Lisa Ko - The Leavers

“Tell me about it. Some days I want to do one of those marathon writing days like I used to, but then there’s this boy here who needs us, and I need to make him meals and buy him clothes and make sure I’m loving and caring and patient so I don’t mess him up more than he already is. I’m afraid I’m too old to learn how to be the kind of mother who gives everything up to mom. Even foster mom. I’m using mom as a verb here, in case you can’t tell.”

“Well, if you’re too old, then I’m too old, too,” Peter said. “You know, at a meeting the other day, Will Panov said Daniel was lucky to have us and we were brave to take in an older boy. I told him, we’re the ones who are lucky that he’s staying with us.”

Kay sighed. “I know you’re trying to be nice, but it’s different for men. All those books and articles I read about the whole unrealistic American expectation regarding motherhood, the martyr-like aspect of it, the reality is so much worse than I’d even expected. You get to work all you want, but you never feel bad about it. You weren’t brought up that way.”

“No? I think I know a little about familial expectations.”

There was a lengthy silence.

Peter finally said, “This might sound callous, but honestly, whatever we do is going to be better than what he experienced before. You remember what the agency said, how the mother and stepfather both went back to China. We’re the first stable home he’s ever had.”

“I know, but I feel like I’m holding my breath. The aunt could still come back. I’ll feel so much better when it’s all finalized, one way or the other.”

“We’ll know more next month at the hearing.”

“I want to treat him like he’s my own son, not just a foster kid, but there’s this chance it won’t work out.”

“Remember, Jamie said it’s unlikely there will be an appeal since there hasn’t been any communication from his family. And after six months we can start proceedings.”

Back to China? Proceedings? Who were Jim and Elaine? If his mother had gone anywhere, it was Florida, not China. In his bedroom, in the dark, Deming held his breath, wondering if they would say more about her, if they knew things about her that he didn’t. They were hiding things from him. He’d been right not to trust them.

“Did you read that article in the paper today?” Kay said. “An abandoned baby in a bus station in Buffalo? I’m sure his mother had her reasons, whatever they were, mental health, financial hardship.”

“All that matters is that we’re taking care of Daniel right now,” Peter said. “Not whether we’re Asian or Chinese or whatever.”

“But do you think we didn’t prepare enough? Even if we’d been planning for years.”

“Oh, we could have read every single book out there and it still wouldn’t have prepared us.”

“I think of his mother constantly, though I probably shouldn’t,” Kay said. “What did she look like? What was her name? It’s not like I can ask Daniel about her. He doesn’t say a peep. Sure, I know it’s cultural, but it’s also like he’s scared of us.”

“He won’t always be.”

“I hope so. We’ll love him so much we’ll make it all better.”

“Killing them with kindness, that sort of thing?”

“But no actual killing,” Kay said. “I’m a pacifist.”

Deming waited for them to say more, but they had stopped talking.

Kay was wrong. He wasn’t scared of her. He was scared of finding out what really happened to his mother.

ROLAND ASKED OUTRIGHT, SAID the word that no one else had. “Is it weird being a foster kid? Are the Wilkinsons going to adopt you?” They were walking home from school, down Hillside Road, past the Ridgeborough Library and the Methodist church, the sidewalk bumpy with tree roots.

Adopt . There was a similar term in Chinese, yet Deming hadn’t thought of his time with Peter and Kay to be anything but vaguely temporary, like the stay with Yi Gong had been vaguely temporary. Even the name Daniel Wilkinson seemed like an outfit he would put on for an unspecified period of time, until he returned to his real name and home planet. Where that real home was, however, was no longer certain.

“It’s weird,” he said.

“Do you miss your real mom?”

“Yeah.”

“I kind of miss my dad, even if I don’t remember him.” They stopped on the corner. “Are you coming over?”

“I just remembered I have to help my mom with something.”

Deming ran the three blocks back to Oak Street. He knew he had a good hour and a half before Kay and Peter came home. He brought his laptop to the study and pulled up an online dictionary.

Foster child: A child looked after temporarily or brought up by people other than his or her natural or adoptive parents.

Adoption: A process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents. Adoption is intended to effect a permanent change in status, through legal sanction.

It took a minute to parse through the language, but when he did, it seemed like the computer was expanding.

Temporarily. Permanent .

He pulled open the drawer of the file cabinet next to the desk, a long, metal arm crammed with folders for taxes, property-related documents, and research for Peter’s book on something called free trade. Sandwiched between KAY WORK and LIFE INSURANCE was a fat folder labeled ADOPTION/FOSTER. Deming tugged until the folder gave way and poured its contents onto the floor.

It had to be a joke. He sat on the rug and picked up a color pamphlet titled Gift of Life: Your Child Is Waiting for You . Blurry pictures of children with large, liquid eyes were placed throughout, as well as pictures of adults holding babies with darker skin. The children, the captions said, came from Ethiopia, Romania, and China. The pamphlet talked about how international adoption gave an unwanted child a home and blessed adoptive parents with a child of their own.

He dumped out the rest of the folder, listening for sounds downstairs, footsteps or the front door closing. He scanned a printout of an e-mail message, dated more than four years ago.

Dear Sharon,

I attended the Gift of Life informational seminar last Saturday with my husband Peter. After years of unresolved fertility issues, we are very interested in becoming parents, and soon! We’ve been married for over twenty years and are more than ready to make our family complete. Our loving home in Ridgeborough is ready for a child.

We have good friends who are parents to a Chinese adoptee, so we are familiar with the process, and are interested in adopting from China as well. I know there are sending countries that look down on “older” first-time parents (Peter and I are each forty-six). We don’t mind adopting a Chinese child who is older, as we know they can also (like us “older” parents) be “harder to place.” Peter and I have traveled extensively and both teach at the college level, so we have experience working with young people. We think international adoption would be a good fit for us.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Kathryn S. Wilkinson

He saw medical records, criminal clearances and background checks, documents stating the Wilkinsons’ home was safe for a child, and an e-mail from the Gift of Life director saying that with sending countries’ new restrictions on international adoption, Kay and Peter might want to consider domestic adoption, or foster-to-adoption. He flipped through reports from social workers stating that the Wilkinsons were well-established professionals who were financially and emotionally equipped to become loving parents, and papers that said they had completed mandatory training classes and were court-certified to foster and adopt. When he saw a packet of papers labeled INITIAL PERMANENCY HEARING REPORT: IN THE MATTER OF DEMING GUO, he stopped. The report was dated two months ago. He had to read a few sentences over twice, but at the end, he understood, even if he wished he didn’t.