17. Amos
AMOS
T he SUV hums as we drive through the leafy suburbs of Hope toward my apartment.
"This is the school where you'll be going," I point out as we pass Hope Elementary. "Your teacher's going to be Mrs. Bennet. She's married to a friend of mine, Ethan, and they live up in the mountains. Ethan was in the military just like me."
I glance in the rearview mirror at Sam. He's staring out of the window with a blank expression on his face. In his hands, he turns over a small blue car. The paintwork on it is faded, and there's rust on the metal base.
There's no indication he's heard anything I've said.
In the twenty minutes since I picked him up from the Deacons, who were his foster family, he hasn’t said a single word.
"Ethan was in the Army. I was in the Navy, like your dad." His expression remains stony, and I turn my attention back to the road.
To fill the silence, I start in on an explanation of the different branches of the military and how the army is different from the Navy and why they're both different from the air force.
When I glance in the rearview again, Sam's still looking out of the window and I trail off, uncertain if he can hear me. And more uncertain if giving a tactical explanation of the different military factions is appropriate for a six-year-old.
I'll have to speak to Dad about it. I can't remember at what age I knew I wanted to follow him into the Navy.
The military was openly discussed in our household.
When dad was around, I loved hearing stories of where he'd been and what he'd been up to.
He bought me books on military history and I stayed up late with him watching war documentaries that were much too gruesome for a little boy, but I loved them.
The military is in my blood, and it was the only thing I ever wanted to do.
But do I want that for Jake's son? Jake died a hero while serving his country, but is following in his father's footsteps really the right thing for Sam?
We drive the rest of the route in silence, and it's five minutes later that I pull into the underground parking lot of my apartment.
"This is home," I say as I cut the engine.
I turn to Sam, and there's a slight frown on his forehead. I can't imagine what he's going through, and maybe using the H word has reminded him of what he's lost.
"It may not feel like home straight away, but I hope it will over time."
He doesn't say anything. He just stares out the window at the gray concrete columns of the parking lot.
"Let's get you inside."
The Deacons told me he hasn't talked much since he’s been with them. But no one knows if that's from the trauma of losing his mom, or if he was always a quiet boy. The fact that there's no one around to ask makes me sad for him.
I make a mental note to ask Alana about it. There must be an old teacher or the neighbor that used to babysit him who knows. I'll go see them myself if I have to.
I grab his belongings which fit into a single duffel bag and head to the elevator.
"We're on the top floor," I tell him. "You want to push the button?"
He glances up at me, and there's the first flicker of something other than emptiness on his face.
His hand darts out, and he pushes the button for level eight.
The doors slide closed, and I try not to smile.
Some things are universal, like kids wanting to push buttons.
It's such a small thing, but it feels like a breakthrough.
We get to the apartment, and I unlock the door. I'm holding my breath as we go in. It matters to me what Sam thinks of his new home. I want him to be happy here, and I hope I've done enough.
"Come on in." I dump the bag by the kitchen counter. "You want a juice or something?"
He shakes his head.
"There's a box of toys in the corner. Do you like cars?"
He nods and I walk over to the colorful box, thankful again for Avery for stocking it up with cars sets.
"Have a look in there and see if there's something you want to play with."
Sam crouches down by the box and pulls out a piece of the bright orange racing track.
"You want to race?"
I clip pieces of the track together, and he runs his grubby blue car over the track while making brmm brmm noises. It's good to hear him if not quite speak then at least make noises.
I get the feeling he wants to play on his own, so I retreat to the kitchen.
I send a quick text to Alana telling her how it's going and make a coffee while I wait for her reply.
I let Sam play for a while before showing him the rest of the house.
"Do you want to see your bedroom?"
I pick up the duffle bag and carry it into the spare room that's been transformed into Sam's bedroom. He stands in the center of the room and looks around. He frowns, and I kick myself for letting Avery put up fairy lights and fill the bed with stuffed toys.
"Is this all mine?" he asks in a voice so quiet I have to lean down to hear him.
"Yes, Sam. It's all yours. This is your room now. And all the toys in here are for you."
The frown turns to amazement, and it makes my chest ache. And I wonder again why his mother never contacted Jake. He would have provided for his son.
Sam goes over to the bookcase and picks up the red fire engine sitting on the top shelf.
The paint is chipped, and the wheels are smooth from use.
