Before I Called You Mine

by Nicole Deese

  Though I hadn’t seen him since the hospital room last week, he’d texted twice, once to thank me for the pictures I’d sent of him and Aria, and once three days ago to see if we’d settled in at home okay. He’d asked if there was anything he could bring us from the grocery store, but I hadn’t taken him up on the offer. It wasn’t fair to him, not when I knew what he was planning to do in just a few weeks’ time. Or maybe I simply hadn’t been ready for the inevitable conversation that would come along with a delivery of Pop-Tarts and fresh produce.

  But I’d had ten days to prepare for this moment, and I was ready now. I could have this hard conversation. Not because I wanted to, but because Joshua needed me to. And I could—would—do it without tears. He deserved nothing less than the same unshakable support he’d offered to me.

  I ducked behind my closed front door for a full five seconds to fix my two-day-old messy bun, exhale the static populating in my chest, and repeat a prayer I’d spoken often. “Please be with me, God.”

  As he started up my walkway, backlit by a nearly full moon, I opened my front door to greet him. Only Skye charged ahead of me, whirling around his legs and nearly causing him to stumble.

  “Oops! Sorry!” Barefoot, I trekked to the edge of my front porch and called for my spastic dog to come back inside.

  “Hello to you, too, Skye,” Joshua said, trying not to step on her as he lumbered up the walkway, his arms overloaded.

  After my third scolding, Skye finally obeyed, her tail between her legs. I gripped her collar so she couldn’t break away again. “I didn’t think about her being a tripping hazard when I opened the door. Can I help you with . . . whatever that is you’re carrying there?”

  Joshua peeked his head around the bulging basket. “Maybe just tell me when to step up? I can’t see where I’m walking.”

  “Oh, okay, sure.” I told Skye to go to her bed and then touched Joshua’s elbow, guiding him to the edge of the porch step. Whatever he carried inside the basket was heavy enough to strain all the veins in his forearms and leave a glistening sheen on his forehead.

  “Ready, step. Now one more. Okay, you’re good.”

  A warm breeze whipped stray hair from my messy bun as he neared my open doorway.

  “Thanks. Do you mind if I set this down inside?”

  “Of course not, come in.” Did he really think he wasn’t welcome inside? I ushered him into the living room, where he set the armload on the ground with a grunt.

  My eyes widened at the sight of the treasures in the belly of the enormous basket.

  Books. So many, many books. Hundreds.

  Immediately, I lowered myself to the floor. “Joshua . . . what are all these?” But it was obvious as I began pawing my way through a variety of children’s books—board books, early readers, chapter books. A collection of handpicked masterpieces I knew by heart.

  “According to my dad, they’re the top recommended beginner books for ESL students. He pulled a few strings, and of course he threw in a few of his favorites, too, for good measure.”

  With my jaw completely unhinged, I looked from the books to him and back again several times. “I’m speechless. Thank you, and please, please thank your father for us. This is one of the kindest, most thoughtful gifts I’ve ever received. Aria will absolutely love these.” I glanced behind Joshua at the sofa where Sleeping Beauty rested. “When she’s awake.”

  His gaze held on Aria’s sleeping form on the far side of the living room. “How’s she doing? How’s the recovery been going?”

  “Really well overall.” I stretched tall again, which meant Joshua still dwarfed me by at least six inches. “But she’s been pretty exhausted today. We had her first round of check-up appointments this afternoon, and although everything’s on target medically, she’s pretty maxed out on waiting rooms and doctors. She cried all the way home, and I figured she’d fall asleep on the car ride, but nope. That girl might have been born with an imperfect heart, but I assure you her vocal chords are in great working order.” I shook my head and chuckled. “She played with Skye for almost an hour before she finally gave in and passed out on the couch there. Honestly, you’d never guess she just had heart surgery. Her only real limitation now is getting to the top of the stairs on her own. But Jenna always tells me I should be working out more, so . . .” I flexed my puny biceps and drew his attention back to me.

