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One thing about living with Tess and Joel is that Ellie, for the first time in her short life, has a reliable routine every day.
In the evenings, when it’s time to wind down, Tess follows her to the upstairs bathroom to help with her bath. Ellie likes bath time, although Tess has been encouraging her to take showers now, so sometimes she tries those out instead. After she’s all clean, she’s allowed to pick out which pajamas she wants to wear to bed. Her favorites have a pattern with stars and planets all over, so she usually goes for those if they are in her drawer. At the same time, she sets out her outfit for the next day, normally with a few pointers from Tess. She brushes her teeth (“Teeth are non-negotiables,” Joel had told her once), and Tess helps her comb through her hair before they call for Joel and begin the process of getting Ellie tucked into bed.
Tess tells her goodnight as Joel arrives in the doorway, ready to pick up bedtime duty where Tess is leaving off. She gives Ellie a kiss on the forehead and goes to get herself ready for bed or whatever she and Joel do after Ellie falls asleep. Joel sits in bed with Ellie, pulling her blankets up around her and making sure she has Steve the dinosaur safely secured in her arm. He reads her a short story out of a large volume of bedtime stories, and by the time he’s done, Ellie’s eyelids are heavy with sleep, and she’s breathing deeply. She can usually still feel Joel’s lips press against her forehead, and his calloused hand running through her hair a few times before he tells her goodnight, turns on her lamp that projects a galaxy onto the ceiling, and leaves the door open just a crack. And, most nights, Ellie dreams of happy things like building a rocket ship of Legos with her friends from school and flying to a planet somewhere far away with dinosaurs.
In the morning, Tess gently wakes her up with soft words and a hand rubbing her back or brushing the hair out of her eyes. Sometimes she whines, wishing she could stay in bed all day, but Tess reminds her of all the fun things she’s going to do that day and tells her, “Daddy’s making breakfast,” and that’s enough to get Ellie on her feet, teeth brushed, hair combed, and dressed in the clothes she set out the night before.
As she walks downstairs, she’s met with a smiling Joel crouching to pick her up in a hug, and she squeals when he spins her around before depositing her in her seat at the kitchen table. Ellie comes to find out that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so she isn’t supposed to eat pre-packaged mini muffins (those are a fun sweet snack, Tess has told her), and instead she is given a small cup of milk and a plate of little pieces of fruit and a scrambled egg with a bit of cheese on top, just how she likes them. If she’s still hungry, Tess will give her half of her toast along with some praise for telling them that she wants more to eat. Ellie knows they both really like it when she communicates her wants and needs, especially when she uses polite words and speaks at a normal volume. Joel has to leave and be at work earlier than Tess, so he kneels in front of her chair for a hug goodbye, tells her he loves her and reminds her that he will be there to pick her up right after school.
After breakfast, she speeds to the front room to get her backpack ready for the day, making sure her Take Home/Return to School folder is back where it belongs before sneaking in one of her little toys or mini stuffed animals just so she has a friend from home with her at all times. She throws her backpack over her shoulders and goes to tell Tess she’s all ready to go. Tess holds her lunch bag out to her, and Ellie knows it’s filled with all of her favorites and a little note with a funny pun she’ll giggle about with her friends at lunchtime. Ellie climbs into her carseat in the backseat of Tess’ car, buckles herself in, and swings her feet happily as Tess drives her to school. Once they arrive, Ellie unbuckles herself and leans in between the two front seats to exchange cheek kisses with Tess, who tells her to have fun and learn lots. She checks that she has both her lunch bag and backpack before hopping out of the car with a, “Bye Mommy, love you,” called over her shoulder.
School is always fun because she loves her teacher, Miss Hamilton, and her friends, Dina and Jesse, and she especially looks forward to the days they go to the library or music class. Ellie is smart and likes learning, plus she loves how Tess and Joel swell with pride when she brings home a good character award or an A on her math tests.
At the end of the school day, Joel is always there to pick her up and listens to her babble on about everything she learned that day, what she had done at recess, and how her friends laughed at her lunchtime pun.
And life is pretty awesome if you ask Ellie. She loves her family and that she always knows what to expect and how safe they make her feel now that she has a forever home.
