“What’s up?” He pulls out the chair across from me and sits.
I wrap my hands around the drink, like it’ll help me be brave here. “I…um, I—”
He knows my signs, my tells, and every way I overthink things. I think he can tell this is serious, but in a non-urgent, bad kind of way, so he smiles at my nervousness, which makes me have to now bite back my own smile. “What is it, Babe?”
I take a deep breath in. “Okay…this is going to sound crazy, but…I think that…”
Just spit it out. The worst that can happen is he thinks you’re crazy, and we both already know I am.
“I think Paisley…” I start tapping on the side of the drink, and Bash reaches over, taking my hand in his, silently telling me it’s okay.
I swallow.
“I think Paisley is our daughter,” I finally blurt out.
He blinks. Not confused, but surprised. Then his mouth does the ghost of a laugh. “Really?”
I nod…a lot, nervously.
He squeezes my hand and then looks down at where my hand is resting on my stomach. “But…you’re pregnant, Lyd?”
“I know, I know. It’s crazy.”
He shakes his head. “Not crazy…just a lot.”
“I know how insane it sounds, but I just…know. From the first night she fell asleep on our couch, with the TV glow on her hair and her shoes still on…I looked at her, and something in me said she was home. Not just in this house…but with us.”
He leans back and exhales. For a second, panic rises up in me because silence can feel like rejection coming, rejection for this idea I have of us all being a permanent family. Then he says, very gently with a smile, “I felt that the first day, too.” He huffs out a little laugh. “I just never said it out loud because it seemed insane and…felt impossible.”
“Are we insane?” I ask, and now the laugh that comes is half-hysterical. “I’m twenty-seven. I still feel like a kid myself most days. And we’re about to take ontwokids?”
“Probably,” he says, looking at me and letting his smile grow wider. “But the good kind. The ‘God, please meet us in the deep end, cause we’re about to jump’ kind.”
I cover my face with both hands for a second and then drop them.
He takes my hands back and holds them, his face switching back into confusion. “Okay, but how would this even be possible? CPS is still focused on reunification. Last you told me was that they were still trying to track down hermom. We were just…the safe place. ‘A few nights’ that became months.”
“That’s the thing.” I stare at the table so I don’t lose my nerve. “I got a call from her caseworker today. Her mom signed her rights over this morning.”
His face changes. Shock first. Then the kind of tenderness that looks like relief, too. “She…did?”
I nod, the pressure behind my eyes building. “They’re naming us as the adoptive placement if that’s what we want to pursue.” I get emotional with the reality, and then get scared. “This is crazy. We can’t—I can’t…” I shake my head, doubt creeping back in. “What if we’re not ready for all of this? What if we screw it up? What if I screw it up? What if I’m a terrible mother? I’ve had enough anxiety about screwing up the small human in my belly we haven’t even met yet, and now…how do I take in a little girl who’s already seen more than she should have? Who’s been through what she’s been through in the short six years she’s been alive? What if I don’t know how to be what she needs?”
The room gets very quiet, and before my anxiety can take full rein, Bash—my steady, maddeningly kind, never-in-a-hurry husband—pushes his chair back and kneels in front of me. He takes my hands and sets one on his shoulder and one under his palm on my stomach, every part of him sayingI’m here.
“Lydia, you are exactly who she needs.” His eyes flick to mine, and I can see how he believes it enough for the both of us. “Everything you’ve lived, everything you’ve survived…that’s why you are the perfect mother for her. Not just anyone can be what that girl needs because they haven’t been where she is…but you have. Have you ever thought that she was put in our laps for that exact reason? That your coworker came toyoubecause she saw parts of you in that little girl? That you can show her exactly what she needs because you know what you needed back then? That you became a social worker to help give kids like her a better chance at life, and now you get to personally give her one?” He pauses, making sure I’m listening to him. “You’re not going to screw her up. You’re protecting her from more pain. You’re stopping the cycle for her. You’re keeping her out of the system. You get to walk her through feelings only someone who’s been there can understand. We get to be the people who give her a safe place to land.”
I shake my head, feeling the tears welling up in my eyes. He leans down and presses his forehead against mine, and rubs slow circles around my growing baby belly with his thumb.
“You’re already a mom,” he says. “You’ve been mothering that little girl since she showed up with nothing but a small bag of clothes on the first day. You’ve been mothering me too…for years now.” He laughs a little at himself. “And I’ve watched you mother yourself back to life. You won’t be perfect, but you’ll be present…and that’s all it’s gonna take to change her whole world.”
I want to argue. I want to list every way I’m still a work in progress…but the list is long, and he already knows it by heart. I simply breathe and try to allow his words to become something I can hang on to when I’m scared.
“Say the practical stuff,” I manage to get out. “Say the parts that make it real. So I don’t think I’m dreaming.”
He sits on his heels, still holding me. “We finish up paperwork. We do the home studies. We go to the trainings and roll our eyes at the parts we already live and take notes on the parts that are new. We meet with the attorney. We do the waiting game.” He swallows. “And then we throw Paisley the most ridiculous adoption party with more confetti than is environmentally appropriate. Everything bright and pink because she’s just like her aunt, who she already loves too much and bonds with over their odd obsession with pink and glitter and watching WinxClub. Plus her mom, whose secret favorite color is also pink, but will never admit it,” he says, winking at me.
A laugh slips out of me, wet and ridiculous. He grins.
