An Unexpected Possibility

Chapter Six

Dolores Sanchez missed her next door neighbours. As she sat on the couch with the husband as the wife went rifling through Jaime's bedroom all she felt was contempt for these interlopers. For the past week Dolores had come in every day and dusted the furniture, watered the plants and collected the mail. It had seemed like Terry and Annie were simply on vacation and soon they'd be back. Today, even more than going to the funeral and seeing those closed caskets, the fact that the Jansens were gone finally sunk in. The whole charade had been stripped away, her friends were never coming home.

"Mrs. Sanchez," Dolores realized the man beside her was talking to her.

"Yes, Mr. Dunbar," she hoped she sounded pleasant, but blind people scared
the bejesus out of her.

"We'd like to pay you to keep on eye on the house until probate is finished
and it can be sold."

"Oh, do you mean Jaime is never coming back here?" God that was a stupid
question.

The man talked slowly now, as if dealing with a small child. "Mrs. Sanchez, Jaime
is only four years old. If we properly invest the money the sale of this house it will pay for his higher education when the time comes."

"Yes, I know," the woman sighed, "it's just I thought I'd see him again. It's almost like he died too."

"Mrs. Sanchez, we'll bring Jaime around before anything is done with the sale of the house. He'll be saying his good bye to the place and I think having familiar faces here would be a good thing." The man stood and turned to her. "We'll lock up when we leave."

She was being dismissed and she knew it. "I'm just a phone call away, Mr. Dunbar. Please, let me know how Jaime is doing, he's a good little boy."

Jim had taken Hank's harness off as soon as they entered the house, but his dog hadn't left his side. Hank was smarter then Jim about some things. He knew better than to allow his master to be left alone in this strange, crowded space. Jim, for the first time in a long time, had his cane out inside a house. The layout of the furniture and the floor bombs of forgotten toys made this place an obstacle course.

"Jimmy, did I hear the door?" Christie's voice came from above. She was still in the bedrooms.

"Yeah, I think Mrs. Sanchez realized we weren't here to steal the silverware." Jim stood up and stretched. The tension he felt when he walked into this place was tying his whole body into knots. Turning to his right Jim carefully made his way to the staircase. "Do you need any help?"

"Yeah, come on up here. But be extra careful, there are piles of dirty clothes all over the place. Annie was obviously going to do laundry when she got home. I'll add it to the list of things to have done." Christie walked to the head of the stairs and watched her husband come up to join her. "Maybe we should gather Jaime's dirty clothes and bring them back with us too."

"Yeah," Jim answered as he reached her, "I bet his 'bestest' stuff is there."

"Of course, the bestest stuff is what you wear the most," Christie laughed as she reached for Jim's hand. "This way to Jaime's bedroom," she said as she led him to the disaster that was the boy's special place.

"What is that smell?"

"Jim, I hope it's the glass of milk on the dresser. I think its developing a life form capable of conquering the Martians. I just found it under the bed when you called. I'll flush it now." As Christie left with the offending glass Jim searched for, found and opened a window. It helped, marginally.

Jim checked the window sill carefully, searching for treasures because this was where he put his special finds when he was a kid. There were three oddly shaped rocks, a stack of cards and a car with a broken wheel. Jim rolled them gently through his fingers and smiled. These were important to Jaime or they would have been on the floor.

"Penny for your thoughts," Christie's voice broke through his reverie.

"Just remembering when I was a kid. I shared my room with my brothers and I had to hide anything I wanted to keep for myself." He turned 180 degrees from the window. "Jaime kept his special stuff in the same place."

Christie looked at the things in Jim's hands and wrinkled her nose. "Those are filthy, we'll throw them out and I bet Jaime won't even notice they're gone. Now, tell me truthfully, does a four year old boy need seventeen broken wind up cars?"

"Yeah, he does." Jim leaned back on the window sill. "We will bring every toy in here and let Jaime deal with them when we get him home." But, Jim thought to himself, to Jaime Jansen, this place was home. This place was the perhaps, the last place he could be right now no matter how much we would want to stay.

When they got home Jim and Christie stacked the boxes in the guest room. They hadn't decided what to do about the furniture yet. Jaime's bedroom furnishings were fibre board and plastic, throw away pieces that the boy would soon outgrow. But they were Jaime's things, pieces that said home to him, made his world stable and safe

"Well, are we ready?" Christie said as she put the Spiderman pillow on the double wedding ring quilt that covered the queen sized bed.

"No, no way on earth are we ready," Jim said as he leaned against the doorframe. "This is gonna be very hard on him and on us. The fact I was the one to get the time off to help Jaime 'integrate' into the family blows my mind. Maybe you need a magazine editor's union for just such emergencies."

"Don't tempt me, I may start one." Christie walked up to Jim and touched his shoulder. "Time for bed, we're lucky Abby Solomon could bring him here tomorrow, bright and early."

"Bright and early on a Sunday morning is not a convenience, it's a punishment." Jim pulled Christie close and nuzzled her neck, "how about one last night of child free, noisy sex, Mrs. Dunbar."

"Sure. Just remember I'm not the screamer, Mr. Dunbar." She smiled as she let Jim lead her into the bedroom.

