Chapter 26 Sacrilegious Pineapples and Family Promises Emmett
I’VE ADMIRED MY WIFE EVERY day since we met.
I’ve admired her drive and her passion, her work ethic and creativity. I’ve admired her humor and her fire, her confidence and her honesty.
But above all, I’ve spent my days admiring her heart. How it’s every bit as soft as it is steadfast. How it loves hard and loud, and gentle and quiet. A heart filled with seemingly endless compassion, finding a space for every person who’s looking for their people, a place to call home.
Because as I stand here in the doorway of a room that’s been empty since we moved in, save for the two books I added to the shelves the day I asked Cara to marry me, as I watch her move around the now-full room, readjusting things for the umpteenth time in an effort to make them more perfect than they already are—impossible—I am absolutely sure that there has never, ever existed a heart quite like hers.
“Do you think he’ll like it?” She steps back, tip of her thumbnail between her teeth as her gaze coasts the room she’s spent the last three weeks redecorating.
We didn’t decide right away to foster Abel, though I think the answer was always going to be yes.
We spent days talking about how this would work.
What our days would look like if we opened our home to the sweet three-and-a-half-year-old who’s struggling for connection.
In a perfect world, maybe it would have been an immediate yes, and we’d have figured out the details later.
But the reality is my wife’s body and mind have been through so much over the last two and a half years, and she’s just getting her footing back, giving herself the grace she deserves to rest, recharge, and learn to love herself all over again.
Do I think fostering will help not only Abel, but Cara too?
Without a doubt. But I’m mindful that it’ll be an adjustment—it’ll be as tough as it is worthwhile—and that the majority of it will fall on Cara’s shoulders while hockey season is ongoing.
Adam and Rosie have graciously shared so much about their experience with Lily, while Rosie recovered from her second C-section after birthing their baby girl, Iris, just four days after Hunter and Brodie were born.
They were happy to walk us through how they came to the decision, and as upfront as they were about how challenging it was, their message was clear: It is every bit as worthwhile as it is tough.
We talked in-depth with Emily, learning as much about Abel’s situation and needs as we could to help inform our decision.
She told us about his mother, Catharine, who had Abel when she was only sixteen.
About his grandparents, Peter and Elizabeth, who uphold very rigid religious values, and wouldn’t allow their daughter to consider abortion or adoption.
She told us that Abel has been raised to believe that his mother is his sister, but that he only knows his grandparents by their first names.
It probably should have been unsurprising, then, when she told us how he came to be at Second Chance two months ago, how his grandparents got fed up with their daughter for being, well, a fucking teenager, and kicked them both out.
Should have been unsurprising, and yet, I’m still outraged.
The goal is to help his mother get back on her feet before ultimately reuniting the two of them.
That means this placement is temporary, and for me, that was my greatest hesitancy.
I know that reuniting when possible is best. I know that.
That doesn’t make knowing a goodbye is inevitable any easier.
We’re going to have to say goodbye, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that we’ll fall in love along the way. And I just don’t know how many more goodbyes Cara has in her.
I am proud of her, though, and ultimately, I trust her. She’s started therapy with a friend of Emily’s who specializes in fertility-related PTSD, and though she comes back emotionally drained, I see the changes in her, small mentions of the future that glimmer a little bit like hope.
So, yeah, is it going to be easy? Fuck no. But with Cara, nothing has ever felt impossible.
I step into the room, winding an arm around Cara’s waist, tucking her against my chest. “It’s perfect, Care. He’ll love it.”
“But what if he doesn’t? What if he hates it?
I wanted to keep it neutral,” she explains for at least the fifth time, “so we can add things that feel like him as we get to know him, and he can… he can… I mean, he can do whatever he wants. If he wants to paint it pink, we’ll paint it pink.
If he wants to replace this… this… exquisite hand-tufted wool rug with those-those-those”—her face twists with disgust—“giant puzzle-piece mats that make a road, then we’ll do it.
Will it kill me inside? I mean, I’ve survived worse, but yeah. ”
The sound of a car approaching has her head snapping up, and when we hear doors shut, Cara starts shaking her hands out.
“Oh my God. He’s here. Okay, he’s here. Wait.
Are we sure it’s him? Maybe it’s…” She dashes to the window, nodding.