  The second his gaze met mine, all the oxygen leaked from my lungs. Because I knew. Joshua was going to tell me right now. Like this. With one foot on the way out the door, and suddenly I needed a bit more time. Just a few more minutes. Not to avoid the obvious, but to embrace it for the sake of closure. For the sake of everything we once shared together.

  He rubbed the back of his neck, exhaled, and opened his mouth to—

  “Do you like pork dumplings?” I asked, my voice a bit too high and crackly.

  He blinked hard and shook his head as if working to transition his brain to a new track. “What?”

  “Pork dumplings,” I said, trying to slow down the anxious spike in my pulse. “We have a huge pot of dumplings, and I have some noodles as well. I’d love to feed you dinner if you’re able to stay a little longer.” So we can say a proper good-bye.

  My eyes pleaded for him to say yes, for him to spare another few minutes, for him to say all that he needed to say over a nice meal in a familiar kitchen.

  Again, he glanced back at Aria. “But what if she wakes up? Will it be okay if I’m here? I don’t want to intrude on your plans this evening.”

  The concern in his voice was the first rolling rock of an avalanche in my chest.

  “You’re not intruding at all. I’m inviting you to stay. She’s only been asleep for about thirty minutes, and after the day we’ve had, I wouldn’t be surprised if she slept right on through the night.”

  He gave a hesitant nod. “Okay, then. Thank you.”

  The smile I wore cramped my cheeks, but I refused to let it drop a single centimeter as we trailed through the living room and into the kitchen, where so many memories, including those of our last day together in my home, replayed in my mind.

  I’d just set two plates next to the stove when he launched in, his resolute tone turning my stomach inside out.

  “Lauren, I need to be honest. I didn’t stop by tonight just to deliver those books. I’ve actually had that basket in my trunk for over a month now.”

  My hand froze on the lid, and I forced myself to look directly into his eyes, to give him the same kind of courtesy and respect he’d given me on a day not so long ago, standing in a Cadet Blue nursery just one floor away.

  “I’d planned to wait a while to say this. I’d hoped to give you a bit more time to adjust and settle in after the surgery, but I’m afraid Brian might have forced my hand when he . . .” His pained expression tugged at my empathy.

  “Joshua, I know. And I’m happy for you.” The words escaped my mouth before I could tell myself to stay quiet, before I could play along and pretend I didn’t know what was coming next. But I loved him too much to put him through that, to make him suffer a single second more than necessary.

  He paused. “You’re happy for me?”

  “Yes.” I nodded as encouragingly as I could. “I think Dallas sounds like an incredible opportunity.” Severing our connection, I placed a huge helping of fried noodles onto the plate nearest him and stacked a tower of dumplings on top of it for good measure. “I’m really, really happy for you.”

  “You are?” His voice held a note of confusion, and maybe something else as well, but I didn’t have time to sort it out. Not when I was committed to making this the happiest good-bye in the history of farewells.

  “Absolutely.” Though according to the mountain of noodles I was serving myself, I was about to consume roughly ten years’ worth of repressed feelings. “And I want to hear all about it. What Texas is like, what you’re looking forward to the most. Everything.”

  Without taking his eyes off me, he slid his hand onto my
wrist, making my plight of carrying two twenty-pound plates to the dining room table an impossibility.

  His voice was close, and far, far too gentle, as if tenderness alone could call my bluff. “So you’re telling me you’d be fine with it? Me moving out of state? Taking a job one thousand, six-hundred and thirty miles away from here?”

  I remained completely still, unsure if I could will my body to betray me in such an epic way by agreeing to such a blatant mistruth. Fine with it? No, not even close. But this decision wasn’t about me this time. It was about him, what was best for Joshua. Hadn’t he done the same for me? For Aria?

  I blinked up at him as a genuine smile replaced the one I’d been forcing since this conversation began. “I’m happy about what makes you happy, even if that means that happiness has to stretch one thousand, six-hundred and thirty miles away from here.”

  “And what if it doesn’t?”

  I crimped my brow. “Doesn’t what?”

