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The little scar over his eyebrow from crashing his bicycle at 19. The way his jaw tightened when he wasn’t telling me the whole story. His jaw was tight now.
“Have you been looking into this?” I asked.
“It feels like something I’m supposed to do.”
“A little.”
“How little?”
“I’ve made some calls to agencies. Just asking questions.”
The garage calls finally made sense. That was why he’d been standing out by the recycling bin with his phone pressed to his ear every night that week while I put the kids to bed alone.
“You’ve been doing this for weeks, and you’re telling me tonight?”
The garage calls finally made sense.
“I didn’t want to bring it up until I was sure…”
Harold looked at me finally. His eyes were wet, and I hadn’t seen him cry since his mother’s funeral.
“…sure that I meant it,” he said. “Please, Mary. Just think about it. That’s all I’m asking.”
I told him I would. What else was I going to say to a man who was crying because he wanted to save a child?
“I didn’t want to bring it up until I was sure…”
Later, in bed, I heard my husband get up and slip back downstairs, phone in hand.
I stared at the ceiling and wondered, for the first time in years, who exactly he was becoming.
For weeks after that first conversation, Harold wouldn’t let the idea of adoption rest.
Every morning he had a new article printed out on the counter. Every evening he had another story about a child waiting somewhere for a family.
I heard my husband get up.
I kept telling him we had our children to think about. I told him the numbers didn’t add up.
He kept nodding as if he heard me, and then the following morning there’d be another article.
One night, I finally set my coffee down and looked at him.
“Okay. Okay, Harold. We’ll visit a home. Just visit. That’s all I’m agreeing to.”
He hugged me so tightly that it startled me. I told myself that was a good man reacting to good news.
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