Slow to Grow

by Lonny Cyrelle

Chapter 20

  The emptiness of the apartment overwhelmed them and the silence was deafening. This was not a road they had contemplated. On the surface Becky was recovering, but the underlying loss would last a lifetime and she would never fully heal. She felt like she had killed their baby, and there could be no forgiveness. Many years later she would still be incredulous that Lloyd didn=t hate her for her murderous ways. Lloyd, in turn, loved her even more. How could he blame the blameless? He had teased her all along during the pregnancy about how vigilant she was about following every single dictate to keep an unborn baby safe. She stopped drinking coffee, didn=t go near the cat litter, changed her diet, exercised. Everything she could do under her control, she did. Some things are out of our control. She could never accept that.

  While such an event could tear a marriage apart, Lloyd was determined not to let that happen.

  Each night, he would lie in bed with her and cradle her in his arms and talk about their feelings. They were not going to drift apart. He was plagued by his guilt for not being in the room with her when she gave birth, and he apologized profusely. All she was focused on was how she had failed. She kept calling herself a failure. Talk about an unpenetrable wall.

  Unbeknownst to him, Becky had a picture taken of the baby after birth, and hoped to show it to Lloyd someday. He would never look at it. Not out of apathy, but out of fear of what he would see. You can=t unsee something. She wanted to share some part of Jack with him, and he couldn=t bring himself to do it.

  As the days and months dragged on, it became apparent that Lloyd was coming to terms with the whole ordeal and tried to put it in the past. He would refer to the baby as it and not Jack, and that caused a tremendous consternation in Becky. What she mistook for callousness was in fact, the truth. He did not know the baby, he did not feel like someone he knew had died, and therefore he had less trouble coming to terms with it. When someone would ask her if she had children her initial response was Yes, while Lloyd=s was no. He never felt like he had a child. That infuriated Becky who felt it was her Achild@, and Lloyd not feeling the same offended her greatly. Her sense of loss was deep, and sustained and she was angry that he was getting over it.

  A month after the stillbirth, they visited her parents in Pennsylvania and as Lloyd strolled innocently into their living room, he stopped dead in his tracks. There on the picture table was the photograph of Jack. On display. For everyone to see. A picture of a dead baby. His body quivered and he averted his eyes as quick as he could.

  What in the holy fuck is that doing out? Are they nuts? Gentiles do this?

  Lloyd totally freaked out and stormed around until he found Becky. He was irate. He was stunned that they would display that. It was just so weird. She knew her parents had put it out and wanted to see what his reaction was. She wanted him to confront the truth. She felt that he was in denial and that he needed to see his son.

  Just because he didn=t want to see the picture didn=t mean he didn=t care. She had trouble comprehending that. He would never be able to explain it to her. The truth hurt is the closest he could get, and he didn=t want to hurt.

  They attended a church service with her parents, and once again he was startled by what he saw. A pamphlet was distributed featuring all the members of the church and their families. It listed Becky=s parents and their 4 grandchildren, Joan, Charlie, Christopher Maxwell and Jack Clayton Kulligan. WHAT THE FUCK?

  Lloyds parents didn=t consider themselves having a grandchild. This Christian shit was so weird to Lloyd. There would be a lot of rough patches.

  It was a rough start to a marriage and they Acelebrated@ their 1st anniversary just three months after the stillbirth. Lloyd had read that the Chicago Park District allowed people to buy a tree and have it planted in their park of choice. For an anniversary gift, Lloyd chose to have a tree planted at their favorite spot near Diversey Harbor. He felt that the tree represented life and had it dedicated in Jack Clayton Kulligan=s name. The tree would grow, where their son would not. They witnessed the planting and they cried. They would go sit by the tree every week. It was always melancholy, watching families at play. That was supposed to be them. They had sat in the same spot many times before contemplating their exciting future as a family. Now every happy families that passed was another punch in the gut. That was supposed to be them. Witnessing happy mothers and fathers with their newborns was exceptionally difficult and Becky would instinctively turn away when a baby carriage would pass. They yearned for what they didn=t have.

