by David Archer
Molly shrugged her shoulders. “That happens,” she said. “You'd be absolutely amazed at the stupid reasons people get mad at each other. I've read stories about people who didn't talk for thirty years or more, just because one of them wouldn't share a recipe or something just as stupid.”
“So what are you gonna do?” Jerry asked me.
It was my turn to shrug. “I don't think I get any choice,” I said. “They're supposed to pick me up Saturday, right after lunch, so we can go somewhere and get to know each other a little bit. I don't know what to expect.”
We were all sitting at a table in the day room, the way we often did when we were talking. Jimmy called it “holding court,” and Molly had explained to me that he meant it in the sense of a king holding court, not like a courtroom with a judge.
Lizzie reached over and put her hand on mine. Jerry had told me that his sister had a crush on me, but I didn't really understand what that meant. Well, yes, I knew that it meant she liked me, but I had absolutely no sense of what romance was supposed to be about, and especially not for kids our age. I felt that Lizzie was just trying to comfort me, and appreciated it the best I could, even though I really wasn't all that upset.
“I hope you don't have to leave us,” she said. “I like you, and I don't want to be without you.”
I looked at her. “Well, even if I have to go, I'll still come back and visit. You guys are all the friends I've got.”
Jimmy shook his head. “Sorry, Noah, but that ain't how it works. Once you're out, you can't come back just to visit. They claim that causes problems for us kids that are still in the system.”
I looked at Molly, and she nodded. “He's right,” she said. “Once they let you out of the foster system, they don't like you to come back and stir the rest of us up. They think that, if you had family that came for you, it just makes the rest of us feel worse that nobody's come for us.”
I could see their point. I could imagine that it might upset some kids in the system to see one of us get out, while they were still stuck there.
I shrugged. “Then I'll just try to stay in the same school, so I can see you guys there. Or we can write letters to each other.”
Ms. Gamble had come and made her announcement on Wednesday, so it wasn't that long to Saturday. We decided to just wait it out and see how things went. It was quite possible that my grandparents might not like me, might decide they didn't want me to come live with them. Jimmy said he had actually seen such a case, once.
“It was this guy named Benny,” he said. “He was in the system for a couple of months, before they found his grandparents, and they were all excited. They came to visit him, and told him how much they loved him and wanted him to come live with them, but after just a couple of weekend visits, they backed out.”
“Did anybody ever say why?” I asked.
Jimmy grinned. “Well, nobody ever said for sure, but there was a rumor that went around. From what I heard, Benny went and spent a Saturday night at his grandparents’ house, and the next morning when they got up they found their cat nailed to a tree. Benny swore up and down he didn't do it, but I guess it freaked them out. Nobody knows whether that story is really true, but it did seem odd that Benny got shipped off to a group home a couple days later.”
I thought about that for a moment, but then Lizzie took my hand again. “Noah! Don't even think about it,” she said. “If you do something like that, just to get sent back here, you'd probably end up in one of those hospitals. Don't do it!”
Molly's eyes were wide as she stared at me. “Yeah, what she said. Don't go doing anything stupid, Noah.”
I tucked the story away in the back of my mind, wondering if there might be something I could do that would let me stay at Mrs. Connors' house, but without scaring anyone half to death. It wasn't that I was afraid to leave; it was more that I was concerned about what would happen to the other kids without me there.
We had formed a sort of camaraderie that, as I look back now, seemed like it actually transcended friendship. It was more like we had become a family, despite the fact that there was no blood relation between us, other than Jerry and Lizzie. We had simply learned to trust and depend on one another, and that was a hard thing to give up. As you might imagine, being without emotion, I found it very difficult to let myself get close to anyone. The bond that we had formed was not emotional, but was based on a mutual respect and trust that I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to find anywhere else.
Of course, the reality was that there was nothing I could do about it. I didn't get to make the decision for myself on where I would live; that lawyer who was supposed to be my protector, along with Ms. Gamble and the court, would make those decisions for me. Molly thought that I might get some say in the matter, but from everything we heard from other kids in the system, especially those who had been in it longer than any of us, it seemed that if there was a family member willing to take you, you were pretty much stuck with them.
When Saturday arrived, I could sense that the other kids were nervous. My grandparents were supposed to come to the home to meet me, with Ms. Gamble present. She had explained to me that if, for any reason, she felt uncomfortable with the idea of them taking me out for the afternoon, she would put a stop to it. She even told me to be honest with her, if I felt any sort of discomfort with the idea, but by then I knew myself well enough to know that I wasn't likely to feel anything at all.
I considered faking it, pretending to be afraid of them. Unfortunately, it was rather well known throughout the system that there wasn't much that scared me, so I wasn't sure I'd be up to pulling it off. Molly suggested that I go ahead and give them a try, and just see how it went.
“You know, Noah,” she said, “it's just possible that they really did want to know you, and maybe your mom was that mad at them. Or maybe it was your dad, maybe he's the one who didn't want them in your life. The thing is that they're your family, the only family you got left. I think maybe you should give them a chance, before you just say you don't want anything to do with them.”
