by L. N. Cronk
“I just want to get better.”
“How will you know when you’re better?”
“I’ll be a good dad and a good husband.”
“You don’t think you’re a good dad and a good husband?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Not right now. I can’t do anything right now. I feel . . . I kinda feel like I’m underwater.”
She nodded.
“Can you fix me?” I asked, glancing at her again.
She laughed outright. “You know my specialty is eating disorders, right?”
I smiled back at her.
“Okay,” she said, bringing her hands together. “Let me get this straight. You want me to ‘fix’ you, but you don’t want to take drugs, have a psychological breakthrough, or get in touch with your inner feelings. That sound about right?”
I nodded at her.
“Okay,” she agreed with another kind smile on her face. “Here’s a couple of things that I think you should do.”
~ ~ ~
THE FIRST THING Danica wanted me to do was to force myself to get out of the house and go do something fun – whether I felt like having fun or not. I had to admit that I had felt better on Saturday when we’d all spent the day on the lake than I had at any other point since Amber had left. So that evening, after Mike and Danica had gone, I called Tanner. Then I went into my office where Dorito was sitting in front of the computer, playing a game.
He turned to look at me when I came in.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
I sat down on the couch.
“I just talked to Tanner,” I said.
“About what?”
“About fishing. He says he can take us next Saturday – we can get up early in the morning and go all day. Just the three of us.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t wanna go.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to,” he said again, returning to his game.
“Why not?”
“I dunno,” he shrugged, clicking away at his keyboard.
“Dorito,” I said, sternly. He turned reluctantly to look at me. “Why don’t you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” he said again. “I just don’t want to.”
I looked at him for a minute. He stared back at me resolutely.
“Okay,” I finally said. “If you change your mind, let me know.”
He nodded and went back to his game and I walked out into the hall. I stopped at the top of the stairs, wondering about what had just happened. Never before in his life had Dorito turned down a chance to go fishing – ever. I stood there for a moment, thinking, and after I’d thought for a minute I turned around and went back into the office.
“Hi,” I said again.
“Hi.”
“Got a minute?”
He gave me something between a nod and a shrug and turned to face me. I sat down on the couch again and patted the spot next to me. “Come sit here,” I said.
He got up and came over, sitting down next to me.
I put my arm around him and gave him a squeeze.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too.”
“Dorito?”
He looked up at me, expectantly. I looked back into his black eyes.
“You miss Amber,” I said, gently. “Don’t you?”
He nodded slightly.
“I do, too,” I said, nodding. “I haven’t felt like doing much of anything since she left.”
He didn’t answer me.
“But,” I went on, “we’ve got each other and we still have our lives to live. We have to keep going.”
He still didn’t say anything.
“I know it’s hard,” I said.
He just looked at me.
“But we have to go on. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
He nodded.
“So, will you go fishing with me?”
He shook his head slowly.
“Why not, Dorito?”
Tears welled up in his eyes and he looked down into his lap and shook his head some more.
“Dorito,” I said, wrapping my arm around him again. I tipped his chin up toward me so that he was looking at me again. “Dorito, we need to do this. We need to get out of here and go fishing together. Or we can go to the gun range and get some target practice in or we can go to the park and ride our bikes or-”
He started crying hard, bringing his hands up to cover his face.
I stopped talking to him and just held him for a bit and let him cry. I kissed his hair and rested my cheek on the top of his head while he sobbed.
“I’m sorry,” he finally choked.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” I told him. “It’s okay to cry.” (Crying was actually the other thing that Danica had wanted me to work on.)
“No,” he said. “It’s my fault.”
“What?” I asked, not sure I’d heard him correctly.
“It’s my fault.”
“What’s your fault?”
“That Amber’s gone.”
“What? That’s ridiculous! It’s not your fault.”
“Yes, it is,” he wept.
“Dorito,” I said, shaking him gently. “How is it your fault that Amber’s gone?”
“I was mad at her,” he cried. “I wanted her to go away.”
I felt my breath catch in my throat.
“Dorito,” I said quietly. “That’s not why she’s gone.”
“Yes it is,” he insisted. “I told God I didn’t want her to be my sister anymore.”
I tipped his chin so that he was facing me.
“I didn’t mean it,” he whispered desperately.
“I know you didn’t,” I said. “Just because you prayed something like that doesn’t mean that’s why Amber’s gone. That’s not how it works.”
“How does it work?” he asked in a small voice, looking at me, pleadingly.
I have no idea.
I shook my head at him.
“God has a plan for us,” I said. “For you, for me, for Amber. He would never take Amber away just because you prayed something like that. He’s not going to take her away unless that’s what was going to be best.”
“Best for who?”
“Best for all of us.”
“How is it best for us?” he wanted to know.
“I . . . I don’t know,” I admitted. “But one day we will know. One day we’ll see that God had everything under control – even when we couldn’t figure out what He was doing.”