***
The first change in Ellie’s routine comes at bedtime one Wednesday. When Joel comes in, Tess doesn’t leave like she normally does, which makes Ellie a little confused, but she won’t complain about having both her Mommy and Daddy there to tuck her into bed. Before Joel reads her story, they sit on either side of her bed looking like they are about to have a Serious Talk, which makes her a little concerned.
“Ellie,” Tess starts, tucking some hair behind Ellie’s ear, “tomorrow, I have to leave a bit early to be at a meeting that’s a bit far away. I’ll have to leave before you are awake, but your Daddy will be here with you, and he’s going into work late so he can take you to school.”
Ellie’s eyes dart between the two of them, frowning as she contemplates if this is something that is really worthy of a Serious Talk. “Okay,” Ellie decides to agree easily.
“I’ll be home in time for dinner to hear all about your day,” Tess tells her, smiling as she brushes her fingers down Ellie’s cheek. Whether Ellie realizes it or not, she and Joel are very careful to tell her about any routine changes, no matter how small. Early on, they had skipped this step once, and it had resulted in some panic and tears, with Ellie thinking they were going to send her away, that they decided they didn’t want her around anymore. Since the adoption, Ellie feels a bit more secure, but they are still careful to avoid unearthing any previous trauma.
“Mm-kay, Mommy,” Ellie says almost dismissively, eager to get back to her routine with her bedtime story and forehead kisses and galaxy lamp and sleep.
That’s exactly what she gets, and she sighs happily as she falls asleep, ready for happy dreams to carry her through the night.
Unfortunately, Ellie’s dreams are not happy tonight. She doesn’t remember any of them clearly, but by the time she’s being woken up in the morning, she feels a sinking sense of unease and a tiredness that only comes after a night of restless, nightmare-filled sleep. She’s pulled from her sleep by a light that is too bright, and immediately she knows something is off. Normally the hallway light streams in softly as Tess wakes her up, and only once Ellie is out of bed does she flip on the overhead light. Today, the light is already on overhead as she wakes up to a hand rubbing her back that’s still gentle but definitely heavier and obviously Not Tess.
“Mommy?” she mumbles, rubbing her eyes with her fists and squinting into the bright light.
“Good morning, baby. Your mom left early today, remember?” Joel reminds her, petting her hair as she sits up in bed. “You’re stuck with just me this morning.”
And… oh. She remembers now, but last night it hadn’t really meant anything to her. Now, she can see how reliant she has become on waking up to Tess the same way every day for school. Ellie frowns, still rubbing at her eyes, and between the nightmares and being reminded that Tess was already gone for the day, she really feels like crying. Joel drops a kiss to the top of her head and is already standing and walking toward the door by the time Ellie takes her hands away from her eyes.
“C’mon, honey, we need to get you ready,” Joel says, looking at the clothes Tess had helped Ellie set out last night. He picks them up, and walks toward Ellie. Normally Ellie would brush her teeth and do her hair before getting dressed for school, but she supposes it can’t hurt to do this instead since he’d already brought her clothes over to her. “Call for me if you need any help. I gotta go finish breakfast,” Joel says with a ruffle to her hair before he leaves the room. And, sure, Ellie can dress herself and comb her own hair because she’s seven, she’s not a baby, but she definitely misses Tess’ easy company and gentle assistance as she works through her morning grogginess. She changes into her outfit for the day, a pair of jeans and a deep blue NASA t-shirt they had bought for her at the mall the other day, and heads to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She’s moving so sleepily that she accidentally drips toothpaste down her shirt when she goes to spit it in the sink. She moves quickly to wipe it away, but there’s still a sizable dark spot with white running through the middle. Her face crumples, tears welling in her eyes, and she tears down the stairs to find Joel. She nearly runs right into him as she rounds the corner, and he’s already bending down to her level.
“Ellie, baby, what’s wrong?” he asks, hands on her waist to steady her.
“My shirt is ruined,” she sniffles, running a hand under her eyes to catch the few tears that had already leaked out. Joel’s eyes soften as he takes in the sight of her toothpaste-stained shirt.
“Oh no, it’s not ruined forever, just needs to be washed,” he tells her, looking her up and down and realizing she hasn’t quite made it to her hair yet. “Let’s go change into something different,” he says, straightening up and holding out a hand for her to take.
Ellie really doesn’t want to find something else to wear. She set this shirt out last night, and she doesn’t want to wear anything else, but she also doesn’t want to leave wearing this one now that it’s dirty. She takes his hand anyway, still sniffling quietly as they climb the stairs together.
