Chapter 3: Meeting the Folks

I should probably mention the fiasco of the adoption process now. Let me explain about how big a circus any adoption process is, and how it was exacerbated in Sean's case. People wanting to adopt through the normal process were put on a waiting list in the State of Arizona. If someone wants to adopt, and they have a lot of money, they can go outside state channels; but that carries a whole different set of problems and risks but it is a faster process. When a baby becomes available for adoption in the state system, the potential parents are notified. Their credentials are rechecked and, if everything is still good, and the parents accept the child, then the adoption moves forward. People that place their names on the list go to the bottom and work their way up the list to the top. Some hopeful parents wait nine or ten years for a child. Sometime after spending nearly a decade on an adoption list, the wannabe parents encounter some of life's speed bumps, and become ineligible. Some are lucky enough to conceive their own children during the wait, and forget to take their names off the list. There are a lot of reasons a person may not get the baby for adoption when their names come up. In Sean's case, all the known reasons were used, and some new ones were invented.

Healthy newborn boys don't last long on the adoption rolls. They are normally snatched up as soon as they become available, but there was a problem with Sean David Kilpatrick. There were a lot of couples interested and there were a lot of problems. The flood of applicants when Sean became available for adoption almost overwhelmed the States adoption system resources. That was only slightly attributed to the healthy newborn boy status. The rest of the hubbub was caused by the news footage concerning Sean's tragic circumstances at birth. Still, the State list had precedent so the new applications were added to the bottom of the list. Couple after couple was selected from the list, but something always happened that caused the adoption process to stop or the candidates to be rejected.

The first set of prospective parents were subjected to the re-screening process the same as they had endured seven and a half years before. The re-screening uncovered the fact that the couple wasn't legally married. They could reapply after they got the paperwork straightened out about their marriage, and go back to the bottom of the list. No one could figure out why it wasn't caught during the first screening and it was certainly a surprise to the couple. The second couple was in jail for drug trafficking. The third couple was divorced. The fourth had their own child during the waiting period and forgot to notify the state to take their name off the list. The fifth moved out of state. The sixth lost a husband in a car wreck, and the woman had remarried. Her new husband was more virile than her dead husband, and she had two children of her own. And the circus continued with the seventh, and the eighth, and so on and so on. State workers in charge of the adoption process started whispering that maybe the baby was jinxed after the 15^th or 16^th couple failed in completing the adoption. The twenty first couple finally made it through the adoption process but the State workers were so gun shy by that time, the couple was put through the wringer. The State case worker was sure something was wrong with the late middle aged man and his wife. There was something wrong with the twenty previous applicants so there must be something wrong with Seth and Martha Flynn.

The Flynns were in their early 40s. Seth had been a First Sergeant in the Marines, and had served during the end of the Korean conflict and the first few years of Viet Nam. Seth left the Marine Corps when his father died so that Seth could take over his father's ranch in the Bradshaw Mountains just north of Phoenix. Martha had been a school teacher until Seth came home for good and she moved to his mountain ranch with him. She still substituted as a teacher at the little school district close to their ranch headquarters. The Crown King Elementary School District was the smallest in the state with only 7 students for the 1975 school year. The district couldn't be combined with another district because of the distance and conditions of the roads. It was forty dirty miles of bad mountain roads to the nearest district, and that was in good weather. During bad weather the common saying was, 'you just can't get there from here.'

Most of the time Martha spent in the Crown King School was donated because the ranch was the major tax base in the district. Martha explained that if she charged for her time it would cost more. The district would have to pay her. The district would get the money from the state capitol, which was Phoenix. The state would increase the tax bill to the ranch so she and Seth would need to pay the more because some of it would stick to a politician's hand. Plus the pay she did receive would be taxed. It was cheaper to donate the time and claim the time as charity at the going substitute teacher's rate.

So, the state slowly shuffled their feet through the adoption process while they looked for any deep, dark secret in Seth and Martha's background. All they accomplished was spending more State money and dragging the adoption process out for over another month. That was why Sean stayed at Casa Cavalla a lot longer than the one month they originally expected. Another thing was accomplished. Because of the delays, the Flynns were allowed to visit Sean in the Cavalla home. The result was that Seth and Martha absolutely fell in love with Sean. The Flynns also became good friends with the Cavallas and Susan and Sheila.

The Flynns thought the Cavalla household was a little strange in some ways. Actually they thought it was strange in many ways, but the Flynns made allowances for the Cavallas because they were city folks.

It was a combination of the animals, and comments from the inmates of Casa Cavalla that they thought was strange. The Flynns were greeted at the front door on their first visit to the house by Liz and Ben. They shook hands as would be expected in a normal greeting and were ushered into the hallway to get out of the Arizona heat. Immediately inside the door sat three dogs, four cats, and a hamster. There was no jockeying for position among the animals or rubbing against the newcomers. The dogs didn't bark, or jump around like dogs normally do when meeting strangers. A bird they hadn't seen, it looked like a cockatiel, flew from a perch on a picture frame and flew farther back into the house. A moment later the four legged animals stood and walked in the direction the bird had flown.

Martha and Seth looked at the Cavallas in surprise. They lived on a ranch with animals and animals just don't act like that. Finally, in a very neutral voice, Seth said, "Ah, you have some very well behaved animals. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before."

Liz sighed, and said, "They aren't usually that well behaved." She shook her head and gestured them to follow her and said over her shoulder, "They're probably just reporting to Sean what they think about you."

"What? I thought he was just over two months old," Martha blurted.

"And what would his age have to do with animals acting like that," Seth wondered aloud.

