by Nicole Deese
She squeezed my shoulder. “And I’d gladly help you again. I’ve always had a heart to do what you’re about to do, Lauren, just never had the courage. If there’s anything more I can do to contribute to your adoption of this blessed little girl—it will be my pleasure. That’s a standing offer.”
“Thank you.”
I didn’t miss the way my mom and sister focused their attention on our conversation, nor did I miss the awed expression on their faces as Mrs. Pendleton continued to offer words of love and support. I silently prayed that they, too, would feel a similar kind of encouragement just by being in this room with so many precious people I loved.
Mrs. Pendleton led me to the designated gift-opening throne, where Jenna and Gail had already transported the first load of presents.
The experience of unwrapping so many hand-picked, thoughtful tokens of love for a child none of them had even met, a child who’d never be able to repay them for their generosity, overwhelmed me with a gratitude I’d never be able to express in words. No matter how many packages I opened, the stack beside my chair seemed never-ending. Art supplies, books, clothes, shoes, knitted blankets and hats, and even a rolling travel backpack—given to me by the faculty of Brighton Elementary—which included sensory toys and a tablet preloaded with Mandarin-language movies for the plane ride home.
I’d lost count of the hugs I’d given and the cheek-kisses I’d received in return. Never could I doubt the community of support God had created for me, for Aria. As the last guests said their good-byes, I turned back to the room to help with the cleanup, only to see Gail walking toward me with a small red box wrapped with a gold ribbon.
“Do you have it in you to open one more little gift?”
And something about the way her top lip curved told me this one hadn’t been forgotten from the present pile; it had been held back on purpose. She placed it in my hands now, her humble smile revealing what I already knew.
“This is from you?”
“It’s from my entire family,” she said sincerely.
I slipped the gold cord away from the box, lifting off the lid and then a thin layer of white tissue. Inside lay two slipknot bracelets made of thin red thread. I linked one around my finger.
“There’s an old Chinese proverb that those of us in the adoption community love to share with those new to the journey.” Gail pointed to a scripted piece of beautiful rice paper inside the box.
I retrieved it and read it out loud: “‘An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.’”
Gail lifted the bracelet still inside the box and slipped it over my wrist. “There’s one for you to wear and one for you to give Aria when you meet her. God’s connected you both, Lauren, since before the beginning of time, and His provision has made a way for you to meet. We’ll be praying His love encircles you both when you’re finally united as family.”
Overwhelmed by a redemption story only God himself could author, all the tears I’d managed to hold back during the party spilled onto my cheeks as I slipped both bracelets over my wrist in anticipation of the big day ahead.
chapter
thirty
EIGHT WEEKS LATER
ADOPTION DAY
BEIJING, CHINA
I’d imagined this day a million times, prayed for every detail about the significant moment to come, and yet there was still a part of me that felt like I was observing somebody else’s life, somebody else’s adoption story.
Jenna had been uncharacteristically quiet all morning in our shared hotel room, as if sensing my unspoken need for introspection and reflection. She’d been a steady presence at my side since our arrival in Beijing three days ago, up for whatever task or errand needed to be run before the big day, and never once voicing a complaint over the lack of familiar comforts. I’d never been so grateful for my best friend.
We’d met Sue, the guide and interpreter my agency had hired for us, last night for an authentic Peking duck dinner and a walk through the night market—which was quite the adventure. The tight confines of a crowded street, paired with spicy, unidentified aromas, had my senses on overload. As we’d bumped shoulders with tourists and locals alike who feasted on skewers of fried scorpion and tarantula, I began crafting an imaginary text thread to Joshua in my mind—something I found myself doing often while in the midst of hard-to-believe life experiences. Imagining his running commentary and the excited way his eyes would have lit up at the delicacies all around me kept me smiling throughout the marketplace. No doubt he’d be encouraging me to try the octopus on a bed of rice or perhaps a taste of the fermented mung bean juice. He’d be relentless, of course, because knowing Joshua, he’d have chowed down on more than a few fried treats of his own if given the chance.