Morning came too soon. Of course Christie was out getting fresh bagels and the Sunday Times when the intercom buzzed. Why would anything about this situation be easy?

"We're here," Abby Solomon's over bright voice grated on Jim's ears when he got the door open. It was the odd thumping gait that told Jim that Jaime was using crutches now.

"Well, hello there. You got rid of the wheelchair," Jim hoped he didn't sound as bogus to the child as he did to himself.

"Yeah," was the whispered reply and then Jaime's volume increased? "Hank! He's here."

"Yeah, he lives here." Jim smiled as he heard the boy try to run to the dog. "Whoa there, pardner, I don't want you to break your other leg." With that Jim escorted both Ms. Solomon and Jaime inside.

"Oh my, this is a beautiful place," the woman was clearly impressed by the condo. "I've never been inside one of these condos before."

"Well, Christie's grandparent's had money and this was a wedding present."

"All I got from my Bubbie was a silver plated menorah," she laughed good naturedly. "Now, if I may I'll check out the bedroom Jaime will stay in and then I'll be gone."

"Don't you want to wait for Christie to get back?" Jim wasn't ready to be left alone in his home with Terry Jansen's son, not just yet.

"No, I think Jaime should start getting used to being with you as soon as possible." Ms. Solomon turned to the nervous man behind her. "I represent a very scary place for him. I'm hoping when I leave he'll feel safe here. If Jaime becomes frightened, please feel free to call me and I'll come to take him back to the hospital tonight, but he can't really stay any longer than that."

Jim chewed his bottom lip and then sighed. "I guess I'll have to trust your judgement on this. Come on, the room is this way."

Jaime was on the floor with Hank when Ms. Solomon came over to him and sat down beside him.

"Jaime, I have to go now. Do you remember what we talked about before we came here?"

Jaime let go of the dog and turned to the social worker. "This is the place I'm gonna live from now on. Mommy and Daddy wanted me to be here if they couldn't take care of me and now I'm here."

"Yes," she hugged the little boy with a quick, tight embrace, "but you can call me whenever you need to. I hope you want to call me."

Jaime just dropped his head and smiled. Ms. Solomon was a nice lady and she talked to him like he was a big boy. He liked that a lot.

"I have to go now," she stood up and pulled Jaime up too. "Good bye, sweetie," and with a kiss and a minimum of fuss, Abby Solomon was gone.

But Mr. Dunbar was right behind him.

"Jaime, would you like to see your room here?" Jim waited in the silence and wondered if the boy was nodding. This was something that had to be taken care of right away, so Jim crouched down and turned Jaime so the boy faced him. "Jaime, you have to use words with me. I can't tell if you nod or shake your head or shrug your shoulders. I can't see you."

Jaime frowned and looked intently into Jim's unfocused blue eyes. He wanted to touch them, to see if they were real but was afraid if he poked one of those funny looking eyes Mr. Dunbar would be mad.

"Do you understand, Jaime?"

"Did you break your eyes like I breaked my leg?" The boy wondered if this question would make the man mad at him.

"Sort of," Jim smiled, "but they won't get better the way your leg will, so we just have to use words, okay?"

"Okay, I promise to not shut up."

"Good, I think," Jim straightened up, "follow me." He headed to the door opposite the master bedroom door and opened it wide. The sound of Jaime's awkward walk told Jim when the boy passed him and when he stopped. "Do you like it?"

"My Spiderman pillow, you remembered it." Jaime twisted round and hugged Jim's legs before he started to closely examine the room. "My clothes are here too, and my bear and my books."

"There are more of your things in the boxes by the closet. We'll look at them when Christie gets back." Jim sat down on the bed, patted the spot beside him and waited for Jaime to join him there. "I have some things I found that I thought were very important," with that Jim reached over to the night stand and opened the top drawer. Inside were the threerocks, the broken car and the stack of cards he had found on the window sill yesterday.

"My baseball cards," the boy squeaked, "Daddy bought them for me. And my rocks, look at all the pretty colours and my racing car. Dad said he'd fix it for me." Then Jaime stopped and leaned away from Jim. "Dad can't fix nothin' now."

"No, he can't," Jim wondered if this was still such a good idea, trying to help this child by bringing him into a new place with people he didn't know.

"Can you fix it?" Jim felt the toy being thrust at him. He took it and carefully examined it with his finger tips. Only the front wheel was twisted in and the rubber tire off the plastic hub and hanging under the frame. Carefully Jim pulled the little tire back over the rim and ran his fingertip around it to make sure it was snug. Then he felt the stiff, wire axle and realized the bend would only need a gentle nudge with a pair of pliers to straighten it out.

"Yeah, I can fix it; I just need the right tools."

"That's what Daddy said before we went shopping." Jaime leaned against Jim's side, "thank you, Mr. Dunbar."

Jim ruffled the top of the boy's head. "You'd better call me Jimmy. My friends call me Jimmy and I think we are going to be friends."

Fin

Thanks for reading this fluffy little story. It was for all of you who were angry that I made the Dunbars childless. Well, this may not be the end of Jaime Jansen and the Dunbars and it isn't going to be easy, but I hope I can make a story worth reading.

Thanks you again to my beta and to everyone of you who were subjected to my pleas of "Read this and tell me id it works." You are all great friends to this poor child who need her ego boosted so often.