I grab mine and pull them up as high as they can go. Which is higher than hers. “Yeah,” I say. “They are the bomb.”
I start passing the ball back and forth with Katie MacDougall. She throws the ball too hard and I miss it. It bounces past me and rolls to the bleachers. The man in the leather Patriots jacket catches it. He stands up and I see that my Forever Dad isn’t with him anymore. My Forever Dad isn’t anywhere.
The man is standing in front of me holding the ball. I am walking toward him. “Here you go, Ginny,” he says. He holds the ball out. I take it.
“Thanks,” I say. I don’t know if he’s a stranger or not because a stranger is someone you don’t know and I have seen him here before.
“Great job out there tonight,” he says. “You’re really pretty good.”
So I say thanks again even though We do not talk to strangers.
He keeps looking at me like we have been talking for a long time. “Your dad will be right back in a minute,” he says.
And I say, “He must be in the bathroom.”
The man in the leather Patriots jacket is supposed to sit down again or say, Well, you better get back out there. He is supposed to act like a regular stranger. But he doesn’t. He just stands there looking at me and when I look at his eyes he looks at the ground. Like he did the other day. I look where he is looking but I don’t see anything interesting or different there. I keep looking.
Then in the gym I hear Katie MacDougall talking about how she wants to try to be one of the Harlem Globetrotters. I look to the side and see my Forever Dad walking out of the bathroom but I want to know what the man in the leather Patriots jacket is looking at so I pick my head up and ask him.
“What are you looking at?” I say.
He swallows and doesn’t look up. “Just a really pretty girl who turned out okay,” he says.
His eyes look wet. It’s like he’s going to cry which doesn’t make sense because he’s a man. So I’m guessing he has something in them. I look down at the ground again. I see my sneakers and his work boots. When I look up again my Forever Dad is standing there.
“Excuse me,” he says. “What’s going on?”
So I say, “This man has wet eyes.”
The man in the leather Patriots jacket wipes them. “We were just talking,” he says.
“Not anymore you’re not,” my Forever Dad says. His voice is angry. “This isn’t what we agreed on.”
“The ball rolled over here to the bleachers,” says the man in the leather Patriots jacket. “I caught it and gave it back to her.”
My Forever Dad looks at me. I hold up the ball. In my hands it feels as big as the whole world.
“She’s not supposed to talk with strangers,” says my Forever Dad.
“I’m a stranger?”
“We’re trying to help her build good habits. So until you’re introduced at the agreed-upon time, a stranger is exactly what you are. Right, Ginny?”
I nod my head yes. “Exactly,” I say.
The man in the leather Patriots jacket steps back one step. He puts his hands up. “Okay. Got it. My bad,” he says. Then to me he says, “It was nice talking with you, Ginny.” And walks away.
“Go ahead and play some more,” my Forever Dad tells me. So I do. But when I pass the ball to Katie MacDougall I see my Forever Dad and the man in the leather Patriots jacket talking on the bleachers again. My Forever Dad is shaking his head and leaning with his chin out. He is talking loud and pointing but not yelling. I feel bad for the man in the leather Patriots jacket. It looks like he’s getting in trouble.
I am glad I didn’t hiss at him last week.
46
EXACTLY 10:55 IN THE MORNING,
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20TH
We are in the car going to the park to see Rick. My Forever Parents will be with me the whole time so I won’t be able to just say all the things I want to say. Or ask him to drive me to Canada to meet up with Gloria and my Baby Doll. I have to be careful like I was in the letter. I will have to wait.
I pulled my socks up nine times when we left the house. I will pull my socks up again once more for good luck when we get there. It’s not very cold out even though it’s November but I’m still wearing my winter coat and hat.
When we get to the park I wait for my Forever Parents to get out of the car first. They always make me wait for them because I like to get out fast. They open the door. I jump out and pull my socks up one more time and then start looking for Rick. I don’t see him. I see only the parking lot and some trees with no leaves and the monkey bars and the swings moving in the wind.
Then I see a man standing next to the seesaw. He is wearing a blue-and-red Patriots jacket and a blue-and-red Patriots hat. My Forever Mom leans close to me and says, “There. Do you see him?”
And I say, “That’s the man from Special Olympics.”
“Actually, that’s your Birth Dad,” says my Forever Dad. “That’s Rick.”
So I say, “I’m guessing he likes blue and red.”
Rick walks over to us. He and my Forever Dad shake hands. Then he puts his hand out for me to shake. “Hey, Ginny,” he says.
I shake his hand. I can’t see his eyes because he’s wearing dark sunglasses. But I see two of me reflected in them. One in each eye.
I don’t say Hello, Rick or Hi or anything. I just shake his hand and stand there.
“It’s been nice coming to see you at Special Olympics,” he says.
That wasn’t a question so I don’t say anything. I don’t want to talk because I’m trying to figure out why he didn’t tell me who he was before.
“We wanted to get to know Rick before he met you,” my Forever Dad says. “We wanted him to see how you get along with other people.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Rick says. “And honestly, it was hard not being able to meet as quickly as I would have liked. I haven’t seen you since you were a tiny baby. We only had one day together at the hospital. Going to see your practice was—It was really great.”
I am still thinking so I don’t say anything. I think and I think.
Rick keeps talking. “You understand, don’t you?” he says. “I couldn’t stay away. But your new folks wanted to be careful, after everything that happened. Can’t say I blame them.”
When he says your new folks he puts his head down a little.
Rick seems like a nice quiet man. I’m guessing he’ll bring me right to Canada if I ask. He’ll do his very best to try to help me. I just have to find a way to make my Forever Parents go away so I can ask him.
“Where is your truck?” I say.
“I don’t have one. I drive a little old Honda.”
“In your letter you said you drive truck.”