More Than We Can Tell

Tuesday, March 20      10:05:44 p.m.

FROM: Robert Ellis <[email protected]>

TO: Rev Fletcher <[email protected]>

SUBJECT: Proverbs

He who sires a fool does so to his sorrow, And the father of a fool has no joy.

My phone chimes with the e-mail as I’m walking up the steps to go in through my back door. The kitchen is dark, and I slide the glass door carefully. Heavy silence greets me, and I tiptoe across the tile floor. I never ate dinner, and I’m starving. I grab a box of cereal and a Gatorade from the fridge, then prepare to sneak down the hallway.

“Rev.” Mom’s soft voice catches me when I step into the hallway.

I turn and find her sitting with a book in the corner of the family room.

“I thought everyone was asleep,” I whisper.

“They are. I was waiting up.”

“For me?”

She nods. “How did it go?”

It takes me a moment to realize she’s asking about Declan. Our trip to the prison feels like it happened days ago. I don’t want to talk about Declan and his father any more than I want to talk about what happened with Emma. Her parting words won’t get out of my head.

It’s my turn to tell you to go away.

I don’t know if I deserved that. Maybe I did.

I wish I could redo it. I wish I could fix this for her. I wish I could protect her somehow.

I drop onto the couch across from Kristin and thrust my hand into the cereal box. “It was fine. It was good for him, I think.”

“You were gone a lot later than I expected.”

“Dec fell asleep in the car. I drove around for a while.” I pause. “Then I went for a walk with Emma.”

“Emma.” Mom’s expression warms. “I’ve been hoping to hear more about Emma.”

My own expression darkens. “You have?”

“Of course.” She pauses. “It’s nice to see you coming out of your shell a little bit.”

Interesting. That pushes away some of my irritation. “You think I hide?”

“I wouldn’t call it hiding. But I do think you keep your environment very tightly controlled. You and Declan both do.” She hesitates. “Honestly, I wondered if him finding a girlfriend would open a little door for you, too.”

That’s a pretty frank assessment, and I’m not sure I was ready for it. I pick marshmallows out of the cereal in my palm. “Huh.”

Mom waits.

My thoughts are such a tangled mess, and I need time to sort them out. “Would it be all right if we don’t talk about Emma yet?”

Her eyebrows go up, just a bit, but she nods. “Of course.”

I glance at the hallway. “How was Matthew tonight?”

“Good. He and Dad went for a walk after dinner.”

That’s shocking. I’m sure my expression shows it.

Mom smiles. “He was offered the choice of going for a walk or doing dishes.”

If we were laying bets, my money would be on Matthew standing in the kitchen with a dish towel, his thoughts locked securely in his head.

But then I think about how he sat at the cafeteria table with me and Declan, after dropping such a bomb the night before. Dad said that sometimes we push to see if anyone is pushing back.

I wonder if I pushed back in the right way.

Mom is still watching me.

“Don’t stop reading,” I say. “I don’t think I want to talk.”

She gives me a long look, then opens her book. I pick at cereal and listen to the quiet flipping of the pages. The sound is embedded in my memories. She’d read by my bedside when I was young, straining her eyes beside the night-light, waiting for me to fall asleep. She does it with every child who comes into this house. She wants them to know she’s there.

“Why did you adopt me?” I ask.

She closes her book gently. “Because we love you, and we wanted you to be our son.”

She genuinely means that, but I don’t want platitudes. “No. Why me?”

“I don’t think I understand what you’re asking me, Rev.”

“You’ve had dozens of foster kids. Why me?”

She’s quiet for a long time, until I wonder if this was the wrong question to ask.

“You know we love children,” she says. “When we got married, we didn’t even wait. We wanted children so badly. But then … I had a miscarriage. That’s common, especially the first time, but it was still devastating. But then it happened again. And again. And then a fourth time. I remember sitting in the doctor’s office, reading some silly magazine, and it flipped open to this article about a woman with eight children, and she joked that she’d been pregnant for a decade. I remember reading that and hating her. I walked out. I cried all night.” She pauses. “We talked about adoption. Another family from the neighborhood had adopted a baby, and we talked to an attorney about our options. Geoff was ready to write a check to an adoption agency, but it just … it didn’t feel right to me. I was so depressed about losing so many babies, though, and I didn’t want to let him down, so we went out for coffee and I agreed to do whatever he wanted to do.”

