Meg Little Reilly - We Are Unprepared

Bev shook her head. “Ash, you can’t look after him all day. August is desperate for attention and boundaries right now and he’s going to keep pushing limits and taking risks until someone provides him with that. Right now, he needs constant attention. Now, if you wanted to be a formal caregiver, that would be another question...”

Pia’s eyes opened wide. “You mean, be his foster family?”

Bev shrugged, leaving the possibility out there on the table.

I raised my eyebrows at Pia. It sounded crazy, but maybe it wasn’t crazy. Maybe this could save August; wonderful, weird August. She stared back at me in shock. I knew that look. We needed to talk. Of course I wouldn’t commit us to something so big without a lot of discussion between us.

Bev understood. “It’s not as simple as this. Any potential foster family needs to be thoroughly vetted. And you would need to be 100 percent on board with this idea. There can be no uncertainty.”

“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Pia said politely.

“Yes, we need to talk about this,” I added. “But what will happen to August for now?”

Bev took a deep breath. She was unsure herself and it struck me just how haphazardly a child’s future could be decided. This woman had too much discretion, nice as she was. And none of the answers seemed obvious to a table of adults. I wasn’t even sure I understood what the question was.

“I’ll let him stay over there for now,” Bev said, “on the condition that you promise me to check in with him every morning and evening. I’m going to be calling you for updates.”

I nodded.

“But we can’t do this for long,” she went on. “You’ve got three months to decide what you want. After that, I’m putting him in a foster family. I don’t want him in that house when these storms come. That’s not happening.”

Pia and I both nodded. We knew that she was serious. And she was right: August’s fate needed to be determined before The Storms came.

We sat silently at the kitchen table for a moment, listening to Bev’s car drive away. When there was no chance of her return, I put my head into my hands and yelled, then rubbed my face over and over. Pia walked over and wrapped my head in her arms as she stood above.

“I thought he was dead,” I said into her body.

“I know.”

“I kept seeing these images of him in the woods... It was so bad.”

Pia released me and sat in the closest chair. She nodded in sympathy, which was all I needed her to do. There was nothing else to be said about that horrible day. August was okay.

“How could his parents just lose him like that?” I asked. “The social worker’s right. He can’t stay in that house.”

Pia drew a reluctant breath. “You want to take him, don’t you?”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

She breathed again, then shook her head. “I see what you’re doing here and you have to stop.”

“What?” I asked.

Her tone was kind, but firmer now. “Don’t confuse this situation for a message from the universe about us becoming parents. Don’t do that. This isn’t serendipity; it’s ugly reality. It’s a poor kid in a marginally dangerous household. This isn’t ours.”

“I’m not doing that,” I said, shocked. I didn’t think I was doing that. I wasn’t sure.

Pia looked at me kindly, almost pitifully so. “I love that you want to save him and that you think we can. I love that about you. But it’s not black-and-white, Ash. This is so much more complicated than what we’re equipped for. It can’t be solved with love.” She said the last word as one might refer to Santa Claus.

I understood the point she was making, but it seemed irrelevant. “Some of this is perfectly black-and-white, though. He either stays here with us or he goes somewhere else, with people he doesn’t know and a million other unknowable variables. There’s a deadline and a decision to make. It’s not a philosophical difference we’re talking about here; it’s August’s life. He’s here or he’s somewhere else, probably somewhere worse.”

I suspected that Pia thought this sort of reasoning made me simple and naive. I was okay with that. A problem existed and we could offer a solution. It wouldn’t be uncomplicated or easy, but how could we leave this helpless young human to such an uncertain future? It was uncertainty multiplied by uncertainty with the storm looming. And I wasn’t suggesting it out of a misguided sense of poetry—to have a child that binds us forever—I was suggesting it because it was right.

“This is the right thing to do,” I said. “You know that it is. It’s not a fashionable reason, but it’s just the right fucking thing to do and we will always hate ourselves for doing the wrong thing.”

“Oh, don’t do that.” Pia shook her head. She had shifted back in her chair, away from me. “Don’t be good because it makes you feel superior to me. The stakes are way too high for that. You’re not considering the very real possibility that we would be terrible parents to this kid. With his upbringing, he probably has special behavioral needs that we know nothing about; and maybe he needs special doctors or schools that cost more than we can afford. Maybe we are the bad option for this poor kid. It’s arrogant to assume we’re not.”

She was making perfect sense and gaining speed with her strengthening argument. It was true that we probably weren’t equipped to handle a traumatized seven-year-old boy. Was that what this was: trauma? I didn’t know. Pia was right about all this, but it still made me sick to imagine him alone in a world of strangers who didn’t appreciate his specialness. Or worse, people who confused his specialness with dysfunction, something to be fixed and medicated. It got worse and worse as my mind wandered.

“But did you read that think piece, in the Nation, I think it was, about how horrible foster care is?” I asked. “All that sexual abuse and fraud. We can’t let him go into that.”

“I’m sure it’s not all like that,” Pia said. She paused and then seemed to collect herself after a moment of weakness. “Anyhow, it’s not a problem that we can solve. That’s the point here. All of these options are bad, including us...especially us.”

I stood up and walked to the sink, which was filled with dirty mismatched coffee mugs from the previous three days. A rind of whole wheat crust floated in dirty water. “I don’t know. I have to think. We have to decide quickly.”

“Also, who would be the primary caregiver?” she asked. “It can’t be me. I have to figure out my career.”

“Yes, you do,” I agreed.

“Well, don’t say it with such disdain. It’s not a crime to be unemployed and confused.”

I had never heard her describe her situation so honestly.

She went on, “You know, we were told our whole childhoods to find something that we love doing. Major in something we love in college and all that. So I did those things, but then the world changed, and now we have to just do anything that pays. I’m sure I sound like a privileged brat, but I haven’t adapted to this new world. I don’t want to just do something that pays.”

It was privileged and bratty, but Pia was being honest and she looked ashamed by this admission. I didn’t want her to have to do something she hated either. For me, it was different. I didn’t have a singular passion like she did for art. I was better when I was working and the work could be more broadly defined. I didn’t really know the feeling she was describing, but I knew she was sincere about it.

“I’m sorry, honey,” I said. “This is a discussion worth having, but it’s a different discussion from the August one.”

“Well, maybe not.” Her shoulders rose and fell. “It’s a discussion about what we want to do with our days. I’m telling you I don’t know what I want to do with my days and that’s not the right way to be thrust into parenthood.”