“I don’t know what to say,” I whisper.
He clears his throat. “I also put in a personal recommendation for you, but you’ll need two other references. Maybe your sister and your friend Gina, the ones I met at dinner? It just has to be two people who will recommend you and vouch for your character. So let’s get all that in order, and as long as you can commit to three-hour classes each Tuesday and Friday evening for the next five and a half weeks, we should be good to go.”
“Andrew,” I breathe, “I don’t even know how to begin to thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” he says. “In fact, I owe you an apology. You’re trying to do exactly what I’m trying to do—give these kids a better life—and I didn’t listen to you like I should have. You’re going to be an amazing foster mom. So if you can go into your office today, I’ll fax the paperwork right over, okay?”
“I’ll head there now.”
“Great. I have a really good feeling about this, Kate.”
I close my eyes and smile. “I do too.”
An hour and a half later, on my way home from my office after faxing all the initial paperwork back to Andrew, I make a detour by the East River and throw the silver dollar from the closet in, returning my good luck to the universe, just like Patrick always did.
T
he next day, I drop by Susan’s to tell her about Allie and my decision to become a foster parent, as well as to let her know I put her down as a personal reference on my application. As I talk, her eyebrows shoot up, and she gapes at me.
“What is it?” I finally ask, sighing.
“You’re sure you’re ready for this?” she asks. “Being a parent isn’t as easy as it looks.”
I bristle immediately. “I never said it was easy. You know I work with kids every day. I understand what a challenge it is.”
“Do you, though?” she persists. “You see these kids for an hour. But you’re not the one worrying about putting food on the table for them, or disciplining them, or making sure they do their homework or grow up right.”
I can feel my blood boiling. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t be a mother? Because it’s hard? And I’m somehow not equipped?”
“It’s just that these foster kids have so many problems,” Susan says.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t work through those issues,” I shoot back. “They’ve just had fewer advantages and fewer people looking out for them. Not everyone’s as lucky as Sammie and Calvin.”
“It’s not luck,” Susan says stiffly. “Robert and I have worked hard to give them a safe, secure home and a good upbringing.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m just saying that they’re fortunate to have gotten you two as a mom and dad. Not all kids get to have parents like that.”
“Exactly my point. And what do you think happens when a child grows up without any of the good values we’ve instilled in our kids?”
“Just because these kids haven’t had traditional upbringings doesn’t mean they don’t have good values,” I argue. “You sound like an elitist.”
“No. I sound like a realist. And you sound like you have your head in the clouds.”
“Not everyone gets handed the perfect life on a silver platter,” I snap. “I know you did, so maybe that’s hard for you to understand. But you have everything, Susan. I
lost
everything. And I’m doing my best to build a life for myself now.”
“Yeah, you had a tragedy, and it’s terrible,” Susan shoots back. “But you’re forty. You’ve got to stop mooning over your dead husband and agonizing over what was or wasn’t meant to be. Besides, how are you ever going to wind up in another relationship when you’re all of a sudden a foster mom? Do you think you’re going to have time to date? Or that any guy in his right mind is going to want to accept this lifestyle choice you’re making?”
And suddenly, I understand. “So that’s what this is about. You think I’ll never find a boyfriend if I have a child.”
“A foster child, anyhow.” She shrugs. “Fine, so Dan wasn’t right for you. But I’m sure there’s someone out there who is. If you go ahead with this fostering thing, though, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot. Besides, do you really think you can do this alone? Be a single mom?”
“Yeah, I can,” I say softly. “I know it’ll be hard. But I have a good job, I can easily afford a few hours of after-school care each day, and I have the space in my life for this. I’ve never been so sure of anything, Susan. Besides, I’m not talking about fostering an infant and raising that child for the rest of his or her life. I’m talking about shorter-term situations with older kids, and if one of those situations turns permanent, it’s still only another five or six years until that child is off to college.”
“
If
they get in to college,” she mutters. “And it’s not like your responsibilities as a parent end there.”
I open my mouth to reply, but she cuts me off.