She pauses again. I know there must be more, so I wait. My adoption was not traditional in any sense.

“When we walked out of the coffee shop, there was a woman there with a flat tire. She asked if we could call her a tow truck. Geoff offered to change her tire, and she agreed. She was late to pick up a child.”

“Bonnie,” I say in surprise. Mom’s friend. I know how they met. I never knew the circumstances surrounding it.

Mom smiles. “Bonnie. Yes. While Geoff changed her tire, she and I got to talking. She’s the first person who mentioned foster parenting. I had her over for lunch the next day. We hit it off immediately. It was meant to be. I know it was. It took me longer to convince Geoff. I know now that he was more worried about me. He’d seen me lose so many babies; he was worried about how I would deal with having to give a child back.

“So we went through the steps. The interviews, the home visits, all of it. We got the room ready. And then we waited for the call. I thought it would be something immediate. It wasn’t. After a few days, I began to doubt. Geoff was so anxious. The room was so empty. I began to wonder if I’d made the wrong choice. One night, I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I still remember looking at the clock every hour. I was so exhausted. By five a.m., I hadn’t slept all night. I remember thinking, ‘Please. I know there is a child who needs me. Please.’ ”

She swipes at her eyes, then reaches for the tissues on the end table. “Oh my goodness. I wasn’t prepared for this conversation. I thought we were going to talk about Declan.” She blots her face, then smiles at me through the tears. “But that very instant—Rev, the very instant I had that thought—the phone rang. And it was Bonnie. About you.”

I obviously don’t remember this from her side, but I remember it from mine. After the police took me away from my father, I was sent to the hospital. Many of those moments are carved into my brain—though some of it is blank. I sometimes wonder if I just couldn’t process it all. I had never seen a doctor. No shots, no physical exams, nothing. If I’d been healthy, maybe they would have given me a day or two to get used to the idea, but the ER staff couldn’t ignore a broken arm. They couldn’t ignore the scars and the marks. I was so desperate to get out of the hospital that I would have gone anywhere, with anyone.

And when Bonnie brought me here, I thought I was dead. I thought I was in hell. I thought I was being punished.

“You were so afraid,” Mom says softly. “I had read so many stories about foster children. I had imagined so many different scenarios, but nothing like you. I thought our biggest challenge would be an infant going through withdrawal, or maybe a toddler with a developmental disorder. But you—you wouldn’t speak. You wouldn’t let anyone touch you. Bonnie told me later—much later—that the hospital’s social worker was pushing for you to be sent to an institution. She actually threatened to get a court order, and Bonnie got in her face and told her to try.”

I’m so still. I didn’t know any of that.

I mentally erase everything I know of my life and try to imagine myself growing up in an institution.

I fail. All I can see is the prison where we left Jim Murphy, and I think that might not be too far off the mark.

I swallow. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” She uncurls from the chair and moves to sit beside me on the couch. She takes my hand and holds it between both of hers. “When you ran to Declan’s that first day—oh, we were so worried. Geoff thought we’d made a mistake. I was so afraid to call Bonnie, because I was sure they’d take you away and send you somewhere. And when we found you with Declan, when we found you playing with Legos …”

Her voice trails off. One hand presses to her chest and her eyes close.

“What?” I say softly.

Her voice is so quiet. “I’ll never forget the look on your face. The way you dropped the Legos and backed away from them. I’ve never seen that look in another child, and I hope I never do.”

I remember those moments. That first day, when my world turned upside down, when the burns from the stove coil were still hot and pink under the bandages. I dropped those Legos because I worried they’d do something worse than my father, like cut my hands off. I knew nothing of play, but quite a bit about consequences.

They didn’t punish me. They didn’t even make me leave Declan’s room right away. She sat down with us and started building, too.

I think of Matthew and his story about Neil, about his other foster father. I look at Mom. Her eyes are so kind. She wants the best for everyone. “You might.”

