Moving Forward in Reverse (30 page)

33

‘Thank you for calling the office of Senator Patty Murray. My name
is Shawn. How may we help you?’

After so many phone calls to different offices, I was beginning to
think you could tell a lot about a person from the people who assisted them.
Shawn’s voice was crisp and cool but not distant or uninterested like others
I’d encountered. And the way he said ‘how may
we
help you,’ as if I were
talking to a member of a team and not a subordinate, made me smile and nod with
approval.

Even as leery of getting my hopes up as I had become, I was
feeling more optimistic already. I took a steadying breath and dove into the
heart of the matter, telling Shawn about our adoption and the unfathomable
delay we were being forced to endure. The longer I talked, and the quieter
Shawn became, the more vehement my speech grew. I had been working so hard to
suppress the emotional burden of our journey, bracing a mental wall against the
overwhelming tsunami that threatened to capsize my carefully composed calm. It
was rapidly becoming too great a swell to be held at bay. I was exhausted,
overwhelmed, and altogether disheartened.

When my tirade against the negligent lethargy of the Romanian
government came to an end, closing with a father’s heartfelt appeal for help,
my breathing was slightly labored. I hoped I hadn’t sounded too frantic. I was
looking for help retrieving my kids, not a one-way ticket to an insane asylum.

When Shawn’s voice finally came across the hum of the phone line,
I held my panting breath and pressed the speaker closer to my ear.

‘I promise you that Senator Murray will be made aware of your
situation,’ he said with potent earnestness. ‘You can expect to hear from me no
later than a week from today.’

Despite my fears and past experience teaching me not to count on
the help of others in this, I felt myself beginning to submerge in the first
warm notions of relief. Tendrils of hope and gratitude pricked the back of my
eyes. Since undertaking this quest, I had felt like one man trying to carry the
weight of ten up a mountain pass, refusing to rest for fear of finding myself
subsequently unable to resume the climb. With those few words, Shawn
unwittingly shouldered a sizable fraction of that weight, relieving me of its
strain.

‘Thank you,’ I gushed ardently into the microphone.

‘It’s my pleasure. I’ll be in touch.’ And with that he hung up,
carrying my hopes across the line with him. As I replaced my own handset in its
cradle, the muscles around my mouth twitched. I was smiling. I could scarcely
remember what it was to smile – to feel enough positive emotion to engender a
smile. I had the sudden urge to leap to my feet and do a victory dance; to call
Ellen up and tell her we were going out to celebrate. I had just had my first
potential breakthrough. There was hope!

~~~

As tempting as it was to believe wholeheartedly in Shawn and
Senator Murray, I knew I couldn’t stop there. I had to keep climbing.  So,
after a few moments of mentally patting myself on the back and talking myself
down from interrupting Ellen with this modicum of progress, I resettled at my
computer desk. I needed to have a contingency plan; to be prepared in case this
avenue turned into a dead-end as well and left me shouldering all the weight
once again. Who would I turn to if Senator Murray couldn’t help?

Still intimately aware of the pains and sorrows caused by the
Romanian officials I’d reached out to, I decided to continue pursuing people on
this side of the Atlantic. What I needed, though, was someone with pull not
only in the States but in Romania as well. Someone whose name would mean
something in the Romanian court system.

I took a swig of my Diet Coke, and decided the U.S. Department of
State was a good place to start. Go big or go home, as they say. To my mind,
this was a foreign affairs issue of the highest caliber. As a tax-paying
citizen of the United States and a frustrated father, I was feeling cocky
enough to ring up Colin Powell himself if it came to that.

Hm,
I thought with a smirk as I grabbed a piece of notepaper and
jotted down the heading ‘People to Contact’. After a moment of ponderous
consideration, I shrugged and set the tip of the pen on the first line, writing
the letters, P-O-W-E-L-L in capital letters. Chuckling at my own audacity, I
returned to the computer screen and Googled my way to the homepage for the
State Department.

Probably a good idea to have backups in case Powell falls through,
I mused
facetiously.

I knew the people with the greatest knowledge were always the
secretaries, so I would start with the department secretary, introduce myself
and capsulate the issue, then ask who best to contact. I rummaged my way to the
‘biographies of the Principal Officers, Assistant Secretaries, Ambassadors, and
Chiefs of Mission listed by title or country’ and started taking down names.

By the time Ellen arrived home several hours later, I had a nice
list going. My scribbles ranged from Powell to the Under Secretaries for
Political Affairs (the overseer of foreign bureaus seemed a reasonable person
to call) and for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, whose goal it was to
strengthen the relationship between the people and government of the U.S. and
the citizens of the rest of the world (my adoption would be a perfect way to
strengthen such relationships). They were followed by the interim U.S. Ambassador
to Romania (obviously he was relevant) and the contact info for various
divisions of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, which engaged in
“multilateral diplomacy” to promote and defend the overlapping interests of the
American people (I considered Nadia and Danny to be my primary interest), and
the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. I was in the middle of scribbling
the number for the State Department’s Public Division when Ellen crept up
behind me.

‘Keeping busy?’ she asked as she rested her hands on my shoulders
to kiss the top of my head. ‘What’s this?’ I felt the weight of her hands shift
as she leaned around me to get a look at my list. Happy to oblige, I moved the
right myo so we could both look my list over with an unobstructed view.

After a few moments of quiet consideration, I felt Ellen lean back
with a chuckle. I narrowed my eyes, feeling a bit defensive in the face of this
reaction.
Is she laughing with me or laughing
at
me?
I wondered.

She squeezed my shoulders and, still laughing softly, commented,
‘You’re like Jimmy Stewart in
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
You know the
film I’m talking about? From 1939?’ I nodded. I knew it and the do-gooder with
big ambitions and righteous intentions to whom she was referring.

‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ I replied and continued to
compile my list.
It’s only a back-up plan, anyway,
I silently defended
myself.

Kissing my head around another snicker, Ellen released my
shoulders and made her way back down the stairway. ‘You hungry?’ she called
from somewhere below. ‘I was thinking of making asparagus.’

I sighed. My list may have been a little idealistic, but it wasn’t
crazy. Heck, I’d call the President himself if I thought it’d get my kids home
sooner. No one was too important for me not to bother them with the lives of
two young children. No one.

‘Sounds good,’ I called over my shoulder and released the pen from
the myo’s grasp.
I’ll do more tomorrow,
I thought as I closed the
Internet and clicked the power button on the computer.
Tonight, I’m having a
relaxing dinner with my wife.

I patted my notepaper and nodded approvingly at the work I had
done, still proud of my earlier success with Shawn. I slid from the chair to
head towards the stairs. At the top of the steps leading to the bedroom below,
dismal realization dawned.
Had she said
asparagus
?

