The Second Yes

by Amanda Tru

  I feel better now that I’ve prayed about it. Mom still wants to talk to me more about it tonight once she’s done working in the kitchen, but I’m not sure I’m in the mood. I really don’t want to start crying again. I’m getting way too old for that.

  Woong

  Well, yesterday I didn’t have time to do my writing assignment, so I guess it’s good I did two days’ worth Wednesday on account of Thursday being so busy. Mom decided that she wanted to go shopping for this wedding reenactment she’s been planning. And I’m old enough now I can stay home alone, but she doesn’t want me doing nothing but playing Wii and rotting my brain, so a lot of the time she makes me come with her.

  There’s something you need to know about shopping with my mom. It takes forever. First, we had to go to three different craft stores until Mom found the kind of fabric she wanted for one of the decorations. And then she realized that the first craft store had a sale going on that was better than the third, so after we got the fabric we needed, we went all the way back to the first one and got a whole bunch of other stuff there. Mom said I was doing a good job being patient, so I could pick out something as a treat but have you ever tried shopping for a present for a boy my age at a craft store?

  I decided to get a friendship bracelet kit and give it to Becky. It looked like something she might think was fun.

  Well, after all that running around, it was past lunchtime, but Mom wanted to go to one more store before we got anything to eat, and that store ended up taking forever because we ran into a woman from church while we were there, and she’s been having this hard time with something to do with her mom being in an old person’s home and stuff and nonsense like that, so Mom decided it'd be a good idea to stop her shopping and just stand there praying.

  So we finally got lunch, and the plan was to take it over to Dad’s office at the church to eat there because that’s what we like to do when we eat out, so Dad doesn’t feel like he missed out. But here’s the bad part. A few years ago, Dad got diagnosed with that disease called diabetes, so he’s basically had to be on a diet ever since or he gets too much sugar inside his blood. And so we had to go to the sandwich store and get him a salad instead of going for burgers at McDonald’s or something like that. And it’s the kind of sandwich store that doesn’t even serve French fries. You have to either get apple slices or yogurt.

  But we had fun eating with Dad, and Uncle Simon was there too. I didn’t think about it last night because I was so worried about Auntie and little Baby Grace, but I guess something like this is hard for Uncle Simon too. So he had lunch with us, except he can’t eat things made with milk, so I didn’t have to share any of my food on account of my sandwich having cheese on it and my yogurt being just plain old yogurt.

  We didn’t talk about the baby much with Uncle Simon. Actually, I hardly ever talk to Uncle Simon about anything at all, not because his English is that bad but because he’s super shy. Mom says that by the time you’re an adult, you might be quiet, but you probably aren’t shy, except I don’t think that applies in Uncle Simon’s case. But he’s really nice, and he smiles a lot, except today he didn’t look too happy.

  Well, of course, after we ate, Mom wanted to spend some time praying for Uncle Simon, and then we still had a lot of shopping to do for the food part of her ceremony. She wasn’t buying the food yet, which would be silly anyway since the reenactment isn’t until later on in the summer, but she had a few recipes she wanted to try, plus she’s even hiring someone fancy to do some of the cooking for her, and she had to do a meeting with two different cooks to find out which one she was going to choose. That part was okay, though, because even though it was long, there was lots of food to test. I told Mom she should pick the chef that makes those little strawberry cheesecakes that are so tiny you can eat one in a single bite. She said she’ll talk to Dad, but she’s leaning toward the second one, which was okay except their sandwiches were made with tuna, which I think is grosser than gross. And I know Dad agrees with me, so even though he shouldn’t eat sweets anymore on account of his diabetes, I wouldn’t be surprised if he convinces Mom to go with the first guys.

  After that, it was time to just get the regular groceries we need for meal times. I think it’s funny because Becky Linklater told me her mom just goes shopping once each month, right after she gets her paycheck, and then whatever food they have in the house is what they have to eat. But Mom goes to the grocery store three or four times a week, and I think she does it partly because she always likes to pray with the people who check out the groceries, and most of them know her already as “that praying woman,” which you might think would be embarrassing if someone called you that, but it actually seems to make Mom proud.

