by Sarah Willis
“They’re really thinking about me?”
“Yes, but the person you have to influence now is her GAL.”
“The guy in the suit?”
“His name is Larry Phillips.” She tells me where I can reach him.
“I should call him?”
“I would. It’s too late now. Try him Monday morning.”
“I will. God, I’m so sorry. I really hope it wasn’t because of me.”
Yolanda ignores my apology. “Listen, Alice, Larry’s got a bit of mud on his face right now, suggesting Larissa go home, putting it on record, then Mom not calling the police this time. He’s going to be very careful what he suggests next. He might recommend you, he might not.”
“Okay. I’ll try. My home study visit is Monday. Any suggestions?”
“No. Be yourself. She’s a nice woman. Erin. Oh, by the way, your fingerprints came back clean.”
I knew they would, but it’s still a relief. “How is she? Is she okay?”
“After being dragged screaming out of Mom’s arms? Physically, she’s fine. It’s what we’re doing to her right now that’s causing the damage.”
“Do you think she should be back with her mother?” I ask.
“I’ve seen worse, but she left her all alone, Alice. She lost her right to be a mother. She has to earn that back, and she’s not doing a very good job of it. I don’t like her personally, but that doesn’t matter. She has a right to be Larissa’s mother, if she gets her act together.”
“I meant what I said about taking you out for lunch.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll call this Larry guy. Thank you, again.”
I hang up, and call Polly, ask her if the mayor wrote the recommendation yet.
“Yeah. It’s pretty powerful. When she writes something like that she could sell snow to Eskimos.”
“Could it be delivered there Monday morning? To this guy?” I read her the name and tell her where to send it.
“Yeah. I’ll have the service take it over. You owe me, Alice.”
“I win the lottery, I’ll give the whole thing to you.”
“You have to play it first, Alice.”
“Now you sound like Vince.”
“He wasn’t always wrong, you know.”
“Well, how about ice cream at Hershey’s then? The works?”
“That’ll do it,” she says.
“Let me know when,” I say.
“I will,” she says. “Oh, I will.”
I decide to wait until Tuesday morning to call Larry Phillips, make sure he gets the mayor’s letter first, and the home study visit will be done by then. I can even fit in another foster parenting class on Saturday morning, before my lunch meeting with Ed, a college student who’s been a client for two years. Saturday I wake up feeling positive, energetic, hopeful, until, of course, halfway through the foster parenting class. Working with Sexually Abused Children. Now I have to worry about what her uncle might have done, if she has an uncle. Or a neighbor. Everyone has neighbors.
These classes are making me crazy.
I meet Ed for lunch at Jillian’s, a billiard hall that serves great hamburgers, or so Ed says. He’s a student at John Carroll University, working on a BS in psychology with a minor in philosophy. He’s already at a table when I get there, drinking a Coke.
Hi! I wave. Finish-you food order? I sign, lifting my eyebrows and making it a question. He signs Wait you come. Nice guy me.
A young girl comes over to take our order, and Ed writes on my pad what he wants. Hamburger, no lettuce, American cheese, grilled onions. I get a chicken sandwich. It’s been years since I ate a hamburger. When the waitress leaves, I sign, Books? Ed volunteered to pick up the textbooks the school gives me for his classes, since parking anywhere near the bookstore is impossible. He points to the floor, where a large canvas bag sits by his feet. The top book in the bag is a collection of Shakespeare’s plays, and I laugh, finger-spelling Ha-ha. Ed was born deaf and is fluent in ASL, but has some trouble with the English language. Last year, in jest, I suggested he try reading Shakespeare, that the syntax might be a little more to his liking. I can’t believe he really did it. Then again, I can.
I slap the side of my head then spread out my hands, palms up, moving them slightly in round, jerky motions. What were you thinking? Not ASL, but after two years together, we’ve come up with a few of our own favorite English phrases.
He grins. Shakespeare class and theater class. Both. Actor, maybe, me. Who knows?
I shake my head. What will the acting teacher think about having a deaf student?