“Why don’t you pick out another shirt to wear, Ellie?” Joel encourages, opening up the drawer where she keeps her t-shirts neatly folded.
“Don’t like any of them,” Ellie pouts immediately after glancing into the drawer. And, okay, yeah, she knows that was a little bratty, and she feels a little bad especially knowing that she currently owns more shirts than she has owned clothes all together in her life, but she wants to wear this shirt. Joel sighs (it’s quiet, but she hears it), and kneels in front of the drawer. He holds out a few for her, still giving her some choices but hoping to speed along the process. Ellie sadly points to one of the shirts he’s holding, not really caring at this point what she wears today. He helps her out of the one he’s currently in with a promise to wash it so that she can wear it tomorrow, easing the new shirt over her head.
“Need to get your hair brushed, kiddo,” he says once that is taken care of. “But we gotta move quick, we’re running a little late. Your mom normally keeps us on track in the mornings, doesn’t she?”
Ellie doesn’t respond, just follows him quietly back to the bathroom where he makes quick work of combing through her hair. She wishes he had time to help her clip in some barrettes or put it into a bun for her, but she knows they’re running late, so she sulks instead.
“We’ll take breakfast to go,” Joel says, more to himself than to her, and suddenly they’re back downstairs again. “Go get your backpack ready, baby,” he says, directing her to the front room. Ellie does without a word, packing herself two toys today, before slinging her backpack over her shoulders and waiting for Joel by the front door. He’s balancing several items in his hands, including what is apparently Ellie’s breakfast of a toasted bagel and a ziploc baggie of fruit pieces as well as a cup of milk with a lid and straw. He hands her the cup before opening the front door and waving for her to go ahead of him. Ellie scrambles up into the backseat of Joel’s truck, getting herself situated in the car seat. This one is less comfortable than the one in Tess’ car, she thinks grouchily, realizing she’s never really put much thought into it. This one at least has a cup holder, so it’s not all bad, but it’s not what she is used to in the mornings. Joel gets in the front seat and hands her back the bagel he’s holding. He put peanut butter on it, just the way she likes it.
“Not the best to eat in the car, but it’s okay today, yeah? Otherwise we’ll both be even more late than we already are,” Joel smiles, making sure she has napkins before starting the truck and backing out of the driveway. At some point, Ellie finishes the bagel, and Joel hands her back the baggie of fruit. Joel has some weird talk show on the radio, and she’s wishing that he would play some fun music like Tess does, but she eats her fruit dutifully anyway, watching the blur of houses out the window as they approach the school.
Once they pull into the drop off line, Ellie begins the process of getting her backpack on and grabbing her lunch - oh no , she realizes. “Daddy, forgot lunch,” Ellie whines, her voice sliding up in pitch. Joel looks panicked in the rear view mirror for half a second before regaining his composure.
“That’s okay, baby, you have money in your lunch account,” Joel reminds her, keeping his voice very calm, and Ellie knows she does, but now she won’t have a joke to tell her friends at lunch or a nice note to read if she starts to miss her parents. She doesn’t even know what the school is serving for lunch today, and what if she doesn’t like it? Before she has time to spiral further, Joel’s talking again. “You know what? I’ll even go ahead and email Miss Hamilton right now before we’re even through the line to let her know that you need to…be added to…the lunch count,” he says out loud more to himself as he types the message into his phone before pressing send.
He turns his head so he can see Ellie in the backseat. “See? All fixed,” he tells her, and his voice is too chipper, so she can see right through it. Ellie swallows, trying to breathe, but her breaths are getting caught in her throat. She tries to calm herself down as Joel’s truck rolls to a stop, and it’s time for Ellie to get out. She keeps her backpack clutched to her chest and doesn’t move. Joel asks her something, but she doesn't hear it. The next thing she knows, her car door is being opened from the outside, and Joel is helping her out. The parents behind them are probably annoyed with her for holding up traffic, but she thinks they’ll blame Joel instead.
“It’s okay, Ellie,” Joel’s telling her, and he continues to mumble other reassurances into her hair before sitting leaning away to grab her backpack. He helps her put her arms through the straps, then crouches back down to run his thumbs over her cheekbones.