  “Have to stretch. What if my happiness is everything within a twenty-foot radius of where I’m standing right now?”

  My breathing became shallow. “What are you saying?”

  “I turned down the job, Lauren. I’m not moving.”

  A sharp twist in my gut forced me back a step. “But why? Brian said it was a life-changing career opportunity.”

  He seemed to filter his next thoughts carefully. “At first I did consider taking it. I prayed about leaving town for weeks, questioned if that would be the best option in light of everything that had happened. Because even though I gave you the space you asked for, there wasn’t a single day I didn’t think about you or wonder how things were going. In China, at home, at the hospital.” He paused, his eyes softening even more. “Nobody told me Aria’s surgery had been rescheduled, Lauren. I’d actually planned to avoid the hospital that entire next week so our paths wouldn’t accidentally cross. But weirdly enough, on my drive to the hospital that day I felt increasingly unsettled. I was frustrated that God hadn’t made the answer clear about taking the job in Dallas. As I parked, I told Him I needed something concrete, something that would either set or change my course one way or another.” The emotional charge in his voice stole my ability to inhale. “And then I saw you in the courtyard not two minutes later.”

  Tears clouded my vision, but no words formed on my tongue. Everything I’d planned to say, every emotion I’d planned to feign, was now completely irrelevant.

  “I knew then that I wasn’t supposed to leave, and I also knew that I’d do whatever it took to stay in your life. To stay in Aria’s life.” He slid a finger down my cheek, wiping away moisture I hadn’t even known was there. “When I told Brian tonight that I’d recommended one of my partners for the job instead, and then about my plan to be a steady presence in the background of your lives, he confessed that he might have messed things up when he announced I was moving to Texas after my visit with Aria.”

  “That may have put a bit of a damper on things,” I whispered through a broken laugh while I reached for his hand, held it, squeezed it.

  Joshua steadied his gaze on me and exhaled. “I should have offered to wait, Lauren. That day in the nursery when you told me about Aria. I should have told you that no matter how much time you and Aria needed to adjust and attach, that I’d be here, waiting for you both in the background and cheering you on.” With his free hand he smoothed the wisps of hair around my face that had broken free from my tired bun. “It was irresponsible to propose marriage, reckless even. I realize that now. Love isn’t about instant gratification, it’s about showing up for the journey and riding out all the twists and turns along the way . . . together.” He brought our joined hands to his mouth and kissed my knuckles. “I’m not suggesting we need to figure anything out tonight, but I am hoping we can take it a day at a time, even if that means I’m your goofy friend who comes around once a month to draw panda sketches in a notebook with Aria.”

  “I have zero objections to that plan,” I added, choking back tears.

  “Our story is an original, Lauren. And I’m more than okay with waiting on the next chapters to be written.” Joshua moved in and pressed his lips against my forehead. “I love you. More now than I did six months ago. And there is not a doubt in my mind that I will love your daughter just as fiercely.”

  “I love you, too. So, so much.” I wrapped my arms around his middle and nestled my head against him. I needed to hear his heartbeat. To feel the rise and fall of his chest. To convince myself this was how our story would continue, not how it would end. “This is really happening? You’re really staying?”

  He held me tighter. “I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

  Not far from where we embraced, Aria stirred on the couch. We rotated to face the living room just in time to see her twist and press her nose into the back sofa cushion. Nothing about her position looked even remotely comfortable.

  Joshua eyed me. “Do you think she’d be happier in her own bed?”

  “Probably.” I had a monitor in the kitchen and one on the nightstand in my bedroom, but the thought of trying to hike those stairs with her limp frame in my arms again was—

  “I’ll get her if you can get her blankets.”

  “You’ll carry her up?”

  “Of course,” he said with a slight tease in his voice. “I wouldn’t want to strain those puny biceps of yours.”

  I punched his arm, and he chuckled.

  He started toward the sofa, then hesitated. “Wait—if she wakes, I don’t want to freak her out.”