  So that’s why I didn’t write any yesterday because after all that shopping there was just time to come home and get dinner ready. Then that night, I went with Dad back to church to go to youth group. Becky came, which was a lot of fun, and we played this game where you have to give yourself a different name after a certain kind of animal, and you have to remember everyone else’s animal name too and be really fast or else you might get beat up with a big pool noodle stick. One of the girls was late getting picked up, so Becky and I hung out for about half an hour while we waited for Dad. I showed her the friendship bracelet kit. She said she had something just like that in third grade, which kind of makes it sound like she thought it was a babyish gift, but she acted happy to get it, which is what counts.

  That was yesterday. Today’s been slower, which is good. Tomorrow Mom says I can take a break from some of my regular homeschool assignments since it’s almost the weekend. That sounds like it should be a good thing, but I know she’s been reading up on those blogs of hers ways to make your kids smarter and better at school and stuff and nonsense like that, so I kind of have the feeling that we’re not really going to take the day off entirely, but we’ll see.

  Talk to you later.

  Woong

  Well, I was right when I said that Mom wasn’t going to give me a day off of homeschool. I didn’t have to do any workbooks today, which is good, but she still wants me to do my writing assignment (which is why I’m here now). So instead of workbooks, Mom said we were going to take the day to do family history.

  There’s something you should know about my parents, and I can’t remember if I mentioned it yet or not, but they’re really into adoption and foster parenting. I don’t even know how many brothers and sisters I have because some kids Mom and Dad adopted as teens, and then when they grew up they fell out of touch, and others have known Mom and Dad since they were really little. And some are legally adopted, but some are just “soul adoptions,” where Mom and Dad think of them as their kids, but their name isn’t on the birth certificates or stuff and nonsense like that.

  Well, with things being the way they are, you can imagine it’s a little confusing because every Christmas we’ll get letters from brothers and sisters I’ve never heard of, and I’m uncle to a bunch of kids older than me and weird things like that. So it didn’t feel that strange when Mom sat down with me on the couch this afternoon and told me she wanted to talk about a brother named Spencer I’d never heard of. At first, I figured he was just one of my legal brothers or soul brothers and that he was probably twice my age now with kids my own size and that Mom was going to tell me we were going to meet him while his family was on vacation in Medford or stuff and nonsense like that.

  Except that’s not what happened.

  Spencer was a special baby, and as soon as Mom said that I could tell by her voice, it was going to be kind of a sad story. But I had already used up my Wii time for the day, and Becky’s been stuck at home because her Mom doesn’t have enough money to buy gas to drive her over here just now, so there really wasn’t a whole lot else I could be doing, so I sat and listened to Mom’s story.

  Spencer had some kind of problem as a baby. A lot of things were wrong with his brain. Mom says it was because something bad happened while he was trying to get
himself born, and his mom couldn’t get to the doctor’s fast enough. And when he came out, he was all blue, and he wasn’t crying, which I’ve heard is a really bad sign if you’re a brand-new baby.

  Spencer’s mom tried to take good care of him, but he was in the hospital for a long time, and she was going to lose her job, and she hardly had any money to start with. Plus she had two or three other kids (it happened so long ago, Mom couldn’t remember the exact details), and so she decided at the hospital that the best thing to do would be to let Spencer get adopted by a family who was able to take care of him better, and since my mom didn’t have any other job except being a pastor’s wife and a mom, she decided she would adopt Spencer. Except it was one of those soul adoptions, I think. She said she never did it legally, and the reason she didn’t was because there wasn’t a whole lot of time to do all that paperwork because Spencer only lived a few months. See, I told you this was a really sad story.

  So I got a little upset with Mom and wondered why she’d be telling me this, especially when she knew how worried I’ve been about Auntie and her little Baby Grace. But Mom said it was okay to cry and it was okay to be upset, but she wanted me to learn about baby Spencer because of what a good little boy he was.

