Politics were the furthest motivation from Sylvie’s mind when they got the news that a young mother from the Southwest who could no longer take care of an eighteen-month-old toddler had chosen Sylvie and James as new parents. Adopting an American child was far more difficult than Sylvie had imagined, and she and James had jumped through all kinds of hoops to even get this far; it seemed ungrateful to turn the child down. Still, when the adoption agency broke the news about Scott’s background, she felt a push and pull inside her. It didn’t matter; it did matter. There would be a whole separate culture to consider, a world she knew little about. There would be talks they’d have to have, a painful explanation about the woman who’d given him up, a woman they knew nothing about. But maybe that wouldn’t matter. Couldn’t they just raise him as theirs? Couldn’t their culture be his culture?
You’re doing a wonderful thing, you know, the adoption coordinator mentioned during one of their private conversations, when James wasn’t around. Sylvie found the statement churlish and crass. Did the coordinator sense her uneasiness? Was it because she’d asked her if adoptive parents sent out some sort of I-just-brought-home-my-child announcements to friends, similar to a baby picture with weight and length and tiny footprints and handprints? Could the coordinator pinpoint the ambivalence that welled so deeply inside her, the fear that she might never be able to bond with this child as she’d instantly bonded with her biological son?
James, of course, didn’t care one way or another. A baby is a baby, he’d said. He longed for another boy and didn’t care where he was from.
After a while, Sylvie warmed to the idea of having a second boy in the house. She imagined looking out her window and seeing her two sons hauling red sleds up the hill in the winter. It could be the image on her Christmas cards.
Sylvie meticulously planned how she would break the news to Charles, nearly four, that he was going to have a brand-new brother. It was going to involve an ice-cream cake, a trip to the zoo, and maybe a walk around the Swithin grounds. The day before the news, Charles arrived home from a play date, eager to show his parents an origami crane that his friend’s mother had taught him to make. When he proudly placed it in James’s hands, a perfect folded bird out of shiny pink paper, James frowned. “What are you, a fruit?”
Charles looked confused. “Like … a banana?”
James held the crane by its beak, scoffing at its pinkness. “This is gay, Charles.”
James had that obstinate, self-righteous look on his face again—it wasn’t an opinion, it was law. Charles’s face took on a worried, guilty, self-conscious expression that Sylvie would never get used to seeing. His gaze swiveled from James to Sylvie. “What does gay mean?” he asked worriedly, his eyes already filling with tears.
“It means happy,” Sylvie said quickly.
Charles looked relieved and James snorted. “Thank God we’re going to have another boy around here, Syl. Maybe he’ll teach this one not to act like such a *.”
Sylvie held her breath. Her son seemed to stop breathing. It was hard to know whether Charles understood the individual words, but he understood their thrust. He whirled around and ran out of the room.
Sylvie glared at James, who was busy pouring himself another drink. “What?” He raised his hands defensively. “What did I do?”
“I had plans for how I was going to tell him about the baby,” Sylvie said.
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“Because I told you!”
She ran out of the house and found Charles in the garden, sitting on a rock, sticking a twig into the dirt. She crouched down next to him and told him his father was just teasing him. But there was a surprise—Charles really was going to have a new brother. They were adopting a new little boy for him to play with, two years younger than him. They were picking him up and bringing him home next week. Charles would get to teach this little boy everything he knew.
“Now, he may look a little different than you,” she added. “But it doesn’t mean he’s different inside. He’ll be your brother. A boy just like you.”
Charles nodded, not really understanding what she meant. After fiddling with his toes for a while, he raised his head. “What does ‘adopting’ mean?” he asked.
“Well, it means he’s coming from another family. But once we adopt him, he’ll belong to our family.”
Charles wrinkled his nose, confused. “Why?”
“Why what?” Sylvie cursed James for forcing this on her a day early. She felt unprepared for questions.
“Why can’t he stay with his own family?” Charles clarified.
Sylvie sat back. “Well, sometimes mommies can’t take care of their babies in the way they should be taken care of.”
Charles’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“Well, sometimes the mommy is … sick. Or too young. Or maybe poor.”
“Or bad?” He sounded thrilled.
“Well … yes. Maybe.”