  One thing about Becky, was that while knocked down, she would not be beaten. She was way more mentally tough than Lloyd and she wanted to get right back on the horse. She wanted to get pregnant again as soon as possible.

  They started to try again, and who was Lloyd to argue. All the sex he wanted all the time. But of course, it was too much pressure for him, he felt the burden of impregnation and would wilt under the expectation. Pun intended.

  Becky would be patient, just like in the early days. The choker was back. Too much pressure. The days turned into months and nothing was happening. The irony was thick. They weren=t even thinking about pregnancy when she first got pregnant and now it was all consuming.

  But finally. Pay dirt. Sixteen months of work paid off. She was pregnant again. At least that=s what the home pregnancy test said. She triumphantly made a doctor=s appointment at what was most likely six weeks into the pregnancy. They were both way more subdued and only told close family members. But they couldn=t totally hide their excitement. Lloyd allowed himself to dream a little about it, but this time he didn=t care what sex it was. The cliche Ajust a healthy baby@ was never more true.

  They went to her gynecologist, who got out the ultrasound wax and prepared to rub it on her belly. Lloyd had a horrid flashback to the scene when they found out the baby was dead. This time the doctor started moving the mouse over her belly, abruptly stopped and looked gravely concerned. SON OF A FUCKING BITCH, Lloyd yelled.

  The doctor spoke. AI=m sorry, but there is no pregnancy, this is what is called an molar pregnancy, the early placenta develops into an abnormal mass of cysts that resembles a bunch of white grapes. The embryo either does not form at all or is malformed and cannot survive. Blah blah blah@

  Lloyd starting laughing really loud and screamed about how he never wanted to see another fucking ultrasound machine in his life. Even Becky was resigned to it and didn=t cry. But her face was ashen.

  The doctor continued. AMolar pregnancy poses a threat to the pregnant woman because it can occasionally result in a rare pregnancy-related form of cancer called choriocarcinoma. What this means is, Becky, you are at a minor risk of developing cancer in the next 9 months and we will have to monitor you....@

  AWHAT THE FUCK!@ Lloyd was screaming now and started to kick at the walls. Becky was now crying and wondering who in the cosmos hated her so much.

  She couldn=t have a baby, and now she might get cancer. Life was kicking her straight in the ovaries.

  Well that was that. They were done trying to get pregnant. They both agreed on that. But with one major difference. Becky wanted to be a mother, and Lloyd was ready to accept that parenthood was not in their future. And he was fine with that. The fates had determined that they should not be parents and Lloyd wasn=t going to fight it.

  There were other options that they could pursue. They couldn=t do a surrogate birth, because her eggs were too old, but they could take Lloyd=s sperm and match it with a donor egg and Becky could carry it. Or a surrogate could. But Lloyd didn=t like that, he wanted it to be either both of theirs or nothing. It would be weird knowing he was the father and she wasn=t the biological mother, and he didn=t want to have that over her. It just wasn=t right. It also caused a ridiculous amount of money and the risks seemed to outweigh the rewards.

  Adoption was not an option. Lloyd refused to consider it. Not his genes. And who knows what sort of genes a baby they did adopt would have. He had a bias against adoption. He always knew adopted kids a
nd as part of his annoying trait of adding labels to everyone, adoption was one of them. That kid is adopted, he would think, every time he saw them. That isn=t their real parent he would think. It just wasn=t for him.

  But Becky would not be deterred. She booked an adoption class and told Lloyd he was going. He loved her. But he wasn=t going to adopt.

  AYou would be a wonderful father@, she would say. AYou love the cats don=t you? What makes you think you wouldn=t love an adopted child?@

  Because it isn=t mine. Cats are animals. This is a child. No thanks. Next.

  She went to the adoption class by herself. And came back with tons of information. She talked and talked about it and Lloyd didn=t pay attention. She called him a dick and ran into the room crying. He was fucked. He was in an untenable place. This issue was causing a huge rift in the marriage. But he was adamant. He did not want to adopt.