“I know.” She squeezes my hand. “I might. And I’ll do my best to help them through it.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Rev, I’m not sure I can. Why not you? The moment that phone rang, I knew you were meant to be here. I still remember the first moment you laughed.” Her hand goes over her chest again, but then she lifts it to press a palm against my cheek. “Oh, it took so long. And you grew into such a generous, kind young man—”

I push her hand away, but not unkindly. “Okay, okay.”

“Oh, Rev, but you are. I remember when you were ten, and you asked why we couldn’t help another child, too, since we had another room. I couldn’t believe it. Of any child, you deserved the peace and quiet of being here by yourself, but you wondered why we weren’t helping more. So then we brought in sweet little Rose. You remember her, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Rose was the first foster child after me. She was two. She must be ten now. Mom would know. She’s probably seen her. She does her best to stay in touch with all the children who have lived with us.

“Of course you do. Her poor mother worked so hard to get clean. I remember Geoff was so worried about how difficult it would be to give Rose back, and it was. It’s always difficult. But I love helping other mothers.” She pauses. “After Rose went home, you asked me—”

“I asked when I would have to go home.” My voice is rough. I remember that.

“Yes.” She pulls another tissue and presses it to her eyes. “Your voice—I’ll never forget your voice. You poor child. I told Geoff that night that I wanted to adopt you—and he had already talked to our attorney. It took forever. I was so worried that man would find some loophole, some way to take you away from us.” Another tissue. “I’ve never been more relieved than when the judge finalized the order.”

“Me too,” I say honestly. The day is so clear in my memories. The new suit I’d worn for court. The attorney clapping me on the shoulder. The realization that my father could do nothing—nothing—to separate me from my new family.

Nothing except send me a letter after my eighteenth birthday.

I frown. “Did Dad find out anything about him?”

She hesitates. That is very much unlike her.

“Tell me,” I say.

“He lives in Edgewater,” she says. “That’s all our attorney could find so far.”

Edgewater. Southwest of Annapolis. Not far at all. We drove farther to visit Declan’s father.

But then … I knew he had to be close. I saw the postmark on his first letter.

I wait for this news to strike me like a bullet, the way so many other things have hit me recently. It doesn’t. This is a fact. He lives in Edgewater.

No, this is more than a fact. This is a gauntlet, tossed at my feet.

I think of Declan, sitting terrified in the prison waiting room. If he could do that, I can do this.

“I want to see him,” I say.

Kristin sniffs and balls up the tissues in her fist. “I was worried you would say that.”

I try to figure out her expression, the emotion in her voice. “You don’t want me to.”

“No, Rev. No. I don’t.” More tears follow the first, and she fishes more tissues from the box.

“Are you worried—do you think—” I don’t know how to finish either of those statements.

“I’m worried about him hurting you. I’m worried about him causing you to doubt yourself. When Geoff told me what was going on, I felt so stupid for not realizing it earlier. I saw the e-mail he sent you earlier, about putting a disobedient child to death. What kind of hateful, evil—”

The floor creaks down the hallway, and she stops. I think Geoff is going to come out of their bedroom and stop her tirade, but no one appears.

“No,” she says more quietly. “I don’t want you to go.”

I sit there and think about every moment over the last week, every e-mail from my father, every word I said to Emma, to Declan, to Matthew. I think about my conversations with Dad, about how everything may happen for a reason, but there are reasons behind reasons, and events we can’t control, causing ripples we may never see.

When I speak, my voice is quiet. “After Declan saw his father, he said, ‘He’s just a man.’ My father is, too. I don’t think I ever realized that. He was always the head of his congregation. He was always bigger than life. But … he’s not. And I think I need to see it for myself.”

She says nothing for the longest time, and when she does, it’s not the word I expect.

“Okay,” she whispers.

Then she kisses me on the head, walks down the hall, and disappears into her room.

Matthew isn’t sleeping.

Silent darkness pours from his room, but a nervous energy hangs in the air, letting me know he’s still awake.

His door is mostly closed, but not latched, so I knock gently, a motion that eases the door open a few inches.

You’d think I barreled in with a shotgun. He sits straight up in bed.

“Sorry,” I say.

He says nothing.

“I just wanted to say hi. I’m sorry we dropped you and ran this afternoon.”

Still nothing.

“All right,” I say, grabbing his doorknob and moving to pull the door back into its original position.

