“I like it so far. It’s completely different from the town I grew up in, but I lived in Omaha during my Master’s program and it feels a lot like that. You’re from here, right?”
“Yep.”
Jeni waited for him to expand on that.
He didn’t. “What made you want to work in child welfare?”
“That’s a story.”
Logan shrugged. “We’ve got time, and I want to hear it. From what Andrew’s told me about your family, it doesn’t seem like it could be from personal experience.”
“You’re right. I was lucky with the family I was born into. Until my senior year in high school I wanted to be a teacher. But that changed halfway through the year when Andrew and I were in a car accident. I needed surgery so I was in the hospital for a while, and because I was seventeen, I was in the pediatric ward. There was this little six-year-old girl named Ella in the room next to me. I overheard the nurses talking, and based on her injuries, they suspected they were inflicted by her parents.”
He shifted in the booth, the leather creaking, and nodded for her to continue.
Jeni had rolled her own wheelchair into Ella’s room several times a day to play or watch TV with her and had felt an overwhelming desire to protect her. Along with an even more overwhelming feeling of helplessness. She’d been a kid herself and couldn’t do anything for the girl other than befriend her. “Sometimes I could hear her crying through the wall at night. I always had someone from my family with me, but I rarely heard anyone other than nurses in there with her.”
Logan was quiet, but she knew he was listening. His face lost some color, and she felt bad for turning the conversation down such a dismal road. But he’d asked how she chose her career path, and this was part of it. She nudged his foot under the table.
“The story is about to get better,” she said with a small smile.
He took a deep breath. “Is it?”
Jeni nodded. “The orthopedic surgeon who performed two of my surgeries was also one of Ella’s doctors. He and Ella formed a unique bond, and he and his wife were registered foster parents. They fostered her after she was discharged for several months and ended up adopting her.” She smiled, thinking of the happy girl Ella was now. Jeni’s dad and the surgeon were old college buddies and kept in touch, so Jeni had received updates about her over the years. Ella’s happy ending pushed Jeni to keep doing what she did. It was hard, challenging, and didn’t pay nearly enough, but it was her calling.
For better or worse.
“That is a happy ending,” Logan said, though his voice sounded strained. His eyes were on the table. “But she’ll never forget the darkness of the first years of her life.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Jeni agreed. His reaction made her wonder what darkness lurked in his past. “But her future is brighter because of the intervention of some caring people. That’s why I wanted to do the same and make a difference in as many children’s lives as possible. Sometimes that just means getting them out of a bad situation temporarily while their parents get their shit together. Other times it means getting ugly to keep them from ever going back where they came from.”
“I bet you’re effective at the second one.”
Her spine stiffened. “Meaning?”
Logan gave her a bland look. “You’re intimidating as hell. Surely you know that.”
She paused. Was that true? The way he said it, it sounded strangely complimentary. “I don’t mean to be. I’m competitive, that’s for sure. Assertive, maybe, and straightforward.”
“Intimidating,” he repeated.
Her mind conjured up an image of two people facing off for dominance. “I don’t see you running in the other direction.”
“I like a challenge.”
What the hell did that mean? Before she could ask, Sam walked up and delivered two steaming bowls of noodles. The scent of salty broth was immediately comforting, as if her mother had just delivered chicken soup to her bedside when she had a cold. Noodles were arranged with colorful vegetables and a soft-boiled egg on top, creating one of the most visually appealing meals she’d ever seen.
“Wow,” she said. “Thank you, this looks delicious.”
“Enjoy,” Sam said with a grin and departed.
Jeni skipped the chopsticks and picked up a fork, winding several noodles around the tines.
“Tastes delicious too,” she said after the first bite.
“I’m glad you like it.”
They ate in silence for a moment, and Jeni wracked her brain to think of something to say. She didn’t usually mind silence, but for some reason with Logan, it felt awkward. “I wanted to tell you that, terrible employer aside, I think your job sounds cool. When you put it like you did—wanting to connect people over shared interests like the camaraderie of football—it puts it in a new perspective.”