  As biased as he was, he was always annoyed when he saw newspaper stories on people and it would say, Aadopted son of blah blah blah...@ That always pissed him off. He imagined that the parents would always be upset to read that, because they thought of the person as their son, not their adopted son. Why did they need to add that label in stories? Like it was less than? It didn=t seem fair.

  In the meantime, Becky needed to be tested every month for 9 months after the molar pregnancy incident for cancer. It was incredibly stressful and took its toll on her. The results took two weeks to come back, and the day the results were due, Lloyd took to curling up on the floor of his work from the stress. Alas, all was well, and the test results always came back negative.

  His marriage was heading down two separate paths, one that Becky wanted and one that he did. It took its toll, and they both worried that it would eventually end in divorce. That was his quandary. Either stay with the woman you love and against all your wishes, adopt a child, or ditch it all and move on. He had time to decide he thought. Maybe if he fought her hard enough she would give it up. It was a game of chicken and one of them was going to lose.

  Now that was Lloyd=s thinking, but Becky didn=t look at it that way. She knew he would be a great father even if he didn=t know it. She knew he was miserable now, but in the end he would be grateful. She hoped. She was pretty sure. She thought. She sure hoped so. So she pushed on.

  She signed them up for more classes, in which he had to go. He did, but he wasn=t happy about it. He looked around the room and saw a bunch of losers who couldn=t have their own babies. He also knew he would see the same thing if he looked in the mirror.

  Their third anniversary was now upon them. The sadness had not abated much. They spent many weekends picnicking at their tree, which was growing quite nicely. It was a crabapple, how apt for Lloyd. It=s roots were settling and it was getting a strong foundation. Jack would have been 2 2 and they were fixated on families with children that age. When the kids would pass, Lloyd could see how Becky would slowly duck her head, and sometimes tears would well up in her eyes. He tried not to attach any meaningful significance to seeing kids that age, but it was hard not to. The tree was their solace, and also their consolation prize. It was a place to remember and a place to fantasize. Lloyd was resigned to his fate, Becky was not.

  On long car rides she would pontificate and plead with him to accept adoption. He felt like she was trying to convert him to Christianity or something. It was relentless. He was still adamantly opposed. She would not break him down. He was acting stubborn and close minded.

  He had his usual reasons, which he knew were flawed, and he clung to them for dear life. It mostly swirled around the consequences of having a non biological child. He was worried he might not love it as much as a biological one. And he wanted the child to have his genes, adopting was a crap shoot, who know what sort of defects or other traits the baby could have. Like the Kulligan genes were extraordinary. The truth was the kid would probably be better off.

  And the whole process fazed him, you get a picture in the mail and that is your kid? And then one day this random baby is just handed you? A total stranger? It was like ordering a child from a mail order catalog.

  But on the surface he was still going along with it hoping that eventually that an exit strategy would reveal itself. The process was relatively clear cut. There were two choices to make in adopting a child. If you wanted to adopt domestically, a birth mother was presented with a dossier of adopted parents and their respective biographies. She would then choose which couple she would want to rear her baby. It sounded like an agonizing process, and The odds of someone choosing a 45 year old mother to be the mother of their child were slim. The whole thought of being chosen out of a book nauseated the both of them. It was a total crapshoot and they wanted no part of it.

  The other choice was international adoption, which involved adopting a baby from another country. The most popular countries for adoption were China, Russia and Guatemala. Babies in China and Russia were kept in orphanages and were at high risk for problems, especially fetal alcoholism. In Guatemala, the babies were cared for by a foster mother, who supposedly had one baby at a time and took loving care of them. The downside of international adoption was that because of paperwork and other governmental nonsense you most likely wouldn=t be able to get your baby until it was at least six months old. With domestic adoption you would get the baby at birth.And it cost less than international.

  And it took longer than a pregnancy. The time frame from the start of going to adoption classes till the day you held your baby was approximately 16 months. Which was fine with him. The longer to convince her it was a bad idea.

  Lloyd wasn=t in the mood to get divorced so he tried to have a rational discussion with Becky about it and they both mutually agreed to go international, and Guatemala. The idea of one mother taking care of the baby was comforting to them.

