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Story

Chapter 4

Someone rang the bell by the Safe Haven sign of the fire station, causing an emergency light to come on and flash in a sequence that every firefighter feared.

The paramedics who had been sitting side by side at a table working on paperwork jumped to their feet and split up. One headed toward the ambulance, while the other made their way toward the office to get the paperwork they needed to file for a Safe Haven baby.

The firefighters on shift were already on their feet, and one of them opened the door. The others spread out immediately and looked around for anyone who might have rung the bell, while the one who opened the door picked up the car seat containing a sleeping child and the diaper bag beside it.

He carried both inside and placed them on the table the paramedics had been working on.

The first paramedic returned with a medkit to check over the child and put it on the table before carefully opening the five-point harness that held the sleeping child in place.

The moment he touched the child, it woke, and curious blue eyes fluttered open sleepily. The child looked around, clearly attempting to figure out what was going on, and the moment it saw no familiar face, it burst into tears.

“Shhh,” the female paramedic hushed the child gently, lifting it into her arms while beginning to sway. “Don’t you cry, Sweetheart. You are safe.”

She spoke in a low, soothing tone so as not to scare the child. Though it took her a while, she eventually succeeded in calming the child down.

She began wandering around the fire station and realized the child looked curious about its surroundings and not so afraid anymore, since no one was shouting or in any way aggressive, really.

“Are you curious about where you are, Little One?” she asked and when the child nodded, peering over her shoulder at the bright red fire engine, she started to talk about all the different vehicles and what they were used for, before settling down at the table and explaining gently that she needed to give it a quick checkup.

The child sat patiently on the table and, to her surprise, didn’t move at all. She pulled a stethoscope from the medkit, and the child started to giggle.

While she soothed him and started the checkup, her colleague looked through the diaper bag. He found two changes of clothes, some pre-packaged snacks, three empty and three full bottles, some diapers, a stuffed wolf plushy, and a piece of paper.

He looked at the piece of paper. <i>Evan *June 27^th, 1991</i> was written on it in block letters, making it unidentifiable.

“The little one’s name is Evan, though that still doesn’t give us a gender,” he spoke up, causing the child, Evan, to coo softly.

“I already checked,” she replied. “Had to change his diaper. It’s a boy.”

The heavy fall of their captain’s boots drew everyone’s attention.

“I called CPS. They are on their way to take custody, so please, get the paperwork ready. You know that this time of night they are often pretty quick,” he said, smiling at the little boy who was now clutching the wolf plushy.

He was looking around again, pointed at the ladder truck with an excited expression now that he was fully awake and engaged and shouted, “Wee-woo, wee-woo!” waving his free arm.

Everyone began chuckling softly at the little one’s excitement. After taking pictures of everything their tiny guest had brought along, they also took pictures with him during his visit. They planned to hand these pictures to the CPS worker, who would hopefully give them to little Evan later on.

They wanted to give the child the option to find them, so he could ask questions about this particular night when he was older, if that was what he wanted.

When the CPS worker arrived together with a police officer, they had fed little Evan, and he was falling asleep in his new best friend’s arm, clutching his wolf plushy.

The soft conversation between the people who had been taking care of him and the newcomer barely registered with Evan, though he did protest when he was settled back in his car seat.

He struggled to escape, but was shushed gently and the harness clicked shut, forcing him to remain in the seat.

“No, no … no likey,” he muttered, pouting, which looked frankly more adorable due to his messy blond curls and the big blue eyes.

“It’s going to be alright, Little One,” the female paramedic said softly. “You won’t have to be in your car seat for long, I promise.”

“Pwomise?” Evan asked, holding out his pinky finger.

She took it with her own, and they shook on it. “I promise,” she told him.

Evan nodded in acceptance, and trusting the promise, he fell asleep.

The CPS worker, Sophie Bouchard, carefully carried the car seat outside and secured it in the backseat of her car.

The paramedic followed her, handing over the diaper bag and the paperwork they had filled out while waiting.

