“Dylan…” I croak, but my little boy doesn’t even look at me. “Dylan,” I say again, my voice breaking now, and Susan gives me a reproving look. I’m not helping, but I don’t care. “Dylan.”
She closes the door before I can reach him, and I end up banging my fists against the window, hard enough to hurt. I want them to hurt.
“Dylan!” I scream his name this time, a roar that tears at my throat. It feels primal, a maternal instinct that is absolutely necessary in this moment.
Susan gives me a quelling look, worse than the one before. “Beth, stop, please. I know you’re upset, but this isn't helping.”
She’s opened the door on the driver’s side. She’s going to leave.
I pound the window again. “Dylan!”
Finally Dylan turns to look at me. His face is pale and ghostlike from behind the window; the glass is smeared from my hands. His expression is blank, as if he can’t even see me, as if he’s gone somewhere else in his head because this reality is too much for him to deal with.
“I’ll be in touch soon, I promise,” Susan says. “We’ll talk, and I’ll explain everything that is going on.”
I drop my bruised and stinging hands and step back, utterly defeated, as Susan closes the car door and starts the engine. My gaze stays locked with my son’s as she pulls away from the curb and drives away, taking my very life with her.
4
ALLY
Every sense is on high alert as I stand by the front door, waiting, too jumped up to do something useful like start dinner or tidy up. Since I returned Monica’s call an hour and a half ago, I’ve been flying around like a demented bird, first cleaning the guest room, then putting fresh sheets on the bed and emptying the drawers. Why didn’t we have the room ready?
It’s a very nice room—spacious, with a closet and a view of the backyard and trees and houses beyond—but as I got everything ready I couldn’t help but think it looked a little bland, even sterile, like a room in the Holiday Inn. I could have bought some toys or books or stuffed animals to make it more age-appropriate, but as we had no idea what age or gender children we might eventually be getting, it seemed like a potential waste. Still, some homey touch would have been nice. Anything.
After I cleaned the room, I dashed out to Whole Foods, throwing things in my shopping cart with wild abandon—ready-made meals and organic yogurt and bags of carrot sticks and bunches of grapes. I threw in some pediatric natural medicine too—Rescue Remedy and some essential oils and some homeopathic stuff I would normally never even look at.
It was only as I was paying for it all that I remembered I might not even be able to give it to him, not without the parent’s permission.
Him. I don’t even know his name. All I know is he’s seven years old, and he’s just been removed from his mother—why? I have no idea.
All these thoughts are flashing through my mind as I stand by the door, waiting for this anonymous little boy to show up.
Nick texted to say he’d be late, stuck in traffic on the south side of town with Josh, after picking him up from practice. I’m doing this first bit on my own, and I feel both excited and terrified, everything I learned in that ten-week course seeming to fall right out of my head. I thought I’d been paying attention, but right now I can’t remember a single relevant detail.
A few tense and endless minutes later, a beat-up Ford Focus cruises slowly down the street before pulling into our driveway. Monica is driving and there is a woman I don’t recognize in the passenger seat, a fiftyish grandmotherly type with a neat bob and a kind, tired face. I can’t see anyone in the back, but he—this little boy—must be seated there.
I catch my breath audibly, unsure if I should open the door now or if that would be too exuberant, too much. I want to be natural and friendly, but both feel beyond me right now; I feel like a robot, awkward and mechanical.
Taking another deep breath, I open the door and smile. Monica is already getting out of the car.
“Ally,” she calls. “Hi. Thanks for being able to do this on such short notice.”