  “I really don’t think she will.” At least she hadn’t any of the times I’d attempted and failed such a maneuver.

  “Well, you better stay close behind us, Mama. Just in case.”

  “I will.”

  He bent to one knee and slid his arms underneath her slumbering form, as if he’d been doing such a maneuver for years. She curled into him, mumbling incoherently before falling back into her deep breathing pattern once more.

  As the three of us moved up the staircase together, my daughter cradled in Joshua’s strong arms and her favorite blanket and stuffed panda cradled in mine, I couldn’t help but think of how much our lives had changed since that first day in Mrs. Walker’s classroom, back when Joshua pretended to be a T-Rex for a room of children while I pretended to have my entire future figured out.

  Neither one of us could have imagined this.

  I shuffled in front of him to pull Aria’s bedcovers back and turn on her princess night-light. He gently laid her down, then backed away to allow me space to tuck the blankets in around her body and kiss her forehead.

  Back in the hallway, Joshua reached for my hand, saying nothing as we gazed into Aria’s dimly lit bedroom through a doorway I once doubted would ever be open.

  “When’s her birthday?” Joshua asked.

  “September twenty-seventh. Why?”

  Joshua shook his head as if he’d just made a discovery.

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you tell me you started feeling the nudge to adopt about five years ago, when Benny came into your classroom?”

  “Actually, it will be . . .” I stared up at him, my eyes rounding as the calculation unfolded. “Six years. This September.”

  “The same age as Aria,” we said at the same time.

  Awe overwhelmed me at the thought of God’s intricate and grand design. Six years ago, when Aria’s birth mother made the heartbreaking sacrifice to surrender her sickly daughter over to the Chinese welfare system for reasons I’d never judge, and likely never know this side of heaven, God was already at work, preparing my heart and growing my faith for the call to adopt one of His precious children as my daughter.

  Six years before I called her mine.

  Joshua squeezed my hand. “We can trust His plan and His timing, Lauren.”

  “Yes.” I nodded, tears shimmering in my eyes. “And we’ll take it one day at a time.”

  For Aria.

  For each other.

&n
bsp; And for the much greater story at work within us all.

  Acknowledgments

  To my God, the Ultimate Storyteller: I pray my life will always reflect your deep, abiding love and grace. Thank you for loving me enough to show me where I’m weak so that you may be strong. I am nothing without you.

  To my husband, Tim: Four years ago, on our twelfth anniversary, all I wanted was to finish eating my molten lava cake and enjoy the beautiful lakefront scenery . . . and yet you had something else in mind when you carefully and kindly brought up a conversation about stewardship in reference to orphan care. Though we had sought adoption together several times, the timing, for one reason or another, was never right. Thank you for being sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s prompting after I’d closed (and locked) that particular door. Thank you for your tremendous patience as I wrestled my frustrations and fears out with Jesus, and for your grace to withstand my many, MANY freak-outs along our adoption journey. Once again, you saw the more I was too scared to believe in, and yet here we are, with a daughter who has expanded our heart and family in ways unimagined. You continue to lead our family well, and I am so proud to be your wife and adventure partner. You have always been my number-one fan, and I will always be yours.

  To my kiddos, Preston, Lincoln, and Lucy: I am so proud to be your mama and even prouder to watch God at work in all of your lives. You are all passionate, kind, and dream-oriented, and I pray you always continue to press in to Jesus.

  To my family: Thank you for opening your hearts to the idea of adoption even when it was little more than an item on our prayer list. Your faithfulness, encouragement, and support of our God-given calling was often what kept us going in the hard moments. We are blessed beyond measure to have parents and families who honor and uphold the heart of Christ. I (we) love you.

  To Tammy Gray and Connilyn Cossette: You are my secret weapons, and I never ever want to write a story without either of you. I’m SO grateful that God joined our paths together when He did. Thank you for your MANY read-throughs of this book and for believing in the heart of my premise even before I put a single word on the page. You both challenge me to be the best version of me I can be, and yet you love me just the same. Here’s to many more books together and many more years of friendship.