Eight months since you left, sixteen months since you arrived. I’m writing this down, even though you won’t read it. I hope the universe gets it. I hope you know that I love you, I’m sorry for all the times I wasn’t good enough, I’m glad you came to stay.
My Google photos remind me every day, 1 year ago, 1 year ago. The photos are of cats and you. Every day. Next year, it will be 2 years ago. And on it goes. Becca and I can put you in freeze-frame, keep you little forever (and how little you were! I can’t believe you’d eaten real food before you came to us, I can’t believe you’d had real sleep). That’s not a trick regular parents can pull.
The photos don’t show how it felt, they don’t show the noise, the repetitive questions. They don’t show the relentless, pandemic drudgery we all felt, trapped together at home. What they show is Becca trying, and you trying. Trying to get by, to be a family. And we became one. A family where the parents make mistakes every day, a family where the kids fight and fabricate and whine and imagine and break and then, when the moon turns blue, show their bravery, show that they’re better than I will ever be.
We were your family for eight months. We knew everything about you that parents are supposed to know. The food you hated, the songs you loved. We made your birthdays and treated your illnesses, we knew your triggers and how to make them better. We were your better parents. Becca was the superhero, and I was the other half; the one in the movie that ends up needing rescued. Of course, all superheroes have their kryptonite, and you found Becca’s more than once. You went for her jugular, because that’s what kids do, especially the one who have been so badly hurt, and please remember how she just kept on loving you.
I was angry after you left. With myself, because I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t quick enough getting to know you. If I’d known we were going to be together for eight months instead of two weeks, if I’d known that your time with us would end with a funeral and a broken little boy, I would’ve done things differently. But we don’t get to do any of this again, do we?
X, I want to show you the changes I’ve made to the basement, you’d get a kick out of it. The classroom stuff, but especially the cat stuff. Every night, when I throw the dry food around for them to chase, I think of you, and I’m sorry for the times I lost patience, for the times I didn’t see how hard you were trying. I thank you for video games, Uno, riding bikes, chess, the order of operations, making Becca laugh so many times, giving such a damn about the ice-cream truck. I thank you for telling me some of the good and bad about your dad, for running baths so hot you turned red as a lobster. And I’m sorry for two times at the end, both times when you were furious, both times when you were frozen with grief, that I didn’t know what to say. You needed a better me, those times. I’m sorry.
And yeah…hairy baby.
Y, our drama queen, our mean girl in training. In twenty years when you’re all grown up and can do whatever you want, when you don’t have to finish your supper and you don’t have to do your homework and you can watch Disney+ and Netflix all day, let’s all meet up at your French castle and we can admire your bangs, and we can drink tea, and we can use our manners.
Your parents loved you but they weren’t good at their job. Becca helped you let out your pain and your rage, she took it on even though it hurt like hell. She says maybe she was put on Earth to help kids like you.
What did I do for you? Who am I kidding? I wasn’t the one who held your hand when you were terrified, I wasn’t the one to hold you tight when you were set on hurting yourself. Becca did it all, and I was her occasional proxy. (Except for the laundry; I did every single piece of laundry). I sat next to you for hundreds of dinner times, while you took an age to finish. I supervised while you took those unfair online tests and did your unfair homework, I was there for subject-verb-agreement. I stood-in as your dad so you could say that you had one. I taught you British curse words by muttering them under my breath so you could yell a mangled version of them in the back yard.
And I protected you. Sometimes at the dinner table, but mostly by hiding the sharps, and by checking your bedroom for late night monsters, which meant more for you than most little girls, because your monsters had voices you could hear out loud.
Those Halloween yard decorations were for you and your sister. The leaf-blower? That was just for you. So you could run and scream and be merciless. I wrote down your stories. And when you hugged the rotary drier and called it Momma in your game, when I laughed at you, I was falling in love with the angriest, most hurt six year old I’d ever known.
Near the end, after we went away for Labor Day and you realized I was actually your dad for the duration, you competed with your sister for my attention. And the final time we had a fire in the back yard, you asked if I would wash your hair at bath time, and of course I said no, and of course I was happy you asked.
And yeah…buddy hell.
Z, tell me, I’m begging you; what was the favorite part of your day?
You won’t think of me when you’re older. You won’t remember. But I can tell you that you’re the first child I ever fell for. I know that’s because you latched onto everyone that came your way. That’s what you do. Thank you. I think of watching Daniel Tiger with you when you were sick, I think of looking you in the eye when you ran into the road coming home from daycare. You are the one who made me most furious, because you were my favorite. But loving you gave me permission to love the others. I’m still a stupid, ridiculous old man, but you made me a better version.
Now, I bet, you don’t put on your pajamas the wrong way around. Now, I’m sure, you don’t mix up your gender pronouns, or which meal comes first. But I bet you still mess up the interrupting cow joke. And maybe you still struggle with the days of the week. Good thing you know a song about that, right? Please flush the toilet when you’re done. Please wash your hands. And seriously, brush your teeth.
Your last words, once you were out of my arms and in the car; “I’m never gonna see you again.” Said calmly, with your gentle smile. I disagreed, but you insisted. And of course three weeks later Becca and I did get to see you again. I guess you knew it really was the last time, which is why you ran after the car as we left.
I miss holding you tight and not letting go, I miss telling you that you can never escape, just so you can push and wriggle away, triumphant. I miss you terribly, and you won’t ever say the same, because you won’t remember. You were so young and you have lost so much. I’m nothing compared to that, I’ll get lost in the shuffle.
But just in case…yeah…knock knock.
Kids, 2020 will be the story you tell people when you’re older. About a pandemic when you were taken from your parents, and forced to live with strangers. Eight months will be an anecdote, and you can use it to gain sympathy. And perhaps the only stories you will tell yourselves about that time will be the sad ones, the mad ones, the mean ones.
But we did our best, Becca and me, with her best being so much better than mine. You were lucky, getting to stay together, and getting a superhero foster mom and, well, the guy she’s married to. I thought we were forced to put our lives on hold for 8 months, I thought we sacrificed so much for you (and we did, because the good parents do that stuff every day). I wouldn’t take it back, I wouldn’t re-write that moment when we said yes to taking you in.
Whatever you end up remembering – and Becca did a million wonderful things for you – a million, tooth-fairy, report card signing, saving your skins, magical things – you were better, healthier, more loved at the end than you were at the beginning. I’ve got the photos to prove it, and if we ever see you again (let me hold onto that ‘if’, I’m just a sad old man, let me have a glimmer) we will show you the photos and tell you the best stories.
We miss you. In 3 months I will put out the Halloween yard decorations if I can bear it, and you girls won’t be here to hug the inflatable cat and witch before you go to school, and I will allow myself a minute or so to fall to pieces, and then I’ll carry on.
We love you. Life is going to be hard, it will not be fair, and you’ve all known that for a long time. I hope it’s also happy, because you all deserve a lot of happy, not too much mad, and I hope and pray, hardly any mean.
Difficult Second Novel 