Page 2 of Playing With Forever

“Difficult, smart, frustrating,” I supplied.

Quinn walked into my office while saying, “You said it.” After she gracefully arranged herself in the chair in front of my desk, she finished with, “The frustrating part is, she’s so smart and doesn’t see it.”

I nodded my understanding. Brynne Cole was nineteen. At her mother’s demand, she’d been part of the center’s after-school program for years. As was usually the case, the first few months of Brynne’s attendance were difficult. Teens, in general, were demanding. Teenage girls, who were already struggling with a variety of high school issues—not least of which was where they fit among their peers, boys, popularity, and mean girls—hormones were harder to get through to. Adding to that, the Hope Center being what it was—a place for youth to come after school and on the weekends with the intention of keeping them off the streets, occupied, mentally and physically challenged, and offering avenues to further their education, along with mentors to help in these pursuits—took a goodly amount of work by all of the adults in the building to get them to engage.

Brynne had been no exception. Now she was a high school graduate who was taking her first steps into adulthood and was at the center to utilize the services Quinn and her partners at Women’s Inc. offered.

“Indeed.”

“But…um…that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Is there a problem?”

“No. Nothing like that. Everything’s great. This is…um…personal.”

Twice she had paused mid-sentence, which was very un-Quinn-like. The young woman was confident and bold, unapologetically herself—qualities I greatly admired in her.

“Do we need to close the door?” I asked as my invitation for her to continue.

“No. The only people left in the building are the cleaners.”

Darn. I’d lost track of time. Not out of the ordinary, but my reasons for burying myself under the mountains of paperwork today were not my normal motives.

“Brice and I started preservice training.”

I took a moment to sit with that. Quinn and her husband, Brice, had been trying to start a family for years with no luck. Preservice training meant they were taking steps to either adopt or foster.

“That’s wonderful,” I cautiously said.

Her striking green eyes filled with so much emotion I couldn’t get a lock on which one would win out—the enthusiasm, angst, sorrow, eagerness, anticipation.

She didn’t make me wait to find out. “I’m excited. I want to be a mom.”

That was easy to read.

“But?” I prompted.

“I’m scared. There’s a grief and loss class.”

She was smart to be scared. Fostering children was one of the most selfless acts someone could perform. Adoption was the same, with the added layer of fear that the child could be given back to its birth family.

“There’s a lot to be scared of,” I acknowledged. “Is your plan to foster or adopt?”

“I don’t know if I can do it,” she whispered.

Yes, very unlike Quinn Lancaster.

But understandable.

“Quinn,” I called when her eyes focused on the pen holder on my desk. When her gaze lifted, it was easy to see she’d settled on anguish.

“Maybe I wasn’t meant to be a mom. Maybe I’m supposed to be the fun aunt and spoil my nieces and nephews rotten. Fill them up on candy and popcorn and send them back to my siblings. You know, as payback.”

As far as I knew, there was nothing to pay Quinn’s siblings back for. Jason, Delaney, Addy, Hadley, and Quinn were close—not only with each other and their in-laws but also with their parents, Jasper and Emily. Then there was their extended family; they were a tight-knit bunch who openly displayed the care and love they had for one another.

They were the example of the family unit I wished all of my kids at the center had—a blend of blood and bond, step-children, half-siblings, adoption. They were all of those things, yet they weren’t. They were simply family.

“Perhaps,” I conceded. “Or maybe you and Brice were meant to bless numerous children during the hardest part of their lives. Maybe the two of you were meant to be given an unwanted child and give that child what every child deserves to have—love. Maybe it’s your place in this world to be a mom to a child who wouldn’t otherwise have one.”