“Maybe I’m not being fair to you. And yes, if you’re asking me to be a personal reference for you, of course I will. You’re the best person I know, Kate. But do I think you’re doing the right thing? No. I think you’re making a mistake. I think you’re giving away your chance to find your happily ever after.”
“The thing is, not every happily ever after needs to end with a Prince Charming,” I say after a pause. “I already had my prince, and if there’s another one out there, great. But I’m not sitting around waiting to get rescued. It’s time that I’m the one doing the saving.”
Twenty-Eight
O
ver the next few weeks, I throw myself into preparing to be a foster parent. I talk to Gina—who’s more supportive than Susan—and after attending an orientation, I jump right in to the twice-a-week Model Approach to Parenting Preparation courses, the required ones Andrew signed me up for. Much of what is taught is information I already know—some of it instinctually, some of it from my therapeutic background. But the class also teaches me things that are new to me, such as how to help a foster child integrate into a new home, and what my legal responsibilities as a foster parent will be. I find myself imagining Allie in every sample scenario the instructor mentions, and I have to keep reminding myself that she may very well not be mine. But the dreams don’t return, and I’m beginning to feel more and more strongly that they were leading me here all along.
I have weekly meetings at my apartment with a social worker named Karen Davidson who has been assigned to my case. Typically, she tells me, a home study could take months, but I come highly recommended by Andrew, and he has stressed the emergency nature of the potential situation with Allie, so she’s trying to move things along. “Plus, I understand you’re learn
ing sign language and that you have experience working with both hard-of-hearing and developmentally challenged children. That’ll make you a real asset to us, and I’d love to get you into our program as quickly as possible. The fact that you’re already a volunteer with St. Anne’s helps.”
She takes my income tax returns from the last several years, makes copies of my birth certificate and social security card, and requests medical records from my physician. She also asks me what feels like a thousand questions each week about everything from where a child would be housed (in the guest bedroom) to how I’d provide child care while I’m working (I’ve already found an after-school program) and whether I’m involved in any romantic relationships (the answer to which is a resounding no). And she examines every nook and cranny of my apartment with pursed lips, jotting notes on a clipboard.
At Andrew’s request, I don’t say anything to Allie about my foster parenting training. “We don’t want her to get her hopes up, because this isn’t a sure thing,” he reminds me. “And we don’t want to get in the way of her bonding with her mom.” So instead, I keep visiting her each Thursday, as usual, and I’m relieved to find her opening up and sharing stories about school and her best friend, Bella, whom she always calls
BFF
in sign language—her middle and index fingers crossed while she mouths the letters. I’m happy to see her friendship flourishing and grateful that she’s found in Bella someone who can identify with both her hearing difficulties and her foster situation. I laugh when she begins telling me the ways she and Bella are plotting to get the purple-haired Jay Cash to ask Allie out.
“I’ve never even kissed a boy,” Allie confides one day. “Bella says it’s kind of gross, all tongues and everything, but I don’t
think she’s kissed anyone either, even though she won’t admit it, so I don’t really believe her.”
My heart swells with affection and love for Allie with each new stride forward she makes, and I’m relieved when she doesn’t bring up her mother again, although it’s probably my responsibility to be poking at the subject to see if she wants to talk. But I’d rather envision a life where I’ll make everything okay for Allie, where I’ll take away the pain of all the times she’s been hurt before.
So I keep my head down and go through the motions of my life. I go to the MAPP class for prospective foster parents every Tuesday and Friday, to Andrew’s ASL class every Wednesday, and out to Queens every Thursday, where I work with Allie, Riajah, and a young boy named Tarek, who has 90 percent hearing loss and who just entered the foster system a few weeks ago. At work, I joke around with Max, help Leo with his situation at school, and make music with two dozen other kids with various challenges that need addressing.
Life is slowly getting back to normal, a new normal, without Dan. But the glimpses into the world I share with Patrick and Hannah are gone now, and I miss them terribly. Each night, I wait to wake up in a life where I still have Patrick, and where Hannah exists. Each morning, I awake crushed and missing them anew. I try Joan a few times, but we seem to be playing phone tag; I keep getting her voice mail, and when she calls back, she keeps getting mine.