“I get what you're saying,” I said, “but what if there was a good reason why my parents didn't want them around me? For all I know, they might be crazy. What if I'm being sent off with a couple of serial killers?”
She actually laughed at that. “Somehow, I'm just not seeing Ms. Gamble ever approving you going to visit people who might be serial killers. She's actually a pretty smart lady, so if she thinks they're okay, then they probably are.”
I shrugged. “I know, I'm just sayin'. They said that my mom got mad at them over marrying my dad, but what if it was really something else? Since my parents never talked about them, I don't know what to think.”
She gave me a hug, and Lizzie jumped in to give me another. “Just give them a chance, Noah,” Molly said. “Even if it doesn't work out, I think you'd regret never knowing for sure.”
Looking back, now, I think things might have been better if I had simply resisted going with my grandparents. As for regrets, I've never had any regrets about anything, so I doubt I would have regretted that, either. Regret is the sensation someone gets when an emotional desire goes unfulfilled, but as a child, I rarely experienced any kind of desire at all.
Ms. Gamble surprised us by showing up just before lunch time, so she actually got to sit down and eat lunch with us kids. There were a couple of transient kids there at the time, but they always learned quickly that the five of us stuck together, so they sat at a table of their own. We made room for Ms. Gamble at our table, and I think we were all actually surprised that she got a tray and sat down to eat the same thing we were eating.
“I'm going to ask you kids to do me a favor, and not tell on me for this,” she said. “Mrs. Connors invited me to eat with you, but somehow I think my bosses might not approve of me eating food that was bought for you kids. Keep my secret for me?”
We all promised that we would, and I think the secret actually made the lunch a little bit more enjoyable for all of us. E
veryone was full of questions about my grandparents, and for once, even I was ready to open up and express some curiosity.
“So, are they really old?” I asked, and Ms. Gamble laughed.
“Well, I'm not sure how you define old, but I'd say they're probably in their early 50s. That's not what I call old, but I'm already in my 40s, so I'm not that far away from where they're at.”
Jimmy stared at her. “You're lyin',” he said, and the rest of us all stared at him in shock. He had actually called an adult a liar, something we all knew was just unacceptable. “You can't really be that old!”
Even more surprising than the fact that he had accused her of lying was the fact that he didn't get in any trouble for it. On the contrary, Ms. Gamble seemed delighted. “Jimmy, I promise,” she said. “I wouldn't lie to you. I'd never lie to any of you kids.” She actually got her driver's license out of her purse, to show us her birthday. I did the math in my head quickly, and realized that she was telling the truth. Ms. Gamble was forty-two.
“Well, what are they like? Noah's grandparents?” Lizzie asked, and Ms. Gamble smiled.
“Well, his grandfather is actually a minister. Do you all know what a minister is?”
“Of course we do,” Molly said. “Mrs. Connors takes us to church on Sundays, so we know.”
“Okay, well, Reverend Davidson is the preacher at a Baptist Church, just like the one Mrs. Connors goes to. He's a tall, good-looking man, and his wife, Noah's grandmother, she's kind of tall, herself. They both have brown hair and eyes, and Noah's mother was their only child. I'm just being honest, but to me, they seem like very nice people. And of course, we had to check them out before we could let them come to visit you, and neither one of them has ever been in any kind of trouble.” She looked at me. “I think, Noah, if you give them a chance, that you'll really like them both.”
I shrugged. It seemed like there wasn't going to be any hope of getting out of it, so I might as well accept the inevitable. We all asked a few more questions, but I didn't really learn anything more about my grandparents. It seemed like the best course of action was simply going to be to wait and meet them.
I didn't have to wait long. They had been told to come at one o'clock, and they were right on time. Ms. Gamble had them wait in the living room, and then she brought me in to meet them.
The three of us stared at each other for a moment, and I can remember that my very first reaction was that my grandmother just looked like an older version of my mom. They were so alike that it was almost spooky, but I wasn't scared. They were sitting on the couch, and Ms. Gamble had me sit in a chair that was facing them. She took another chair, right beside mine.
“Mr. and Mrs. Davidson, I'd like you to meet your grandson, Noah,” she said. Then she looked at me. “Noah, these are your grandparents, James and Carolyn Davidson.”
“Hello,” I said. “It's nice to meet you.”
Both of them were smiling broadly, and they both tried to speak at once. I noticed that my grandmother had tears in her eyes, but after a second she sat back and let my grandfather talk.
“Noah,” he said, “you just can't imagine what it means to us to finally be sitting here face-to-face with you. This is the day we have dreamed of since we heard that you were born.”
I wasn't sure what to say, so I put on a smile that I had practiced with my friends. “I wish my mom could be here,” I said. “I heard that she didn't get along with you too well, but she was always so nice, I think we could've made it work.”
Both of them seemed to become sad, suddenly, and I wished I hadn't said that.
“We understand that you were told that we had passed away,” my grandfather said. “Noah, we want you to know that the problem that caused the rift between us had nothing to do with you. It was something that your dad did years ago, something bad, but she loved him so much that she was willing to overlook it. When we tried to tell her that it would turn out bad, she didn't want to hear it, and she shut us out of her life.”