"Don't let his age color your judgment of Sean," Ben warned. "I've never met a baby like him. And as for the animals ... Well, they kind of watch out for Sean."

"We told Sean as much as we knew about you and that you would be coming today to meet him," Liz explained over her shoulder as she walked down the hall.

"But, isn't he just over two months old," Martha repeated plaintively.

"Yeah, how about that?" Ben said with wonder as he shook his head.

"We know he's very young and we can't understand a word he says, but we're pretty sure he understands most of what we say," Liz explained. "We explain everything to him. We've found it helps a lot."

"But, but," Martha sputtered.

Seth had about decided that these city folks were nuttier than fruit cakes. At least that was what he was thinking when they had to stop at an entrance to one of the bedrooms so the animals could leave the room. Three dogs, four cats, and two birds exited the room.

"Uh, what happened to the hamster?" Seth asked. He knew it sounded like a stupid question as soon as he asked it but, even in retrospect, he couldn't think of a better question.

Ben sighed, and shook his head before saying, "They usually leave at least one in the room. I don't know if they think it's an honor guard post, or if they really think they need to protect him. There are usually two at night. I can only guess but that could be in case one of them needs to go to the bathroom. Or, maybe they think there is more danger at night so they need to be on guard duty."

"OK," Seth thought to himself. "This man is over the edge." Seth maintained that belief for about six more steps. All of them stopped in the bedroom and stared at the hamster sitting up on its haunches and watching them from under the bed. Seth looked at Martha in shock.

Ben walked over to the foot of the bed and looked down at the baby for a moment before speaking. "How are you doing, Sean? Thanks for keeping your troops in line. It's a lot easier answering the door without them barking and getting in the way." He motioned Seth and Martha forward to the side of the bed. After they were looking down at the perfect little red haired, green eyed baby, Ben continued. "Sean, this is Seth and Martha Flynn. We think they will be your new mom and dad."

Sean's eyes went from focusing on Ben to focusing on Seth and Martha. He was still for a moment while his gaze flicked back and forth between the two adults. Then his arms and legs started moving and he said, "pfsljvh."

"See, we don't understand what he says yet," Liz explained unnecessarily.

Seth looked at Liz, as if she had lost her mind. But Martha just leaned forward, and, after kissing her finger tips, placed them on the baby's lips.

"I know what he said," Martha said, softly. "He said 'Hi mom and dad. What took you so long?'"

Sean froze in his bed looking up at Martha with an expression that could only be described as astonishment. Then he grinned and his arms and legs started working about 90 MPH, and he started saying, "asdkgaoisonernoianoandngasdg."

"Wow," Ben murmured. "Maybe you were right!"

The rest of the visit followed the same trend. Liz and Ben didn't exactly say that Sean did strange things, or was odd in any way. They just insinuated that strange things happened around him, but never in a bad way. The Cavallas had learned to accept the animals acting out of character as the norm, and advised the Flynns to accept it and get used to it.

Martha asked Liz directly about the animals' actions, when the visit had moved to the living room. Seth was holding Sean on his lap across from Martha, and every time Martha looked at the baby she was struck by the directness of the gaze. She didn't spend a lot of time around babies, but that gaze seemed very unusual. She shook off the feeling of uncertainty, and turned to Liz. Martha was a direct, no nonsense school teacher and was getting tired of the vague answers and cryptic comments like, "You'll just have to get to know Sean David."

"Liz," Martha started. She was trying to think of a polite way of asking the question. She glanced at the expectant look on Liz's face, and shrugged. 'So much for polite, ' she thought. Aloud she asked, "Liz, all of you have lived with baby Sean for a few months now. According to the State it could take another month or two to finalize everything. So you will need to deal with whatever is going on for another month. I have some questions that I would appreciate answers to. Even a best guess would be better than some of the vague answers and comments you've given us so far. Can you do that?"

Liz glanced at Ben with a worried look on her face. Ben looked concerned too but he reached out and held Liz's hand and nodded. Liz looked at Martha and said, "We'll answer the best we can. What do you want to know?"

Martha nodded confidently. She was in territory she understood. That is, getting information from reluctant students. She didn't really see Ben and Liz as students but Martha was older and had a matronly air about her.

"I have two questions to start with, no, make that three," Martha said. "First, what do you really think is going on with the strange actions of the animals? Second, what other strange things have you witnessed? You have insinuated that there has been more and I'm curious what they may be. Third, and probably the most important, are you doing all this to try to scare us off so you can adopt him yourselves? You could have trained the animals after all. I don't mean to offend you, but it really is a question that we need to ask. Oh, one more that is really part of the third question. If this isn't an effort to scare us off, who have you reported these strange phenomena to?"

Seth didn't talk much in group situations. He left that to Martha, most of the time, but when he did say something it usually cut through any bullshit. Seth had long ago concluded that letting Martha talk was wise since she was genetically predisposed to talking. He had to admit that she was pretty good at it too. Martha always hit the nail on the head with her questions, and dug out the most obscure nuggets of information. Seth had always had the opinion that God set the ratio for men and women at two ears and one mouth for a reason. Men just appreciated God's gifts more than women and used those gifts appropriately. Seth was also a pretty good poker player so when he listened he didn't just hear the words. He listened to how the words were said, and the tone of voice combined with the facial expressions. He was a little troubled by what he was seeing in the Cavalla's. It wasn't just the uncertainty in their voices, or their expressions either. Both of them kept glancing at the baby sitting on Seth's lap almost as if asking how much they could say. They were hiding something and they would not make good poker players.