adoption/adaptation
The room is small and sparsely adorned with furnishings, as if the comfort of its inhabitants was of no concern to its designer. A woman in her early thirties, dressed in sensible brown leather shoes and a pantsuit, sits at the far end of the room, opposite to the door. Cattycorner from the woman stands a girl, a preteen blossoming in awkward lankiness, her pants a little too short at the ankles, and her stretched-out, hand-me-down sweatshirt frayed at the cuffs and falling just shy of her wrists. There are no windows, except for a darkened panel of glass, through which one could presumably observe the goings-on the room. Overhead, fluorescent lights recessed deep into the ceiling beat an unflattering and stark light through thick, protective lenses. A bunker. An interrogation room. A mental hospital ward. The room could be any of these things, and in the sterile, sharp, bright artificial whiteness, the room also feels far removed from any place; it feels out of time, and it almost feels like it was possible that no one in the outside world knew that they were sequestered away in this place. It probably doesn't help to know that they are, indeed, underground.
'There are cookies over here,’ the woman offers with a small, sweeping gesture of her hand toward a brushed-steel tabletop. ‘And milk. If you would like something else, I’m sure we could arrange for it.’ The woman smiles. It’s a real smile, the girl thinks, a nice smile. The woman has always been nice, as this is not their first meeting. She’s also patient, possibly the most patient person the girl could ever recall meeting. Looking to where the woman had gestured, the girl sees that the cookies are Oreos. That’s a real treat, and not they’re generic kind either, since the entire package is sitting right there by a pitcher of frosty milk. Since being ushered into the room, the young lady did little more than stare at the floor in resigned indifference to what was to going to happen to her. Never had she experienced this particular series of events, but she is certain that it will end the way her fostered stays usually do, thus she didn’t bother to make herself comfortable or to inquire about the treats sitting on the table.
It was the girl’s experience that many people start-off nice, but eventually, for whatever reason, their niceness fades or deteriorates or runs-out, and when their façade finally cracks, whatever ulterior motive, true intentions or leftover feelings they have are eventually exposed. Of everything, the girl felt apathy was by far the worst. If someone blamed, berated or beat her, at least she still knew that she existed. Apathy and being ignored sometimes made her doubt if she even actually existed. Not all of her foster parents were entirely terrible, of course, but it always seemed that regardless of her caretakers’ dispositions, that money was the bottom line. Her presence equaled a check from the county. Sometimes there wasn’t enough to keep her, or simply not enough to go around, so she eventually got the boot from her temporary homes. If it wasn’t the money, the girl’s personality was another roadblock in her finding a place to stay for more than a few months at a time. She seemed to be broken from the moment she was able to communicate; distant, quiet, unwilling to try and assimilate with her classmates, playmates, foster sisters and brothers. Other than this, she was an average child in intelligence, and always did what she was told or asked to do, but these small qualities were not enough to appeal to potential parents, or it was not enough to those who were fostering to keep her around. Natrona County was not known for their progressive foster care system, either, so she and her ilk easily slipped through the cracks and got lost in the shuffle.
‘At least come have a seat, Luloah,’ the woman says, and the girl suddenly jerks her reflective, coppery eyes to attention, and it looks for a moment like she is afraid.
Luloah usually meant she was in trouble. ‘I mean Lu, I’m sorry, you did tell me,’ the woman quickly amends in a voice as sweet as honey, and although she would have been able to tell by reaction alone that she misspoke, the fear hits her like an ocean wave she didn’t see coming, and causes her to close her warm brown eyes for a moment. ‘Please? I don’t like the way my voice echoes in the room when I have to talk to you all the way over there, so why not come have a seat? There’s nothing to be afraid of, and the milk’s getting warm.’ With that, the woman reaches out to touch the handle of the pitcher, shifting it slightly as if to drive her point home. Then, and only then, does the woman truly flex her abilities, just enough to allay the young girl’s fears. Unwittingly, the girl lets her posture relax, and takes a step forward, but with a lingering hesitancy that eventually falls away as she slowly crosses the floor toward the table to sit down. ‘Better, right? Here you go,’ she says while lifting the milk and tipping the pitcher forward to fill both of the tumblers sitting on the table. ‘I have something I want to discuss with you,’ she says while pushing one of the glasses in the girl’s direction.
It isn’t until after the woman opens the package of cookies and offers one to the girl again that she finally accepts the confection, and it isn’t until the woman eats one herself that the girl finally snitches one from the package, her hand moving so quickly because maybe she won't get one otherwise. ‘This house is pretty nice, don’t you think?’ the woman starts with after washing down mouthful of cookie with a drink of milk. The girl, who is again looking at the floor, nods as she toys with an Oreo, twisting the top and bottom wafers apart and then pressing them back together. The house is big and full of ominous-lookin
g doors and filled with a maze of hallways, but she does suppose that it’s the nicest house she’d ever had the opportunity to be in, so she meekly nods in reply. ‘And Doctor Nowak is a nice man, isn’t he?’ With the cookie now conveniently in the girl’s mouth, she offers another non-verbal reply, shrugging a little at first before offering a tiny nod. She’s played this game before, giving answers she knew to be the correct ones, since it usually made things easier in the end. ‘Just between you and me,’ the woman says quickly and in a conspiratorial manner, ‘…he’s a little idiosyncratic,’ and the girl’s eyes raise to meet the woman’s as that word is unfamiliar. ‘Mmmmm. Unique,’ she then says, and it looks as if the girl understands that better. ‘Anyway, he wanted me to talk to you about… potentially… you… staying here. You know. Permanently.’