“We're not here to speak ill of your father,” my grandmother said, joining in the conversation. “Nothing can change the past, Noah, and we can't go back and recapture the time we've already lost. The secret to happiness is not to look back all the time, I think, so let's look toward the future, okay? We have the chance to get to know each other now, so why don't we just concentrate on that? Okay?”
I sat there and looked at them both for a moment, not sure how to respond. There was a lot of emotion in the room, and I didn't know how to deal with it directly. I held my smile in place, but gave a shrug of my shoulders to try to show that the past didn't matter to me. “I wish I had known about you,” I said, “but like you said, we can't change the past.”
My grandfather smiled again, and shook his head as he looked at me. “As young as you are, you're a lot wiser than a lot of grown-up people if you understand that.”
“Noah has been through a lot,” Ms. Gamble said. “I know you're aware of that, but sometimes we've found that it's important to remember what these children have experienced. You can't go through something as traumatic as what Noah has been through without coming to terms with the fact that life is sometimes just not fair.” She looked at me and smiled. “Noah often amazes me, with how well he copes not only with his own situation, but with problems that some of the other children have. He's become something of a leader, maybe even a role model, to other kids that have passed through this home since he's been here, and Mrs. Connors can tell you some amazing stories. Noah is quite a young man.”
Once again, a silence fell on us. I had a million questions I wanted to ask, but I didn't know whether it would be appropriate to simply start blurting them out, so I held them in for the moment. Luckily, though, my grandfather decided to answer one of them even though it had been unasked.
“We, uh, we thought about something on the way here, Noah,” he said. “We weren't sure what you might want to call us, since you don't really know us, yet.” He glanced over at my grandmother, who nodded and smiled, then looked back at me. “We decided that if you want to, you can call us, you know, Grandma and Grandpa, but if that's not comfortable for you...”
I smiled again. “That would be great. I always wanted a grandma and grandpa.”
My grandmother suddenly burst into tears, and my smile faltered. For a second, I was just certain that I had said or done something wrong and upset her, but then I saw that she was smiling even as she was crying, and it hit me that her tears were from happiness.
“Grandma?” I asked hesitantly. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, Noah, not at all,” she said. “Just hearing that name, hearing you call me Grandma for the very first time? It was just a little overwhelming, I guess, but believe me when I say that it was overwhelming in a good way.” She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Like your grandpa said, we've dreamed of this day for a long, long time.”
Grandpa leaned toward me, as if he wanted to share a secret, so I leaned closer to him, too.
“You want to see her get even more excited?” he asked, and I sensed that he was being a bit mischievous, so I nodded. “Just stand up and walk over and give her a hug,” he said in a whisper, and then he winked at me.
I glanced at Ms. Gamble, to see if she thought it would be appropriate, and saw that she was smiling at me. She nodded, and I got up. It was only about three steps from where I was sitting in my chair to where my grandmother sat on the couch, but I can tell you that, in that moment, it seemed like I walked a mile or more.
Her eyes were wide as I approached her, and I could see her hands flexing with the desire to reach out and grab me, to pull me into a hug. I wasn't sure what was going to happen when she finally did, but after three or four incredibly long seconds, I was standing just in front of her, and then I extended my arms and leaned toward her.
Grandpa had been right, because she squealed with delight as she threw her arms around me. For one brief moment, I wondered if I had made a mistake and was a
bout to be crushed to death, but then she was holding me gently, kissing my cheeks, and I could feel her warm tears on my face. I kept my arms around her neck, and listened to her weep in my ear.
A moment later, I felt my grandfather's hand on my shoulder, and I looked up into his face. He smiled at me, and I could see tears on his cheeks, too. “Don't mind us old folks,” he said. “Seems like the older we get, the easier it is to make us bawl our eyes out for happiness.”
I shrugged. “I don't mind,” I said, and something passed across my grandfather's face. It dawned on me that I had let him see a little bit of that emotional emptiness within me, something I had intended to keep secret.
I smiled at him, and the shadow that had crossed his expression lifted as quickly as it had come. His hand lifted and ruffled my hair, and then he extended his arms and wrapped both me and his wife into an embrace. We sat there like that, with me on my grandmother's knee, for several minutes. I glanced over at Ms. Gamble once, and saw that she was smiling and had a few tears of her own.
“Noah,” she said, “would you like to go out with your grandparents for the afternoon? Take some time to just get to know them?”
This was the moment I had been anticipating. I can't say I’d been dreading it, not really, but at the same time, it was the moment I wasn't sure that I wanted to face. I appreciated that Ms. Gamble was giving me the chance to make a decision, but I also knew that it was a step I was going to have to take at some point. Since that was true, it seemed to me it was best to just get it over with.
I pulled back out of the hug so that I could look at both of their faces. My grandmother looked so much like my mom that it almost seemed like I had her back, but I didn't feel any comfort in that. Instead, what I felt was an even greater curiosity about these people who should've been part of my life all along.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think that would be great.”
There were more tears, and since it was wintertime, I was sent down to my room to get my jacket. As I passed the day room, Molly and Lizzie grabbed my arm and dragged me inside.