The Leavers(29)

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.”

Mama had perminated him. Vivian had lied to him about coming for him soon. His skin burned and the kitchen lights were so bright, the floorboards so wide and wooden. The mix on DWLK was a single song on loop, a mash up of abandoned and permanent. He felt faint, pulled back to the ammoniac odor of the hallways in P.S. 33, the blue-gray floors and dented metal lockers.

“Daniel, you look tired,” Kay said. “Are you okay? Do you want to rest upstairs?”

Deming put one hand on the table to balance himself. Kay pressed her fingers to his forehead. “Peter, he’s really warm. It must be the flu or something. It’s been going around at Carlough, half my students are out sick.”

Peter took another bite of his chicken. “Daniel, go upstairs and rest.”

“He can barely stand up,” Kay said. “You carry him.”

Peter put down his fork and knife. He stood and lifted Deming, one leg, then the other, and carried him up the stairs, grunting with the effort. Deming held his arms around Peter’s neck, his legs around Peter’s waist. Peter’s footsteps were slow and unsure, each step a quiet struggle.

ELEVEN IN THE MORNING and they had been on the road for almost five hours. Peter slammed his hands on the steering wheel when the car came to an abrupt stop on the FDR, idling behind a potato chip truck and a yellow cab. In the backseat Deming counted exits. None of the highways they had taken from Ridgeborough were familiar, and he skimmed billboards for the furniture one he and Roland especially loved, a store called Sofa King.