Jonathan's Gesture

Jonathan reaches out in a fatherly gesture to Fly... but its the circumstance that will surprise you.

Fly gritted her teeth like her mother had told her to do in tough times and opened the door. She had listened intently for a few minutes and had decided the gunman/woman was not on her floor.

Even so, she darted across the floor as fast as she could towards her bed. She cursed at the locks when she saw that it wouldn’t be ‘just that easy’ to roll the bed in front if the door. After a few long moments she managed to undo the locks and started to push it towards the door. It was very tough to maneuver the bed in front of the door where she wanted it.

Once the bed was in place, she proceeded to tie her old clothes and hospital gown into a rope and secure it the bed to the hooks on either side of the bed. She didn’t bother to wonder what the hooks were for, she was just glad they were there.

Grabbing the handle she tried the door with all her might, it wouldn’t budge. Good, she thought, No one is getting in here… I hope. Now I just have to hope the police get here and arrest the man. How will I know if it’s actually an officer when they come for me? Maybe I can get news. This will certainly be something the news stations cover. Yes, that’s what I’ll do, I’ll follow the story as it breaks.

With her game plan secured, she checked the door again, she heard nothing.

Knock! Knock! Knock! Fly panicked! Who was this?!

The person tried to push open the door, the bed blocked it. Even though she was expecting it, the noise still surprised her.

“Charlotte, honey, why can’t I open the door?” It was Jessica, a very confused Jessica anyway.

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry! I-I though I heard a gun and I freaked out! I blocked the door!” Fly burst out laughing at her freak-out.

“What? I can’t hear you!” Jessica yelled, but it was no use, Fly was laughing too hard to hear her.

Fly began to push the bed away from the door, it was easier to push this time. In no time she had the door clear and was pulling it open for a very confused and surprised Jessica.

“What did you do?” Jessica gasped as she peaked in the door and looked at the ransacker room.

“I freaked out when I heard that, whatever it was, and thought it was a gun and barred the door,” Fly lowered her head in shame and embarrassment. Instead of scolding Fly, Jessica burst out laughing.

“Ha! Ha! Ha! You thought-thought it was a-” Jessia couldn’t finish, she was laughing too hard.

“What was it?” Fly asked once Jessica got control of herself again,

“It was a retirement party for a retiring doctor. They had those cool little popper things and that must be what you heard they were just on the other side of the left wall of your room,” Jessica replied.

“Oh, okay. I feel stupid now,” Fly hung her head.

“You shouldn’t feel stupid, we’re all on edge and it’s natural that you’re a little scared,” Jessica smoothed Fly’s hair as she comforted her.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Fly said.

“Sure,” Jessica replied.

“So, um, when I said you’d be a good mom you got upset. Why?”

“Well, a long time ago we found out that the infertility that runs in my mother’s family was passed on to me. I can never have children of my own. That’s why I was sad. Jonathan and I, we thought about adopting, but it’s such a long process and we’d have to be married and it would just be hard, you know?” Jessica said with a surprising acceptance of the news.

“When are you going to get married?”

“Well, um, we are going to have the ceremony in a couple weeks, but legally, we are already married,” Jessica looked at Fly like she was a bomb about to go off, she didn’t know how Fly would react.

“What, I-I don’t understand, I mean you’ve only been engaged for a couple days. Why so soon?”

“We talked, and we knew it would be on your mind, but well, you don’t have any living family. Daisy was the last one, and we knew that you wouldn’t want to be in foster care or an orphanage so we…”

“You want to adopt me, don’t you?” Fly said with a smile pushing it’s way to the surface.

“Yes, that’s what we were thinking, of course it’s only if you want to,” Jessica added quickly. She looked at Fly in a way a small child would look at their mother after being naughty. She was scared of rejection.

“Yes! I mean, of course I’d love that! You are the best family I could wish for. Even though I’ve only known you a couple days, I know that you’re good people and genuinely care for me as you didn’t just call the police the minute you found me and Michael. How will that work, exactly? You adopting me, I mean,”

“Well, first, we’ll have to go to court for your Aunt Daisy's charges, then for Michael’s uncle. But before that can happen the police need to get what's called a formal statement from you. They’ll ask you what happened and use it it to figure out what happened and how much trouble Daisy’ll get into. Finally, we will go to court for custody rights for you. Insider secret: they can speed up the process if the kid wants the couple to adopt them. All you’ll have to say is that you want to live with us and that will pretty much be it… except for a bunch of formal junk and stuff but, yeah…”

“So, how long will all that stuff take, will I be able to go home with you the day I get let out of the hospital?”