“Take care of him,” she said softly, running her hand through unruly blond curls one last time before turning on her heel and walking back into the fire station without looking back. She knew she needed to let go.

“I will,” Sophie Bouchard replied just as softly, knowing that the paramedic likely wouldn’t hear her, but making the promise anyway, simply because it felt right to do so.

She settled into the driver’s seat, pulled her phone from her pocket, and looked through all the available foster families registered for children in Evan’s age range, who did emergency placements as well as long-term fostering with the goal to adopt.

One family stood out to her—the Hollanders. Something told her that this was the family she should put little Evan with, so she decided to make the call and ask them if they were ready to take charge of a one-year-old.

She wasn’t surprised, when they said yes immediately.

Chapter 5

“Oh … my … god,” Yuna breathed out slowly, excitement clearly blooming in her chest, right along with fear. The call she had just taken was going to turn their lives upside down.

“Yuna, Darling,” David asked his wife, sounding a bit worried. “Is everything okay?”

Yuna slowly released the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding and turned toward her husband, still holding the phone’s receiver in her slightly shaking hands.

“It’s time,” she whispered.

David blinked, looking confused.

“Time for what?” he asked. He wasn’t normally that slow on the uptake, but it was late and he had had a long day at work.

Yuna gave him a shaky smile, grabbed his hands and squeezed them.

“I just got off the phone with Mrs. Bouchard from CPS. She just picked up a one-year-old who has been left at a fire station here in Ottawa. A little boy named Evan. She felt that we would be the right fit for him and asked if we would take him,” she blurted out.

David blinked slowly as he processed his wife’s words. As they finally hit, his eyes widened.

“Oh … my … god,” he breathed out slowly as a smile spread over his face. “I need to go make up the crib for the little one. He should have fresh sheets to sleep in.”

Yuna burst into giggles for a hot minute before she nodded.

“I make sure that nothing that isn’t child-friendly is left lying around. I’m not sure how mobile the little one is, so it’s probably for the best to scale the child-safety back up a bit, even if Shane won’t be happy about it,” she rambled as she finally put the receiver down.

Both headed off in different directions to do as they had said.

They met back up at the door to Shane’s bedroom to just stand there and watch their own little boy, who had just recently insisted he didn’t need a full-on crib anymore, so they had taken the bars off and turned the crib into a toddler bed for him.

Shane had been so proud about being a big boy it had melted both their hearts, and now, very soon, he was about to be a foster brother.

They shared a soft smile.

“I hope they’ll get along. It will be a big change for all of us to have a one-year-old around again, mixed with out own rather energetic two-year-old,” David murmured.

“We’ll manage, I’m sure,” Yuna said softly while pulling the door to Shane’s room shut, knowing that the small nightlight right next to the door would be enough to make their son feel safe and sound should he wake in the dark.

David nodded.

“We always do in the end,” he agreed, already mentally preparing himself for chaos to break out in his home. He was dreading and looking forward to it in equal parts.

Before either of them could get worked up about the situation in front of them, a soft knock sounded from their front door.

Yuna went ahead and peeked through the peephole before pulling the door open with a shaky but welcoming smile on her face.

“Good evening, Mrs. Bouchard,” she whispered softly, realizing their little guest—for now at least—was fast asleep in his car seat, clutching a wolf plush toy to his chest as if his life depended on it.

“Good evening, Mrs. Hollander,” Sophie Bouchard replied as she carried the sleeping little boy inside in his car seat. It had been a fight to keep it out of the police’s hands. She had consented to them swabbing and photographing everything, but insisted on allowing Evan to keep the few familiar things he had with him. “Mr. Hollander.”

Yuna and David peered at their little guest, who didn’t react even when the car seat was put down on their coffee table.

The three adults settled down on the sofa next to the coffee table, their focus on the sleeping child for a few minutes.

“What can you tell us about him?” Yuna asked.

