Scenes From a Visit

I took Puppy to storytime at the library this morning and realized a whole week has passed since we were there with K. I've had trouble writing more than fragments about the visit.

***

K is curled in front of the bay window while I lounge on the couch, Puppy playing on the floor. We are talking about television or something equally trivial, laughing at the Pupster's antics. She is quiet for a moment. "When I planned the adoption, this is exactly how I imagined it," she finally says. "This is what I wanted."

***

She tells us some things about the weeks immediately after Puppy's birth that she hadn't been able to share with us before. Feelings of depression and anger at R. Things I suspected, but which she kept to herself for a time. In bits and pieces over the four days we are able to talk about the past year and a half, things we appreciated from each other and things we wish had gone differently. We make promises to one another for the year to come.

She tells us that friends say to her, "So you made a mistake. But now you can move on." She shakes her head. "I just can't think of Puppy as a mistake. I didn't mean to get pregnant. But he wasn’t a mistake. He was never a mistake."

***

It isn't perfect, since we're all imperfect people. There are some patience-testing moments, but none of it is adoption-related. If I have to hear one more word about her freeloading, emotionally abusive, unstable loser of a boyfriend (not R), I think I will scream. Depending on what hour it is, she is either breaking up with him or sure she will marry him. The longer she talks about him, the more I start channeling Oprah: "He brings nothing but negative energy into your life! You are a woman with power! You need to use that power to free yourself from him! He says he loves you but the things you're describing are not love!" K is a bit perturbed that I had made our photo session appointment at the ungodly early hour of 10:00 a.m. We get over it.

***

We're at the table, eating enchiladas. Puppy tastes sour cream for the first time and delights in it the best way he knows how; soon his hands and face are covered in beans, sauce and sour cream. He starts making faces at us, holding up messy little jazz hands above his head. Soon we are laughing uncontrollably. Puppy beams, basking in all the love.

***

When Puppy was born, we lived about 30 miles from K and R. From our first conversation we were upfront about the fact that we were planning to move out of the state; we didn't want them to feel that we had promised to be local then run off once the adoption was finalized. Even so, when it came time to leave last summer, it was hard. I was sad that we wouldn't be able to just get together with a simple phone call, that K and R wouldn't be able to easily come to birthday parties or school recitals. I still feel that something was lost when we moved, but I see now that we also gained some things which are unique to extended visits. K was able to be a part of our daily routine for a few days, seeing the rhythms of Puppy's life first-hand. There was time to talk about the many things on our minds. I taught her how to make shortcake and she took me on a tour of her MySpace world. We had adult time together after Puppy was in bed.

It was a good visit. It left me looking forward to the next one, which, in the end, is the best thing you can hope for. It didn't have to be perfect, it didn’t have to be everything a visit can be. It just had to be the first visit.