Page 81 of Silver Brewer

Hollilyn struggles to stand from her seat, and Mati’s man, Denton, pops up to take the baby from her arms. With another hand, he helps her stand while Hollilyn nods and nods.

“Don’t do it,” Billy whispers, and I knock him in the back of the head from where I stand behind him. He’s seated on the couch next to my sister.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Hollilyn says, staring down at the ring Jax holds up to her. Jaxson murmurs something to her, and she pulls back to give him a kiss, which deepens rather quickly.

“That’s how they got in trouble in the first place,” Billy says, and Charlie laughs next to me.

“Jaxson,” Mati snaps, clapping her hands once as if that will break them apart. She sounds every bit like our mother.

“As if you don’t kiss him like that,” Billy mutters to Mati implying Denton, and Charlie snorts.

I know someone I’d like to kiss like that, and I hope I’m not too late.

30

Gratitude

[Letty]

When I try to explain to my sister that being a mother overnight feels strange, she tells me it’s because I didn’t have the nearly ten months of incubation of the baby in my stomach. I hate her a little more.

The nurses said I should talk to the baby, but babies don’t verbally respond, so I spend all day speaking to myself.

Then there’s this whole switch to calling myself mom. Mommy has been even harder.

“Mommy loves you.” I stare at my beautiful boy rocking in the baby swing, relieved he finally stopped crying. I lie on the couch on my side, watching him tick-tock back and forth. I’m so tired, but I feel wired. I wonder if he knows I’m not his biological mother. Does he wonder where his birth mother is? Does he know she left him? I worry she’ll show up one day to reclaim him. The agency warns against sudden attachment, yet Dayna says it’s important to form an immediate bond. What does she know about children, though? Her boys are as distant from her as if they weren’t her kids.

The agency cleared the baby of all initial medical concerns. They thought he might have a heart murmur and ran a bunch of tests. Heart surgery would have been imminent, but the diagnosis passed. Now, I just need to look for typical milestones of development. I’m already an anxious mess. It’s been a rough couple of days, and I’ve been tackling most of it on my own. I skipped the family tradition of gathering for Thanksgiving. I can’t remember when I last ate a meal. My eyes are drifting shut when there’s a knock on my door. I will myself not to answer it. No one’s home, I want to say, but instead, I get up, hopeful it might be a family member deciding to visit me.

I peek through the peephole and then whip open the door.

“Giant,” I hush-whisper, staring at him in disbelief. I must be dreaming. I’ve gone delusional. I’m hallucinating.

“Cricket?” The moment he says my name in question, I leap for him. Oh my God, he feels so good as my arms loop around his neck, and I tug him tighter to me. I melt into his embrace, inhaling his neck, addicted to his scent. Then I remember I can’t recall when I last showered.

“Oh my gosh, Giant. What are you doing here?” I pull back from him, my voice rising, and then the baby cries. My shoulders fall. Well, that was only a hot minute. Giant chuckles and steps inside, closing the door behind him. I continue to stare. He should be home with his family. “It’s Thanksgiving.”

“Actually, that was yesterday,” he teases, and I look toward my windows. It’s been dark and gloomy for the past two days, and with the lack of sleep, I guess the days have run together. I swipe a hand over my hair—finding it greasy—as Giant watches me. I’m a mess. “You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever set eyes on.”

I should cry.

I want to cry.

I’m too tired to cry.

He steps up to me, hugging me again quickly before pulling back and walking over to the baby swing. He stops a step before it and stares down at my son. How weird is that to say?

“He’s—”

“He’s biracial,” I interject, and Giant turns to me, brows pinched in question at the sharpness of my voice. I’m sensitive because of the high-pitched surprise in the voices of my mother and Dayna, their judgment apparent.

“I was going to say he’s a king of kings,” he states. His brows remain pinched, but a grin spreads on his face.

“I’m sorry.” I fold down to the couch. I’ll need to get used to reactions without sounding defensive, but the disapproval from my mother and sister has eaten at me for days. I don’t see skin color. In fact, I didn’t make any specifications on my adoption request. I wanted a healthy baby boy. I wanted a child, any child who had an economic disadvantage so I could give him all the love he deserved, which is why I registered with the foster system.

“My family hasn’t been very accepting.” His skin is a rich tawny color with eyes a deep onyx. His hair is as dark as fresh-tilled soil after rain. He’s beautiful, and I already love him. “His birth mother is Latino; his father African American.” The liaison knew this information from birth records in the hospital where Finn was deserted. I shrug. I don’t care about any of that. “His name is Finnikin. Finn for short.”

Giant squats before Finn who has stopped fussing even though our voices woke him and the swing stopped moving. “Can I pick him up?” He looks at me over his shoulder, and my heart weeps.