Moving Forward in Reverse

by Scott Martin

  ‘Katarina?’ I probed. ‘Do you think we could get Nadia’s foster parents to pose for a picture with her? Ellen and I would like something for Nadia to remember them by.’

  ‘Oh, of course! I’m sure it won’t be a problem.’ Katarina turned to the couple, hastily translating my request with a few vague hand gestures and a heartening tone. When her query earned two assenting nods, I nudged Ellen and we pushed to our feet with grateful smiles. After some Romanian discourse, it was determined that the picture should be taken outside. We all shuffled from the house to the square of front porch where a luscious green vine climbed the corner of the house, white flowers sprouting in sporadic clusters along its length.

  The wife called to Nadia who skittered over to stand between her foster parents, wrapping one hand around the first two fingers of her foster father’s left hand and bunching the other fist in her foster mother’s dress. Katarina, Ellen, and the couple’s daughter clustered behind my right side as I lifted the camera. .

  ‘Okay, ready?’ I called cheerily, smiling encouragingly from behind the viewfinder. ‘One … Two … Three.’ I pressed the button and watched the trio blink out of sight then return, frozen in a single instant on my screen.

  ‘All right,’ I said, looking up from the image of the shyly smiling couple and my daughter eyeing the small crowd to my right with open curiosity. ‘All finished. Thank you!’

  After more hastily translated conversation, a clothes change on Nadia’s part (assisted by the couple’s daughter), and a series of effusively ardent goodbyes translated in hugs and kisses, we followed Katarina back to the car. Nadia skipped between us, seeming not in the least worried about heading off with these near strangers. As Ellen slid into the backseat of the car and Katarina encouraged Nadia to do the same, I had a suspicion that Katarina had also had a hand in Nadia’s easy willingness to leave.

  She probably told Nadia we’re going to see her brother, I thought as I slid into the car beside Nadia and closed the door behind us. Good thinking.

  When Katarina started the engine and we began to roll away, Ellen glanced down at the little round head of our daughter, an adoring smile curving her lips. When her eyes met mine she grinned and winked. I let out a whale of a sigh, releasing some of the tension that had ridden with me since we left the States.