I could tell that he wasn’t too convinced, but it was the best I could do.
“But, Dorito,” I went on, “I know one thing for sure. I know that it is not your fault that Amber is gone. I know you feel bad about what you did, but you have to know that it’s not your fault. It’s not.”
He buried his face into my chest and let me hold him for another minute. Finally he sat up and wiped his eyes.
“I really do want to go fishing with you,” I said, cupping his chin toward me again. “Will you come?”
He nodded.
“Good,” I smiled. “Somebody’s gotta help me keep Tanner in line.”
So. Thing number two. Crying.
Danica had said that I needed to grieve over losing Amber. She said that it wasn’t good that I hadn’t cried since Amber had left.
When Laci had made the photo album for Amber, she had made one for us at the same time, so now I poured over it every day – remembering Amber and missing her. I grieved for her like Danica had told me to and it hurt. It hurt a lot. But bit by bit, things actually started to get better and I found that each day it hurt a little less. Forcing myself to get out and do fun stuff seemed to help too. The fishing trip with Tanner appeared to send Dorito on his way to getting better as well, and by the time the leaves started changing at the beginning of October, things seemed almost normal.
~ ~ ~
THE SECOND FRIDAY in October had been an optional teacher w
orkday and Tanner had picked Dorito up early in the morning to “help” him coach the high school football team’s three-hour practice. Tanner had planned to take Dorito out to lunch afterward and then swing by the house to pick me up so that we could all go to the gun range to site in our rifles for deer season in the afternoon.
Lily – who had the capacity to keep herself entertained like no child I’d ever seen before – was in her bedroom, playing with her stuffed animals. Earlier, when I had walked by her room, I’d noticed that she had about twenty of them spread across the floor of her room, each with a little piece of fake, plastic food sitting in front of them. In an effort to force myself to have fun, I had stepped into Lily’s room and joined them all for a mid-morning snack.
Just before lunch I was in my office, researching some materials for a project in Massachusetts, when the doorbell rang. I didn’t pay much attention to it, but I guess in the back of my mind I figured it was Tanner (even though that made absolutely no sense at all because Tanner never bothered to knock or ring the bell and it was way too early for him to be bringing Dorito home anyway). I didn’t think about this though. I ignored the bell and let Laci get the door.
Soon I heard voices – Laci talking to someone. It wasn’t until the conversation had been going on for quite a while that it registered with me that the dialogue was in Spanish, that Laci wasn’t talking to Tanner, and that I had absolutely no idea who was in our house.
I got up and went down the stairs and into the living room. There was a heavy-set Hispanic woman, probably in her mid- forties, seated on the couch next to Laci. They both looked up when I came into the room. Laci spoke first.
“Me gustaría que conozcas a mi esposo,” Laci said, her voice strangely unsteady. I’d like for you to meet my husband. “Este es David.”
The woman stood up.
“David,” Laci said, gesturing to the woman. “Esta es Savanna Escalante.”
“Hola,” I said, extending my hand toward her. She tentatively shook it. I sat down in a chair and Savanna Escalante and Laci returned to the couch. I looked at Laci.
You know how thoughts can run through your mind very quickly? How – in just a second – your mind can manage to develop an entire scenario to explain something that doesn’t make sense to you?
There’s a strange woman in my living room speaking Spanish. We have lived here for over three years. Dorito was starting to lose some of his Spanish. We still tried to speak it frequently and keep him fluent, but it wasn’t the same as having him immersed in it like he’d been when we lived in Mexico.
In a flash, that’s what I figured this must be about – that Laci had hired someone to help Dorito keep up with his Spanish. I sat on the couch and smiled at her and wondered how much she charged and if we really needed to hire someone and why hadn’t Laci talked to me about this first?
And then Laci spoke.
“David,” she said, looking at me. “Mrs. Escalante came here to see us from Mexico City.”
Laci’s eyes searched my face, trying to make sure that she had my attention.
“She came here to meet Dorito,” she said slowly.
“Uh-huh,” I nodded and looked back at the woman. I was still smiling. I wondered if we shouldn’t consider hiring someone who was already a US citizen so that we didn’t have to worry about employment regulations and everything. I wondered why Laci hadn’t made arrangements for her to meet Dorito when Dorito was actually here . . .
“David,” Laci said. She was still searching my face and when I looked back at her, her eyes locked into mine.
“What?” I felt my smile disappear.
“Mrs. Escalante . . .” Laci seemed unable to go on. She looked as if she were on the verge of tears.
“What?” I asked again. “What’s going on?”
“She’s here,” Laci said, swallowing hard, “because . . .”
“Because what?” I asked when she stopped once more.
Laci took a moment, apparently resolving to finish her sentence the next time she spoke.
“She’s here,” Laci finally said, looking at me nervously, “because she’s Dorito’s biological mother.”
~ ~ ~
“WHAT?”
“MRS. ESCALANTE is Dorito’s mother.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head back and forth.