  Then she pulled out this photo album. Once Mom and Dad brought Spencer home, they knew he probably wasn’t going to live very long. His lungs were really sick, and he got infections in them a whole lot. Mom said it was kind of scary because at night he could end up choking in his sleep, so she was always worried when she woke up in the morning that something bad had happened to him.

  Except it never did.

  Well, at the time Mom and Dad adopted Spencer (not legally, like I said, but doing it like a soul adoption), my two brothers and my sister Bridgette were still pretty young. They’re the three kids Mom and Dad had first, the ones Mom was actually pregnant with. Well, my brothers and sister really loved Spencer, and Mom said it was really hard telling them he probably wasn’t going to live very long. But she wanted to prepare them for the sad thing that was going to happen later (and did eventually happen, like I already mentioned).

  So one thing Mom decided to do at that time was she let Bridgette and Jordan and Justice take as many pictures of Spencer as they wanted, which was kind of a big deal, seeing as how it was back in the old days when you had to take your camera to a store, and you could only get so many pictures at once before you had to buy a whole new roll of film. Plus you had to pay the photo guys to turn your film into proper pictures anyway. And my dad was a pastor by then, so of course, he and the family didn’t have a whole lot of money, but Mom said the pictures were important and would be worth what they cost.

  So my brothers and sister took a whole bunch of pictures of Spencer doing all kinds of things. You know how people talk about a bucket list? It’s this checklist of things you want to do before you die, and it’s based off the name of this movie or something like that. Well, Spencer was born so long ago the movie hadn’t come out yet, so people didn’t know what a bucket list was, but basically, Mom and the rest of them made a bucket list for Spencer. They just didn’t call it that. What they did, see, was they made a list of all the fun things a kid would like to do. Of course, it had to be things that the family could afford at the time, so not like trips to Disneyland or stuff and nonsense like that. But I mean things like going to Chuck E. Cheese or feeding ducks at the park or going to a baseball game. That sort of stuff.

  So they made this list, and then they took pictures of Spencer doing each of these really fun things. And that’s the photo album Mom showed me. She said my brothers and sister put the whole thing together and that’s why a lot of the pictures came out fuzzy and were stuck to the pages kind of crooked-like.

  I had to admit I got a little bit jealous of Spencer because that kid got to do everything. Dad used to play football and still knows one of the coaches, so there was even a picture of Spencer in a little football jersey, and two members of the real team were holding him up and pretending like they were going to give him a high five.

  Like I said, there were tons of pictures of Spencer doing all these things on his bucket list, which got me thinking what I’d like to do if I knew I was going to die. I still think I’d like to go to Disneyland even though Dad says it’s too crowded and a big waste of money. And once when I went skating with Becky Linklater, I told her I’d like to see her skate in the Olympics one day, and she laughed and said she didn’t take lessons anymore so it wouldn’t work, but I told her I thought it could. So I’d add that to my bucket list too, watching Becky skate at the Olympics.

  And there are some other things. Like Mom still hasn’t let me watch Star Wars 3 even though I know the entire story already and Becky says the scene where Anakin attacks all the younglings doesn’t actually show him doing it. You can’t even be a hundred percent positive it was him. And I want my own PlayStation, too.

  What else? It’s kind of hard to decide because most of the time if I think about something I’d like, I either figure Dad will say it’s too expensive or Mom will say I’m not old enough yet. Which sometimes makes me wish they’d picked a different birthday for me after all so I could get older that much faster. Because wouldn’t it be an abomination if Mom said something like, “You can watch the Avengers when you’re fourteen,” and it turns out I’m already that old now and just don’t know it?

