Unsung Lullaby

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Maddie ran a hand across his back as she passed him. “You never know,” she said, coming around to face him. “Stranger things have happened. I would love it, and yet he has a family there—friends, culture. Trying to take all that away from him seems cruel.”

  That night they prayed for the Lord to watch out for Walter and keep him safe. It was little balm to the wounds of missing him as they did, but at least it felt like they were doing something. Perhaps the only thing they could do.

  ****

  Time dragged by at a snail’s pace once Walter was gone. Maddie likened it to the low she had felt after the surgery, and kept hoping something would happen to pull her out of it. She felt so heavy she could barely find the energy to get through a full day at work. Matt’s younger brother’s wife gave birth to a beautiful boy two weeks to the day after Walter left. They were now the only ones in both of their extended families without a child of their own. Now that Walter was gone, it didn’t feel like he counted. They drove to the hospital in silence, and Maddie forced herself to be chipper and positive for a whole ten minutes. Once home she ran herself a shower and cried until the water ran cold, trying to believe that God had not forsaken them, that their doing well with Walter had perhaps proven them somehow. Their time would come soon, wouldn’t it?

  When she came out of the bathroom, there was a large box on the bed. A Post-It note stuck to the box had one word written on it.

  YEEHAW!

  She threw the towel she’d been drying her hair with over her shoulder and opened the box. Two shiny black cowboy boots winked back at her.

  “Walter helped?” she asked a minute later when she walked into the kitchen with only her robe and her boots on. She modeled for Matt, who was sitting at the kitchen table working on his computer.

  Matt smiled, looking up from his laptop appraisingly. “One of the last things I made sure to get his help with. I like ’em.”

  “Me too, but we’re going to have to change our celebration of infertility.”

  “Why?” Matt said. “I like it.”

  “In the first place, it’s getting more expensive every time, and we won’t be able to afford it for long,” she said. “And secondly, we need to save our celebrations for actually getting a baby.”

  “I say until we’re delirious with sleep deprivation and up to our ears in diapers and bottles, we keep on celebrating the infertility thing. I like the excuse to get you stuff—it helps both of us.”

  It was hard to argue with a man who wanted to give her things, and with so many trials, she didn’t want to create a new battle. So she valiantly gave in. Bending down to give him a thank-you kiss, she said, “Okay, but next time all I want is a Jamba Juice.”

  “Ahh,” Matt said in disappointment. He started wiggling his foot, and she wondered if he had an itch. She looked down and smiled at the boots he wore—a match to her own.

  “Now, I know we couldn’t afford two pair,” she said. Then she looked again and let her eyes travel up his body before meeting his eyes. “There is something very sexy about cowboy boots, however.”

  Matt shut the laptop with a snap and winked. “My thoughts exactly.”

  Chapter 39

  Maddie finished typing the document on her computer and then scrolled up to the top in order to proofread. In July she had been promoted to supervisor of special menus. This was one of those—a diet plan for a post-op cardio-bypass patient with diabetes. She sighed as she realized she had entered the wrong date. It was a small error, but even the smallest details irritated her these days. After deleting the wrong date, she typed in “October 8” and saved the document before hitting “print.” Rolling her chair to the printer desk behind her, she took out both copies of the document and signed the bottom corners.

  They finished their last interview with LDS Family Services in late August and were contacted a few days later with the final okay. They had received their preapproval for adoption, and Maddie’s spirits lifted a considerable amount. Unfortunately, they realized, it could still be years before anything came of it. Their caseworker told them that their chances were good. In most cases the birth mothers chose the couples they would place their babies with, and Matt and Maddie were an attractive, young, relatively affluent family who would be happy with any ethnicity or blend thereof. But they also had Walter, and that presented a less attractive option to many young birth mothers. They prayed together morning and night for the process to be quick, as well as for the faith and patience they needed in the meantime. Maddie’s heart ached in a whole new way after sending Walter to his real mother. Having tasted motherhood, she longed for it as she never had before.