  One down; one to go, I thought with a wistful smile. We were almost home free.

  ~~~

  Similar to Nadia’s foster parent’s home, the apartment in which Danny had been staying was meticulously clean and moderately furnished; what little furniture they had showed wear but little signs of dirt or dust. Again reminiscent of Nadia’s foster parents, Danny’s foster mother greeted us with an ebullience that eclipsed the scarcity with which she lived. Her frizzy, black ponytail bobbed behind her head as she nodded welcomingly towards Ellen, Nadia, and I, prattling on in rapid Romanian to Katarina.

  ‘Danny’s playing outside,’ Katarina explained during a lull in our hostess’s dialogue. ‘Andrei will go get him.’

  Andrei was a tall, lean young man with short-cropped black hair which hinted at harboring his mother’s frizz, who, at his mother’s summons, detached himself from the wall against which he’d been leaning. His eyes peered at us from beneath a prominent brow, his head angled humbly downwards as he ducked around us to the front door at our backs.

  I glanced down at Nadia, stationed between Ellen and I with one hand contentedly wrapped about the first two fingers of the right myo and the other lost in Ellen’s gentle grasp. Nadia was ogling everything around her with wide eyes, wondering, I was sure, what this place had to do with her brother. I wanted to squeeze her hand reassuringly, but didn’t trust the myos not to frighten her with their cat-screeching cry. He’s coming, I thought instead, consoling, I realized, only myself. He’ll be here soon.

  Danny’s foster mother was speaking in Romanian again, her tone animated and eager. I smiled, watching her hands fly about her face as she spoke. Katarina laughed and said something in return. Before she could offer a translation to include Ellen and I in the conversation, a gust of air brushed against our backs. The front door had opened.

  My heart rate surged inside my chest. I stole myself for the sight of my son and glanced down to prod Nadia to do the same. But she was gone. Her hand had slipped from the myo unbeknownst by me.

  I spun around. Anxiety trolled through my gut. I had come for a son and ended up losing a daughter. As I came to face the door, all thoughts and fears stopped.

  There she was, my little girl in her new blue jean dress, her arms wrapped around a smaller, brown-haired boy: Danny. All I could see of him was the top of his head and his pudgy hands flung about his sister’s back. I watched their reunion with stinging eyes, a tension across my chest making breathing difficult. If this was reuniting, I didn’t want to imagine what their separation must have been like.

  Never again, I vowed silently. Never again would they be separated.

  Nadia pulled away from Danny and looked down at her new dress, tittering in Romanian as she grabbed the hem and pulled it out from her body on both sides. Danny’s foster mother clucked over her (also in Romanian) and soon Nadia was twirling around for all of us to admire her new clothes again.

  ‘Oh, here,’ Ellen said, stepping forward when Danny started to look pouty. ‘We brought some for you, too.’ She held out the army-green nylon shorts with an elastic waistband, yellow and white cotton t-shirt, and pint-sized, white Velcro sneakers, and his face instantly brightened. After seeing his sister model her new attire, Danny eagerly made a fumbling grab for the gifted clothes, causing the shoes to tumble to the floor in his clumsy haste. His foster mom stepped forward to collect the fallen items, prattling a few words in Romanian before taking his hand to lead him into a back room past the kitchen.

  ‘She’s going to help him change,’ Katarina explained, adding, ‘and apparently so is she’ with a laugh when Nadia glanced at us then scampered off after her brother. We waited patiently while the undressing and re-dressing took place. I tried to quell the impatience that jittered inside of me, anxious to have our children home with us in the United States.

  When Danny and Nadia reemerged, scurrying back into the room like a couple of pups racing for the same bone, we came to attention and made encouraging sounds of approval at both children’s outfits. After snapping a few adoring pictures of Danny with his foster mother, Katarina, Ellen, the kids, and I said our goodbyes. Standing on the threshold of this meager apartment, giving well-wishes in English that only Katarina and we could understand, Nadia and Danny two giddy balls of energy at our feet, I knew nothing could compare to this moment.

  ~~~

  A sentimental smile stirred across my face when my eyes found Danny and Ellen sleeping across the aisle as we flew the last six-hour leg of our journey home. They were a perfect pair: Danny, his head in Ellen’s lap, feet flopping over the edge of the seat and lips parted in sleep; and Ellen, her head lulling towards him, lips with just a hint of a frown and eyelashes a dark curve against her cheeks as she dozed with one hand resting on Danny’s back, gently rising and falling with his breathing. I shook my head in near disbelief. This was it. They were ours. Five years earlier I wouldn’t have thought anything could mean more to me than reaching the Division I level of collegiate soccer. Eight years ago, I was just coming out of a coma and learning my life would never be the same.

  Never would have guessed, I thought as my eyes strayed to Nadia, leaning against my left side with my arm draped over her like a protective blanket, that this was where I was headed and that it could mean so much more to me than where I thought I was going.

  Seventeen months I’d been hoping for this, whereas I’d dedicated over seventeen years to coaching soccer. And yet, it was this moment, looking at the poignant scene of my wife, son, and little girl all soundly asleep at my sides, which would come to bring me such peaceful contentment. All my prior aspirations seemed paltry in comparison. That this moment could imbue me wit
h such ineffable tenderness and joy; feelings so raw and encompassing as to only be describable in their physical symptoms: a clenching of my abdomen, weightlessness in my chest, and a hot restriction in my throat that rose upwards as if floating up from my heart and into my eyes where it settled to a simmering sting – an oddly welcome burn.

  I leaned my head back in repose, knowing I wouldn’t sleep. Perhaps it was my parental instincts kicking in, or just the understanding that this was what I had been fighting for: this heart-wrenching, mercifully unhindered moment when I could finally know we were home free.

  During the New York to Seattle leg, the captain, who had probably been walking the cabin to stretch his legs, asked if Nadia and Danny could visit the cockpit. As I watched the kids look out from the pilots’ perspective, little did I know that this would be one of the final times any children would have such an experience. This was August 2001.

