Page 7 of Thalen

“Yeah. It’s too big to carry all the time, and they might think you stole it if you put it in the cart.”

He really was a smart kid.

4

EVAN

After a successful trip to the St. Vincent dePaul store, which netted him a much fuller wardrobe, including not only like new stuff but some that had been donated with the tags still on, we went home.

“Can we wear our matching shirts now?” Jason asked me, referring to two of the new, with tags T-shirts with the Coca Cola logo on that we’d found in both of our sizes. There had been a handful of child and adult sizes of those and a few other styles which hadn’t caught our fancy, and the lady putting new stock out when we were there informed us it was from a local outlet that had closed down and donated all their unsold stock after they ran a huge clearance sale which I’d missed hearing about. Probably because I didn’t hang out with people who cared about that sort of thing. In fact, I didn’t really hang out with anyone.

Sure, I had friends. Or rather, I was friendly with my neighbors, who usually invited me to their cookouts when they had them, and I went. They didn’t talk about store sales, though. They mostly talked about the weather, local politics, and what they had recently watched on TV.

“Sure,” I replied, "let's put everything away and then we can change our shirts.”

His face fell a little, but I knew that wouldn’t last long once he saw where we were putting everything. Carrying our bags, I went to the little closet that served as the laundry area. It was purposefully designed for it, with a water hookup and a spot for a vented dryer in the next space. I’d been lucky enough that shortly after I'd first moved in, Mrs. Tomski, who lived across the hall, had asked me if I wanted to take her old washer and dryer off of her as she was getting new ones courtesy of her daughter, who was a lawyer and liked to spoil her mom like that. The washer and dryer weren’t the fancy kinds with electronics in, but were more basic models that, except for the overall styling of the control panel, could just as easily have been ones made decades ago. Which was fine by me, because they worked and were easier to fix, as I’d discovered when the dryer suddenly stopped getting hot enough to dry clothes. I’d actually managed to repair it myself by swapping out the heating element thanks to a YouVid tutorial and a part I ordered online from the link the video creator had provided.

I sat the bags on the floor next to the cupboard, then opened the bifold doors. Taking down the laundry basket from its perch on top of the dryer, I asked him, “Would you like to do the honors?”

He grinned widely. “Yes! But first we gotta get our shirts out so we can be twins!” He quickly dug them out of the bag, handing them to me.

He picked up the first bag, and I said, “Drum roll, please!” to which he giggled, upending it all over the half full basket before repeating it with the second bag.

“It’s too full now!” he laughed, pointing at the basket which now boasted a small hill of clothes over the top.

“Oh, no! I will have to do some laundry today!” Stripping my shirt off to put on my new one, I added, “Do you think you can help me with that? I can show you how to sort them into piles.” This was a skill I was quite proud of, having learned in Home Life class during high school, which we had all been required to take. I’d taken Home Economics, too, even though it wasn’t required, because I’d wanted to learn how to cook. I knew once I'd aged out of the system, I was going to have to rely completely on myself in such matters. Home Ec taught me basic sewing and ironing, cleaning, grocery shopping, and cooking skills while Home Life taught me how to budget finances, grocery shop - this time with an emphasis on reading the pricing by unit size noted on the shelf tag under the retail price for the item - sort laundry and wash and dry it, how to read the bus and train timetables and plan a journey, and had covered the basics of tenants rights when renting a property and popular scams to avoid. It had been a new class that the district was trying out, and without it and Home Ec, I’d have been pretty lost at sea at first, no lie.

“You can’t put them all in at the same time?” he asked, copying me quickly.

“No. Sometimes the colors end up dyeing the other stuff, especially if they are red or black or dark blue," I explained, “and the heavy stuff like jeans and towels can pull the lighter stuff outta shape too and stuff like that.”

“Okay. I’ll help you make piles of the right stuff. But we only have one basket.”

“I usually just sort them on the coffee table and tote them in my arms to the washer after loading the dryer, but you’re right. It would be easier if they all had baskets and I could just line them up by the washer.”

He nodded sagely. “I bet you could buy them from Amazon. They have everything.”

I laughed. “Yeah, they do, but I was thinking more like Dollar General. We can do a bit more grocery shopping while we’re there. There’s stuff I get there instead of Target because it’s cheaper. It won’t be much, so we can carry it all in the laundry baskets on the bus.”

“Okay. Are we going now?”

I shook my head. “I’ll make us some lunch first, and I have a call I’d like to make, and then we can. But when we get back, we really should sort the laundry and put a load on.”

I wanted to check with the Center about what Ms. Baines had said, and wasn’t sure if they could tell me over the phone or if I had to come in after making an appointment like you did if you were going for testing. Either way, a call first seemed prudent.

I settled Jason down in front of some show called Odd Squad on PBS before ducking into the kitchen. I quickly found the listing for general inquiries for the Mylos and Dragonii centers and called it.

“Yes, hello!” I said brightly as it was quickly answered. “I’m calling as I have some questions surrounding foster kids who are being adopted by a future applicant.” I quickly opened the loaf of bread I’d purchased the night before and took out four slices before rummaging in the drawer for a food clip to keep it sealed. Those sticky tab things were useless as far as I was concerned.

“Hello, yes, I am Xeranos, the AI who runs the protocols for the matching services. What specifically do you need to know?” came the equally jovial sounding reply.

Wow. Just…wow. I was actually talking to THE Xeranos - the sentient AI whose program was copied and then modified to be specific for the needs of New Haven. The new one named himself Bob, and the pair of AIs regarded themselves as actual siblings rather than parent and child, which was super fascinating if one spent any time at all thinking about it.

“Sir?” Xeranos prompted, and I startled, realizing I’d gone off into my head fanboying instead of conversing.

“Sorry. I was just a bit awestruck to actually be speaking with you. Um, so here’s the deal as it pertains to me specifically.” I laid it all out, from my initial supposition and application to foster with a view to adopt, and then every single thing she’d said during our interaction the day she brought Jason.

Xeranos hummed for a moment.