Chapter 7 #4
It wasn’t magic, this moment. Jeremy didn’t suddenly look up at them with a smile and tell them he’d been waiting for them.
He didn’t say much at all during that first meeting.
When he did speak, it was in short, staccato sentences.
He never looked them in the eyes. When they got too close, he cringed away from them.
That night, sleep was a lost cause. They stayed in bed, but neither slept.
Instead, they talked and talked. About what they wanted.
About their futures. About why they had decided to have a kid in the first place.
About what their lives would be like if they decided to take him in.
How everything would change, and it could not be undone.
By the next morning, they were exhausted, but resolute.
They went back to see Jeremy again, a few days later.
He seemed surprised. He didn’t open up any more than he already had, but he also didn’t ignore them.
The book—Where the Wild Things Are—seemed to be his favorite.
He could read, he told them. He just had trouble with some of the words.
He didn’t want to show them right then. Maybe someday, he told them.
The first night he’d stayed at their house—“A sleepover,” the social worker had called it—went as well as could be expected.
Jeremy eyed the spare bedroom for a moment—fresh sheets on the bed, a green beanbag, some books and toys in plastic buckets—before dropping his backpack and rushing to the window, looking out at the large tree that grew outside.
He gripped the windowsill, head turning side to side.
“What do you think?” Don asked, he and Rodney standing in the doorway.
Jeremy didn’t look at them. He said, “It’s all right. Can we have food? I’m hungry.”
That first night, Jeremy didn’t want to go to bed. He wanted to play with his toys. When Don and Rodney told him the toys would be there in the morning, Jeremy glared at them with such animosity that it made Don take a step back.
“Do me a favor, yeah?” Rodney said, voice even. “I know it’s not the greatest, but if we go to bed now, we’ll be able to have waffles in the morning.”
That gave Jeremy pause. “Waffles?” he said, the anger draining from his face. “With peanut butter on them?”
They didn’t have any peanut butter in the house. “Yes,” Rodney said.
Jeremy looked at his toys, flexing his hands. “I guess I can do that.”
And that was how Don found himself driving to the store at ten at night to buy a jar of peanut butter.
He didn’t know it then, but it would become part of their routine for years to come.
Always trying to make Jeremy happy. Always trying to give him what he wanted, within reason.
All in hopes that one day, the chemicals in his brain would regulate themselves in such a way that the boy would be able to grow up, contribute, be a good person.
It’s what parents did, they told themselves.
Jeremy ate four waffles slathered in peanut butter that next morning. He said they were very good.
It took months for everything to go through.
Months of overnights, months of dreading a phone call that would bring them the news that Jeremy didn’t want to live with them, or that they’d never give a child to a same-sex couple.
Months of hoping, months of worrying, months of seeing Jeremy’s growing smile when they visited him.
Once, they had him for an entire week, and by the end, Rodney and Don were exhausted.
And yet, it was like a drug, like an addiction, wanting him there, in the home.
The sound of his bare feet slapping against the wood floors.
His overactive imagination as he waged great battles between the Green Man Army and the ThunderCats.
The way his face scrunched up when he was thinking hard.
It wasn’t love, but it was close. There was a warmth in Don’s chest whenever he saw Jeremy.
Three months in, and Jeremy hugged Don around the leg, head tilted back, smiling that gap-toothed smile.
Rodney was gruff, but kind, and Don didn’t miss the first time Rodney had ruffled Jeremy’s hair.
They’d been outside, tossing a baseball back and forth.
Jeremy had made an amazing catch, arm stretched above his head, body twisted.
When he’d landed, he’d shouted that he’d caught the ball, did you see that? I thought I missed it!
Rodney had grinned and walked toward him, mitt under one arm. “I did see it,” he said, his proud voice carrying through the open window above the sink. His hand in Jeremy’s hair, giving it a good rub. “We’ll make a ballplayer out of you yet.”
Just before everything was finalized—Don and Rodney not daring to believe it was real, not until Jeremy was in their home for good—they met with him and the social worker.
An important conversation needed to happen, one Rodney wouldn’t budge on.
Don agreed, but apprehensively. He didn’t know what Jeremy would say.