When we’d finished our stroll, Sue escorted us back to the hotel lounge to fill us in on the details she knew about the order of events to come today. Her wise insight and cheery demeanor had brought much-needed confidence to an otherwise fish-out-of-water experience.
Jet lag had woken us both well before the sun, but even if I’d been completely adjusted to the time change, the anticipation of the day’s events would have roused me just the same. I had never prayed so fervently about any one thing than I had for Aria over these past weeks. I’d asked God for her protection and peace, for her comfort and courage, and for His wisdom in navigating all the unknowns to come for us both.
Sue’s sing-song voice spoke in Mandarin to our driver. She gestured to a side street and then to an alley that opened into a rural area. Her instructions were the only sound in the car other than the muted shutter of Jenna’s Nikon. Jenna faithfully snapped pictures of the world around us, documenting through the lens of her camera a story I knew I’d treasure in the weeks and years to come.
Few children on Adoption Day reacted with the same level of anticipation and excitement as their awaiting parents. I’d seen enough documentaries and had read enough blog posts to empathize with the fear and grief Aria would likely experience today.
Please be with her in this moment, Lord. Help her to see you in me.
Trust me.
The reassuring words eased the nerves clutching at my lower abdomen as we pulled up to an iron gate that wrapped around an unassuming concrete building. Bold Chinese characters, as well as English letters, spelled out The Heart House just above the entryway.
Sue twisted around in her seat, and her apple cheeks rounded with a smile. “We’re here.”
Jenna’s hand covered mine, giving it a quick and comforting squeeze.
“You both follow me, okay? We first stop in the lobby for paperwork, and then we go to the meeting room.”
Both Jenna and I nodded our agreement. We’d been over this several times with her, yet everything was clearer now. The fog of hypotheticals had lifted. This was it.
The day an orphaned child would become a daughter.
The day a childless woman would become a mother.
I carried Aria’s travel backpack around my arm, the inside filled with small toys, sweet treats, and, of course, books.
Jenna remained a step behind me, the nonstop click of her camera shutter in sync with the spastic sputter of my heartbeat.
“Right through here.” Sue’s confidence carried us through a double set of metal doors and into what looked like a small administrative office with two desks, a couch, a coffee table, a water cooler, and several crimson-colored wall hangings scripted with Chinese characters. Sue spoke animatedly to a college-age woman who sat at one of the desks. A laptop and several piles of paperwork sat beside her computer. The young woman nodded expectantly at us before dipping her head low and responding to Sue in a language I wished I could understand.
As soon as she finished speaking, Sue promptly interpreted their exchange to us. “This is one of the nannies. She say your girl has been singing for two days. She show everybody your pretty picture from the phot
o book you send her. She know today she meet her mama.”
Jenna clutched at her chest and made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
I worked to swallow back my own rising emotion and bowed my head, thankful for the young woman’s kindness. “I’m excited to meet her, too.” An understatement of the highest degree, yet there wasn’t a word in any language that could possibly define the feelings coursing through me now.
Just like Sue had explained at dinner last night and again in the car this morning, I was asked to complete another round of paperwork, signing and dating wherever Sue instructed.
And then, finally, it was time.
Sue led us into a spacious room I recognized immediately as the backdrop to so many of Aria’s pictures. I mentally connected the mural of cartoon animals that ran the length of the room together, like pieces of a puzzle. My glance stopped momentarily on one I’d never seen before—a large, kind-eyed Brachiosaurus painted in the corner above a row of desks. I smiled at the discovery. It was almost like a certain green-eyed dinosaur-lover himself were here to give me a wink of encouragement.
The red and yellow gym mats on the floor, along with the shelves that housed a handful of toys and books under a bay of barred windows, were all familiar, but I struggled to focus on any one object for too long—not when the doorway directly in front of me would soon reveal the child who had grown in my heart since before I’d known her face, since before I’d called her mine.