“Yes,” Laci said.
“Dorito no es su hijo,” I told her.
Dorito is not your son.
“Sí,” she said, nodding emphatically. “Sí, hablé con el orfanato. Mi niño está aquí con usted.”
Yes. Yes, I spoke with the orphanage. My little boy is here with you.
“Tú no sabes eso,” I said to Mrs. Escalante. You don’t know that.
“Sí. Sí lo sé. Mi hijo está aquí contigo.”
Yes. Yes, I do. My son is here with you. She was nodding her head vigorously. “Me gustaría verlo.”
I would like to see him.
“Absolutely not!” I said. “¡Absolutamente no!”
“David!” Laci cried.
“She’s not seeing him,” I snapped.
“Él estaba en el parque-”
He was in the park-
“¡Tú no sabes nada de él!” I insisted. You don’t know anything about him.
“Mi esposo lo llevó al parque,” she tried to tell me.
My husband took him to the park.
I pointed at the door. “Get out! ¡Fuera!”
“Sólo quiero verlo.”
I just want to see him.
“I want you to leave now!” I shouted over Laci’s protests. She either spoke a bit of English or she figured out my body language pretty quick, because she stood up and followed me to the door.
“No quiero causar problemas . . .”
I don’t want to cause any problems . . .
“Please,” Laci was saying. “David, please listen to her!”
“No, Laci!” I yelled at her. “Shut-up!”
I opened the door and indicated to Savanna Escalante that she should leave. She was talking a blue streak now, I could barely catch any of what she was saying. When she got outside and turned around to face me, there were tears streaming down her cheeks. I slammed the door in her face and wheeled on Laci. She had tears on her cheeks too.
“You don’t even know what she wanted!” Laci cried.
“She wants to take my son away from me!”
“You don’t know that! The least you could have done was-”
But I wasn’t listening. I was already halfway down the hall and into the bathroom, slamming the door on her too.
I rushed to the toilet, leaned over it, and threw up.
~ ~ ~
AFTER I THREW up, I sank down against the wall and drew my knees up to my body, resting my head on them and sobbing quietly.
You cannot take Dorito too, I begged God. I will not survive if You take him away from me. Please don’t take Dorito away too. PLEASE DO NOT take Dorito away from me.
I don’t know how long I sat there like that, pleading with God to not let me lose Dorito, but when I finally finished I had resolved that I was going to do whatever was within my power to keep that woman from taking Dorito from me. I stood and washed my face and then I pulled my phone out and called Tanner.
“Hi, Daddy!”
“Dorito . . .” I said, my lungs barely able to draw in any air.
“Tanner let me answer his phone,” he said.
“I see that.”
“‘Cause he knew it was you.”
“I love you,” I told him, my voice catching. I felt fresh tears stinging my eyes.
“I love you, too,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Do I have to go home now?”
“Pretty soon,” I said.
“Awwww,” he said. “We just got here!”
“Where?”
“Wilma’s,” he said. “I’m getting a footlong hotdog.”
“A footlong,” I said. “Wow! Can I talk to Tanner?”
“Okay.”<
br />
After a moment Tanner came on the line.
“Yo, what’s up?”
“Don’t let Dorito out of your sight, okay?”
“What?”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Wait for me. Don’t leave him alone for one second.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Everything. I don’t know. Just . . . just wait there for me and don’t take your eye off of him. Okay?”
“Okay,” Tanner said, and then, “do you want me to bring him home?”
I closed my eyes.
“No,” I said after a moment. “I’ll come there. Just . . . just enjoy your hotdogs and I’ll see you in a little bit. But don’t leave him.”
“I won’t.”
I hung up the phone and opened the door to the bathroom. I found Laci sitting on the floor in the hallway. She looked up at me with a tear-streaked face.
“You can’t keep him from her,” she said quietly. “It’s not right.”
“Not right?!” I exclaimed. “You wanna know what’s not right, Laci?”
She looked at me.
“What’s not right is that anybody who wants to can just have a baby and then decide that maybe they’ll take care of it or maybe they won’t! Maybe they’ll just leave it in the park because they didn’t feed him right and so he got rickets and now he can’t walk and they’re like, ‘Oh! I don’t wanna take care of him anymore!’”
I saw new tears come in to Laci’s eyes. I kept going.
“It’s not right that somebody can have a little girl and then decide that they’d rather do drugs or something instead of taking care of her and so then she has to go into a foster home and get molested by some perverted teenager!”
The tears rolled down Laci’s cheeks.
“But do you want to know what’s REALLY not right, Laci?” I yelled. She started crying harder. “What’s really not right is that people like you and me try to help these kids and we fall in love with them and then these lousy excuses for parents can come in and just take them back any time they want and you and I are left holding the pieces. That’s what’s not right!”
“You don’t know that she wants him back,” Laci cried quietly. “She just said she wanted to see him.”