by Cronk, LN
~ ~ ~
SCHOOL BEGAN IN the fall and Jordan and Charlotte both started their senior year of high school. Mrs. White had said that under no circumstance was Charlotte going to have a homebound teacher. She said the taxpayers weren’t going to pay big bucks just because Charlotte wanted to be spared some embarrassment. I knew Charlotte wasn’t the first girl to ever walk the halls of Cavendish High School pregnant (she wasn’t even in the first one hundred), but I also knew that it was hard for her.
Charlotte’s old boyfriend – the father of the baby – was named Garret (or maybe Jarret – I was never actually too clear on that). Apparently he and his parents sat down with Charlotte and Mrs. White and they all decided that the baby should be put up for adoption – a closed adoption. After the baby was born and Charlotte left the hospital, she would never see her baby again.
And after that, Charlotte changed.
She quit her job at Wilma’s. She quit laughing. She quit joking around. She became reserved – a word that never would have been used to describe her before. For her entire life, Charlotte had always been brimming with confidence, but now she hardly talked with anyone except for those who were closest to her.
At some point along the way, however, she also quit punishing herself and resolved that nothing was going to keep her from making her dad and Greg proud. With no social life and no job, she was able to devote herself to her school work and she studied her heart out.
That happened to make me proud too.
Meanwhile, Jordan’s attitude finally improved. He showed no signs of ever forgiving Charlotte, but he seemed to have decided that he wasn’t going to mope around anymore either. He had two more math classes to take this year. The first one was technical math (i.e. easy math) – and he knocked on the door after the first day of school with a big smile on his face.
“You’re gonna love this!” he said.
“Love what?”
“My math project.”
“You have a math project?” I could barely keep the excitement out of my voice.
“Yep!”
“What is it?”
I couldn’t believe how lax the requirements were (it’s no wonder we lag behind the rest of the world when it came to math). All he had to do was build something using blueprints he’d made himself. Big deal.
Of course I was going to turn it into a big deal and Jordan knew that. We were going to make something great.
“Got any ideas?” I asked him.
“Well,” he said. “It’s due right before Christmas, so I was thinking about building something that we could take to the orphanage and donate to them after I got a grade, but if I made a dollhouse or something like that it would be too big to get down there.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “You’re probably right . . . plus, the kids really don’t need any more stuff . . .”
“Do they need money?” Jordan asked. “Maybe I could make something and sell it here or auction it off and then give them the money.”
“Well, of course they always need money, but what they really need are . . .”
“What?”
I sighed. “Parents.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help them there,” Jordan said, sighing too.
We sat quietly for a minute and I thought about one set of parents who had come to the orphanage from Delaware. Like almost every mom and dad who came to pick up a child, they’d been beside themselves with excitement. They were adopting a little girl, who happened to be a good friend of Dorito’s.
Now I normally didn’t make small talk with people I was never going to see again (what’s the point?), but Dorito had been pretty upset that this particular little girl was leaving and I’d wound up talking with the parents while Dorito gabbed with her and hugged on her for a few more minutes. During that time I’d learned that the only reason they’d even been able to adopt was because of an organization called Shaohannah’s Hope.
Shaohannah’s Hope was named after the first little girl adopted by Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife. It was a non-profit, designed to help Christian families adopt (despite how expensive it was). They’d told me all about how the organization had provided a grant to offset some of the costs and how they never would have been able to adopt without Shaohannah’s Hope. I remembered thinking at the time that if more people could get help like that then maybe our orphanage wouldn’t be quite so full.
“You know what, Jordan?” I finally asked. “I think maybe you can help them there.”
He loved the idea of building something, selling it, and donating the proceeds to Shaohannah’s Hope. The next question was: What to build?
We nixed the whole dollhouse idea early on (too girly). Then we talked about building a gazebo, but didn’t think anyone was going to buy one of those in the dead of winter. Finally he decided to make a series of buildings that could go with an electric train set. We went to the hobby shop and determined that something in an “O” scale would probably sell best at Christmas time. The hobby shop owner even offered to help him sell it, so Jordan and I got to work.
When Laci learned what we were doing, she said she’d see me in December.
It was a busy fall. Lily had intensive therapy with her cochlear implants, Dorito started first grade, and Laci was so excited about our mission trip that she managed to attend every youth group meeting we had even though Ashlyn wasn’t there. Laci and I were meeting each week with the kids from the combined youth group who were going to Mexico, while Ashlyn and Brent held regular meetings at their church with the kids who weren’t going. Ashlyn and Brent’s group was working on a Christmas play, while our job was to come up with a program and activities to do with the kids at the orphanage and the kids at the landfill.
Assured that he wouldn’t be running into Charlotte, Jordan attended every meeting too. When we started discussing program ideas, Jordan spoke up and said he really wanted to do something involving sign language. Everybody in the group got quiet while I called Inez (the director of the orphanage), and asked her if there were any deaf children in the orphanage right then.
