The Foster Dad

by Christopher X Sullivan

  I hated Valerie. I wanted to stalk her down to the parking garage and unleash my rage. I wanted to fall to my knees and beg her to reconsider. To let me have another day with the kid. I’d promise not to steal him away in the dead of night.

  Mark was hugging me. When had his arms snaked around me? When had he started sobbing on my shoulder like a baby? Dammit, couldn’t he see there was more going on here than just us? There was a kid out there who was about to be in a world of hurt and we were just standing here crying? I mean, I had some asses to kick.

  I broke from his grasp.

  “Stop,” he said.

  “Let me go.” He kept reaching for me, but he was too close and claustrophobic and he just had to keep his distance for a few minutes. My stomach did a few flips. My brain was stuffed with cotton and my ears were pounding blood so I couldn’t really hear anything. I just had to get out in the hall and get the kid.

  This was all a mistake. I could explain it away if I just got a second chance.

  “Babe, stop. Stay here.”

  “Let me go.”

  “Babe. Don’t go out there.”

  He gripped me hard... so hard that his hand was like a shackle on my wrist and it pained me.

  I snarled, stared him straight in the eyes and commanded him with the most sinister voice I could muster... perhaps the scariest tone I have ever used. I don’t know if he freed me or if I broke from his grasp, but the next thing I knew... the door was open and I was going through it... into the hall.

  My head was several steps ahead of me. I was looking... looking... looking. I had to get to the elevator before something bad happened. They were all going to die. Alex was out of my sight and he was dead. The elevator cable was going to give out and they’d be smashed to a bloody pulp. I had to warn them.

  Then... there they were. Piled into the elevator. The images from that moment have been seared into my brain forever. I can remember the design on the carpeting in the hallway floor. I know, in intimate detail, the layout of every light between me and the elevator from that moment. I’ve had countless nightmares featuring this memory... it starts with my vision flying over the carpet. The design flows under me like a river. Then... slowly... slowly... slowly... my vision lifts up to the horizon and I see the elevator.

  Miss Val was gripping him tightly. The assistant loomed in the background with the luggage. Alex turned towards me at the last moment as the elevator doors shifted. Maybe I had screamed at him. Or maybe he just knew to look for me one last time.

  I can still see his little hand... outstretched... needing me. I fell to my knees and gasped for air. Did it happen before the door shut? Did Alex see me like that? I couldn’t get up. He was gone. The little hand and the way he fought Valerie, but she held on tight like he was a wild animal.

  And his scream in return—it will haunt me forever. My name. Over and over again. The sound of a child being torn from his family and traumatized forever.

  And there was nothing I could do about it. From the minute that kid fell into our lives, Mark and I made every decision with his happiness in mind. We welcomed him, housed him, loved him as our own. We tried to give him the best life we possibly could... even though we knew we might be separated and never see each other again.

  I was broken.

  My body collapsed to the ground and I stayed there in a sobbing mess. Mark was around me again, crying with me. I slammed my wrist into the floor and pain blossomed... it was a relief to feel something. Mark stopped me from further self-destruction. I fought him, but he wouldn’t let me hurt myself.

  Somehow, he stood me up and got me into the apartment. Suhail was there and Dunworty was on the other side... like they were caging me in. How could they be so calm?

  Mark was the worst. I was a mess and he was somehow holding it all together? Did he even care?

  “Why aren’t you upset!” I screamed at him while slamming my arms into his chest.

  “I am.”

  “You don’t show it! Why aren’t you upset!” I pushed him again, then turned my back on him. Suhail and Dunworthy united to prevent me from running down to the bedrooms. I was livid with all of them... the cowards. I snarled and went back at Mark. “Why aren’t you upset?” I got up in Mark’s face about an inch away like I was going to bite his nose. “Why? Tough guy?” I bumped chests with him and he backed away. “Why aren’t you mad? Get mad.” I shoved him again, then bumped my chest into his as he retreated.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “Coward.” I snapped, my mind was running so fast. I couldn’t focus. “How are you acting so calm? Did you even care about him at all!”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “You don’t.” My voice broke and I took a few deep breaths. “You don’t care. You’re a liar. Coward. Get upset. You coward.” I went at him again.

  He calmly held me back when I threatened to hurt myself, but otherwise he let me vent. I turned my back on him again and paced towards the bedrooms. Suhail wouldn’t let me through, but I didn’t get up in his face.

  “I am heartbroken,” Mark whispered. “But I have to be strong.”

  I whipped towards him, ready to unload as never before. “You should’ve stopped this. If you were so strong, you wouldn’t have let this happen!”

  “I have to take care of you.”

  That broke through the fog that had overtaken my mind. Take care of me? I’m the adult here! I’m the one that should be taking care of Alex. Who’s taking care of the kid? Take care of ME? That’s what you’re worried about right now!

  I stopped in the center of the room and started weeping. “He’s just a kid,” I sobbed. “Take care of him. Don’t take care of me.”

  Mark approached me, then gave me a gentle embrace, which I accepted. He wept with me. “I have to take care of you,” he promised.

