by Cronk, LN
Her group stayed at a church not too far from the orphanage – rolling out their sleeping bags on the floors of the Sunday school rooms. It was the same church that we’d helped fix up when we’d been on our own mission trip eight years ago.
Sunday night they’d go to the orphanage and learn how to serve dinner to the kids, clean up the dishes, and help get them ready for bed. That’s something they would do every night for the rest of the week.
On Monday, they’d come to our house. The same old bus that had picked them up at the airport would arrive, packed full of kids from the landfill. The youth group kids would play with them, read to them, sing with them, and feed them two meals. They would also put on the little program that Laci had taught them.
On Tuesday they would spend the whole day at the orphanage: cooking, reading, playing, singing and changing diapers.
On Wednesday, the youth group kids would take the bus to the landfill and minister to the people who lived there. Thursday, Friday and Saturday were a repeat of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. On Sunday the whole thing started all over again when the old youth group flew out and a new one flew in.
Long and short of it, if I wanted to have dinner with Laci, I had it at the orphanage.
I was pleased when I went to the orphanage for the first time to find that it was nothing like the landfill. It was clean, it was neat, and the kids were happy and well-fed. The food wasn’t too bad either (which was a good thing since I wound up eating there every night of the week).
Usually I kept myself busy after dinner supervising the youth group kids who were cleaning up in the kitchen and then I’d go sit in the back of the common area and watch the program that they put on for the kids. After that they volunteers helped the orphans brush their teeth and get dressed for bed, then they were read to and tucked in.
And that’s when Laci would finally let me take her home.
One evening I was sitting in the back of the room, absently listening to the program of songs (which I was already pretty much getting sick of), when a little boy crawled up to me and climbed onto my lap.
Now I’d never really spent a lot of time around little kids before except for Charlotte, my best friend Greg’s little sister. She was just a toddler when I was twelve and they’d moved to town.
This kid was about the same size Charlotte had been when I’d met her, so I figured he must be about a year and a half old. He pressed his shoulder up against me and laid his head against my chest. Then he didn’t move.
As a matter of fact, he was so still that I thought he’d fallen asleep. I didn’t want to wake him, so I leaned my head very slowly forward so that I could see if his eyes were closed.
They weren’t.
He spotted me looking at him and turned his face toward me and smiled. I smiled back. Then he put his head against my chest again and didn’t move.
As the kids were singing their last song Laci wandered to the back of the room where I was and sat down next to me. She had an amused look on her face.
“Is he asleep?” I whispered.
“No,” she smiled.
So I looked at him again and he smiled up at me again.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “He just crawled into my lap.”
She looked at him and spoke.
“Hola chiquito. ¿Que haces? ¿Te gusta Dave?”
He nodded at her.
“Me gusta también,” Laci said.
“What’s his name?” I asked her.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “He just came in the other day, but it’s time for him to go to bed. Why don’t you go change his diaper and I’ll find out which crib is his.”
“Change his diaper?”
“Yeah. Change his diaper.”
“I don’t know how to change his diaper.”
“Well, then, you’d better start practicing,” she said, patting her tummy. “You need to get good at it . . .”
“I don’t think I should have to start now,” I said.
“Come on,” she said. “It’ll be fun.”
“Fun?”
“Come on.”
I picked him up and carried him over to one of the changing tables that was against the wall. I handed him over to Laci.
“You do it,” she said, trying to hand him back. “You’ve got to learn some time.”
“I’ll watch this time,” I said. “But I’ll do it next time, I promise.”
“Uh-huh. You’ve got to put these little pictures in the front,” she said, showing me a clean diaper. It had pictures of Elmo all over the strip on the front. I watched as she took off his old diaper and put on a new one. The old one was only wet and not too disgusting. She also took off his shirt and then handed him back to me while she went to look for Inez.
“Do you like Elmo?” I asked him. He smiled at me.
“I always liked Elmo,” I went on. “And the Count. The Count was my favorite.”
He smiled at me some more.
“You don’t understand a thing I’m saying to you, do you?”
He had a nice smile though. And black eyes. Not dark brown. Black.
“What’s your name?”
No response.
Maybe he was too young to talk.
“I’m David,” I said, jabbing my chest with my thumb.
He touched my hand.
“Can you say David?”
“Day.”
“Hey! You can talk. I’m David. Say David.”
“Day.”
“Try this,” I said. “Dave.”
“Day.”
“No. Dave . . . Dave.”
“Day-Day.”
“Daaave . . . Daaave”
“Day-Day.”
“Good enough,” I said as Laci walked up to us.
“This is Doroteo,” she said. “Doroteo, this is David.”
“Day-Day,” he said.
“We’ve already met,” I explained.
“His crib’s the one over there with the Barney bedspread.”