A nanny with a long, low ponytail in a knee-length white overcoat, much like those worn by nurses in American hospitals during the fifties and sixties, entered the room, holding the hand of a little girl I would recognize anywhere. I’d memorized her dainty features, her violet-tinged lips, her dark chocolate chin-length hair. Clothed in a peach dress dotted with miniature ice cream cones and wearing white canvas slip-on shoes, she peeked up at me under hooded lids, her expression one of timid curiosity.
On instinct, I lowered myself to the ground, my knees pressing against the squishy play mat as my floral maxi dress spilled around me. I knew from years of teaching that mirroring a child’s height and posture reduced potential threat and gave them permission to test and explore their surroundings. Aria would need the chance to do that with me, too, in her own way and in her own time.
With whisper-soft steps and a firm grasp on her nanny’s hand, Aria neared me, taking me in as she tilted her head this way and that. Sue and the nanny conversed with each other over Aria’s head while her nanny prodded her encouragingly. But for once I was glad I couldn’t understand the words being spoken. Because Aria and I were holding our own wordless conversation with each other. From my knees, I lowered myself even further to the ground, crisscrossing my legs in front of me. I set the backpack between us and unzipped it before I scooted it toward her.
My heart galloped at three hundred beats a minute as I waited for her response.
Help her to trust me, Lord.
Her nanny squatted down beside her and gestured to the pack and then back to me, speaking in a friendly tone.
Timidly, the beautiful brown-eyed girl nodded, her gaze still locked on my face. One by one, she released the fingers she’d been clinging to and gingerly moved toward my gift. My smile couldn’t be tamed as she reached the pack and took out a hot pink heart-shaped sucker. She looked back at her nanny, who giggled and encouraged her to eat it. Aria didn’t hesitate. After unwrapping it with impressive dexterity, she popped it into her mouth, and I chuckled over her obvious enjoyment of such a sweet treat.
Sue flashed me a thumbs-up as Jenna snapped a quick succession of pictures. For the briefest of moments, Aria glanced from me to Jenna, and Sue bent to offer an explanation of my best friend’s presence before she made the switch back to English. “I told her you have a very nice friend who traveled a long way to take pictures of her new family.”
Aria looked between Jenna’s camera and me once again before framing her sweet little fingers around her face and snapping an invisible picture of her own, of me. Speaking around her sucker, she said, “Mama.”
My heart squeezed as a million answered prayers exploded over us. I nodded and pointed to my chest. “Yes,” I said, my voice suddenly hoarse. “I am your mama.”
She turned back to her nanny, speaking melodically in Chinese.
The nanny giggled as Sue bent to make eye contact with me. “Your daughter wants to know if you are a princess. She said you have hair like Cinderella.”
Watery joy slipped down my cheeks as I touched the top of my blond ponytail and laughed. “Please tell her that I think she’s the one who looks like a princess.”
Sue did so, and Aria’s lips parted to reveal the first real smile I’d seen since she entered the room.
I pointed at the backpack and mimed that she should open it further. I’d taken my niece shopping for a few of the special gifts inside, convinced that toy preferences likely crossed cultural borders when it came to children of the same gender and age. From the look on Aria’s face when she pulled out each of the miniature Disney Princess figurines—including my longtime personal favorite, Mulan—Iris’s selections had been the perfect choice.
Aria dropped into a squat that showcased her flexibility as she set the miniature dolls on the floor between us, arranging them into a semicircle. She tapped the bottoms of their plastic full-length gowns against the floor to make them dance, speaking to them in an adorably mousy voice that sent something to flight in my chest. After a few minutes of watching her play, I reached my hand toward her princess entourage, asking without words if I might play, too. She agreed, bobbing her head and scooting several of the pastel-colored dolls in my direction. An invitation.
I’d never know how long we stayed there on that floor, tapping and smiling and humming songs from movies I hadn’t seen in ages, but time was suddenly and completely irrelevant. As if all the minutes of all the hours of all the days of my life had added up to this one God-ordained moment. I could do nothing but sit in awe of the precious gift in front of me.