Four weeks after the breakup, Dan finally agrees to meet me for lunch, and after he lets me go on for a full five minutes, apologizing for hurting him, he tells me that he’s pretty sure he never loved me in the first place. The words sting more than I would have thought.
“You can’t mean that,” I say. “We were together for almost two years.”
“Well, it was easy enough for you to walk away,” he says, his eyes hard. “That doesn’t say a whole lot about your love for me, does it?”
“Dan, I did love you,” I say. “I still do. But that doesn’t make us right for each other.”
He rolls his eyes. “Spare me the psychobabble. You haven’t dealt with your own shit. You brought a whole load of baggage into our relationship, and that’s not my fault. It’s yours. One hundred percent your fault. I deserved better.”
“I know,” I say softly.
“So you can’t just sit here and say you love me and expect me to smile and say, ‘Well, then, I forgive you for treating me like I’m disposable.’ ”
“But I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I protest. “You have to know that.”
He looks away, but not before I notice the pain in his eyes, which wounds me just as much as anything else. “Kate, I really don’t give a shit what you meant.” He gets up to leave before the waiter even arrives to take our order.
A
few weeks later, I finish the MAPP training, so all that’s left to do is wait for official certification as a foster parent. I’ve been told this is the part that can take the longest, because of bureaucratic red tape. I try to hang in there and believe it will all work out.
August gives way to September, the air turns cooler, and the numbers on the calendar begin to tick down to the anniversary of Patrick’s death. The day before the anniversary is a Wednesday, and Andrew corners me after sign language class to tell me—in sign language, which I’m beginning to truly understand after all these weeks—that I don’t need to come by St. Anne’s tomorrow.
Why?
I sign back carefully.
Because it’s September eighteenth,
he signs.
I stare at him for a minute. “You remembered,” I say aloud.
“That it’s the anniversary of you losing your husband? Of course I did. I don’t want you to worry about us tomorrow. Just take care of yourself.”
“Thanks,” I reply, but I’m a bit sad that I won’t get to see Andrew, Riajah, Tarek, or Allie. It’ll mean a day alone with my thoughts and my sadness.
“Are you okay, Kate?” Andrew asks aloud as I turn to go. “Is tomorrow going to be hard for you?” Before I can answer, he shakes his head and says, “What am I saying? Of course it’ll be hard. That was like the dumbest question I could have asked you.”
I smile. “It’s really nice of you to be concerned. And yeah, it’s always hard. But every year, it gets a little easier to bear, you know? I’ll be okay.”
“Look, come by St. Anne’s if you want,” he says. “I didn’t mean you shouldn’t come. I just didn’t want to make you work. But if you’re feeling down and you want to talk, I’ll be there all day and most of the evening.” He stops short and adds, “I mean, not that you don’t have other people to talk to. That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
“I just meant, you know, if you need another friend, I’m here. Or there, I mean. At St. Anne’s.”
“It’s a really nice offer,” I tell him. “And it’s really nice to know you care.”
“Of course I care,” he says. “I don’t say this enough, Kate, but I appreciate all the work you’ve been doing with us. Sometimes, I feel like I kind of roped you into it. You just showed up to take a sign language class, and before you knew it, I had
you committed to volunteering with us every week. I feel like kind of a jerk.”
“Andrew, stop. I love it. It makes me really happy to work with the kids. I’m grateful that you asked me to help out.”
“Well,” Andrew says, “I owe you. So if you’re ever looking for something to do at night, and you’re not out with your sister and your friend, let me know. I’ll take you out to another fabulous and educational dinner sometime. To say thanks for helping me with the kids.”
I stare at him. Is he asking me out? I quickly dismiss the thought, because after all, I’ve seen his girlfriend, and she looks like she belongs on the cover of a magazine. He must be asking me as one professional to another, even if he looks almost like he’s blushing. “Sure, that sounds good,” I say, because regardless of his motivation, spending a little more time with him seems like a nice idea. I hadn’t realized quite how lonely I would feel without Dan or the dreams around. Sometimes, the nights seem to stretch on forever.