It's the same red fire engine that Jake used to play with as a boy.
Mom kept some of our favorite toys, and I thought it would be nice for Sam to have them.
"That used to be your dad's."
He frowns at the fire engine and puts it back on the shelf. "I don't have a dad."
The words hit me like a punch in the guts, and I use all my SEAL training not to show how his statement crushes me. The boy, who looks so much like Jake, will never know him.
Sam slips past me out of the bedroom, and a moment later I hear him playing with the cars in the living room.
I pick up the red fire engine and sit on the edge of his bed.
Sam may have a place to live now and a family, but we're all strangers to him. The boy's never known a father. But I can tell he desperately needs one.
Later that night, I'm sitting on the couch with the TV turned down low and a beer in one hand as I talk to Alana on the phone.
"It was a disaster," I whisper, so as not to wake Sam. "He barely said two words to me."
"Give it time, Amos. You're still a stranger to him."
"How do I get to not be a stranger?"
I take a sip of beer. The second one I'm allowing myself with Sam asleep in the house.
"How does anyone go from being a stranger to being a friend?"
I think about Alana, this woman who I didn't know existed three weeks ago and is now the first person I want to call to discuss my day with Sam.
"You get to know them, I guess."
"Exactly. Spend time with him. Don't force it. Once he sees that you're showing up consistently and reliably, he'll come around. He's wary. He doesn’t know what adults he can rely on."
"And he desperately needs an adult he can rely on."
"All kids do," she murmurs.
I lean back on the sofa and let out a long breath, thinking of the little boy on the other side of the wall.
When I checked in on him before I called Alana, he was sleeping on his back with one arm thrown over the pillow.
His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and the frown lines were gone from his face.
The vulnerability of him almost undid me, and I watched him for several minutes before retreating quietly to the living room.
"How do you do it?" I ask in a whisper. "How do you see these kids day after day and not want to take each and every one of them in?"
There's a long sigh on the other end of the phone.
"I would take them all in if I could, Amos.
It breaks my heart every single time I get another child assigned to me.
It's another child who doesn't have an adult they can depend on.
Sometimes, like Sam, it's an awful set of circumstances, but too often they've been let down by the adults they should be able to trust."
Anger rises inside me for those kids, and I squeeze my forehead with my thumb and forefinger. "What can I do to help? I can take another kid in."
"Whoa, slow down."
Alana laughs, but I'm deadly serious. There are vulnerable kids who need protecting, and I can take more in.
"One at a time, Amos. You've got Sam to think about now. One kid is a lot for a single parent. See how it goes first before you take on more than you can handle."
"I can handle it."
She chuckles. "Tell me that again when you're trying to get him ready for school while you get ready for work, and there's laundry to be done and dishes and he hasn't done his homework, and someone's been bullying him at school..."
"No one's going to bully my kid. Or I'll come down there and beat the shit out of their dad."
She chuckles, a throaty laugh that sets off all the feelings in my body that tell me being friends with Alana is going to be a study in resistance.
"You think I'm joking?"
"I hope you're joking, Amos. Bullying is a thing, and kids will find any point of difference to latch on to."
There's a tone to her voice that makes me sit up. "Is Kyra being bullied?"
Alana sighs. "Some kids make fun of her because she doesn't have a mom."
"She does have a mom. She has you."
"But she doesn't call me mom, not until I'm sure the adoption is going through. Some kids heard her calling me Alana, and that was it."
"Kids are assholes."
She sighs. "Kids aren't inherently assholes. They learn that behavior."
I sip my beer and think about what she's said. "The label of mom doesn't necessarily mean you're the one who birthed her."
"I know that. Just like the label of dad doesn't just mean the man who provided sperm. If kids could only call their biological dads dad, there'd be a lot of fatherless kids around. But the label doesn't matter. The mom, or the dad, is whoever's raising them."
I end the call with Alana and take a long swig of beer, thinking about our conversation. A dad is the man who raises you. That means one day, Sam might come to think of me as his dad.
I have all the responsibilities of a dad. I'm responsible for raising Sam into a man who's strong and protective but also respectful and kind, who has good manners but also knows how to stick up for himself. Who treats women right and isn't afraid to be emotionally available. It's a big job.
But as I sit in the dark with the TV turned down low, a warm feeling seeps into my chest. It's a big job, but I'm ready for it.
I'm ready to become a dad.