“What do you call a rich elf?” he asks her, their noses so very close together.
“Huh?”
“What do you call a rich elf?” Joel repeats himself, moving his face back ever so slightly.
“Um…” Ellie giggles in spite of herself. “I don’t know.”
“Welfy,” Joel jokes, and a wide grin spreads across Ellie’s face. “There, now you have a joke for your friends at lunch,” he says, and wow, it’s like Joel was reading her mind earlier. She throws her arms around his neck and kisses his cheek, and he hugs her close. “Love you, baby girl.”
“Love you too,” she says, and she turns to finally enter the school, watching as Joel says something quietly to the principal who is directing the traffic.
Ellie’s smile from the joke is short-lived once she realizes that Jesse is not at school today when Miss Hamilton takes attendance. She looks forward to seeing her friends and working in small groups and playing at recess together, and now she’s not going to see one of them today. From that point forward, Ellie doesn’t really register her behaviors.
At morning work time, Ellie doodles on her desk instead of completing the tasks she’s supposed to. During silent reading time, Ellie can’t stop leaning over to Dina to giggle and make jokes about some pictures in her book. She does it so many times that Miss Hamilton has to separate her from Dina, directing Ellie to sit at a different chair a few tables away. When it’s time for math, she gets bored and puts her head down, refusing to sit up even though Miss Hamilton asks her to very nicely three different times. After she gets her lunch, she makes a mess of the cup of pears she got, and laughs loudly when she smashes them on the table, complaining when she is handed napkins to clean them up. At recess, she kicks mulch at some boys when she gets annoyed with them, and, even though she swears she was just playing and not trying to harm anybody, a different teacher lectures her about not kicking things in other people’s directions. During her spelling test, she has a hard time remembering anything, so she sort of gives up halfway through. When she’s supposed to be working on her science worksheet, she’s up and wandering the room, distracting her classmates and ignoring requests to sit down. Miss Hamilton finally talks her back to her desk with the allowance that she can stand to do her work.
By the end of the day, she’s exhausted, and feels so very bad even though she’s sorry. The dam breaks when she goes to put her Take Home folder in her bag, and she sees the note.
“Ellie seemed very tired and had a hard time following directions and making good choices today. Looking forward to a better day tomorrow! - Miss Hamilton”
There’s a more detailed behavior chart below, and her failed spelling test behind that. Ellie looks away, tears already spilling over her cheeks, and she can’t pack up her things and get in line for dismissal any quicker. Her line mate is staring at her with something like concern on his face, but Ellie very pointedly ignores him even as she can feel her cheeks going red as fat, hot tears roll down them with more and more frequency. Her teacher is too busy making sure that everyone is in line and has their belongings to notice Ellie’s crying, which she thinks is good because she doesn’t want to talk about it.
The gig is up when she sees Joel standing amongst some other parents who chose to park and walk instead of waiting in the pickup line. She breaks into a run as soon as he’s in her line of sight, and his smile falls away as he takes in her red face and tears. Once Ellie makes it to him, she reaches her arms to him to be picked up. Joel does without a question, his face pinched with concern as he immediately turns on his heel and heads to the parked truck. Once there, he sways Ellie back and forth, shushing her as she sobs into him, arms wrapped tightly around his neck.
“Baby, are you okay?” Joel asks directly into her ear.
Ellie takes a moment to breathe before nodding and loosening her arms, tears still falling from her eyes. Joel opens the door to the car and peels her off of him to put her down in the car seat. He holds her face in his hands and wipes away some of her tears with his thumbs.
“Wanna go home,” Ellie cries, tilting her head back and taking a shuddery breath.
“Okay, baby girl, let’s go home,” Joel smiles sadly at her and gets in the front seat to start the drive.
On the way home, Ellie feels herself spiral. Tess and Joel will probably hit her for her bad behavior report, and once they see her spelling test, they won’t even want her anymore. She’ll be sent back to the group home or maybe to someone who will do more bad things to her like before. She hopes that they will at least let her take Steve and her favorite blanket with her when someone from child services comes to pick her up and take her away. Maybe they will even give her one last hug before waving as the car drives away.
By the time they’re in the driveway, Ellie is in full hysterics, and Joel is trying desperately to get her to calm down, to match his breaths, to try to listen to what he was saying to her. She wants to hear his nice words so badly, but all she can think about is how very soon her life and her routines and her family are going to be taken away from her.