“Not much. What I brought with me is what he had on himself. There was a paper with his name, Evan, and his date of birth, June 27^th, 1991. The paramedics gave him a checkup, and things came up clean, though you should take him to your pediatrician in the morning to have a more thorough check done,” Mrs. Bouchard said.

Yuna nodded, making a note on the notepad she had on the coffee table.

“We need to make sure he is hitting all his milestones,” she murmured, while David just looked at the sleeping boy.

“I’ll tuck him,” he said.

“Could I see the room?” Mrs. Bouchard asked.

“Of course,” David said as he took the car seat while Mrs. Bouchard grabbed the diaper bag.

They walked into the nursery/children’s bedroom they had had set up a while ago. The walls were painted a pale green and blue toward the ceiling, with a mural of various animals frolicking along the bottom of the wall.

Mrs. Bouchard looked around curiously, pulling open the drawers under the changing table, and peering into the small wardrobe. She nodded in acceptance. Everything was child-safe, something she had ensured before but still wanted to check upon just to be sure.

“Go ahead,” she whispered.

David placed the car seat on the changing table, carefully opened the harness holding the child in place, before lifting the little boy out. It felt as if he weighed almost nothing. He swayed in place for a moment when the baby boy stirred in his arms, soothing him back down without words.

Sleepy blue eyes blinked open, locking with David’s own blue eyes.

David smiled gently.

“Hey there, it’s okay, little man,” he murmured. “You are going to stay with me, my wife, and our son for a bit.”

Evan yawned, put his hand in his mouth and sucked on it, his eyes falling shut almost immediately without ever acknowledging his words. He felt safe, and he was tired.

Since he had his priorities straight, he did the reasonable thing and fell back asleep, even if he was in another stranger’s arms.

Every person he met today was nice to him, and no one shouted or hurt him, so he figured just going to sleep was alright.

David held his new charge for a few long minutes before eventually putting him down on the changing table, after Yuna took the car seat away.

He carefully took the tiny pair of jeans and the t-shirt Evan was wearing off and checked his diaper. Since it was dry, he left it on and accepted the soft, pastel-blue pair of pajamas with a bunny print Yuna handed him.

David gently put it on the sleeping little boy, put a sleeping sack on him because he wasn’t sure if Evan could handle sleeping under a blanket yet, before he carried him over to the crib.

He made sure Evan had his plush toy, ran his fingers through soft blond curls, and smiled when Evan sighed softly in his sleep.

Together, the three adults watched the sleeping boy for a long moment.

Yuna made sure the baby monitor and the nightlight were on before the three of them slipped out of the room, pulling the door half-shut behind them.

Shane was already used to sleeping with the door shut, but they didn’t know about Evan yet, so they would figure it out as they went. Just as they had done with Shane while he was growing up.

“Let’s take care of the paperwork,” Sophie said as they were back in the living room. She pulled out a stack of paper, and began filling it out, handing it to Yuna and David as she went, explaining everything again, even though she knew both had excelled in the classes they had taken to become foster parents and knew this stuff inside and out.

Eventually, just after midnight, they were done. Sophie thanked them for what they were doing, told them she would check in with them and keep them posted regarding anything they might figure out regarding little Evan, before finally leaving.

Yuna and David stood on their front porch and watched Sophie Bouchard’s car pull out of their driveway, and waited until she vanished into the night before they walked back inside.

They stood in the middle of their living room, and David pulled his wife into a hug, kissing Yuna’s cheek.

“There’s a little boy sleeping in the nursery,” she whispered.

“I know,” David replied. “I can’t believe it.”

“Me neither,” Yuna whispered. “I hope Shane will be okay with the situation.”

David smiled.

“He’s going to be eventually.” he said softly.

Yuna nodded.

“We should head to bed and get some sleep. Those two little boys we have will be up with the sun,” she said.

David grinned.

“Probably,” he agreed, kissing his wife and guiding her toward their bedroom after checking in on their boys one more time.