The waitress brings over our lunch. “Everything okay?” she asks, forming the words carefully in case Ed lip-reads, which he can; he’d just prefer not to have to.
Ed nods.
“Good. Have a nice meal.” She says this slowly, with a flirty look on her face. Ed’s got a head of blond hair and muscles everywhere. She hardly glances at me.
He smiles at her shyly, then bends his blond head over his food. “Thanks,” I say, signing it also. She looks back at us as she walks away.
She likes you, I sign. Ask her out+date.
He shakes his head.
Too damn shy, I sign. Then I look down at the books on the floor. Too damn smart, too. The pile is two feet high. Shakespeare. Jesus.
Just behind us, someone breaks the balls on a billiard table. Someone else laughs loudly. Ed never even looks up.
Have schedule? I ask. I love interpreting for Ed, and another deaf student, Shaun. Shaun has some hearing and can read lips, but still misses a lot and uses an interpreter. He’s a goof and cool at the same time; he would have asked the waitress out, then we’d never be able to come back after he broke up with her a month later.
Ed shifts his weight and digs a folded-up piece of paper out of his back pocket, handing it over. His philosophy class is at night, seven-thirty to nine on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Night? Have to? I ask. He nods. I smile and shrug, but he catches the tightness of my smile.
What?
Problem, maybe. Maybe not. Wait see.
He raises his eyebrows.
I tell him I’m thinking about adopting a child. I don’t mention Larissa, or how we met. Ed is a friend, but we are limited in some ways by the student/interpreter relationship. I don’t want to get too personal. Still, he sees the hope in my eyes, how much this means to me. He signs Wow! You? Really? I nod, smile a little.
Good luck, he signs with a big smile.
Thanks, I sign. He’s got a great smile. The waitress comes back and asks if there’s anything else we need.
Polly calls me around eight. “Alice, I’m in Massachusetts,” she says. “My mom’s in the hospital.” She stops talking for a moment. “She had a brain embolism. It’s not good. Patrick’s here with me.”
The quaver in her voice makes my eyes well up. I swallow. “Oh God, Polly. I’m sorry. How is she?”
“She’s alive and breathing on her own. It was touch and go for a while. It was a big one. Now we just wait.”
“Can you talk to her?”
“Not yet.”
“Are your sisters there?” I need to know if there’s someone there for her to turn to. Then again, she has a husband.
“Bev just got here. Janice was here before me.”
“Should I come?”
She pauses, and I imagine her trying not to cry, getting it together. “No. Not now. Not yet. Thanks for asking.”
“You’re sure? I’ll come, really.” I could leave Monday, after the home study.
“No. It’s crazy here. Patrick just went to find us a hotel room. Bev and Janice are sleeping at Mom’s. I just wanted you to know.”
“I’ll be thinking of you, Polly, every minute. I’m so sorry.”
I can hear people talking in the background. It occurs to me that almost every time I talk to Polly on the phone, I hear people in the background.
We say good-bye. “Love you,” I add, but she has already h
ung up.
Chapter Thirteen
The home visit woman turns out to be a man. He apologizes as I stand gaping through the screen door. “Hi, my name’s Adam Harris. Erin slipped in the shower this morning and broke her wrist.”
“Ouch,” I say, opening the door.
“Yeah, sounds nasty to me, too. I’ve never broken a bone in my body, not yet.” He knocks three times against the wood frame of the doorway. He’s short and his nose is flattened as if it’s been broken more than once. His hair is black, but he has a gray goatee. He looks like a boxer trying to be a poet, and yet he’s carrying a thick black briefcase, with, I imagine, a clipboard inside, just like everyone else from Children and Family Services.
“Come on in.” I lead him into the living room.
“Can I put this down somewhere?” he asks, lifting the briefcase.
“Anywhere is fine,” I say casually, trying to sound as if I’m not too finicky. I was up until two last night arranging my house so it would look clean, but not fussy. I organized my interpreting manuals at pleasing angles on the coffee table, then whisked them off and piled them on a bookcase, then put them on the couch as if I’d just been reading them, then finally put them back on the table by the couch, but not so neatly. He places his briefcase next to them.