“He likes The Count from Sesame Street better,” I told her.
I wasn’t the only adult sitting at the back while the evening programs went on (there were almost always some chaperones too), but the next night that same little boy made a beeline for me and crawled into my lap. He pressed his head against me again and didn’t move.
I peeked into his face and those black eyes stared right back at me.
“Man, your eyes are black,” I said. I couldn’t even see his pupils. I was sitting with my back to the window and it was still light outside so I put my hand in front of his face and moved it back and forth, trying to see his pupils contract and dilate in reaction to the light.
“What in the world are you doing?” Laci asked when she wandered by.
“Seeing if he has pupils . . .”
“You’re so weird.”
“Well I’m serious, Laci! What if he was in a car accident or something and they needed to know if his pupils were responsive? How would they tell?”
“I don’t think he’s going to get in a car accident.”
“Well,” I said. “You know what I mean.”
“I’m sure he has pupils . . .”
“Go get a flashlight!”
“Quit trying to get out of changing his diaper,” she said and she walked away.
“What’s my name?” I asked him one day while I was changing his diaper. He just grinned at me.
“You sure are happy, aren’t you? Do you remember my name? I’m Dave.”
“Day-Day.”
“Sure, okay. Let’s go find your crib. Where’s you’re crib? Where’s your crib?”
He actually pointed at his crib.
“Do you understand English?” I asked him.
“Day-Day,” he said, smiling at me.
“That’s right,” I said, putting him in his crib. “I’m Day-Day. You’re a good boy.”
Laci came over as I was pulling his Barney bedspr
ead up to his chin. She yanked the covers right back down.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Making sure you put his diaper on right.”
“Laci,” I said, “I’m an engineer. I think I can handle putting a diaper on.”
“It’s gotta be tight,” she said, undoing it and tightening it up.
“You’re supposed to be able to get two fingers in there,” I argued.
“That’s dog collars, not diapers.”
I sighed.
“Buenas noches, Doroteo,” Laci said, leaning down to kiss him.
“Day-Day!” he said, reaching up toward me.
I leaned over and kissed his forehead. His hair smelled like strawberry shampoo.
“Why’s he calling you Daddy?” Laci asked as we walked away.
“He’s not calling me Daddy,” I explained. “He’s trying to say ‘Dave’.”
“It sounds like Daddy to me,” she said. Then she smiled and patted her tummy. “I guess that’s okay, though. You’re going to have to get used to it.”
The third night he sought me out again and I must say that it felt kind of good to be singled out as the “go to” lap. He crawled up there, sat down and put his head against my chest.
Immediately I felt something warm all over my lap.
“Whoa!” I said, snatching him up. There was a big wet spot on my jeans.
I caught Laci’s eye and she came over.
“Something’s wrong,” I said, holding him away from my body like he was radioactive.
“His diaper just leaked,” she said. “That’s all.”
“They leak? How do they leak?”
“I don’t know . . . they just leak.”
“Well, that’s stupid,” I said. “Here. Take him.”
“Just go put a clean diaper on him.”
I laid him down on the table and undid the tape on his diaper. As soon as I opened it I could tell why it had leaked . . . it was soaked. Absolutely soaked.
I flagged Laci over to where I was.
“When’s the last time they changed his diaper? It must weigh a ton!”
“It does look like it’s been a while,” she admitted.
I grabbed a diaper wipe and began cleaning him. He immediately started crying.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him, upset. “What’s wrong?”
Laci grabbed a dry washcloth and started patting him. He quieted down.
“He’s got a little diaper rash,” she said. “See?”
I looked. Even though his skin was very brown, I could tell that it was covered with angry red blotches.
“Poor little guy,” I said. “No wonder he has a diaper rash. Why’d they leave his diaper on him so long without changing him?”
“Well, David, there’re a lot of kids here–”
“So they have to sit around in wet diapers all day?”
“No,” she said, smearing some white ointment on his skin, “but he hasn’t been crying or complaining or anything and probably nobody noticed that he needed changing.”
“So he gets punished because he’s a happy baby?” I asked, fastening a clean diaper onto him. “That’s not right. Where’s Inez? I’m going to talk to Inez.”
Laci looked horrified.
“No, David! Inez is doing the best she can . . . we all are and these kids are well cared for. This was just an isolated incident.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I whispered to him, leaning toward his face. He smiled at me as if all was forgiven.
“I’m going to go see if anybody needs anything,” Laci said. “You’re not going to talk to Inez, are you?”
“No,” I said quietly and Laci left.
“You’re going to have to learn to stand up for yourself,” I told him softly. “If you aren’t happy, you’ve got to let somebody know . . . okay?”
He nodded at me.
“Do you speak English?” I asked him.