  “But I’m the adult.” I could hardly breathe. Why couldn’t he understand? I was an adult and adults were supposed to protect children. Adults don’t fall apart. “I’m the adult,” I sobbed again. “I’m the adult. I’m the adult. I’m the adult.”

  That was my mantra.

  Suhail and Dunworthy faded to the bedrooms in order to give us some privacy. I wailed that single line over and over. Mark supported my body. I couldn’t swallow or control my voice or my thoughts.

  “I’m the adult. I’m the adult.” He’s just a kid. This shouldn’t happen to kids. Please don’t cause him pain. This is all my fault. I never should have let him go. I should have fought.

  In that moment, I was completely broken.

  MY ACCUSATIONS HURT Mark. Of course he had feelings, but he was right to hold it together through his grief. He knew I wasn’t in my right mind when I said those things.

  What hurt him even more was the following week when I was institutionalized. I’d never been in a psych ward before, not even to visit my cousin, who spent some time in one before his schizophrenia diagnosis. The psych ward had always been a scary idea in my head. I don’t know what I was expecting—probably a scene from one of those horror movies.

  My experience wasn’t like that. Actually, it was nice and calming. I healed the pieces of my personality between those four walls. If not for those skilled nurses and orderlies, I probably would’ve found a way to kill myself. If Mark and I had tried to suffer through on our own... yeah, it’s hard to write about, but I don’t think I would’ve made it. I really don’t.

  I was under involuntary admission for three days. I had limited contact with the outside world, mostly of my own request. My close friends and family attempted to visit during that week, but I wouldn’t let them in. Mark eventually forced his way in on the fourth day when I was moved to a different ward with voluntary, low-risk patients. He’s a stubborn guy. He came every day even though he knew I didn’t want him there.

  I think those first three days hurt him more than anything I have ever done in my life. He was in the waiting room, but I was in control of who could see me... and I didn’t want him. I didn’t w
ant him to see me like that.

  It’s hard to explain and I’ve never been able to get Mark to understand, but I just couldn’t see him. Or my mom and dad. Or Suhail or Travis.

  There were only two people who got to see me in those first three days. The first was my cousin, the guy who used to work for my dad. We had gotten to be really close friends seeing as we worked together for so many years. I was physically quick to tire because of my undiagnosed autoimmune disorder, so I wasn’t the most lively conversationalist. But I would talk to him about the stories I was writing and about my dreams to be an author, such that they were.

  He was always been behind me one hundred percent.

  His dad died of cancer a couple years before my sister. We spent a lot of time camping together when we were younger. On his deathbed, his father had asked mine to take care of his sons if they needed jobs. So that’s how my cousin came to be working for my dad in the first place.

  My cousin had also taken his brother to the psych ward when he had a breakdown and needed to be medicated... so my cousin knew what my friends were going through.

  His arrival took me by surprise. The orderly came back to my room and asked if I wanted to speak with him and I can remember thinking: of all people, what is he doing here? I mean, he’s a nice guy, don’t get me wrong. But we’d grown apart over the past decade or so after he moved to a different company and I pursued writing full time. We talked at family functions, but we didn’t hang out.

  I allowed him to visit me. This must have stung Mark so bad because—how couldn’t it? Looking back on it, I was so bad to my partner. I kept instinctively pushing him away. It was so selfish of me that I can hardly bring myself to contemplate my behavior in those first few weeks after Alex was ripped from our home.

  Mark was all alone and suffering and I just... didn’t want him to see me at my weakest. To this day, I still have trouble letting Mark see me when I’m sick. I’ve mellowed a little over the years, so Mark was allowed to sleep in my room during my chemo treatments, but I still felt the nagging need to keep him away. Part of me believes that I’m saving him pain by icing him out, but then the rational part of my brain knows that he feels more pain when I abandon him. It’s all just a confusing mess.

  I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to navigate the mess of obligations, ramifications, and implications of my behaviour while in the psych ward. I just acted and tried to keep the past in the past.

  My cousin was the first to finally reach across that divide. We didn’t speak about his brother or about medications, though we have in the years since. He just asked how I was doing and if I needed anything and if I was comfortable.

  He knew I hated small talk. I couldn’t even bring myself to pretend, so I sat and faced him in stony silence.

  Then he spoke about his five dogs and about his wife, whom I’d known for years and was very fond of. In the final year that we both worked for my father, my cousin had been trying to conceive with his wife. They spent years of frustration and heartbreak and searching for answers. They tested her for all kinds of things, but in the end, they settled on the belief that my cousin was probably infertile.

  I knew about the diagnosis when it was happening—he took several days off work over the course of one summer to go through a battery of tests. My heart broke when he confided in me of his infertility and, even as I type this, I feel as though I’m revealing too much. This story isn’t mine to tell. It’s why I don’t even want to use his name or make up one to use in its place. When I started this memoir, I told myself I wouldn’t reveal the secrets of my friends or family, but some things feel so universal that I’m almost compelled to discuss them and bring them into the light. Infertility is very sad, though not an uncommon condition.

  After that diagnosis, my cousin and his wife really treated their brood of dogs like children. The dogs have their own couch in the living room plus a special pasture that used to be for sheep. They all live on a farm and they walk their dogs up and down the property.