  They also petitioned through their attorney to have Walter come for Christmas. The house was empty without his presence, and they missed him. Since Sonja had been so easygoing about the summer visitation, they were hopeful she would agree to this one too. They needed all the hope and goodness they could get and clung to it with fervor.

  Maddie put the document in her file as the phone rang.

  “Madeline Shep,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound too frustrated.

  “Maddie, it’s Gayla.” Gayla was their caseworker with LDS Family Services. Maddie stopped herself from sighing aloud. A few days after getting their final approval, Gayla had called to say the office had misplaced Matt’s income verification, and could Maddie make another copy? Two days later Gayla said she needed Maddie’s medical records; they had lost those too. Maddie had found and sent them to Gayla as well. How could it be a final approval if they didn’t have any of this stuff?

  “Hi, Gayla. What do you need?”

  “How did I know you would say that?” Gayla said cheerfully. Maddie rolled her eyes and said nothing. “What are you doing tonight?” Gayla asked.

  “Nothing that I’m aware of, but Matt has a dinner appointment. Did you lose the transcripts from our last interview or something?”

  Gayla paused for a moment before saying quietly, “A birth mom wants to meet you.”

  Maddie dropped the paper she was holding and grabbed the phone with both hands as she leaned back in her chair. “What?” she breathed.

  “I have a birth mom I’ve been working with. She’s fifteen years old, seven months pregnant, and she and her mother have narrowed down the files to three couples. They want to meet you tonight. Can you be there?”

  “Of course,” Maddie said. As soon as she hung up, she called Matt.

  Chapter 40

  Matt and Maddie met at the Olive Garden in Murray after Maddie got off work. They stood when a very young, very pregnant, brunette girl and her mother entered the restaurant.

  “Matt and Maddie,” Matt said, stepping forward with his hand outstretched. They’d been told not to give their last name at this point. The girl shook his hand limply, then the mother overcompensated, making Matt wince.

  “So tell me about yourselves,” the mother, Delores, said as soon as they had placed their orders.

  Maddie took a breath and explained how they had met, what they did for a living, and what they liked to do in their spare time—though it was all in their file. The girl, Kirsten, didn’t seem to be listening and played with her flatware, showing her age. But she seemed sweet, with large blue eyes and curly brown hair. Maddie couldn’t help but think how perfectly this girl’s baby would match them.

  When they finished, Delores went on to explain the “delicate situation.” The father of Kirsten’s baby was sixteen. The two kids had met at a volleyball camp the previous spring. He lived in Wyoming, and his parents were in full agreement that adoption was the only choice. Maddie and Matt nodded, but Maddie’s eyes kept wandering to the girl. She didn’t seem the least bit fazed by all the discussion around her, not even when her mother talked about her sins or called the baby’s father despicable—no emotion at all. But then, Maddie couldn’t imagine being this girl. Perhaps she’d had to separate herself from the situation and was trying to block things out.

  After three refills of he
r Diet Coke, Delores excused herself to use the rest room. “Why don’t you come with me, Kirsten?” she asked.

  Kirsten rolled her eyes and started eating instead of pushing the food around her plate. “I’m starving,” she said. Her mother seemed to hesitate, but finally turned and left. As soon as she was gone, Kirsten looked up at them for the first time. “You guys are my first choice,” she said. Matt and Maddie’s eyes went wide. “But my mom’s nervous about your son. She’s not sure you’re the best parents for this baby. When she comes back, you guys need to, like, try and make her feel better about it and all that.”

  “But isn’t the choice yours to make?” Matt said. Maddie put her hand on his knee and squeezed. She liked them!

  Kirsten shrugged just as her mom appeared. It was the fastest rest-room break Maddie had ever seen.

  “Yes, so, where were we?” Delores asked as she settled back into her seat.

  Matt cleared his throat. “I brought a picture of our son,” he said, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. “He’ll be ten years old in February, and he’s a great kid.”

  “Don’t you mean, your son?” she said, looking at Matt with disapproval.