  Once again, just like when Becky was pregnant, the whole thing was way too weird for his brain to comprehend. One day you don=t have a baby, and the next you have a Hispanic one. So odd.

  As part of the adoption dossier, one had to undergo psychological evaluation and a home study. The adoption specialist had to decide that the adopting couple was of sound mind and wanted to adopt for the right reasons.

  It just pissed them off more, Lloyd too this time. Any yahoo could get pregnant and have a baby, but people with fertility issues and other reasons had to jump through hoops and had to be judged by others to determine if they were fit to be a parent. It was a humiliating process, but a necessary evil nonetheless.

  To make matters worse, the adoption specialist determined that Becky and Lloyd needed to see a marriage counselor regarding who would determine if they had really dealt properly with the aftereffects of the stillbirth. It was three years later, they were relatively happy, and had come to terms with it, and were STILL MARRIED. They were horrifically insulted that some counselor who they had met twice had the power and nerve to suggest such a thing. Lloyd told her to go fuck herself, and that she wasn=t even a licensed psychological professional.

  Becky calmed him down and told the specialist that they would. And they did. It delayed the whole adoption process by two months, which in the end ended up buying Lloyd more time, so he was privately happy about it.

  They were obligated to see the marriage counselor for four sessions, and at the end of that period, the psychologist would make their determination.

  The psychologist ended up telling them that they were fine and that it was insulting and condescending of the adoption counselor to have made them endure the sessions. She felt that their marriage was in fact made stronger by the bonding that ensued as result of the stillbirth. Or some such psychobabble. But they were good to go again, much to Lloyd=s chagrin. Becky had begged him not to tell the shrink of his opposition to the adoption and he never did. But he was not letting her off the hook. He harangued her incessantly about it and she took to not bringing the subject up anymore.

  Lloyd felt like he was staring down the barrel of the gun and didn=t know any way out.
He was going to have to take it. As Bobby Knight so eloquently orated about rape, Asometimes it=s best to just sit back and let it happen, and it will be over soon enough,.@ or something similarly misogynistically progressive.

  His complained regularly to his coworkers and friends about his impending doom and they were generally unsympathetic. They wondered why he was so adamantly opposed. Everybody told him it would be fine and that he would love the child. But they weren=t inside his head, only he know what lunacy rested in there.

  What if the kid is dumb? What if he turns into an alcoholic? What if he=s ugly?

  What if, what if, what if. What if had your genes, you ever think of that, Lloyd? But deep down he worried if he could love a non biological child. Becky assured him that it wouldn=t be a problem. He loved their cats didn=t he? He did. It wasn=t the pure love and undying affection he had for his turtles, but it was love nonetheless. And she would argue that adopting a baby is like adopting a cat, AYou love them unequivocally right?@ she would ask. AYes, but they sit around and avoid people unless they are hungry, and our son wouldn=t be like that until his teen years,@ he replied.

  God, he hoped she was right.

  Since they had decided on a Guatemala, the next step was to be placed with a child once it was born. Lloyd wanted a boy again, but it was left up to the Guatemalan government. One day Becky got an envelope from the American Embassy in Guatemala.. She knew what it was. It was one of the happiest moments of HER life.

  Inside was a picture of a three week old baby boy. She ecstatically told Lloyd, who on the surface was playing it cool and detached, but was slightly beginning to accept his fate. Then he saw the picture. And like the Grinch, his heart slowly began to melt.

  The next week, as they were heading towards their adoption class, Lloyd casually mentioned to her that had a name he liked. Jake. Becky looked at him, and said, Aso do I.@ and that was that. They both acknowledged the resemblance of the name to their deceased son Jack and decided it wasn=t a big deal. Jake Kulligan. That sounded like a ballplayer to Lloyd. Maybe he would be the first Guatemalan in the Major Leagues.

  So the clock was now running, six months to go, most likely.