  Anyway, we only got to see a little bit of Spencer’s baby album because then Mom got a phone call, and she had to pray with someone from church about something and then call all the phone numbers on her prayer chain, so I went out into the backyard and dug a few holes, then had to come in and get cleaned up before dinner. Once all the dishes are done, Dad and I are going to play some Uno, and I guess that’s all for today. I still don’t know if Mom’s going to make me write over the weekends or not (I really hope not), so I’m not sure if I should say see you tomorrow or just bye for now. I suppose either one would be okay, really.

  Bye!

  Woong

  Good news! Mom was going to make me keep up my homework assignments on Saturday and Sunday too, but Dad told her that even God took a break, so I got to have some more free time this weekend. Becky came over after church on Sunday, and she taught me how to make the friendship bracelets. Well, she tried to teach me, but I think my fingers are too small or something because I kept getting the strings tangled up.

  Dad was especially tired, so he took a nap in his favorite chair in the living room, and Mom had invited Auntie Hannah and her daughter over, so they visited in the dining room, and Becky and I played just outside the den. Becky really likes to play with Emily. She’s a real babysitter, the kind people pay money for. Becky is, I mean. Emily’s way too little for stuff and nonsense like that.

  I didn’t know if I should tell Becky about Auntie’s baby. It’s kind of awkward to just go up to someone and say, “Hey, you know that pregnant woman? Her baby might have a sickness.” So we didn’t talk about it. Which was kind of nice, to be honest, because I think I worry about Auntie more than I don’t worry about her. And I worry about Emily too because she’s still so little. At least when my brothers and sister were living with Spencer, they were old enough to take pictures, and I’m sure they still remember him. But what if Baby Grace has one of those sicknesses like Spencer and doesn’t ever grow up and Emily forgets all about her? That would be real sad, don’t you think?

  Anyway, I was glad Becky was there, so I didn’t have to feel sad quite so much as normal, but I did tell her about Spencer. She thought it was neat my mom and dad would do something like take care of a baby they knew was going to die, and she kept saying things like, “Your parents are like saints,” so I told her, “Nah. It’s just what they do.”

  Becky stayed until dinner, then Mom and I drove her home, and I asked Mom about her visit with Auntie. She said, “It’s hard for her, the waiting. The doctors still aren’t certain what’s going on, but they want to do more tests.”

  I didn
’t say much. I’ve been sick before, and I really don’t like doctors’ offices, and I wondered if Baby Grace is big enough yet in her mom’s tummy that she’s started hating doctors as much as I do. And I guess I shouldn’t say hating doctors on account of it being a sin to hate anyone, but I do hate being sick, and I think it’s okay to say I hate hospitals too, but I might have to ask my dad about that one just to be sure. Because every once in a while, you’re positive that something couldn’t be a sin, and then you realize it is. I did that once when I was first learning English after Mom and Dad brought me home from Seoul, and I had just started school, and Chuckie Mansfield was in my class all the way back then, and he was just as mean as he is now. He said something to me that I didn’t know was a bad word, so I said it again later, and boy did I get in trouble. That’s what I mean when I say that sometimes you don’t even know if what you’re doing’s going to make God mad or not, and that’s why it’s a good idea to ask your pastor just in case. (Or in my case I can just ask my dad.)

  In the car, mom told me it’ll be important for us to be especially nice to Auntie over the next few weeks, and of course, there’s no way I couldn’t be nice to someone I love as much as I love her. But I could tell. Mom was a little sad, and I wanted her to think about something happier, so I asked how plans are going for their wedding reenactment. I guess her sister’s having some trouble with the wedding dress. Mom mailed it to her and sent her measurements, and Aunt Rhonda’s not sure it’s going to really work on account of there needed to be quite a bit of extra fabric to make it able to fit.

  So Mom started sounding sad again because I know she sometimes wishes she were still skinny like she was when she and Dad got married so many years ago. If you ask me, that’s a little silly because where I grew up, there wasn’t a whole lot of food to go around, so having extra weight on you was good and sometimes could even keep you from dying if things got real bad. But Mom’s never lived through that kind of life, so she still thinks being fat is what’s bad even though it means she never has to worry about running out of food.