  Maddie cringed and felt her face heat up. She did not like this woman at all. Matt said nothing as he handed the photo across the table.

  Delores took the picture, and her brow furrowed. “He’s Mexican?”

  “Native American,” Matt clarified. “Half, anyway—Navajo. Great kid. He loves sports, is a really good artist . . .”

  But a veil had dropped over Delores’s face. He stopped, and she changed the subject back to Matt’s job. Five minutes later she announced they were done. Kirsten hadn’t eaten since her mother’s return to the table. She smiled and said good-bye, leaving Matt and Maddie to stare after them. They said nothing. Almost a minute later, Kirsten waddled back to the table.

  “I forgot my purse,” she said, picking up the black vinyl handbag. The words “Too Cool for You” were written on it in hot pink letters. “I still like you guys best,” she said, as if she were voting for her favorite soda. “And like you said, it is up to me, right?” She flashed them a bright grin. They both smiled back and watched her awkward body sway as she went back out the door.

  “I don’t think that went very well,” Matt said.

  Maddie picked up her own purse and nodded, but couldn’t keep the tears from forming. She’d been so hopeful, and she tried to hold onto the fact that Kirsten liked them.

  When they prayed together that night, Matt pleaded, “Please let us bring this baby into our home.” It made Maddie hope even harder. It would be such a good fit—perfect for everyone. She couldn’t imagine getting this close and failing again.

  ****

  The next day Matt called Maddie at lunch.

  “I hate that woman,” he said.

  Maddie pinched her eyebrows together. “Which woman?” she asked. She’d been thinking about Delores all day and found less and less to like about her.

  “Sonja,” Matt spat. “She won’t let Walter come for Christmas.”

  Maddie’s heart sank. Granted, she hadn’t thought about the visit over the last twenty-four hours, but she’d been looking forward to it. In their minds it had been a done deal. Sonja had been so willing for him to come for the summer that they hadn’t considered she would say no. “Why?” Maddie asked.

  “No reason,” Matt said, and Maddie could tell he was trying to calm himself down. “She just said no, and since I agreed to let her keep full custody, it’s totally up to her. We can have him for six days over spring break instead.”

  “Well, that will be fun,” Maddie said, trying to sound positive. “We can do an Easter egg hunt and color eggs.”

  Matt was silent. “I really wanted him to come for Christmas,” he finally said quietly.

  Maddie’s eyes filled with tears, and she wondered, just for a moment, if perhaps it was good that Sonja had rejected the visitation request. Maybe getting mad would help Matt realize how much brighter life was when Walter was in it.

  “I’m sorry,” Maddie said.

  After a few moments’ pause, Matt asked, “I don’t suppose Gayla’s called you?”

  “No. I’ll call her if I don’t hear from her by about four-thirty.”

  “Let me know what she says,” Matt said, though she could tell he was as worried as she was.

  “I will.”

  At 4:45 Maddie called Gayla.

  “I was just about to call you,” Gayla said with an even tone that told Maddie right away she didn’t have good news. “I met with Kirsten this afternoon.”

  “And her mother?” Maddie asked, hoping Kirsten had met with her alone, but knowing the chances were slim. The more she thought about it, the more she felt that this adoption was more Delores’s choice rather than Kirsten’s.

  “Yes, and her mother.” Gayla paused and took a breath. Maddie steeled herself for what she would hear next. “They chose another couple.”

  Maddie stared at the keyboard of her computer, taking it in. A-S-D-F-G she said in her mind, reading the keys, trying to block the emotion. H-J-K-L.

  “Maddie?”

  “Did she say why?”

  Gayla hesitated.

  “Was it Walter?” Maddie asked. “Things changed when we talked about Walter.”

  “I didn’t realize that we hadn’t specified Walter’s ethnicity in your file. We should have.”

  A chill ran down Maddie’s back. “They didn’t choose us because he’s Navajo?”

  “Uh . . . I didn’t mean it to sound that way,” Gayla stammered. “They had some concerns about a mixed-race household.”