  There is and was always a fear that babies adopted from foreign countries were stolen or that the mother was coerced to give up her child. The Kulligans were promised that everything was aboveboard and that the woman who gave birth to Jake was legitimate in wanting to put her child up for adoption. She had to appear in court four times, and proclaim that she was giving up her baby without intimation or monetary reasons, plus the Guatemalan and American governments both had safeguards in place. It was quite the ordeal, and they had the paperwork to prove it.

  The only barrier left was getting the ok from the Guatemalan embassy to adopt the child, and once you got that ok, you would fly out at a moment=s notice. You couldn=t book the trip to Guatemala City in advance, since one never knew when the paperwork would be finished.

  While Lloyd whiled away the ensuing months with a mixture of nervousness, anticipation and dread, Becky was full of life and excited about finally becoming a mother. That is what she felt she was and what she wanted to be. And she knew that was what Lloyd was. A father, he just didn=t know it yet.

  One day in mid March, the call finally came. They had one week to prepare. To get there they would need to fly from Chicago to New Orleans to Miami to Guatemala City. And then the same route home. Quite an ordeal. Becky=s big worry was that the baby would cry on the plane, and that mortified her, big deal a baby crying on the plane, while Lloyd was much more rational, wondering if they would be arrested for kidnaping a Hispanic baby.

  They would fly in on a Tuesday, pick up Jake on Wednesday, and leave for home on Thursday. It would be a total whirlwind. They had been prepped on what to expect. The foster mother would hand the baby over in their hotel room. It could be emotional for everyone. Especially Jake. His birth mother had named him Daniel, and that is what the foster mother was calling him. They would incorporate it into his full name, Jake Daniel Kulligan. So it was just a handoff in a hotel room. It felt shady.

  The day of travel was upon them, and without further ado they soon found themselves in Guatemala City. Their hotel was fascinating, as every guest was there to adopt a baby, and the hotel itself specialized in caring for adoptive parents. Some people already had their babies, while others, like the Kulligans, were waiting.

  They witnessed one family get their baby and it was one of the most emotional moments they had ever seen. Such hope and happiness and wistfulness combined. Who knows the reasons people adopt, but the pure joy of it coming to fruition was overwhelming, and Lloyd could not deny it anymore. He wanted to be a father. He was ready. He was wrong. Everyone else was right. Especially his beautiful and long suffering wife Becky. He felt a warmth come over him. It was the most spiritual moment of his life. It was not religious, but it was something special. It was like the proverbial light from above shining through the church glass. He had accepted his God. And it was Jake.

  The delivery, (delivery, how cold, like he was something they bought in a grocery store, though they did buy him pretty much, with much help from Daddy. Again.) was scheduled for 5 pm on Wednesday, and they barely slept. How do you sleep knowing that your life is changing the next day?

  They tried to occupy themselves to pass the time, but it was hard. They took a sightseeing tour up in the mountains and passed many poor people living in shacks and working in fields, and they hoped they were doing the right thing. Was it right for rich Americans to come into a poor country and take and raise a child who otherwise would live in poverty? Was the mother coerced? Did she really want to give up her baby? There were many questions that would forever go unanswered.

  When people would hear they were adopting, they would congratulate them on what they were doing for an indigent child. But the truth was more self serving. They were selfish, they wanted to be parents, they weren=t doing it for any sort of humanitarian reasons.

  They went back to their room and waited. Time moved glacierly. They both reflected on the day nearly four years earlier when they had lost their only child. Four long, lonely sad years had passed for Becky. Lloyd only in retrospect would feel the same. Their time had come. This WAS going to be the happiest day of their life.

  When Lloyd got nervous, he paced. The baby was to be handed over within the half hour. He sauntered out into the hotel grounds to go look and see if they were near. In the parking lot he saw an older woman holding a fat faced, smiling, happy baby boy.

  My god that baby is cute, I hope that is Jake.

  He went racing back to the room and told Becky about the baby he saw out front, and he told her it was the cutest baby he had ever seen. That would be unbelievable if that was Jake, he told her.

  He was going to videotape the exchange and he went to get the camera ready. A minute later there was a knock on the door. There stood the woman from the parking lot with the cutest baby in the world.

