The Leavers

Kay was wrong. He wasn’t scared of her. He was scared of finding out what really happened to his mother.

ROLAND ASKED OUTRIGHT, SAID the word that no one else had. “Is it weird being a foster kid? Are the Wilkinsons going to adopt you?” They were walking home from school, down Hillside Road, past the Ridgeborough Library and the Methodist church, the sidewalk bumpy with tree roots.

Adopt. There was a similar term in Chinese, yet Deming hadn’t thought of his time with Peter and Kay to be anything but vaguely temporary, like the stay with Yi Gong had been vaguely temporary. Even the name Daniel Wilkinson seemed like an outfit he would put on for an unspecified period of time, until he returned to his real name and home planet. Where that real home was, however, was no longer certain.

“It’s weird,” he said.

“Do you miss your real mom?”

“Yeah.”

“I kind of miss my dad, even if I don’t remember him.” They stopped on the corner. “Are you coming over?”

“I just remembered I have to help my mom with something.”

Deming ran the three blocks back to Oak Street. He knew he had a good hour and a half before Kay and Peter came home. He brought his laptop to the study and pulled up an online dictionary.

Foster child: A child looked after temporarily or brought up by people other than his or her natural or adoptive parents.

Adoption: A process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents. Adoption is intended to effect a permanent change in status, through legal sanction.

It took a minute to parse through the language, but when he did, it seemed like the computer was expanding.

Temporarily. Permanent.

He pulled open the drawer of the file cabinet next to the desk, a long, metal arm crammed with folders for taxes, property-related documents, and research for Peter’s book on something called free trade. Sandwiched between KAY WORK and LIFE INSURANCE was a fat folder labeled ADOPTION/FOSTER. Deming tugged until the folder gave way and poured its contents onto the floor.

It had to be a joke. He sat on the rug and picked up a color pamphlet titled Gift of Life: Your Child Is Waiting for You. Blurry pictures of children with large, liquid eyes were placed throughout, as well as pictures of adults holding babies with darker skin. The children, the captions said, came from Ethiopia, Romania, and China. The pamphlet talked about how international adoption gave an unwanted child a home and blessed adoptive parents with a child of their own.

He dumped out the rest of the folder, listening for sounds downstairs, footsteps or the front door closing. He scanned a printout of an e-mail message, dated more than four years ago.

Dear Sharon,

I attended the Gift of Life informational seminar last Saturday with my husband Peter. After years of unresolved fertility issues, we are very interested in becoming parents, and soon! We’ve been married for over twenty years and are more than ready to make our family complete. Our loving home in Ridgeborough is ready for a child.

We have good friends who are parents to a Chinese adoptee, so we are familiar with the process, and are interested in adopting from China as well. I know there are sending countries that look down on “older” first-time parents (Peter and I are each forty-six). We don’t mind adopting a Chinese child who is older, as we know they can also (like us “older” parents) be “harder to place.” Peter and I have traveled extensively and both teach at the college level, so we have experience working with young people. We think international adoption would be a good fit for us.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Kathryn S. Wilkinson

He saw medical records, criminal clearances and background checks, documents stating the Wilkinsons’ home was safe for a child, and an e-mail from the Gift of Life director saying that with sending countries’ new restrictions on international adoption, Kay and Peter might want to consider domestic adoption, or foster-to-adoption. He flipped through reports from social workers stating that the Wilkinsons were well-established professionals who were financially and emotionally equipped to become loving parents, and papers that said they had completed mandatory training classes and were court-certified to foster and adopt. When he saw a packet of papers labeled INITIAL PERMANENCY HEARING REPORT: IN THE MATTER OF DEMING GUO, he stopped. The report was dated two months ago. He had to read a few sentences over twice, but at the end, he understood, even if he wished he didn’t.

Birth mother and putative father abandoned child six months ago and returned to China. Caregiver V. Zheng signed Surrender Form.

After interim care in Brooklyn, child was placed in foster care with the Wilkinsons due to K. Wilkinson’s indication of Mandarin-speaking skills.

Foster parents plan to petition for termination of mother’s parental rights on grounds of abandonment.

No current reunification plan with birth family.

Anticipated Permanency Planning Goal: Placement for Adoption

There were so many more e-mails and documents, bundles of legal papers and dense forms, but Deming couldn’t bear to read them, and Peter and Kay would be home any minute. He stuffed the papers back into the folder, then wedged the folder in the file cabinet and pushed the drawer shut.

Termination. Permanency. His mother had abandoned him. She’d returned to China. He wanted to puke. He closed the browser window. The laptop seemed grotesque, too big and new.

At dinner, he asked them if he was adopted.

“Well, right now we’re your foster parents,” Kay said. “That means that you’re living with us, like any kid lives with his family, because you need a safe place to stay. And we would like to have you stay with us for as long as you want. We would like to adopt you. Would you like that?”

Deming shrugged.

“It wouldn’t happen right away,” Peter said. “It might take a long time.”

“But what happened to my real family?” Deming asked.

“We are your real family,” Peter said.

Kay frowned. “Your mother wanted to take care of you, but she couldn’t.”

The table grew blurry, the food tasted dry. “So she left me.” After he heard Peter and Kay talking in their room the other night, he had been waiting for them to say something to him about his mother. But they kept acting like everything was fine.

“She loved you.” Kay refolded her napkin.

“And we love you, too.” Peter exchanged a worried look with Kay.

“I saw that,” Deming said.

“Saw what?” Peter asked.

“Never mind.”

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