“No, Señor David, but by Christmas time . . . who knows? We do have a little blind girl right now . . .”
I had this sudden image of Laci convincing me that I needed to learn Braille.
“Thanks, Inez. I was just wondering.”
“We can’t wait to see you!!” she said before I hung up.
“No deaf kids right now,” I told everyone, and Jordan looked crestfallen.
“There’s no reason we still can’t do something with sign language,” Laci said. “We’ll teach the kids things to use when they do meet someone who’s deaf . . .”
“Like what?” someone wanted to know.
“We could do some Christmas carols,” Jordan suggested.
“Yeah,” Lydia said. “We’ll look just like the Happy Hands Club on Napoleon Dynamite.”
Everyone laughed and Jordan seemed almost happy.
The kids got pretty fired up about signing. The EC teacher who had taught Jordan agreed to come to our youth group meetings once a week and work with the kids. They learned five different Christmas carols and the Christmas story. One of the guys happened to play the guitar and two of the girls played in the marching band (one the flute and one the clarinet.) All three started bringing their instruments and by the time Thanksgiving rolled around we were sounding (and looking) pretty good. They even made a set of flashcards showing a bunch of the signs we’d be teaching the kids. We glued them onto construction paper and had them laminated so we could leave them with the kids at the orphanage before we left.
Two weeks before we were to leave Jordan turned in eight little “O” scale buildings: a church, a depot, a warehouse, a school, and four houses. After his teacher gave him his “A” he turned them over to the hobby shop owner who put them on display in the front window of his shop with a sign explaining where all the proceeds from their sale would go. Three days later he called Jordan and told him that not only had
someone bought all eight pieces, but that several people had made donations for Shaohannah’s Hope. Jordan mailed a check off a week before we left.
The morning we were to leave, Laci’s phone rang while she was in the shower. I looked at it, saw that it was Ashlyn, and answered it.
“They’re on their way to the hospital,” I told Laci when she got out.
“They who?”
“Ashlyn and Brent.”
“Oh.”
“Ashlyn’s gonna have a baby!” Dorito shouted as soon as Jordan climbed into the car. Laci was sitting in the back seat with him.
“Like now?” Jordan asked, looking back at Laci.
“Apparently,” she nodded.
“Oh . . .”
“She’s gonna keep her baby,” Dorito said. I don’t think I’d ever seen him so excited . . . he was really wound up. “Charlotte’s gonna have a baby too, but she’s not gonna keep hers.”
Jordan did up his seatbelt and I pulled out of the driveway.
“Charlotte’s baby’s going to be adopted,” Dorito went on. “I was adopted. I used to live in an orphanage.”
“I know,” Jordan said, looking out the window.
“Charlotte’s baby’s just gonna get adopted. It’s not gonna live in an orphanage.”
“I know.”
“We’re gonna go see where I used to live.”
“I know.”
“There’s lots of kids there,” he explained. “You can adopt one if you want to.”
“I think I’ll probably wait until I’m married before I do that,” Jordan said, looking back at him and smiling slightly.
“You could marry Charlotte,” Dorito suggested. “Then you could adopt her baby.”
Jordan turned around and looked out the window again.
“You know what, Dorito?” I asked him.
“What?”
“You talk a lot.”
“I know,” he said, matter-of-factly.
“Maybe you could be quiet until we get to the airport.”
“Okay,” he sighed.
“Don’t worry,” I assured Jordan. “He’s sitting next to me and Tanner on the plane.”
“Does Tanner know that?” Jordan asked.
“I thought I’d surprise him.”
“You’re not serious, are you?”
“No,” I laughed, shaking my head. “He knows. Dorito begged him.”
On the plane ride Tanner taught Dorito how to play crazy eights. They also played tic-tac-toe, thumb wrestled, and played with Tanner’s phone, taking pictures and videos and trying all the games. When Dorito finally fell asleep it was with his head resting against Tanner, even though I was sitting right on his other side.
It had been five months since Megan had “lost” the baby and moved out. I decided that was long enough. When Tanner put his arm around Dorito’s little body I smiled at him and made the Pon, Pon signal. He shook his head at me, but he also laughed.
After we arrived and got all of our luggage together we waited for the bus outside the terminal. It finally pulled up and stopped and I could see Aaron heading down the steps. I expected Laci to go running up to him and give him a big hug, but when I glanced at her she was fumbling with her phone instead. I watched her as she studied the screen and pushed buttons; then she smiled broadly and shoved the phone in my face for me to see.
There was a text from Brent and the screen was full of little smiley faces.
“What is that smell?” Jordan asked, wrinkling up his nose as we drove through the city.
“You don’t want to know,” I told him.
We were going to be staying in the fellowship hall of a local church, unrolling our sleeping bags at night and stuffing all of our things in a corner during the day. On the way there, Aaron asked me and Laci if we wanted to swing by our old house and we told him that we did.
