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“Ally and I didn’t want to tell you in case things didn’t go the way we wanted, but we found out today they did.” He pauses a moment. “How do you feel about coming to live with us?”
Erica doesn’t say anything at first, just simply stares at Trent with blank eyes. The longer she stays quiet, the higher my anxiety rises and the sicker my stomach becomes. After what seems like ten minutes, but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, Erica’s eyes glisten with tears.
“Are you serious?” she whispers. “You want me to live with you?”
“We would love that more than anything,” Trent answers for the both of us. His voice is gruff. “So long as you’re okay with it, Ally and I would like to adopt you.”
Another minute passes of Erica staring at Trent before her eyes move to me. Her bottom lip trembles and a tear slips down her cheek. “I would love that. But are you sure?”
I give her a watery smile. “We’ve never been more sure of anything.”
“Then, yes.” She bobs her head up and down, more tears spilling down her cheeks. “I want to live with you.”
I let out of a deep breath of relief and lean forward, taking my new daughter in my arms. I’m careful I don’t hug her too tightly. My eyes slide closed, and several tears fall, landing on Erica’s shoulder. I try to compose myself before I pull back, but I don’t think I do a very good job.
Trent leans forward next, giving Erica his own hug.
“We have a big family at home who are going to love you. They don’t know about you yet, but once they do, they’ll be so excited to meet you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes.” I laugh. “Once we go home, I’ll have a hard time keeping everyone away.”
This makes Erica giggle. “I can’t wait to meet them.”
“We want to wait to take you home until you’ve been cleared by your doctor,” I let her know. “But Trent and I will be staying here too. The friend who we’ve been staying with has an extra room you can use. If it’s okay with you, we want you to stay one more night here, so you can say goodbye to everyone, and we’ll come back tomorrow to pick you up.”
“Okay.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?” I ask, needing her reassurance. The paperwork is done, and we have officially adopted her, but I need to know she’s truly okay with this.
She looks around the room, stopping for a moment on Kate, before settling her eyes back on me. “I’ll miss everyone here, but yes, I’m sure.”
I blink a few times to keep the fresh tears from falling before I give her a smile. “We’re really glad to hear that. And if you’d like, we can come back here for some visits.”
We spend the next few minutes talking. Trent and I tell her about Jaded Hollow. Her eyes go wide when we tell her about all the people she’ll meet and then she laughs when I tell her a few silly things she can expect from Andrew.
“Andrew is my favorite so far,” she claims once her giggles calm down.
“He’s going to adore you.”
“I hope so.”
Kate comes into the room, telling Erica it’s time for lunch. The concern I felt when we first arrived comes back when Erica seems to struggle getting up from the couch. Trent helps her to her feet and walks her over to an older teenage boy, who walks with her down the hallway toward the kitchen. Kate stays behind.
I wait until I know Erica can’t hear us before I face her. “What’s going on?”
“Let’s take a seat and I’ll explain.”
Impatience and worry have my hands twisting together as I sit back down. Trent sits beside me, grabbing my hand, while Kate takes a chair.
“Erica’s doctor informed me today that she’s aplastic anemic. Between the chemo and radiation, her red and white blood cells are too low. They were monitoring it, hoping they would reproduce on their own with medication, but they aren’t.”
I’m all too familiar with these words and what they mean for Erica. “She needs a bone marrow transplant?” My voice strains on the last two words.
“Yes. And she needs it fast. They had to stop treatment for the time being because they don’t want to risk her numbers dropping even lower. As I’m sure you already know having gone through this before yourself, she bruises easily, and her risk of infection is high. She can’t afford to become sick.”
“I’ll get tested immediately,” Trent states. As much as I don’t want Trent to go through surgery, I can’t help but feel relief at his volunteering.
