a little at work and get onto a more family-friendly schedule, but still do the job I love. Adi and I are closer than ever and we’ve secured a new, bigger place together on the edge of Old Town and Lincoln Park. I’m not too far from work and Adi is walking distance to her new little studio that she’s been operating out of for the past six months.

Her first gig with Ellie’s parents led to way more work; turns out Ellie’s mom is a realtor and knows everyone in town. She does at least one house staging a week, and offers her own interior design consultations to new purchasers looking to do improvements. She calls it the best of both worlds and loves being able to work her own hours. The space we found for her studio was small, but just what she needed when she’s not out and about with clients in their homes.

Working from home is something she might look at in the future, as it was the original plan, but the spare bedroom we now have has been dedicated to Hope. Yes, she stayed with us and we couldn’t be happier.

Things have been up and down with Hope settling in with us after no other family came forward. We found out that Hope’s mom was single and the father was never on the scene.

Fuck, life is sad at times. She still has nightmares, but she’s safe with us and I’ll do everything to make sure she always feels it. So will Adi.

I guess not too many people go into a new relationship fostering a child together, but maybe it makes us unique. For us, not knowing where Hope would potentially end up was something neither Adi nor I could handle. We’ve become instant parents in many ways, though we’d never try to take the place of Hope’s mom or her family, but she needs stability to move forwards.

So we did our due diligence and completed our training and home study, making it clear to Elaine that we wanted the first option to adopt Hope if we could. At first my parents were worried we were jumping into this too fast, but they love and adore Hope and understand that if anything happened between me and Adelaide—not that it’s going to—we would still both love Hope no matter what and continue to care for her.

Today was the day of the court hearing and Hope is officially ours. To celebrate we went to Hope and Adelaide’s favorite bistro for our little family gathering just around the corner.

“You know the city asked about doing a story on our family,” I say to my girls when Hope is halfway through her stack of pancakes. Hope stops mid-bite as her eyes pop wide. I haven’t even gotten around to telling Adelaide about it yet.

“We’re gonna be on TV?” Hope cries, tugging at my sleeve.

I shrug like I can afford to be so casual with news like this. “Maybe.”

“Wait, what is this all about?” Adi is just as surprised as Hope.

“Well, I guess people heard about our story and they’re interested in it. How this all unfolded, and how we’re all doing now,” I say. I glance at Adi and give her a wink. “But you don’t have to do anything, Hope.” I don’t want to bring up the accident, but it has captured attention on social media because I rescued Hope, later became her foster carer, and now we’re adopting her.

“I’ll be on TV if Duckie, Mr. Pickles, and Una can come!” Hope declares. She took to calling her purple unicorn Una the first chance she got. Since last Thanksgiving, her unicorn has been everywhere with us, along with Duckie and Mr. Pickles of course.

“Well, sure they can come. Remember how they loved coming to the fire station those times?” Oh, how she loved seeing the fire engines and the fireman’s pole. JJ even let her wear his hat when we took her on a little journey around the neighbourhood on her birthday a few months back. That was equally sweet for her, and also tough. Her first birthday without her family. She surprises me every day though with her strength and her ability to live in the moment and enjoy simple things.