  35

  Rrribbit

  After getting acquainted with the dogs – an at-first-frightful but ultimately tongue-licking-good welcome home – we showed Nadia and Danny the rest of the house. They were adequately round-eyed and eager to explore as we guided them from room to room, ending with Mama and Tata’s room and, ultimately, their own bedroom. Ellen pushed the door open and stepped back to let Nadia and Danny enter first. She kept one hand on the door as they inched across the threshold with dilated eyes slowly taking it all in.

  ‘Wow,’ Nadia said softly, her eyes following a trail of frog and butterfly wall stickers over one of the beds.

  ‘Wowww,’ Danny echoed, looking at the short bookcase with its collection of children’s books resting in stacks or standing upright on each of its shelves. On the top shelf, squatting beside the dark green face on the cover of Who’s There?, was a forest green frog with a lime green belly who said, ‘Rrrribbit’ anytime you squeezed its snout.

  Ellen slowly drifted into the room after them, walking up to Nadia and lifting her onto the mattress of her bed on the left side of the room. Nadia looked down at the vibrant bedspread upon which she now sat, running her fingers over the Lilly pads and flowers. Danny waddled over, reaching for Ellen to lift him up so he, too, could sit on a bed.

  After settling Danny on his own mattress, Ellen walked to the head of Nadia’s bed and lifted her hand to point to the red, green, yellow, and orange letters on the bookshelf over the bed.

  ‘N-A-D-I-A,’ Ellen said, her finger hovering in front of each letter in turn. ‘Nadia.’

  Turning to Danny, she repeated the process for him: ‘D-A-N-I-E-L. Daniel.’

  I watched them study Ellen attentively, their eyes following the path of her finger, absorbing the sounds of her words. Nadia and Danny Martin, I mouthed. My kids, home at last. As the thought sank in, I felt the same debilitating emotions I had succumbed to on the plane over Middle America resurface in full force. Never could I have even begun to imagine the fulminant feelings which overcame me in moments such as these: the intense devotion and rapture; the fervid yearning that made me want to hold them in my arms forever and always; and the heart-wrenching enchantment that somehow, through all the hardships and handicaps, I had found my way here.

  Standing just inside the door of my children’s room, finally seeing it as it was meant to be seen, full of life and childhood, I was torn between the role of observer and active participant. Dare I advance further and risk disrupting this pure perfection? Or stay where I was, tortured by the same longing which had plagued me all throughout our adoption process: the need to hold my kids in the shelter of my arms.

  Before leaving Romania, we had stolen a few days for a first-ever family vacation by the Black Sea. It was Nadia and Danny’s inaugural trip to the beach and the moment Ellen and I released them on the sand they tore off into the water. Being unable to run, I left it to Ellen to keep pace with our two youngsters and took it upon myself to stake out a beach chair on a dry patch of sand upon which I could recline. With myoelectric hands, I was taking a risk simply sitting on the sand; building sand castles and taking dips in the salt water were strictly off-limits. So I settled into a beach chair near the action, resigning myself to a spectator’s role in that particular adventure.

  Oh, but the sight of them playing, laughing, and making memories proved too much to bear. In the end, I kicked off the slippers I’d worn to hide the prosthetic feet, yanked my long-sleeve t-shirt over my head, and tugged my forearms free of the myos. Prosthetic hands may not have been seaworthy, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t.

  As I waded into the water where my family played, Ellen looked up at me and nodded. Danny rubbed the ends of my arms then looked at his hands, saying something in Romanian which I assumed to be along the lines of, ‘Where are your hands?’. I smiled at him as Nadia came barreling up to join us, feet plastered with a thick layer of wet sand.

  ‘Come on!’ I said and scooped Nadia into my arms. She let out a joyous squeal and threw her arms around my neck. ‘We’ve got a wave to catch.’

