All That Matters

Chapter 24

January 30, 2018
Tampa, FL
Anoa'i House

I roll over in bed and see Joe not there. He must have dropped off Anjali at day care. I stretch and check my phone for any important messages and nothing. Thank goodness.

Joe walks into the room with sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

"Everything went well?" I ask.

"Yeah. She's getting better at the whole dropping off thing. She likes going now." I nod and lay back down.

"I've been thinking..." I say.

"Oh boy. What about?"

"Mark. He needs something to do. I don't want to enroll him in school mid-year, but I don't want him to sit around the house until I can get him into summer camp."

"So what are you thinking?"

"I don't know if such a thing exists." I sigh. "I want him to be out with people."

"Maybe he could volunteer somewhere."

"But where?"

"Why don't you ask him what he wants to do?"

"Yeah. Yeah you're right." I lean up in bed. "Mark?" I call out.

"Yes?"

"Can you come in here please?" he comes in the bedroom a few seconds later.

"I'm going to go get breakfast started." Joe leaves the room.

"Come sit honey." He sits on the bed. "Now, we adopted you at a very strange time. Strange in terms of school. I don't want to enroll you in school right now because the year is half way through and I don't think it would be fair to you. So we need to figure out something that you want to do until we can enroll you into something in the summer and then school."

"Oh ok."

"So just take some time and figure out what you want to do so I can make some calls." He nods.

"Breakfast!" Joe calls out. The two of us go downstairs and eat.

~

"I think I know what I want to do." Mark says while we pack some boxes.

"What honey?"

"I want to do theatre." I smile.

"There's a theatre house here in Tampa, the Straz Center. I'll call them now." I get off the floor and get my phone.

"Straz Center?"

"Hi. My name is Malaika and my husband and I just adopted a son not too long ago and I don't want to enroll him in school until the new school year starts, so is it possible that he can volunteer with you?"

"Um... we don't have any official volunteer programs... How old is he?"

"He's 5. He's really interested in theatre. I just don't want him sitting around the house all day."

"I'll ask around and see if there is anything."

"Thank you so much." She takes my name and number and says she'll call back. I hang up the phone and go back to the guys. "She said she'd call back."

"But what if she doesn't?"

"Then we'll keep searching." I assure him. "We'll find something for you to do." Rest assured, an hour later, I get a phone call from the Straz Center.

"Malaika?"

"Speaking." I say.

"Hi this is Molly from the Straz Center. I spoke to my supervisor and we do have a few things that your son could do to help us out. We have a lot of shows coming up and it would be great to have an extra set of hands. Is there anything particular that he's interested in?"