As I slid Princess Jasmine into a waltz next to the toe of Aria’s shoe, she reached out and touched the red thread bracelets encircling my wrist. It was the only prompt I needed to slip off the one intended for her. The red thread lay unassuming in my outstretched palm, yet the significance of it, the meaning of unending love and connection, held a power neither of us could yet comprehend. Her sparkling eyes met mine before her fingers grazed the gift in a timid acceptance of a lifelong promise. I helped her slip it over her wrist and tightened the slipknots to secure the fit. She held her arm next to mine, as if to see the similarities of our two bracelets for herself.
I nodded at her unvoiced appraisal and spoke one of a handful of phrases I’d memorized in my daughter’s birth language: “We are family.”
chapter
thirty-one
I tiptoed out of the sleeping quarters and into the connected living area of our hotel room like a professional mom who’d been putting children to sleep for ages. Sliding the pocket door halfway closed so as not to disturb my little Sleeping Beauty, my glance caught on Jenna, who was busy uploading pictures from the day onto her laptop. The last twelve hours had been packed with enough events and emotions to fill a solid week. Had it really only been this morning that we were getting ready to go to The Heart House for the first time?
“She asleep?” Jenna whispered through a yawn.
I slumped onto the sofa beside her and lolled my head in her direction. The sinking sensation of cushy pillows enveloping my body might finally allow my steady adrenaline to decrease. “We looked through several books after her bubble bath, and then she wanted to play another round of princesses and draw on her Etch A Sketch. But after about forty-five minutes of trying, I finally got her to lie down long enough to close her eyes. I just kept rubbing her back until she fell asleep with her face smashed into that stuffed panda you picked out.”
“Ah, sweet. Good. I figured you’d let me know if you needed my help.”
Jenna had been so great in that way, never wanting to interfere without being asked. Over the last few months, she’d read all the recommended books on how to promote healthy bonding and attachment between newly adopted children and their parents. She’d even come to a couple adoption groups with me, asking more questions in her first meeting than I had in a year. But her understanding of the process, of how critical it was to let me provide for all my daughter’s needs—from bathing to hugging to adding food to her plate—was truly a gift. Every little thing mattered in these first few weeks and months.
I crossed my feet on the coffee table between us. “I wasn’t sure what to expect. Her nannies said she was a deep sleeper, but . . .” I pressed my fingers to my throbbing temples. “She’s never been in this situation before, so I’m trying to keep my expectations for the days and weeks to come to a minimum.”
“You have a headache?” Jenna asked.
“Yeah, I think I just need some caffeine.” Between Aria giving me a guided tour of the house she’d spent almost five years in and all the clarifying questions I’d asked her nannies about food preferences and known allergies, bathing and bedtime routines, and, of course, any pertinent medical information I’d need to relay to Brian once we got home . . . my brain felt close to combustion.
The good-byes to Aria’s nannies and her Heart House brothers and sisters had been the truest definition of bittersweet I’d ever experienced. While her hand had remained firmly latched in mine, her emotions had been divided, grieving the only life she’d ever known and hoping for the one promised in pictures and stories. Her tears had been a silent stream down her cheeks as she buried herself into my side. I’d carried her fragile body to the waiting car and stroked her hair until she’d fallen asleep across my lap.
Our modern, westernized hotel, adorned with fancy amenities unlike the ones Aria had known at The Heart House, proved an energizing distraction upon our arrival. In a six-hour time period, we’d unpacked her entire suitcase of clothing, stacked and re-stacked all the books I’d brought for her, colored in two different coloring books, played with Play-Doh, painted our nails, and took her first-ever bubble bath. The communication barrier had gone better than I’d expected after Sue left us for the day—thanks to the use of Google’s translator app. But once Aria had learned how to work it, she was quick to point to my phone whenever she wanted to ask a question, usually about having another candy from the backpack, which I rarely denied her.