  With her held against my chest by what remained of my forearms and her mirthful giggles filling my ears, we waded into the sea together. As the frigid waters lapped at my thighs and then my waist, I sucked in a startled breath of amazement. I was in public, on a beach in nothing more than my soccer shorts and I couldn’t care less.

  If people stared or made comments as I carried Nadia then Danny into the surf, I didn’t notice. All I was aware of were the happy cheers of my children as they discovered the wonders of the sea. I could have stayed on the sand, wearing my arms and long-sleeved shirt to shield me from judgments and shame. I could have stayed on the sand, hovering in the background where no one would notice me. I could have stayed on the sand, but I waded into the water instead.

  ~~~

  Now, watching my wife and children from the doorway of Nadia and Danny’s new room as I wavered between moving forward into the fray and staying back out of the way, it was the opposite of surreal: a scene so real, so raw it almost hurt to look at it. This – this was reality; it was everything else which was artificial and hollow. Finally, I could understand how life was meant to be lived.

  I couldn’t take it anymore, this watching and stillness. So much of my life already had been wasted in repose, waiting, anticipating, slowly rebuilding for the day when I could interact again. I wouldn’t sideline myself in my own children’s lives. I refused to let The Fog keep me distant; I had too much to live for now.

  So I turned quietly to face the door, took the first step towards leaving and, on a whim, reached the right myo out to squeeze the mouth of the stuffed frog.

  ‘Rrribbit!’ he called, making Nadia and Danny laugh with surprise. I knew then I’d squeeze that frog every minute of every day if I had to, to hear that laughter again.

  ~~~

  They have no idea how to swing. I thought and winced at the notion of three and four year olds who had never sat in a swing. It was their first full day in the States and I had taken Nadia and Danny outside to explore their play structure, showing them where their names were engraved onto a plaque attached to the beam from which the swings hung and then helping each kid into one of the bright green sling seats. Several minutes later, I was standing out of the swing-zone, watching in mortified realization as Nadia and Danny sat, hands wrapped around the plastic-covered chain of the swings and toes straining towards the tanbark below in an effort to find traction. They were grinning as if it was the greatest fun in the world, even as they futilely kicked their feet above the ground as if splashing in a pool rather than sitting on a swing.

  They’ve missed out on so much, I thought in mild despair. I couldn’t help facing the growing realization that they were farther behind their American counterparts than I’d originally thought. Having been raised in an orphanage rather than a stable family home, coupled with the fact that they were born in Romania rather than the U.S., meant they were setback twofold.

  Well, I thought as I squared my shoulders, I guess we’ve got a lot of catching up to do. With a de
eply indrawn breath, I forced the disheartenment from my expression and strode to Danny, still smiling at his toes ineffectually hovering a foot off the ground. I lifted him from his seat, ignoring the dismayed whimper such action elicited, and plopped onto the swing myself.

  ‘Swing,’ I said and pushed off the ground, demonstrating the forward-and-backward pumping motion meant to be used. ‘Watch me. Out –’ I told Nadia beside me, and extended my legs before me – ‘and in –’ I bent my knees and brought my feet beneath me. ‘Out . . . In. . . Out. In. There you go. Now you’ve got it!’

  Once Nadia was gaining momentum, I gave Danny his swing back and helped him get a jump-start.

  ‘That’s right.’ I lifted my arms like a maestro before his orchestra and began to conduct my swingers.

  ‘Out!’ I called and threw my arms wide. ‘In!’ I shouted and brought my arms towards my chest. ‘Out –’ arms spread like wings at my sides; ‘In –’ arms cupped to my chest. ‘Out. In. Out. In.’

  A few minutes of my directing and I had them harmonized like a classical symphony. As I watched them gain height and coordination alongside my instructions and saw their faces light up with an excited sense of accomplishment, thoughts of all the other childhood games they were missing began to accumulate in my mind. They’d learned basic swinging and slides now, but there was still the tire swing and monkey bars and rings and see-saws left to discover. Not to mention all the other playground games like catch and tag. Who would teach them that? I wondered. I may have been able to pull off swings, but how was a man who couldn’t throw a ball or run ever going to teach his children how to play catch and tag?