Jeremy pumped his fists above his head. “Yes.Yes.Let’s go!”
And with that, he took off running toward the tower, Don and Rodney bringing up the rear. Rodney carried a duffel bag for all of them, and Don had a cooler and a backpack filled with food to last them the next few days. It had been a pain in the ass to lug all of it up to the tower, but worth it, in the end. He’d never seen Jeremy so relaxed before.
“I feel good,” he told Rodney as Jeremy began to climb the stairs of the tower. “I feel happy.”
Rodney bumped Don’s shoulder with his own. “See? Told you. Just needed a bit of time.”
“Yeah,” Don said. “That’s all.”
It wasn’t, and they’d learn that soon enough, but for now, it was true. He felt a low simmer of excitement as he followed Rodney up the stairs, the wooden steps creaking underneath their feet. It washot, but not bad. No humidity. No clouds. Just a stretch of a sky so blue, it seemed surreal. And in that sky, the pale outline of the moon, a ghost in daylight.
The interior of the tower had two sets of bunk beds, a twin-sized mattress on each bunk. Windows on all sides. A small stove, a small fireplace. Maps lining the walls and plaques with engraved words about the land, the people, the work the fire tower did. A table in the middle with a large compass and an even bigger map of the area.
Jeremy was already climbing to the top of one of the bunk beds, declaring it as his. As soon as that was done, he was back down the ladder and running around the tower, touching anything and everything within reach.
It was a good trip, the kind that was over before they wanted it to be. Hours spent hiking, taking silly pictures, eating bologna sandwiches with cheap yellow mustard. Fires weren’t allowed anywhere except in an old woodstove, but that didn’t matter. They could still tell ghost stories, could still make s’mores. And they did. They did all of that and more.
On the first night, after Jeremy had gone to bed, snoring, one arm dangling over the side of the bunk bed, Don and Rodney sat near one of the windows, watching the stars come out over the forest.
Don said, “We’re going to make it, aren’t we?”
Rodney looked over at him with a lazy smile. “I think we are.”
“I’ve never seen him like this before.”
“He’s starting to trust us. Bet it won’t be too long now before we hear the word ‘Dad’ come from him.”
“You think?” Don asked, aching with it. “What a wonderful moment that would be!”
“I think so. You’ll see. It’s all going to get better from here.”
He was wrong. They had no way of knowing it then, but Rodney was wrong.
It didn’t get better. Looking back, it was odd they had everthought it would. But perhaps that was part of the human condition: always having hope, even when it was hopeless.
He’d come into their lives like a hurricane, swift, unexpected. While so many of their community had been left to die in the eighties and nineties—the so-called gay cancer—Don and Rodney had been part of a movement, one quiet and surreal. Behind the scenes, out of the spotlight, hidden away in shadows.
They, like so many other same-sex couples, had wanted a child. Surrogacy in the eighties and nineties was still a new frontier, prohibitively expensive and fraught with the chance the mother would refuse to give up the child, as was her right. But even if they had found someone willing to carry a child, a gay couple taking the newborn home? Near impossible.
Like so many potential parents, Rodney and Don weren’t deterred, even when they were toldnotime and time again, a crushing blow that felt deeply personal. But what they could not know before that phone call came in the summer of 1990 was that social workerswantedthem. Social workerswantedto find homes for as many of the kids under their care as they could. And yet, they were left with certain children, unwanted children. Children who had physical or developmental disabilities. In the system, in foster care, in group homes. Children who weredifferent, children who weren’t what society deemed asnormal. Children with Down syndrome, children with cerebral palsy, children with histories of significant trauma. Children born in drugs and violence, children who were never given a chance to justbechildren.
They were rejected by most families. People didn’t want a child they thought broken or ill or traumatized. They wanted a pretty girl or handsome boy, tailor-made for their families. Babies were especially popular because people could pretend that the child had come from them.
So then what became of the other children? What became ofthe orphaned kids who used wheelchairs or had epilepsy or autism? Children who had been harmed, children who lashed out, children who could be angry and violent? Who would take them?
In that summer of 1990, the phone rang. On the other end, a friend of theirs, a woman who worked with the state. She said she had someone she wanted them to meet. She said she hoped they would be as affected by the story as she was. She knew Don and Rodney had been considering adoption. They’d thought they’d have no real chance. After all, they weren’t heterosexual. Homosexuality had only been removed from the list of psychological disorders in 1973. Combine that with the AIDS crisis, and same-sex couples never had a chance.
She said, “I have someone I want you to meet.”
Two weeks later, they’d driven to Bangor. They’d gone to a nondescript office building to the third floor. Their friend, the social worker, had greeted them. She’d been excited, but nervous. “You’ll love him,” she told them. “He’s a handful, but I think you two would be so good for him.” She showed them pictures, told them stories.
Jeremy. Seven years old. A boy, a small boy with brown hair and brown eyes. Knobby knees. Skinny arms and legs. Scars, so many scars. On his back, on his chest, on his shoulders. Scars from other people. Scars from violence.
And a long list of diagnoses. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Attachment disorder. Traits of autism, but that could be a symptom of oppositional defiant disorder. Antisocial behavior. Basically, she told them, it boiled down to this: The boy had been through the wringer. He had survived, but not wholly intact. He was quick to anger. Didn’t like authority. Easily irritated. Resentful. Argumentative. Defiant. Vindictive, something that Don thought no child should ever understand. Cruelty through words and actions, even if the intent wasn’t there. “Long story short,” she told them with atrace of sadness, “he’s an angry kid. He’ll need a lot of support. I won’t lie to you: This won’t be easy on any of you. You might even regret ever taking this meeting if things should progress.”
Confused, Don asked, “Why does it sound like you’re trying to talk us out of this?”
She shook her head. “I’m not. I swear I’m not. It’s just that you need to be prepared. Bringing a child into a home changes everything. But when you have a child with the issues Jeremy has, that change increases exponentially. Jeremy might not ever be able to lead a so-callednormallife. Kids can grow out of ODD, but some don’t. And given Jeremy’s history, it could lead to other things.”