How much did he already know? It wasn’t as if Don and Rodney had hidden that they slept in the same bedroom.
“Jeremy,” the social worker said. “We wanted to talk to you about something.”
He was sitting on the floor, toy cars in hand as he crashed them into precarious towers of blocks. He didn’t acknowledge them.
“Jeremy,” Rodney said sternly. “I need you to pay attention, please. We need your help. The blocks will be there when we’ve finished.”
Jeremy stiffened. For a moment, Don thought he’d continue on as he had been. Small wonders, he turned toward them, eyes narrowed. “What?” he practically spat.
The social worker leaned forward. “Don and Rodney here want you to live with them.”
“I know,” Jeremy said.
“Do you like their house?”
He shrugged. “I have my own bedroom there.”
She nodded. “I know, I’ve seen it, remember? It’s a wonderful room, just your size.”
He shrugged again. His hands flexed. His jaw tensed, relaxed.
“It’s a different home,” the social worker said.
“Different than here, different than other homes. But then every family is different. Some have a mom and a dad. Some have just a dad or a mom. Some people have no kids while some have two or three or even more. Different is good because it helps us see how unique we all are.”
Jeremy looked back at the blocks with a mournful expression. “What does that have to do with me?” he asked them.
“Do you know what gay people are?” the social worker asked.
Jeremy frowned and shook his head.
“You know how two people can fall in love and get married?”
“Like with rings and stuff?”
The social worker beamed. “Exactly. Now, when you picture a wedding like that, you probably think a man and a woman are getting married. But what if I tell you that it’s not just men and women? Sometimes, men can fall in love with other men, and women can fall in love with other women.”
Jeremy’s eyes widened. “What?” He looked at Don and Rodney. “You’re married?”
Don huffed out a laugh. “For all intents and purposes, yes, we are.”
Jeremy made a face. “You kiss Rodney? Why?”
“Because I like to,” Don said as Rodney groaned. “I like him very much.”
“Oh,” Jeremy said, and Don knew him well enough by now to see that his mind was racing.
Maybe he hadn’t given it much thought before.
Don worried that bringing it to his attention now might make things harder, but he knew truth was important.
Jeremy had been fed so many lies over his lifetime that Don and Rodney couldn’t bring themselves to add to it.
“Do you have thoughts about that?” the social worker asked. “Any questions?”
“My mom said people like that are bad,” Jeremy said. “She said they’re all queers.”
Rodney and Don exchanged a glance. If the kid thought he could shock them, he was wrong. They’d heard that word from bigger and scarier people before. This was a child repeating what he’d heard. Nothing more, nothing less.
Rodney leaned forward. “You know bad words?”
Jeremy blinked. “Yeah, words I’m not supposed to say or I get in trouble.”
“Right. Sometimes, those words come out if we mean them or not. It happens to everyone. So I’m not mad at you, but I need you to know some of those words you just used aren’t nice. They hurt my feelings.”
“Who cares?” Jeremy asked.
“I do,” Rodney said. “Words are important. They can be used like a gun or a sword. To hurt people, Jeremy. Words can hurt, even if you didn’t mean for them to. When we hurt someone’s feelings, what’s the right thing to do? We talked about this, remember?”
Jeremy scowled at the floor. “No,” he said.
Rodney shook his head. “We want you to live with us, kid. We want you to live in our home and be part of our family. But if we do that, you need to understand that our family is different than a lot of other families. Different isn’t bad, it’s just …
different. Some people don’t like it, but they need to learn to mind their own business. ”
“Those words you used,” Don said. “People have called us things like that before. Mean people, bullies. And I know you’re not a bully. You’re better than that. I see it every time we’re together.”
Jeremy ignored them, going back to his cars.
Two days. They stayed away for two days, thinking as hard as they ever had.
Weighing everything they could think of.
Jeremy’s past. His present. His future. Their future.
What if he continued on as he had? What if he never changed?
Or was it like deprogramming, in a way, something that would take time?
He was a child. He could still learn. He could still have a chance.
They hadn’t planned on going back for three days, but then the social worker called them and told them Jeremy was having a meltdown. He was yelling for them. Screaming. Throwing things. Breaking his bed, his toys. The social worker had a bruise on her arm from where he’d hit her.