Chapter 1: Forever Family
Drew shook the judges hand and smiled for some quick pictures with Yue, LeBron and the beaming older couple who were now his legal parents. The judge happily giving them the time to take all the pictures they wanted before shaking their hands one final time and sending them on their way.
“You totally cried.” His older sister joked punching him in the arm. Yue was a tall girl of Asian descent. She’d been adopted at an early age. She’d never known any parents other than Mr. and Mrs. Russel. Having heard some of the horror stories of what Drew and LeBron had experienced in foster homes she knew how lucky she was to have been adopted right out of the gate.
“It’s easier when they can just pick you up at the post office.” Drew shot back at her with a goofy grin.
“I think that just works for brides.” LeBron chimed in. He was the most precocious of the three of them. He’d endured plenty of jokes about his name from Drew over the years. Unlike his namesake he was absolutely horrible at basketball along with basically every other sport. Instead of spending his time outside playing sports he spent it inside with his face in a book. He may be the youngest, but he was the one they all relied on when they needed help with their homework.
“Zip it. Time to go get a nice dinner.” Mr. Russel shot back over his shoulder as they walked towards the parking lot. His expression softened considerably when he happened to glance over at his wife of thirty years. “Nancy please. It was an adoption not a funeral.”
Yue walked faster to take over the task of consoling their mom. Their dad was pretty much useless at that sort of thing. Drew and LeBron crowded around her too. By the time they got to the car she was laughing through her tears and playfully swiping at Drew. She was on the opposite end of the spectrum from her husband when it came to emotional displays. She’d been out of control pretty much all morning. She loved her children deeply. Adopting Drew meant more to her than she could ever explain. He’d been the missing puzzle piece in their family portrait.
The three adoptions had been spread out over the years. Their first child had died from leukemia before she turned two. That’d crushed both of them. Nancy had insisted they keep trying to have a family though. Three miscarriages later it’d been Bart who brought up the idea of adoption. They’d waited for him to complete his final tour of duty overseas then started doing the paperwork. Yue had entered their lives two years after they’d first sat down together to fill out the required forms.
LeBron and Drew had been adopted much later in life than Yue. Over the years the couple had fostered dozens of kids. Bart’s time as a deputy and then as the sheriff of a small county in upstate New York had motivated him to want to take in at risk kids and help them turn their lives around. He felt like he was honoring the memory of the daughter he’d only been able to hold for such a short amount of time.
Drew and LeBron had been different from the other foster kids. They’d both asked Nancy at separate times why she’d chosen them to be a real part of her family. Nancy told them both that it’d just felt right. They were meant to be a family. God had sent them to their home for a reason. Bart agreed wholeheartedly with that sentiment. Not that anyone bothered to ask him as there was no way he’d be able to express it. You’d be as likely to hear the truth from a politician as you’d be to hear Bart talk about his feelings.
Drew and LeBron each carried around a significant amount of baggage from their formative years. It’d taken so long for them to adopt Drew because his drugged out and frequently incarcerated parents hadn’t been willing to sign the papers to give him up. Not because they loved him. They’d wanted to be able to get money out of it. They’d wanted to be able to use Drew to get them released from prison earlier. They’d fought the adoption but with Drew getting close to aging out of the system his social worker had finally been able to get a judge’s approval that it was in Drew’s best interests to be adopted.
LeBron’s story was similar to Drews except that his biological parents had died in a car crash. A car crash caused by overindulgence in multiple illegal substances. LeBron was the acknowledged geek in their trio. Drew was the jock. He’d wound up with the Russels because all the other foster families he was sent to live with kicked him out for fighting too much. Bart got him some boxing gloves and a gym membership. He encouraged him to sign up for football and wrestling at the local high school he attended. He helped Drew learn to channel that pent-up anger constructively.
Yue was the politician. She could pretty much talk anybody into anything. She had Bart wrapped around her finger. She used her powers for good most of the time. The exception being if there was some new purse or makeup she wanted. Then she could be ruthless.
The celebratory dinner was held at Drew’s favorite restaurant. They looked a bit out of place walking into an Outback on a Tuesday afternoon dressed for court. The boys had made their outfits a little more casual by the gradual loss of inessential accessories such as ties, buttons and jackets. Yue and Nancy were pretty much stuck looking like they were ready to
