Little Drummer Boy

Chapter 1: Welcome to the family.

Chapter 1: Welcome to the family.

My family is probably a lot like yours. There are parents, siblings, annoying aunts who think it’s their job to raise you in the correct appreciation of the arts to prevent you from being a barbaric caveman, so they always pester you about the greatness of Pablo Picasso. Okay, maybe that last part isn’t normal, but it’s my life, I’m sure you have annoying family like that too, even if it’s not the same. At home it was just me and my parents. I have an older sister too named Julia, though she’s 19 and away at collage. She’s studying nursing, says she wants to open a clinic in some big city to take care of the homeless. As for me, I don’t really know what I want to do, it’s just high school for now, get through sophomore year, figure out the next step when I’m finished with that. Mom’s a manager at a bank downtown, so that keeps her busy throughout the day. Then Dad’s a factory worker. Nothing glamorous, but he always says it’s a job he can be proud of.

See, pretty normal family. Kind of boring, but it’s important.

When Julia left, things seemed quiet around the house. We were three years apart, so it wasn’t like we were all that close. We got along okay, most of the time anyway. A few arguments, more often than not over stupid things, but it was weird without her here. It took me a long time to admit to anyone but myself that I missed her. If she reads this, then she’ll finally hear it from me.

Mom and Dad started noticing this too, how quiet things were. Julia’s room laid empty most of the time, she even took most of her stuff with her. They started talking, how they had an extra room and it seemed so quiet with just me there. You see, they always believed that it was our duty to give what we had in excess to those who didn’t have what they needed. Hearing a friend at church mention something about a foster kid gave them an idea.

And I’m sure you know where this is going.

I don’t want to bore you with all the details because I’m pretty sure it’s always the same. A lot of interviews, in home visits to make sure the kid will be taken care of, and crap like that. Google it if you want to know what it’s about.

Anyway, it was in February when it was finally approved. The 14th to be more exact, the Friday before Presidents Day. It would take some time until they found someone that would fit our family, but I thought it would be cool if over the three day weekend I got a new brother or sister. I mean, most people over a break would say they just, played video games, sleep, hung out with friends, or in some cases, throw a wild party that led to the cops being called. It normally wasn’t get a new family member. But of course, I assumed it wouldn’t be that soon.

And you know what they say about assumptions…

It was around 5 PM Monday when we got a call, said they needed a home for a boy right away. So we got in the car, drove downtown to their office in Brookings, getting ready to meet him. It was really weird, after all the stuff we had to go to it only took a couple days for them to find a kid who needed us. I mean, they even had to finger print me. It’s not like I was a criminal or anything, I hadn’t done anything illegal other than that one speeding ticket.

Once we got to that social work building, we took the elevator up to the 4th floor where we’d been for everything before. I remember when we walked in how empty it was that time. Between it being a holiday and so late, nearly everyone had left for the day, but the social worker who had been helping us, Cindy, was still there going over even more paperwork.

“Cindy,” Dad called out as he entered the office behind Mom and me.

“Ah, good, I’m glad you could come on such notice.” My parents started walking to the desk on the other side of the room where Cindy was working. I knew there wasn’t anything there for me to do, so I walked to the back of the room where they had some chairs and a TV. The TV always seemed to be set to CNN, so not the most exciting, but better than waiting doing nothing while my parents fill out paperwork.

As I walked over to the chairs, I noticed another boy sitting there. He seemed to alternate between glancing at the TV for a couple seconds, before sighing and going back down to looking at his shoes. I looked around the room for his family, and after not finding them thought he might be with some other parents that were in one of the back offices. Looking back, I really should have been able to put the pieces together.

As I sat next to him, he looked up to me, and we gave each other a brief smile, though it was only an acknowledgement of each other’s existence, before we ignored each other. There was some story on the news about a hacker breaking into some newspaper, so that was something cool enough to grab my attention.

After a few stories went across the screen, I heard Cindy call, “Jace, could you come here please.” The boy then got up and started walking over to her. Honestly, I probably would have forgotten his name if he was just some random kid.

A few minutes later I heard my dad call me over to them as well. As I went over to see what it was about, my mom was talking to that other boy and it was then that I started to think that his parents might have been in the room since we got here.

“Caleb,” my dad said to me, “I want you to meet your new brother.” Dad placed a hand on Jace’s shoulder, and while Jace seemed to pull away at the touch, he turned from my mom and held his hand out to me.

“Hi, I’m Jace,” he said, though with a voice so soft the TV from the other side of the room almost drowned it out. I took his hand and shook it, feeling him shake in my grip.

“Welcome to the family Jace.”

With that, he let out a sigh, though the smile along with it told me it wasn’t fear or nervousness this time, but relief.  He didn’t say anything else in reply while Dad went back to signing a couple more forms. It didn’t take long for us to be ready to leave.

“Do you have a coat Jace?” Dad asked.

He just shook his head.

“All right.” Dad took off his black leather coat and gave it to Jace. “We’ll get you your own soon, but this should work in the meantime.” It did seem kind of funny seeing him wear a coat that almost went down to his feet, but at least he’d be warm. It made me wonder where he came from that he’d be without one, South Dakota was really cold during winter. But if he needed a home, there had to be a lot of other things he needed to.