  They love those dogs.

  He and I didn’t speak of his dreams for children—but that didn’t mean it was a secret. He had always been like me in that regard, wanting a family. He’s the oldest sibling of four and the only one without kids. He was in high school when his father passed away from cancer that formed due to a chewing tobacco habit.

  My cousin took up that same habit while working for my father. (It’s what trade workers seem to do.) I was working with him when he decided to give up chewing tobacco and I made sure to encourage him every time there was an opportunity.

  He was pretty grouchy that summer.

  My cousin modeled his life on what he remembers of his father and partly on the remaining men in his life (including my father, who still will not quit with the chewing tobacco). He’s such a good guy and a good family man. Very empathetic and compassionate. He adores all of his nieces and nephews. It breaks my heart sometimes to see him or his wife play with the little ones.

  We spoke of his dream of fatherhood that day he visited me in the psych ward. I didn’t cry—I was too broken to cry anymore and the meds they had me on really dulled my responses.

  He visited me every day that week until I was able to return home. He was one of the few people I allowed to visit. Suhail didn’t even get to see me. Mark only got in because by the time I got out of involuntary detention, I began to feel guilty for icing him out.

  My cousin helped me see the light through the darkness and he helped me view my loss through a different filter. He gently reminded me that my partner was patiently waiting to be let back into my world.

  I wish everyone could have as good of a family as I do. Yes, we have some crazy people and there’s one white nationalist cousin (at least he was in his high school days) and there’s a deeply religious branch of the family who are stereotypical in their opposition to gay rights and advocate for a traditional role for women in the household. But they’re still my family. My one aunt cannot give up on smoking. Actually, there’s a couple like that, but they hide it from us in the younger generation. There’s one aunt who lives to stir up trouble—she’s one of those people who draws pleasure from gossip. (She and Mark should start a club.)

  I love them all. When there’s trouble in the family, we close in around each other and help out. It wasn’t just after my grandparent’s house burned. One of my cousins had a severe addiction problem and some of the younger cousins formed a group around him to help. Two of my cousins lost their way due to drug-related stuff. One of them lost his life to it.

  We made sure to bring the surviving family together so they didn’t feel isolated. Isolation is the biggest killer, in my opinion. People make bad decisions when they feel broken from their community.

  This is why I have half a mind to move back to the city. My hometown is about to lose it’s gas station and all we have left is a pizza franchise. That’s it. And a voluntary fire department. We’re one of those towns that started small and concentrated, but now we’re spread down these long spindly roads which are hard to walk because people drive so fast.

  It’s hard to stay connected to people when you have to drive from place to place. I want to raise my family somewhere you can walk. In a safe place where everything is within walking distance. We don’t even have to have public transport! I just want walking distance.

  Closeness. That’s all I’m searching for.

  If my cousin were to read this in the future: I’d recommend adoption. It’s been the biggest blessing in my life. I worry about my kid all the time, but the one thing I don’t worry about is our lack of biological connection. After you adopt a kid, it’s funny how that sort of thing become meaningless. I’d love Alex just the same if I had biological children to go with him.

  But then again, I’ve always had an open and loving heart, as Mark likes to remind me. It’s why I can’t watch the news anymore because my heart just constantly breaks at all the bad stories.

  THE SECOND PERSON I allowed to s
ee me during my involuntary detention was another one I didn’t expect to hear from: Claude. You have to understand, our relationship with Marty and Claude has always been strange. Marty was the outgoing, adventurous one of the pair—a social butterfly. Claude was always more reserved and didn’t like to give much of his soul away to others.

  We had some fun together, but that all wrapped up within a year of me opening my relationship with Mark. After that, it was still always Marty who took the most interest in the emotional stuff. He would always ask how life was and if Mark was doing anything I didn’t like and how our home renovation projects were going and all this little stuff.

  That was Marty.

  Claude would just kind of sit there. I knew that Claude had a backstory—everyone does. We hadn’t really talked about it. I knew he was in the Armed Forces and that he had been long-distance with Marty for their earlier years, but that was it. Claude would occasionally tell the same tired joke about how he had a different guy at each port, just to get Marty to roll his eyes. Sometimes there’d be a joke about seamen.

  It was a surprise to have Claude ask for a visit. I guess it was the surprising requests that got through to me. Mark was easy to deny—painful, but easy. My parents should’ve known better than to even try to talk to me—they knew how secretive I could be. Suhail, Mel, Travis, Ashley, Stacy, Tim, Ryan, Amber.... They all tried and it was easy to rebuff them. All I had to do was tell the orderly to send them away and then they were gone.

  My cousin was a surprise, so it felt like I owed it to him to hear what he had to say. Claude wasn’t that much of a surprise, but his request caught my attention.

  “Chris. There’s a Claude here to see you?” The orderly was neutral every time he asked about a visitor. It made me think that his entire job was a big game of telephone where he had to relay requests from person to person.

  “Send him away.”

  “He says he wants to tell you a story.”

  That made me bite my lip, which was just enough activity so the orderly didn’t immediately turn away. His patience ran thin and he eventually assumed I was done speaking, but as the man opened the door to my private room, I stopped him.