Miles
Six Months Later
I've reorganized the glove compartment twice since we got in the car.
"Miles." Ray reaches over and gently closes the glove compartment. "The registration doesn't need to be alphabetized."
"It should be alphabetized. Everything should be alphabetized. That's how systems work."
"We're going to meet a two-year-old, not audit a filing cabinet."
"I'm aware of what we're doing." My hands are in my lap, shaking, and folding them together doesn't help. "I'm fine."
Ray doesn't call me on the lie. He just puts his palm over both of mine and drives one-handed and the claiming mark on my shoulder hums the way it does when he touches me — a low, steady, permanent signal that saysyours, safe, here. The mark has been there for six months now, healed from dark red to asilvery scar tangible through my shirt, and I still reach for it when I'm scared the way I used to press the bruise.
Six months since the stairwell. Six months since the claiming. I left the firm four months ago — walked out of the corner office with a box and didn't look back, which is a lie, I looked back once, but only to make sure Ray was behind me. He was. He's been behind me and beside me and in front of me for every terrifying step since. The practice is small and new and mine and Ray handles the client intake between his paralegal classes, and most days I can't believe this is my life.
Today I really can't believe this is my life, because we're driving to meet a child who might become our daughter, and I've reorganized the glove compartment twice and it hasn't helped.
"She's two," Ray says. "She's going to care about whether you have snacks, not whether you're qualified."
"We didn't bring snacks."
"I brought snacks."
"You—" I look at him. He's got that grin — the one that says he's already handled the thing I'm panicking about. "What kind of snacks?"
"Goldfish crackers. The social worker said they're her favorite. Also some of those little puff things in case she doesn't want the Goldfish." He shrugs. "I googled it."
He googled what snacks a two-year-old likes. He went to a store and bought them and put them in his jacket pocket and didn't mention it until I was spiraling. This is the man I'm bonded to. This is the man who brings coffee without being asked and remembers cilantro allergies and googles toddler snacks.
I look out the window and I don't trust myself to speak for a minute.
The center is in a residential neighborhood — a converted house with a painted front door and a small yard with a plasticslide. It doesn't look institutional. It looks like someone's home, which I suppose is the point. Inside it's bright — yellow walls, kid-sized furniture, bins of toys, artwork taped to the walls with the unironic confidence of people who think a handprint turkey is a masterpiece.
There are crayon marks on the baseboard near the door. I stare at them while the social worker introduces herself. Sandra. She's in her forties, practiced. She's done this before. She can probably read every micro-expression on my face, which means she can see that I am one deep breath away from a full-body panic attack.
"This is just a visit," Sandra says, leading us down a hallway. "No pressure. Just spending some time together. She's been having a good day — had a nap, ate lunch. She's in a good mood."
"Great," Ray says easily.
"Great," I echo, sounding nothing like Ray.
Sandra opens a door to a play room. It's small and bright and there are toys everywhere and a rug with a road printed on it and a small bookshelf with board books and in the corner, sitting on the floor next to a woman who must be her foster mother, is a girl.
She's smaller than I expected. I don't know what I expected — I've seen toddlers, I've held Gabriel, I've watched Noah destroy a pad thai with his fist — but she's smaller than all of that. She's got dark curly hair pulled into two uneven puffs, brown skin, serious dark eyes currently focused on a stuffed rabbit she's holding by one ear. She's wearing a yellow shirt with a star on it and one of her socks is missing.
She looks up when we come in. Her eyes go to Sandra first — familiar, safe — and then to Ray, and then to me. Her gaze is steady and evaluating in a way that makes me think of Richard Shaw. She's assessing us. She's deciding if we're worth her time.
I am more intimidated by this two-year-old than I have been by anyone in my entire career.
Ray does what Ray does. He drops to the floor, cross-legged, a few feet away from her. Not approaching, not crowding. Just making himself small and available. He picks up a block from the rug and turns it over in his hands, idly, like he's just a guy who happens to be sitting on a floor near some toys.
The girl watches him. After a minute, she sets the rabbit down and scoots closer. She picks up a block and holds it out to him. Ray takes it with exaggerated seriousness. "Thank you. This is an excellent block."
She doesn't smile but she gets another block and hands that to him too. Then another. She's running a delivery service, ferrying blocks from the bin to Ray's growing collection, and each trip brings her a little closer until she's right next to him, standing by his knee, handing him blocks with the focused determination of someone with a job to do.
Ray catches my eye and grins and mouthsshe's amazingand she is. She's methodical and serious and her little face scrunches when a block doesn't come out of the bin easily and she doesn't ask for help, just works at it until it comes loose. She's two years old and she already knows how to solve her own problems and the observation lands on me in a way I wasn't prepared for.