“You’re an interpreter?” he says.
“Yep,” I say, nodding once with my fist.
“That’s a sign?” he asks.
I do it again. “Yes, it is.” I’m trying to be friendly, but now I worry I’m coming off as a know-it-all. I put my hands behind me, tell them to behave.
He takes a clipboard out of his briefcase and fills in my name and address on the top sheet. It’s beginning to bother me how many people want my name and address.
“I’d like to look around the house first, if you don’t mind. Okay?”
I give him the tour. He bends down to check electrical sockets, looks up to check smoke detectors—even climbs up on a chair to make sure the batteries work, which I replaced yesterday. He asks which room I sleep in, although it has to be obvious, and what room a foster child would sleep in. He inspects my furnace, notes the temperature of my hot water tank, asks if I have an escape plan in case of a fire. I almost say Jump out the nearest window, but admit that I don’t. He says I need one, in writing. I will also need two fire extinguishers and a carbon monoxide detector. In the kitchen, he asks where I keep cleaning chemicals. He uses a friendly, pleasant tone of voice, trying to make me feel comfortable as he pries into my house like a doctor checking out a patient for lumps. I smile and thank him when he says everything seems okay.
“Now we have to sit and talk a while.”
I offer him coffee and we sit at my kitchen table, which I scrubbed to the bone the night before. There’s a plant on the table, and salt and pepper shakers. All my vitamins are on a high shelf, as if I do that all the time. I’m hoping a salt and pepper shaker are okay. Anything in my house might betray me.
He asks standard questions: my age, working hours, what neighbors I know, if I smoke cigarettes. Then he puts down his pen and says, “So tell me, why do you want to do this, be a foster parent?”
I’m not expecting this. I thought he was just going to check out my house. I tell him the story about the phone call, the police, the trip to the hospital, going down to Children and Family Services, my visit to Mrs. Hunt’s. He never shakes his head or rolls his eyes. He lets me tell the story without interruptions. No one has ever done that. I find myself looking in his eyes and glance away.
“That’s quite a story,” he says when I’m done.
I nod. Take a sip of my coffee. I wonder what he thinks of me.
“Okay,” he says. “Now for the really tough questions. I apologize up front if they offend you.” He picks up the pen again. At least he didn’t bring a tape recorder.
Folding my arms, I lean against the back of the chair. “Okay. Shoot.”
“Well now, how about that, to begin with. Any guns in your home?”
“No. None.”
“Does anyone come into your home who owns or carries guns?”
“No.”
“Does anyone who comes into your home do drugs?”
Not anymore, I think. He got hit by a car. I shake my head no.
“Who does come over?” He says it simply, but we both know it isn’t a simple question.
I pause. “My friends.”
“Do people sleep here overnight?”
I feel my face get hot. “Not for a while.”
“Sorry,” he says. “For asking, I mean.” Now he blushes. “I need to ask this though. When was the last time someone spent the night?”
“I really have to answer that?”
“You don’t really have to answer anything, but these are the questions I have to ask. You can plead the fifth, but it doesn’t look so good.” He smiles apologetically. I like him, which makes this all the more difficult.
“Over a year ago. Is that good enough?”
“Good enough.” We’re quiet for a moment. This is worse than a blind date. He’s going to leave knowing how old I am, what’s under my kitchen sink, and when the last time was that I had sex, and I don’t even know if he’s married.
There are more questions. How I plan on finding day care. How I would discipline my foster child. The distance to the school. Transportation to school. Am I on prescription drugs. Have I ever been clinically depressed. Sampson comes wandering in from a nap, and Adam asks if he’s up on his shots. I wonder if he thought of that on the spot, if he gets to ask any question he wants to. Do I pick my nose? Date short men? What is the limit here? I feel compelled to answer the most intimate questions. I’ve almost forgotten why he’s asking me all this when he hands me a stack of papers. “Your homework,” he says.
