To Sing Frogs Chapter 4a

The rough-sawn hardwood mantle of our oversized brown-brick fireplace. (Of course this was after the adoptions)

Chapter 4

 

Building a House on Sand

 

 

 

It was obvious that the snapshot was not taken by a professional. The photo’s only purpose was to showcase the children. That objective was accomplished even though the picture didn’t allow for any sort of vision as to what lay behind or in front of the siblings.       Four-year-old Valentina had short dark hair and dark eyes. A subtle smile full of childhood wonderment covered her circular face. Her arm held her little brother of two against her in a protective motherly clutch, close to her pink and white dress. Daniil had thin blond hair and his eager eyes and somber face displayed characteristics of fortitude. He appeared to feel comfortable under the overreaching arm and clutching hand of his big sister. Even so, his arm hanging slightly outward and his attention focused away from his protector showed he was his own person. From the photo it seemed obvious that Daniil had an independent side as well. I was mesmerized. It was difficult to close out the jpeg of the waiting children and open the other attachments. The difficulty didn’t stop me.

Amy was excited when I picked up the phone after being paged at work in mid-November. She had forwarded the pictures and medical reports of the two children to me and she was now dancing in place.

I was rubbing my forehead. I was halfway through the second child’s medical report—for the third time—when I picked up the phone.

“Aren’t they just so cute?” she asked, cooing like a mourning dove.

“Yeah. They’re cute. Kids are cute. I’m just going over the social and medical reports. Do you know why so much was left unanswered in those documents?”

“Everything I read was marked normal. I didn’t see anything negative. I assume if they didn’t put anything negative, everything else must be okay.”

“Uh huh.” What? No news is good news? Like an hour before Pearl Harbor?! Like silence from trapped miners?! Like no response from a commercial airliner after a distress call?! “We might want to check into it.”

“Okay, I’ll check. If nothing’s wrong are you good to move forward with these kids? Aren’t they cute?”

“Yeah. They’re cute.” Kids are cute. “I thought we were going to adopt two sisters…” Déjà vu. Didn’t we do this when we were adopting Jack? Or is this just a rerun of the Twilight Zone?

Amy said she assumed the agency had just sent us pictures of these two children because they were siblings. Surely we could add another girl who wasn’t biologically related. We’d just have to ask.

Amy could be excused for assuming. She hadn’t had the opportunity of taking Mr. Morrill’s high school metal shop class like I did. The old teacher was crusty on the outside but a marshmallow on the inside. You didn’t see the soft spot too often. It wasn’t visible on the day when Mr. Morrill taught our class you should never assume anything. That was, as he explained, because of what it makes out of “u” and “me.”

Hair was standing up on the back of my neck as I asked my dream absorbed wife—one more time—to please get more information before she got too excited. I might as well have asked a fish to spit out the hook after digesting the worm.

While I was jittery the rest of the day at work, things got worse when I got home. It sat on top of the rough-sawn hardwood mantle of our oversized brown-brick fireplace. A new frame had been given space between the others containing pictures of Mike, Cory, Steve, and Jack. It was the photograph from my computer screen. The beautiful faces of Valentina and Daniil were staring back at me