“If all goes well, yes. We have a court appearance on Wednesday, the doctors expect you to be good by then,”

“Okay, that sounds good… wait! So I have to be in the hospital for 3 more days just for a stupid concussion?!” Fly huffed, she hated hospitals.

“Yeah, sorry sweetheart, just try to get better. I’ll send in Michael and Jonathan, no doubt they’ll want to have a real conversation with you now that you are really awake and have been fed,” Jessica kissed Fly’s forehead, Fly, surprised at herself, didn’t find it weird at all, it just seemed kind of… normal. Jessica was family. It might sound crazy since they’d only known each other a few days, but they’d already been through a lot, not to mention the fact that they immediately got along.

Jessica strolled out of the room and before she disappeared out of the doorway she turned quickly and gave Fly a big smile.

She heard talking outside her door and figured Jessica was filling in Jonathan on everything, mercifully, she didn’t hear any laughter which meant Jessica hadn’t told Jonathan about Fly’s little... incident.

Jonathan cracked open the door and peered around the room until his eyes landed on Fly’s bed. He walked over and sat on the end of the bed next to Fly’s feet, it was a fatherly type gesture that Fly appreciated.

Fly had been sitting cross legged reading a book but now put it down so that Jonathan had her full attention, “How are feeling?” Jonathan asked, not knowing how to start this conversation.

“Good. My head doesn’t hurt much, it just feels like I need a big drink of water. Nothing else hurts, I had some small glass cuts and bruises, but other than that I got through it relatively unscathed from the accident. There’s also that cut on my ribs from when I fell off my bike a few days ago too, that’s mostly healed now though.”

“That’s good. So… I heard Jessica told you about how we want to adopt you,” nervousness staining Jonathan’s words.

“Yeah, she did tell me about that, I’m really excited! Where do you live?” Fly asked, suddenly wondering about if she’d ever see Michael or her other friends.

“Actually, we don’t live very far from your Aunt’s cafe, we’ve been in there a couple times on dates and such. Just a few blocks away, by the park, you know where I mean?”

“Yeah, I do. Oh hey! That means I’ll practically be neighbours with my best friend, Lily. She lives right there too. I’ll also be really close to school too which will be convenient,”

“We live in the little yellow house by the creek, it has 4 bedrooms so you’ll have your own room upstairs. Speaking of which, I have some paint samples for you to look at so we can get your room painted before you move in,” Jonathan held out a few small cards with 3 or 4 colors of paint on each.

Fly was near tears over this. It wasn’t the action itself, it was that she’d never really had her own room. At home, before her parents died, she was too little to really care. At Daisy’s she just had white walls, a dresser, a table, a closet, a bed, and bedside table with a lamp on it. Just the minimum for the room to be considered a bedroom. Now she was going to have a room that was all her’s.

She took the sample's from Jonathan, they were assortments or teals, purples, and blues.

“Thank you!” Fly said, hugging Jonathan tightly, “I never had the opportunity to really have a room of my own, at Daisy’s it was the bare minimum of a bedroom with white walls and no posters, photos, or otherwise,”

“You’re welcome. We just want you to be happy. Michael told us you like purples and blues,” Jonathan replied with a smile pulling his lips taut.

Fly settled on a light purpley color called ‘Parisian Purple’, and handed it to Jonathan pointing to it and saying, “This one is beautiful.”

“I’ll let you talk to Michael awhile, we’re all right down the hall if you need us,” Jonathan motioned to the left as he took the paint samples and circled the one Fly had picked. He sauntered out of the room, passing Michael as he left and said a quick word to him, probably something along the lines of ‘keep it light, don’t mention her parents, her aunt, or court.’ Fly laughed inwardly to herself. It was something her father would have done, be overprotective.

“Hey, how’s it going?” Michael asked as soon as he was in the door, not bothering to walk over to the bed. “You’re clean, fed, and ready to talk. So let’s talk. So, about my dad, I am going to look for him, find out what happened to him. But that’s a conversation for later, you are in the hospital and there’s all sorts of things about to happen that will change your life,”

“No, no! I want to talk about you, I don’t really want to think about court and whatnot,” Fly insisted.

“Okay, if you insist. So I may have a lead, I used a website that gives you all records of a person, the only thing is it cost some money, but Jessica and Jonathan paid for it for me. Apparently, the only Albert Wright who served in the marines was discharged 4 years ago and now lives on 647 Carter Avenue, that is 3 blocks from where my uncle lived. I say “lived” because the police took him into custody after I told them what he did, the police think he’ll get up to 5 years in prison. I am wondering why he hasn’t come to see me. I’m trying not to jump to conclusions, but I’ve contacted him, just saying where I am, that I’m his son, and that Uncle Jack is in jail,”

Author's Note

Any feedback you can give me, thanks!