“I heard a little of your conversation with Kristin,” he says.

I stop with my hand on the knob. I’m not sure what to make of that comment.

“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” he says quickly. “I just went to the bathroom.”

“Yeah?” I wonder what he heard.

“Did your father teach you to fight, too?” he says.

The question takes me by surprise. “No. I learned after.”

“I wondered.”

He falls silent again. I let my hand fall off the doorknob.

My room is a welcome refuge. I drop on the bed and put an arm across my eyes to block the light.

Then I sit up and strip off the sweatshirt, leaving the T-shirt. I want the air against my skin again. I drop back onto my pillow and let my arm fall across my eyes.

My arm is against my eyes. I wish I could catalog this feeling. It’s like seeing the ocean for the first time. Or feeling snow melt on your tongue.

Making out with Emma in the grass was like this, too. All of it, so completely strange and wonderful and unexpected. There were moments when my arms closed around her and I wanted to say, Stop. Wait. Let me hold you just like this.

And then it all fell apart.

I pick up my phone and send her a text.

Rev: Are you OK?

I wait forever, until I don’t think she’s going to write back at all.

A voice speaks from my doorway. “Holy crap.”

Matthew. I feed my arms through the sleeves of my sweatshirt without even thinking about it.

No, I’m definitely not ready to face school like this.

The realization is depressing. I can’t keep the emotion out of my voice. “What’s up?”

He hasn’t moved from the doorway. His dark eyes reveal nothing. “You don’t have to put the sweatshirt back on for me. I don’t care. I was just—surprised.”

I fidget with the ribbed cuff on the sleeve, but I can’t make myself take it back off. The ground between us is too uncertain.

I look over. “You want to come in?”

He does. He sits on the edge of the futon closest to the door and pulls his knees up to sit cross-legged. The bruises on his face have faded considerably, leaving mottled yellow and no swelling.

“Did Geoff teach you?” he says.

He’s asking about fighting again. “No. I go to a school.”

“Oh.”

I can’t identify the note in his voice. It’s not disappointment, but it’s close.

“You want to learn?” I say. “There’s a fundamentals class on Thursdays. We could go.”

He snorts, a sound full of derision. “They aren’t going to pay for something like that for me.”

“Well. They might. But, either way, you can try it for free for a few weeks.” I pause. “I can show you, too.”

“Maybe.”

He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t move from the futon, either.

I glance at the clock, then back at him. “Do you want to talk about anything else?”

“No.”

But he still doesn’t move.

I wish I could see inside his head. I wish I could figure him out. I consider how he joined us at the lunch table, almost hiding at the end. I consider his past and wonder if an empty room is a source of anxiety instead of refuge. I know what it’s like to fear the unknown.

I grab one of my extra pillows and fling it at the futon. Then I reach up and turn off the light. “Hang out if you want. But I’m going to sleep.”

Then I roll over and turn my back to him.

But then my phone chimes. Emma.

Emma: I’m OK. This is such a mess.

I hesitate, unsure about how we left things. Slowly, I slide my fingers across the screen.

Rev: I’m here if you want to talk.

Emma: I shouldn’t have said what I did. I’m sorry.

Some of the tightness surrounding my chest eases.

Rev: I shouldn’t have pushed so hard.

Emma: I just want to solve this on my own. It’s important to me.

Rev: I know. But you don’t have to be alone, Emma.

Emma: Thanks, Rev.

Rev: Do you think you can fix your game? I wish I could help you.

Emma: I wish you could jiu-jitsu this Nightmare guy.

Rev: You want me to make out with him, too?

As soon as I type the words, I blush. Then I remember I’m not alone in my room.

I glance over at the futon. Matthew’s head is on the pillow. His eyes are closed.

If he’s not asleep, he’s doing a good job faking it. I don’t think he’s ever closed his eyes in my presence.

Another message comes through.

Emma: No, you can save those jiu-jitsu lessons for me.

My heart jumps around until I feel like flying.

Then another message comes through.

Emma: I need to reboot my server and fix some code. Can I talk to you in the morning?

Rev: Sure

Emma: ♡

That kick-starts my heart. I’m blushing before I realize it.

It takes me forever to fall asleep.

But for the first time in a long while, I don’t mind one bit.