He nodded again.
“Do you speak German too?”
Affirmative.
“Do you own a motor home?”
Another nod.
“You’re just extremely agreeable, aren’t you?”
Yep.
“I bet I could teach you English though,” I said. Then I pointed at myself. “Who am I?”
“Day-Day.”
“That’s right,” I said. “You’re a good boy.”
After that, the first thing I did when I got to the orphanage was to find him and change his diaper whether he needed it or not. I figured that by the time our baby arrived in March I’d be well practiced.
And one night I brought a flashlight with me.
He did have pupils.
He liked it a lot when I sang to him. He was almost always smiling and I liked trying to make him laugh. Usually anything that tickled him would do the trick.
What he really liked was something that involved both singing and tickling.
I was singing Itsy Bitsy Spider to him one evening and as I was making the spider walk up and down his body, I noticed that his lower legs were bowed. I asked Laci about it that evening after we’d turned out the lights to go to sleep.
“Don’t you think Dorito’s legs are kind of bowed out?”
“Who?”
“Dorito.”
“You mean Doroteo?”
“Yeah.”
“I hadn’t notice,” she said.
“They look kind of bowed out to me,” I said.
“Hang on.” She turned on the light on her side of the bed and went over to her dresser and looked at the pile of baby books that we’d already accumulated. She came back with two of them and handed one to me. I turned on my light too.
We both looked up bowed legs and were assured that some bowing was normal and was nothing to worry about. The legs usually straighten themselves out without any problem. We turned out the lights and went to sleep.
“How old are you?” I asked him one evening. “Are you one?”
He nodded.
“Are you ten?”
He nodded again.
“Uh-huh.”
I carried him over to Inez.
“How old is he?” I asked her.
“We do not know, Señor David,” Inez replied. “He was abandoned in the park a few weeks ago. I theenk about eighteen months, but I’m not sure.”
“Oh,” I nodded, turning from her. “Who would do that?” I whispered in his ear after I had walked away with him. “Who would just leave you in a park?”
“Day-Day,” he smiled at me, grabbing my ear.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Day-Day would not do that. Day-Day would not leave you in the park.”
When Laci came to bed that night I was reading one of our baby books.
“What’re you reading about?” she asked.
“Seeing when babies are supposed to start walking.”
“It’s going to be a while,” she laughed.
“Oh,” I said. “Not our baby. Dorito.”
“You mean Doroteo?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s it say?”
“Most kids should be walking by the time they’re eighteen months old. Inez says she thinks that’s about how old he is. Don’t you think that’s how old he is?”
“I don’t have any idea.”
“Did you know that he was abandoned in the park?” I asked her.
“No.”
“How could you have a kid for eighteen months and then just leave him in a park?”
“There’re a quarter of a million abandoned kids in this city, David,” Laci said. “You know that.”
“I’d never leave our baby in a park.”
“What if that’s what was best for him? What if you couldn’t take care of him?”
“Him?”
“Her. I just said ‘him’ because we’re talking about Doroteo. Our baby’s a girl. What if you couldn’t take care of her? Wouldn’t you be willing to give her up if that’s what was best for her?”
<
br /> I couldn’t even imagine myself in a situation like that.
“It makes me mad,” I said, ignoring her question.
“I know,” she said quietly. “That’s why we’re here.”
~ ~ ~
LIKE I SAID, the food at the orphanage was pretty good and I actually enjoyed the time I spent there, but after the first month or so I convinced Laci that we had to have some time to ourselves. She finally relented and we started going out to eat together every Friday night. By the end of the week the youth group kids were familiar enough with the evening routine at the orphanage that Laci was almost convinced they could manage without her.
On our first night out we were directed to a booth. I let Laci sit down first and then I started to sit across from her. She caught my hand.
“Sit next to me,” she said. “Please?”
I looked at her for a moment.
“Odds or evens?” I asked.
She grinned at me.
“Evens.”
“One, two, three.”
Laci threw out four fingers as I threw out three. She sighed and I sat down across from her. We hadn’t done that since we’d dated in high school. She’d always wanted to sit next to me, but I’d wanted to sit across from her. Greg had said that he didn’t blame Laci – that looking at me all through dinner probably made her lose her appetite.
“I hope the program goes good tonight,” Laci said, reaching across the table for my hand.
“They’ll be fine without you for one night, Laci,” I said, squeezing her hand. “Why don’t you try to not think about work for a few hours?”
Yeah, right.
“I think they should do okay,” she went on. “They did pretty good last night, don’t you think?”
“I guess,” I said, shrugging.
“Don’t you think they did good?”
“I don’t know. Sure. It’s sort of just the same ol’ stuff every night . . .”
I had no idea that I was about to get my first taste of pregnancy hormones in action.