  The woman was gentle with Jake and shyly handed it over to Becky. She burst into tears, a mother holding her baby for the first time. She bounced him in her arms and it looked like an extension of her. She was a mother. It was 46 years in the making. She was more beautiful than on their wedding day.

  She handed the boy to Lloyd who was whimpering and smiling. He inadvertently left the camera on, which was now focused on the floor, only recording the audio. When they watched the video it was mesmerizing in its power. Just noises of crying and joy. When Jake was a young boy he would watch it and skip over that part, because he couldn=t comprehend how sobbing could be construed as tears of joy. Becky picked the camera up and filmed Jake in Lloyd=s arms. He was bouncing him, and this six month old baby who had never met these people before in his short life was laughing and giggling.

  An interpreter was on scene to help the Kulligans and the foster mother communicate. Becky was prepared with a list of questions, such as what does he eat, what is his bedtime, and others
of such import. Lloyd just had one question, which was also captured on videotape. Come on, we all know what it was, lets say it in unison; ADoes the baby cry a lot?@

  They said he was a happy and content baby, didn=t fuss much or anything. Well now it was officially not Lloyd=s genes.

  Jake was a tad on the hefty side, explained by the excessive feedings of rice milk. The foster mother wanted to hand over a healthy baby and may have gone overboard. It was rather touching.

  It was an emotional scene, as the foster mother was leaving. She had raised Jake from his infancy and most likely would never see him again. Yes, she was compensated, but the Kulligans could tell she cared, and they cried with her as she left. They would forever be grateful to her, as Jake was a wonderful, well adjusted baby and seemingly had no health or behavioral issues.

  When they first received the picture of Jake at three weeks old, they were advised to take the it to a child specialist, who supposedly could diagnose a child simply by looking at it. At that point, the Kulligans still had the option at that point of turning down the baby and waiting for another one. Adoption was a dirty game and not for the faint of heart.

  The doctor took one look at the picture and declared that he was a startlingly alert baby and seemed to possess nothing to raise any red flags.

  That was the first thing they thought when they had him that first night, that the specialist was dead on. Jake was extremely alert and seemed to have quite the docile personality. They were advised to look for signs of him having anxiety over being separated from his foster mom, but he exhibited none, and would not ever. They were shocked at how easy the transition was.

  They laid him down to sleep, and he smiled and cooed and promptly went to bed. It was amazing. They looked at each other and shrugged. They were each sleeping in a twin bed, with the crib in between. They held hands across the chasm, smiled, and went to sleep. It was vaguely reminiscent of the night they spent in the hospital after her stillbirth, but with much different emotions. They were parents.

  Jake woke them up early the next morning with his cooing and a slight giggle. He smiled at them and they were astounded at how well adjusted he already seemed. It was love at first sight.

  Everyone is something at heart, deep down in their gut. Lloyd had always known what he was. He was a centerfielder. That was at his core. A baseball player. It was an odd thing. He literally felt that at his core, he was a baseball player, even though he never played beyond 8th grade. It was where he felt most at home, on a baseball field, catching fly balls. That was, until he became Jake=s father. From then on, deep down, he was Jake=s daddy.

  Becky was a mother. She felt it on her insides. The stillbirth cemented that fact. She may have been in her mid 40's but that maternal instinct did not die with their baby, and she needed to fill that void. If Lloyd hadn=t been so self absorbed and selfish he would have nurtured that, instead of fighting it. But he was bathing in the light of Jake and was reborn. It was an atheistic baptism.

  They triumphantly went for breakfast in the hotel and secretly they felt that everyone had to be jealous that they had the most beautiful baby in the world. A waiter picked him up and marched him around the room and Jake smiled the whole time. Lloyd gave him some suds from the pineapple drink and he sucked it up.

  Becky and Lloyd smiled at each other, and didn=t say anything. They had been through the ringer and come out the other side. Lloyd never knew he could experience such sheer, overwhelming, unbridled happiness. Jake was the light of their life, filling the hole of darkness that Lloyd only recently would admit had always existed.