“Yep, it’s him. Okay, everything’s gonna be great.
It’s gonna be fine.” A high-pitched giggle as the doorbell rings, and she swats my chest as she walks by me.
“It’s gonna be fine, Emmett. Stop freaking out. ”
I twist, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed and smiling, waiting.
Cara makes it to the top of the stairs before she twirls around, sprinting back to me, taking me by the shirt. She looks all kinds of wild right now, just the way I love her. “Emmett, I’m freaking out!”
“You don’t say.” Taking her face in my hands, I keep her gaze on mine. “Breathe, baby. We can do this.”
“Can we? I mean, you’ll be a natural, sure. But what about me? Can I do it?”
“What kind of a question is that? You’re Cara Brodie, and before Cara Brodie you were Cara Hunter. You have a goddamn baby named after you. You can do this, firefly. We can do this.”
“Oh, God.” Her eyes close, and she gives her head a tiny shake.
“If women take over the world and we only keep the good men for reproducing, you’re gonna be such a hot commodity.
Everyone will want your unicorn sperm.” I have no idea what that means, but then I don’t understand at least 50 percent of what comes out of her mouth.
Still, I enjoy the way her mouth collides with mine, her tongue sweeping inside, making every nerve ending dance.
“Thanks for the pep talk,” she calls over her shoulder, patting the lump in my pants as she starts down the stairs.
“Oh, that reminds me. We’re gonna need to get rid of the toy drawer in the kitchen. ”
I gasp, jogging down the stairs behind her.
“Get rid of it? Can’t we just—I’ll just—no, but—cockblocked in my own home?
” I snap my mouth shut as Cara whips open the front door, replacing my outrage with a grin.
A grin that quickly dies when I spy Abel, wearing my beanie pulled all the way over his eyes, clinging to his social worker’s leg, sobbing.
“I want… to go… hooome!”
Cara and I look at each other, and I know without a doubt she feels as helpless as I do. I expected these moments, ones where I don’t know the right answer or the next move, but what I didn’t expect was the way it would have me immediately second-guessing myself.
“Oh, Abel.” Marlene, his social worker, reaches back to rub his head, a sad smile on her face, and I think back on what Emily said to us just yesterday, when she warned us that, although he loved spending time with us at the children’s home, it would likely be very different, at first, to see us outside of it.
To become our own unit, separate from others.
This is why what you’re doing for him is so important, she’d said.
Abel needs a steady environment, a place where he can settle in and really feel at home.
Imagine having the only life you know uprooted, going from knowing where you’ll sleep each night to being on a new stranger’s couch every few days, then a big home filled with more people you don’t know, and now here, where nothing is familiar.
Now imagine all that, but at three years old.
I watch my wife, the way she hesitates for only a split second before she falls to her knees, taking a seat on the floor in the entryway.
“Hi, Abel,” she says softly. “Emmett and I are so excited to have you here with us, we even got a special treat for dessert.” She looks up at me, a hopeful grin spreading as Abel’s cries slow, and all I can do is stare down at her in wonder.
The woman who wondered if she could do it not five minutes ago, over here doing it.
She holds her hand up to me, and I take it without hesitation, dropping to the floor beside her. I always feel more capable next to her.
“This is a little bit scary, huh?” Cara asks quietly when Abel peeks around Marlene, one green eye watching us carefully as he catches his breath.
“This is a new place, and you don’t know it yet.
It feels safer to be somewhere you already know sometimes, doesn’t it?
” He nods, barely and so slow I almost miss it, but he nods.
“We’re going to do our very best to make this as not-scary as possible for you. We want you to feel safe here.”
“Can I tell you something, Abel?” I swallow, and Cara squeezes my hand. When Abel’s gaze shifts to me, I tell him quietly, “We’re scared too.”
“Emmett?” he whispers, shifting another step, until both of those eyes are in view. “You… you scared?” When I nod, he points at me. “But you a big person. Big persons don’t get scared.”
“What? Big people don’t get scared? Psssh!” I wave my hand through the air, and he cracks a smile. “Dude, I get scared all the time!”
He looks at Cara, slipping a little farther around Marlene. “Do you gets scared?”
“Oh my gosh, yes. All the time. Emmett helps me a lot, though.”