I look at the papers with dozens more questions. How much further can I go before I hate myself in the morning? I laugh. It just escapes.
“They’re pretty simple questions,” he says. “Some about your childhood, a few essays. Please answer them as fully as you can. I’ll pick them up next week when I come back to check off the missing items, the fire escape plan, extinguishers, and the carbon monoxide detector.”
The first essay question is, Explain one event growing up that had a profound effect on your life. I look back at him with obvious confusion.
“I know. But it’s for the best that we know who you are. You’ve been very frank so far. I think you’ll be a very good foster parent.” He puts his papers back into his briefcase, combs his hair back with his fingers. “Thanks for the coffee.” His hands are wide, his nails trimmed. There’s black hairs on the back of his fingers. I like his hands. I like the way he’s made me feel comfortable. He’s the opposite of the foster parenting classes. He makes this seem possible.
“You really think that? I’d be good at this?”
He stands. “Yes. I do.”
“Thanks.” I stand up, too. “That means a lot to me. After all, you go around interrogating people all the time. You should know.” I say it with a smile.
He laughs. He has a nice laugh, as if he’s having fun. “Get those fire extinguishers,” he says. He lowers his voice. “I’ll be back.” We both roll our eyes.
I watch him walk to his car. He as much as said I passed the test. And he has to come back.
I want to call Polly and tell her how well the visit went, but then I remember that she’s with her mother. At two o’clock I have a meeting with Shaun, the other student I interpret for. On the way home from that, I buy fire extinguishers, and a carbon monoxide detector, and some board games for kids. I get the ones I used to play. It’s amazing, the life of a board game. Love should last so long.
After dinner, I sit down to do my homework. I draw up a fire escape plan, crumpling up the one with the stick figure jumping out the window yelling “Help!” Then I tackle the questions. For one of the essays, I write about being a twin, how as a child I always thought everyone had a twin, and when I
found out that wasn’t true, I felt some great loss for the world, a terrible sadness—then I began to worry that twinless kids would steal my brother in the middle of the night. I tear that up, thinking about the psychiatrist that will probably be reading it. I write instead about having a deaf boy live on my street, and try to tie it all together with my desire to be an interpreter even though it isn’t true.
I think about Adam reading all this. I want to tell him things he didn’t ask.
Polly calls me again late at night. Her mother is able to talk, but her voice is slurred and her left side isn’t working well. The doctors are talking about sending her into a nursing home for rehab sometime next week. Polly’s going to stay there for a while. Once again I offer to come. Once again, she refuses. When I hang up, I wonder if my offer to come isn’t something like the offer to pay for the pizza she brought to my house. What if she said yes? Would I walk away from all that’s happening?
Tuesday morning I interpret at a PTA meeting in Mentor. From there, I go to the bank and to the grocery store. When I get home, there’s a message on the machine. It’s Larry Phillips. I was just going to call him. He says to call back as soon as possible.
Cradling the portable phone between my shoulder and my ear, I begin to put the groceries away as I wait for someone to find him. Then, as he speaks, I have to sit down.
I’m not sure if I’m hearing him right. He tells me they will bring Larissa over tomorrow if I can get validation of day care, and bring that and a few other things down to Children and Family Services by four o’clock today. He reads me a list of the paperwork I need. He sounds formal, not friendly. He sounds serious. I say, “Yes,” and “Of course,” and “I will.” Then he hangs up.
I’m getting Larissa. It’s so huge I can’t really believe it, can’t get my mind to think about what this means. I just go into action. I call the day care place that I talked to last week and ask if they still have a spot. I’ll need them only during school vacations. They say they do and that I can come over and get it in writing. I run upstairs, get my birth certificate and social security card out of my safe, grab my phone book, find my canceled checks for rent and utilities, check that I have the receipt for the fire extinguishers and carbon monoxide detector, pick up my fire escape plan and homework, run out of the house, and drive off. Only as I park my car behind Children and Family Services at two-thirty do I remember that I left the groceries out on the counter at home.