012: Adoption

A boy gets adopted. It takes time, but he eventually gets used to it until...

            The boy looked at the couple in front of him.  They seemed nice enough, but so had all the others.  He smiled politely as they looked down at him.  The woman smiled in that way that they can when they look at a child �" the man smiled with what seemed polite interest.  ‘He’s like me,’ the boy thought, ‘interested, but not.  Why should this time be any different?’

The couple took the boy home.  They gave him a room all to himself.  It was a good room.  The furniture was nice, and new �" something the boy had almost never experienced.  They bought him clothes and toys and made him breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Slowly they grew into what most would call a happy family.  The mother loved the boy with all her heart; after all, it was her fault that they couldn’t have kids.  She was barren.  They had tried for years to have children and finally had to get tested.  His sperm were fine.  That left them with one option �" her.  She got tested and learned the terrible news.  He had been understanding, but she felt as she weren’t fully a woman.  He hoped by adopting a child she would liven up and go back to the woman he had married.  So far, having the boy around had seemed to do that.  She talked more lightly, laughed more, and doted on the boy endlessly.  That made him happy.  He hadn’t really gotten close to the boy.  It’s not that he didn’t want to, it’s just that he wasn’t good with kids.  He did want a child, but he didn’t feel as if it were right for him to treat the boy as a child.  After all, the boy had been through the system and was more mature than most boys and even some adults he knew.

Now the boy was fifteen.  They had all been living together for eight years now.  They had made a family.  The father now felt comfortable with the boy.  They had grown closer and more like friends since the father didn’t treat the boy as a child.  That was the key to a good relationship, they agreed.  Mutual respect.  The boy felt as if he could tell the father anything.  They often went out shopping together, and to ball games.  Baseball was another thing that brought them together.  The mother wasn’t that into baseball.  She came the first time and never again after that.  It became their ritual.  Going to the local teams opening game, eating hot dogs, having a beer or two.  The father figured that if the boy was going to drink, he should do it in front of him so if anything happens the father can help.  He remembered being young and binge drinking.  Sometimes thinking back, the father was amazed he survived.  There were a couple of times he was sure he shouldn’t have.  He didn’t want the boy to go through that if possible.  Obviously it was their secret.  The mother would get amazingly angry if she knew.  They never told her, and never would.

They were at a game today.  It was a night one.  The crowd around them was drunk off flat beer and the game.  It was a good one.  Double overtime.  The opposing team had the bases loaded.  Two strikes.  The pitcher threw a curve ball.  It connected with the bat and went flying.  A homerun.  The local team lost.  The disappointment was palpable.

The stands were slowly cleared out.  The father and the boy made their way to their car.  The opposing teams’ fans were whooping it up.  They were having a good time.  Perhaps too good.  The speeding truck came out of nowhere.  The father hardly had time to register it was there before it was over.  The boy stood motionless as he saw his father be hit by the truck.  He couldn’t think as someone called an ambulance and he tumbled to the ground.  His father was hit by a truck and dying before his eyes.  He was helpless.  He passed out.