“You lived in a pink house?” Tanner asked as we drove by.
“It’s not pink,” Laci said.
“Yes, it is,” Jordan told her. After five years I finally felt vindicated.
All day Monday we worked at the orphanage where we had first met Dorito and then Lily. Dorito was unusually subdued for the entire day and Laci worried that he was coming down with something. I had to admit that I’d been expecting him to be wide open while we were there.
At the fellowship hall that night Laci tucked him into his sleeping bag and then she lay down next to him, kissed him, and then felt his forehead to see if he had a fever. I had the feeling that something else was going on.
When we’d first met Dorito we’d had no idea that one day we would be adopting him so we’d taught him to call us Dave and Laci. He’d had a hard time saying “Dave” (when he tried it sounded a lot more like “Day”) and before long he was calling me “Day-Day” all the time. That worked out just fine since I’d had a hard time saying “Doroteo” and turned him into “Dorito”.
Fair is fair.
But once we’d decided to adopt him, we’d told him that he could call us Mommy and Daddy if he wanted to . . . and he did. That’s why when we went to the orphanage on Monday and he called me “Day-Day” for the first time in two years, I knew that something was up.
Dorito was smart . . . very smart, so I just lay down on the other side of him and asked him.
“Are you worried about something, Dorito?”
“When are we going home?”
“Six more days.” I held out six fingers to him. “Is that okay? Can you hang out here for six more days?”
“I just don’t want to live there anymore.”
“Live where? The orphanage?”
He nodded and Laci and I looked at each other.
“No,” I said looking back down at him and brushing my thumb across his cheek. “I don’t want you to live there anymore either.”
When Laci and I’d adopted him we’d started bringing him to our house (the pink one) more and more. Very gradually he’d gotten used to the idea that he was a part of our family, but anytime he’d wanted to spend the night at the orphanage we’d let him. Our thought was that we hadn’t wanted him to go through the trauma of being suddenly yanked out of the orphanage.
“You need to stay with me and Mommy all the time now,” I told him.
“Except when I go to Grandma’s?”
“Right.”
“And Aunt Jessica’s?”
“Right.”
“And Charlotte’s?
“Uh-huh.”
“And Tan-man’s?”
“Right,” I laughed.
“So,” he said, clarifying, “I’m not going to live at the orphanage ever again?”
“Nope. You aren’t going to even go there unless Mommy and I are with you.”
“Because you adopted me.”
“And because we love you,” Laci said.
“And because you’re all ours,” I said.
He’d been abandoned in the park when he was about a year and a half old and he knew that.
“I just don’t want to live there anymore,” he said, one more time.
“I don’t want you to live there anymore either,” I said again. “We’re not going to ever leave you, Dorito. You’re always going to be ours. Always.”
He’d heard this a million times, but I guess he needed to hear it once more. He nodded at me.
“We’re supposed to go back there for dinner every night this week though and on Christmas day we’re supposed to spend the whole day there playing again. Do you want to do that?”
I decided that if he didn’t I’d kick around Mexico City with him.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding again. “I’m going to teach Miranda how to play crazy eights.”
Tuesday we went to a home church and the kids from the landfill were brought there on the bus. Just like the day before with the orphanage kids, we started teaching the kids how to sign the Christmas carols we’d learned and told them the Christmas story. We fed them and sang to them and got to know them a little bit so tha
t they’d recognize us at the landfill the next day.
We’d already prepped everyone in the youth group as best we could for what it was going to be like at the landfill and what we were going to do. When we pulled up the next day the children spotted the bus and ran to meet us. Some of us got out and started passing out food, while others carried boxes of food out into the landfill to reach those who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) come to the bus. That’s what Jordan and Tanner did.
You may think that I didn’t go with them because I didn’t want to go down into the landfill (which I didn’t), but that’s not why. The reason I didn’t go with them is because something told me to let them go by themselves . . . that I didn’t need to be a part of whatever was going to happen.
When it was time to leave everybody trudged back onto the bus. Dorito had always spent a lot of time at the landfill with Laci – to him it was just another place to play with friends. He bounced up to Tanner and asked if he could sit with him and when Tanner smiled slightly and nodded, Dorito climbed into his lap. Tanner wrapped his arms around Dorito and laid his cheek on the top of Dorito’s head, looking out the window quietly. Dorito must have sensed something in Tanner because he didn’t talk for most of the ride back to the church.
Jordan sat down looking shell-shocked. I sat down next to him because we’d gotten a phone call while they’d been down at the landfill.
“Jordan?”
“What?” he asked very quietly. He was staring out his window too.
“I wanted to tell you . . . before you heard it from someone else.”
“What?” he asked even quieter, his eyes not leaving the window.
“My mom called,” I said, as the bus engine came to life.
No reaction.
“Charlotte had her baby.”
He kept staring out the window.