The girl stares at the woman, as if trying to read her thoughts, to see the deceit in her words or in her face. The girl doesn’t smile and does not even muster a contemptuous laugh, even though she knows that the idea is ridiculous and highly unlikely. ‘It’s the God’s honest truth, Lu. He’d like to adopt you.’
‘I’m eleven years old,’ the girl replies, the first thing she’s said since stepping foot into this room.
‘Yes, and?’ the woman nonchalantly replies.
‘Nobody adopts eleven-year-olds,’ the girl softly and matter-of-factly explains, as if the answer is obvious.
‘It might not be what usually happens, but Doctor Nowak wants to adopt you,’ the woman calmly reiterates, even as the slick curls of the girl’s suspicion infiltrate her consciousness.
‘Why?’ the girl’s mouth carefully forms the word as she concentrates on the woman.
‘Well,’ the woman says, just as carefully. ‘Because you’re… because of your… well, because of what you can do.’
The girls considers this for a moment, and her eyes eventually drop back down to the floor again, and the woman can feel her shame.
‘There is something you should know about him, Lu. Doctor Nowak is like you,’ the woman explains with that smile of hers again. The girl isn’t quite sure how or why, but that smile in some way calms her.
‘He... makes earthquakes, too?’ the girl asks with shy but notable curiosity, surprised and confused at the woman’s admission.
‘No,’ she replies as amusement touches her friendly features. ‘He’s also a mutant, is what I meant to say. His powers deal with machinery.’
‘Oh,’ the girl replies, still surprised and still confused, but she, for some reason, feels a little better about the entire situation, although there is still a tickle of trepidation at the back of her mind. She had hurt people; she hadn’t meant to, but it had happened nonetheless; a fellow student was in a coma thanks to her, and she'd destroyed school property. She didn’t want to hurt anyone else, despite what the police inferred, or how her foster parents had regarded her after the series of incidents. In the past, people frequently looked at her as if she were somewhat defective, or something to be pitied, but now she was starting to feel criminalized, a word she only knew the definition to because it was on her vocabulary list a couple of weeks ago.
‘You’ll be safe here,’ the woman adds with a small smile. ‘And Doctor Nowak will see that all of your needs are met. ‘
Instead of a response, the girl finally stuffs the Oreo she’d been playing with into her mouth and takes a long time to chew and swallow it. She looks-up a little to see where she’d left the glass of milk, and when she does, the woman can see the tears in the girl’s eyes, although she could already feel a quivering mixture of gratitude, uncertainty and sadness beforehand. From her suit pocket, the woman pulls a travel package of tissues, one of which she tugs free from the plastic wrapping to offer to the emotionally-bedraggled, dark-haired girl. The woman is usually prepared as such, and whoever set the room up for the meeting, obviously had overlooked this detail.
'Why couldn't he ask me himself?' the young lady asks after a pregnant silence, and after she’d blown her nose and wiped her eyes. She makes sure she says nothing until she’s got control over her voice and until she’s stopped crying, which really doesn't take very long at all.
'Doctor Nowak is...' the woman starts to say, then pauses to take a breath as if it would help her pick her words out. 'He and I have known each other for some time now, and... he just thought it would be better if I talked to you about it. As he's said, he's not very good with words, sometimes. He's also very involved in a time-sensitive project at the moment, so he just wanted me to take care of this discussion.'
The answer is sufficient for the girl, who responds, 'Oh, okay,' although she still thinks the entire situation is a little strange, and who still thinks that the rug is going to be pulled out from under her feet; it was just a question of when.
'Do you have any other questions, Lu?'
‘Uhm. No... thank you, Doctor DiBiasio,’ the girl says, as the foundation for her emotional wall, which is typically in varying degrees of formation, halts construction for the moment.
‘Please call me Marianne,’ the woman responds, her smile as endearing as always, before pulling a couple more tissues from the packet, then tucking the rest back into her pocket to settle back into the chair. She's made this request in previous meetings.
There was no reason for her to believe that this home what going to be any more permanent than any other of her accommodations over the years, but the corner of the girl’s mouth twitches slightly before she simply nods in acknowledgment. It's like she wants to smile, but such an expression is not easy for her to come by, so it doesn’t get any further. She doesn't usually have much reason to spare a smile, and she'd gotten her hopes up before, only to have them tamped back down. But this was the closest she’d come in some time.
Luloah Esther Akins
Marianne DiBiasio
Elijah Nowak
Stumble!