To Sing Frogs Chapter 32b

Sarah being her “charming” self in kindergarten

The books we read on adoption challenges certainly allowed for what Amy said was happening. They allowed for a lot more too. Denial was working for me though. It felt so safe with my head in the sand.

Sarah loved to cuddle up with me and I didn’t want to understand it as anything more or less than the healthy relationship I had always wanted with a young daughter. I could only see the little girl who had evolved from praying for families for her friends once a night to disappearing five or six times a day for the same purpose. Ironically, it was me who couldn’t see the paradox that was my daughter. The new differences in viewpoints between my wife and me brought stress to the home that was awkwardly abnormal. In retrospect, it was completely my fault. Though Amy was right, it took me a while to realize it and to begin to work on correcting the situation. My failure brought difficulties into our family that had never been there before. Nobody was researching divorce attorneys but the water was choppy.

That wasn’t the only challenge. We hadn’t talked about going back for the others since we returned from Russia. We were avoiding the subject just like Russia thought we would when they refused to give us information about the siblings.

For me the situation with the older siblings was akin to an unplanned pregnancy. It was like when an indicator shows positive and the guy starts screaming that the girl didn’t shake the sample hard enough. Then he makes her take the test two more times while he drops to his knees and bargains with God. No one forgets about an unplanned pregnancy. It’s remembered every morning when the parents-to-be wake up screaming.

In our case it was far too late for anything to change the facts. There were biological siblings to our daughters who remained without families. If we didn’t act they had no hope. It wasn’t just about what would happen to the older siblings, although that should have been enough. What really drove me forward was cowardice. I knew that one day our daughters would research their histories. I knew they would find out there had been others. I kept asking myself what I would tell my teenaged daughters when they asked me what happened. I couldn’t bear to tell them that in all likelihood their siblings died on the streets. I knew if that was my response there could be no forgiveness. We had enough money. We had enough resources. Though it would be difficult, we had the time.

I thought about when I should contact Stass and Anya to enlist them in the search for the others. I planned my trip to oblivion. I caught up responsibilities at work so I could neglect them again. I watched the calendar like digits made from red lights on a countdown clock and put off talking to Amy about the others as long as I could.

I knew my wife hadn’t forgotten about our daughters’ siblings. I also knew she had as much as she could handle without them.

It wasn’t just the struggles with Sarah. Denney’s stitches tantrums were more straw on the camel’s back and Celeste was having her own difficulties. Mike was threatening to abandon his post.

“I’ve had it with her!” he yelled at Amy after Celeste came running into the other room and sat on my lap, only half dressed. “All she ever does is screams at me. She doesn’t like me and that’s fine. I don’t like her either.” Neither my sixteen-year-old son, nor Amy realized I could hear the conversation.

“She’s just insecure,” Amy tried to explain. “You are a lot older than her and you’re male. She thinks you’re trying to replace her dad and she doesn’t want that.”

“No sweat. Dad can keep her. Who’s his buddy anyway?” Mike was right. Dad wasn’t pulling his weight.

“Leave Dad out of this. He has a lot going on right now. More than we know. I need your help, Mike. Celeste needs you too whether she understands it or not.”

“Send her back to Mama Olga. That’s what she wants anyway.” Mike was sixteen and not an athlete. Thusly, he was just entering his apex of female rejection in society, he wasn’t about to put up with it at home.

“Look, Mike, nobody was more excited to get little sisters than you were. You knew there would be lots of work. We talked about this.”

“We didn’t talk about this.” Mike was too much like his old man. He thought if he won an argument it made him right.

“The relationship you wanted with Celeste is possible. It’s just going to take a lot of work and pain. I promise you it will be worth it. How bad do you want it?”

Mike, out of his mother’s desperation, recommitted. Amy had asked the poignant question. How much did any of us want it? To this day, I’m not quite sure what it is.

 

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