Joel lifts her from the truck anyway, and Ellie clings to him as he carries her inside. She can feel him pull his phone out of his pocket and type something into it one-handed as he holds her firmly with his other arm. He sets her down in a chair at the kitchen table, leaving her backpack in the seat next to her. He continues to crouch in front of her, murmuring comforting words to her as she gets her breathing back to normal. “Ellie, honey, I need to know what happened. Do you think you can talk to me?” Ellie doesn’t respond but her eyes flick to her backpack, and she can’t look away as if she could force it and the folder inside to burst into flames with enough willpower. Joel notices and slowly reaches for the bag, hesitating when he hears Ellie’s noise of protest.
“It’s okay, honey, I need to see what is upsetting you so much. I can’t fix it until I know,” he tells her, quickly opening the bag and pulling out the contents. Ellie is absolutely wailing , cowering behind her knees in fear of what is coming. She guesses Joel sees what’s inside the folder, but he remains quiet as he scans over the papers.
“Oh, Ellie,” Joel says sadly, probably because he’s so sad he has a daughter who can’t be good at school. ”Baby, come here. I’m not mad, and you’re not in trouble,” he adds, holding out his arms for her.
“Are you gonna hit me?” she asks him quietly, peeking over her knees.
Joel’s face goes dark for the briefest of moments. Ellie somehow knows it’s not directed at her. “No,” he chokes out. “No, baby, I would never do that to you.”
“Are you gonna send me away?” she sobs, unable to make it through her whole question intelligibly.
“Baby, no. You’re ours, remember? You’re never, ever going away.” Ellie shoves herself at him then, and for what feels like the hundredth time that day, her arms are fused around his neck, and he’s rubbing her back. “It was just a bad day, Ellie. You’re not in trouble. We love you so very much,” and on and on.
A few minutes later, Tess walks in the front door, and her face crumples at the sight. Ellie doesn’t know, but Joel had been texting Tess all of his little fuck ups all morning, from waking up too late, to the toothpaste on her shirt, to eating breakfast in the car and forgetting Ellie’s lunch. He had sent her a panic-stricken text to get home as soon as she could when he picked up Ellie, not knowing that Tess was already on her way home after ditching her afternoon meeting, and he’d already texted an update which she read after she parked her car, so she’s up to date on the incident she’s walking into. Tess drops her bag in the entryway, and makes her way into the kitchen where Joel is currently holding and swaying with a very sad and sleepy Ellie.
“Mommy,” Ellie cries, and fresh tears flow down her puffy cheeks. Tess reaches for her, taking the smaller-than-average seven year old from Joel’s arms. She bounces Ellie lightly on her way to the living room and sits down on the couch with Ellie in her lap.
“My poor baby,” Tess murmurs. “I heard you had a bad day, sweetie.”
“Did,” Ellie confirms pathetically.
“Do you wanna tell me about it?” And Ellie does. She tells her about her bad dreams and her very off morning and the gross school lunch and the way she wanted to listen to her teacher, but she just couldn’t. She recalls with some pain the fear she had that they would never want to see her again after the trouble she’s caused today. Tess holds her a little tighter through that part. At some point, Joel joins them in the living room, and, eventually, Ellie feels herself relax.
“Missed you, Mommy,” Ellie mumbles.
Joel chuckles, “I missed her too.”
Joel makes Ellie her favorite dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets and apple slices and mac and cheese for dinner. They decide that Ellie can do her homework and reading tomorrow instead, and Tess quietly tells Joel that she’ll send an email to Miss Hamilton tonight.
Later, they all sit in the living room, with Ellie smushed right in between them in the very corner of the sectional. Someone turns on How to Train Your Dragon, because it’s one of Ellie’s favorites, and she sighs as she snuggles in closer to both of them. She doesn’t see it, but she feels Joel and Tess kiss each other quickly over her before Tess rests her cheek against the top of Ellie’s head and Joel stretches out his big arm to lay across the back of the couch. They laugh together at the funniest parts, and both of her parents use the time to lay the physical affection on thick, with kisses to her face and nuzzles into her hair and hands being held at nearly all times. When the movie is over, Tess stands up and stretches, holding out a hand to Ellie.
“Alright, kid, let’s go get you ready for bed.”