  “I see,” Maddie said, keeping the anger out of her voice as best she could. For the first time in many months, she resented Walter all over again. How unfair that they lose this baby because of him! But she chastised herself. She was not like Delores—and she wouldn’t let that way of thinking enter her mind. He’s our son, she said to herself, trying to internalize it. There is still a family out there for us to make. “Have you added the information to our file?” Maddie asked, never wanting to run into this again. “Would you like me to send a picture?”

  “Um . . . that might be a good idea,” Gayla said. “I’m very sorry, Maddie.”

  “Yeah,” Maddie said. “Me too.”

  She left work after that, only a few minutes early, and drove up to her cul-de-sac again. Someday someone would finish what they’d started and put homes on the building lots. For now, with this heartbreak close on the heels of the heartbreak of not getting Walter for Christmas, she needed this place, this time-out from the world. She hoped the builders of the fine houses that would one day grace the mountainside would wait until she didn’t need the solace anymore.

  After almost an hour she turned around and headed home, dialing Matt’s cell phone number. How many more times would she have to have this conversation?

  Chapter 41

  The doors of the school bus hissed to a close behind her as Anna adjusted the strap of her backpack. She tucked a lock of her long black hair behind her ear, hoping it would stay there. The sagebrush bent in the stiff December wind, and the stupid beer tree Sonja insisted on keeping tinkled as the cans hit one another. Anna scowled at the tree. Since reading the book that had inspired the idea, Anna found it even more humiliating. But Sonja thought it was a great joke. Anna wondered, not for the first time, if she was just harboring a vain and stupid fantasy that Sonja would ever straighten up. When Walter had come back from Utah, things had been better. José had been around less often and kept his distance when he was, for which she was grateful. But Sonja was spiraling down again. She was drinking more than ever and leaving for days at a time. A gust of wind sent the beer cans careening into one another again, and it seemed to be an answer to Anna’s musings. How could things get better when Sonja was only getting worse?

  Anna had one foot on the cinderblock step when the trailer’s front door burst open. Something big and silver was
suddenly coming at her face. It looked like a cartoon bullet, but felt completely solid as it smashed into Anna’s head. The force sent her spinning around to land facedown in the dirt and rocks. For a few seconds she felt nothing, and then wondered if her head was still attached to her body. The world spun, her stomach turned, and she could barely breathe. Sonja’s screaming brought her back to her senses, and she blinked a few times, her head feeling as if it had split in half. A beer can, unopened, rolled to a stop a few feet away. Anna tried to focus on it, but blood was dripping in her eyes, making it all that much harder to see anything at all. Spitting out the dirt from her mouth, she slowly lifted herself onto her hands and knees, watching the blood drip onto the dust and trying to understand what had just happened. Sand and dirt crunched between her teeth.

  In the next moment Sonja was at her side. “Where’s José?” she screamed.

  Anna recoiled, backing away from her sister and looking at her as if she’d gone mad. Sonja’s pupils were huge, and she smelled horrible—like nothing Anna had smelled before. It wasn’t peyote or marijuana; she knew those smells. This was something different. “What?” Anna asked, confused at what was happening. She wiped at her face, and the whole left side of her head stung as if she’d been hit again. Looking at the blood on her hand almost made her throw up. She looked at the beer can on the ground.

  “Where’s José!” Sonja screamed again. Then she stood and started walking in circles, shaking her fists and yelling. Anna used the moment to escape into the house. She had to stop the bleeding.

  After running a washcloth under cold water, she pressed it against her forehead, wincing at the fresh wave of pain. She stared at her face in the mirror. She looked like something out of a horror movie, and while holding the cold rag in place with one hand, she wet another one to try to clean up the mess. Sticks and dirt had stuck to the blood, making the washcloth gritty. Did she really throw a full can of beer at me? Anna asked herself. Sonja was far from gentle, but she’d never done anything like this before. Anna had to keep herself from crying, not from the pain, but from the fear.