  It was a triumphant return to Chicago, as Jake immediately adapted. He didn=t even cry on the plane rides, easing Becky=s one worry. When they landed in Chicago, and spotted his family who was there to greet them and drive them home, Lloyd hoisted Jake high over his head like a victory trophy. They strapped Jake into his carseat and he promptly and calmly fell asleep on the ride home to his new life.

  The transition was remarkably seamless, almost freakishly so. Lloyd did not believe in Karma, but maybe their was a yin yang parallel in the universe and things were swinging back in their favor. And like every baby in the history of mankind, Jake did in fact cry. When he went to bed. Becky was adamant in doing the Aferber@ method, which evidently consisted of letting your baby shriek like a murder victim until it fell asleep. Some nights he would cry for a few minutes and others for close to an hour. The purpose was to let them go to sleep on their own terms, so they don=t have problems sleeping later in life. Like Lloyd.

  On those occasions when the noise level was too much for Lloyd, he would retire to their car in the parking lot for the duration. He would call Becky from his cellphone asking if Jake was asleep and she would scream at him that the phone ringing woke Jake up again.

  But otherwise Jake was a dream. He was calm, and cute, and of course, incredibly smart. Lloyd could tell.

  Lloyd spent every waking minute he could with him and was over the moon. He became obsessed. His friend Mike was getting married, and the bachelor party was in Vegas. Lloyd couldn=t enjoy himself because he missed Jake too much. It wasn=t very healthy.

  Lloyd did have an epiphany early on, after realizing how perfect Jake was for them. He had harbored a tremendous amount of anger and resentment at the adoption agency for making them go to marriage counseling and thus delaying the adoption. But in retrospect he realized that delay made it possible to get Jake, otherwise it would have been another baby. It was meant to be.

  When Jake turned two, they left downtown Chicago and moved to a coach house in the suburbs. They wanted to live in a community with other families and other children, which just wasn=t feasible in the city.

  Ellen had recently given birth to what would be her only child, Sophie. Jake and Sophie would become close cousins, more like siblings, with Becky helping take care of Sophie when Ellen returned to teaching.

  At a very young age Jake had come up with clever monikers for his close family members. Ellen had become WaWa, and Uncle Ilya was Uncle Wawa. Bubbe Merrill was BayBay, and Zayde Nathan was Ha, so named for his proclivity to exclaim, AHA!@ at all the cute things Jake did. The names would stick forever.

  Lloyd had long ago apologized to Becky for doubting her about adopting. He couldn=t have been more wrong, and only she could see what he couldn=t. So, as time went on, he had to live with the fact that a) he didn=t go in the delivery room with her, and B) he spent an inordinate amount of time denying her the pleasure of the adoption process. Those were two pretty big matzoballs hanging out there, and the only way he could make up for it was by being a good father and a good husband.

  When Jake was about 3, he had another major epiphany. He realized that he didn=t want a biological child, because he was afraid he wouldn=t love it as much as he did Jake. It was quite a lightning bolt moment for him and quite the reversal on his original stance. And he meant it. Someday, when Jake was old enough he would tell him that.

  Not long afterward, he had what he thought was a nightmare. He was with Jake in a playground, and they were having a great time. Suddenly, Lloyd grabbed Jake and inserted himself into him. It was not sexual, not even in the dream. It was more like clicking a piece into place. Lloyd then began walking proudly with Jake attached to his midsection.

  At that point, Lloyd woke up, in a panic and sweat. What the fuck kind of dream was that? Being Lloyd, he didn=t tell Becky, but he did tell his mommy.

  She laughed and told him that he was attached to Jake, and that he felt it was his seed that made him, that he felt Jake was his biological son. It made perfect sense. Jake was a part of him, it wasn=t sexual and that Lloyd felt he wasn=t adopted anymore. He was purely his son. It was a very powerful realization and many years later Lloyd would be able to conjure the dream as if it were yesterday.

  He would tell Jake the story on his 8th birthday, conveniently removing that whole nasty, insertion part.

  Jake knew from an early age he was adopted and it was ne
ver an issue. A Jewish man with his Lutheran wife and their Guatemalan son. It was all perfectly natural. They were a family.