Monthly Archives: January 2009

at the recruitment meetings for team in training
they usually ask me to talk about leanne.

in the past week i’ve done this twice.

leanne isn’t there.
she’s with lydia or she’s out to dinner with a friend
or she’s looking for yet another pair of black pants
to go with the 20 or so pairs of black pants in our cold closet.

and i put on my cycling jersey even though it’s 8 degrees out
and my hat and maybe one of my own black pants
and i drive and i park and i stand up
and i tell the story.

a story.

there is no one story
to tell.

sometimes i talk about cutting all her hair off and how she cried in the shower.
sometimes i talk about how the baby was kicking like crazy when she was in the mri tube,
the tube that she came out of to find her doctor crying.
sometimes i talk about her being in the parking lot outside the store and getting the call
or about how she went back to that same parking lot much later to finally buy herself
something – yes, probably another pair of black pants.

but i realized yesterday that when i tell these stories
everyone in the audience thinks she’s dead.

—–

i’ve been wanting to write about the adoption,
but i haven’t.

i’m sick of bad news.
i’m sure you are too.

that said, here’s some more:

she was due in two weeks.
we were picked.
we took the car in to make sure
it was ready to go.
we packed baby seats and pacis
and blankets and a portable crib
and cheetos for lydia.

the night before we were going to drive to oklahoma
she wanted to talk to us one more time.
she asked us to call at 8pm.
we called.
no answer.
we called.
no answer.
we called and called and called.

we never heard from her again.

so we spent the weekend, this past weekend.
unpacking the car
and our hearts.

leanne cried on the couch.
she cried when we went out to breakfast and
lydia shared her bacon with me.
she cried and cried.

every time she cries, she cries for so much.
i know this.

i want to say – but you’re alive!
i want to say – when i’m telling one of our stories
to the people at my meetings, i get to end it with
you living.

but it’s no good.

—–

this weekend i went to a play.
rabbit hole – about a family that has lost their son
when he gets hit by a car in the street outside their house.

in the play everyone fights.
the husband and wife fight.
the wife and her pregnant sister fight.
the pregnant sister and the husband fight.

at one point, the teenager who ran over their son
comes over to the house.

he has written a short story and wants to dedicate it to their son.
the story is about a boy who
has lost his father and who goes looking for him
in “parallel universes”

they sit on the couch and she looks at the story.

“you mean there are other worlds with other versions of us in them?” she asks.
“that’s what the scientists say,” he says. “if you believe them”

“oh,” she says. “these are just the sad versions of us?”

—–

and that was it.
that was exactly it.