~~~

I spent the rest of the week collecting names and numbers for
people and departments in D.C. that I could reach out to. I even checked the
prices of flights, feeling less-than-enthused by the idea of more phone calls.
Besides, people were far harder to brush-off when you had to face them in
person, and I was feeling rather obstinate to boot.

As the days slid past and my contingency list grew, I found my
eyes straying to the phone more and more. Shawn and I had spoken on Monday and
he’d promised to follow-up in a week. I hadn’t expected to hear from him on
Tuesday, or even Wednesday, knowing these things took time, but by Thursday my
fears were beginning to outweigh my optimism. I would catch myself staring at
the phone as it sat in cantankerous silence like a senile old man, the fingers
of one myo jittering nervously on the desk as I ground my teeth on my woes. I
knew I could pick it up and start working my way through the numbers I’d gathered,
but the physical action of flying out to Washington, D.C. seemed far more
appealing. Then there was the tiny, irrational voice in my head that seemed to
think calling someone else meant giving up on Shawn and Senator Murray.

Don’t be ridiculous,
I scolded my sentimental half.
It doesn’t mean that at all.
In
the end, I found myself striking a bargain with the debaters in my head: I’d
wait until five o’clock on Monday and if I still hadn’t heard from Shawn, I
would book my tickets to D.C.

‘Right,’ I told myself when Friday evening brought only more
obstinate silence from the phone line. I hadn’t organized this contingency plan
for nothing. But it was only that: a back-up. Plan B, to be enacted if Plan A
falls flat. I had to give Plan A a fighting chance before throwing in the
towel.

With one last pleading look at the phone, I schooled my expression
and tempered my emotions. I wasn’t going to let Shawn’s absence weigh me down.

Martins don’t quit.

~~~

A telephone was ringing.

I froze, momentarily confused as Genesis thrummed from the
speakers.
Is that coming from my head?

Then it sounded again, a distinctive, all-too-familiar blaring
from the corner of the desk.
It’s the phone!

I surged from the chair, half-scrambled across the desk to the
phone, and yanked the handset free.

‘Huh-hullo?’

‘Mr. Martin?’ a man asked.
Do I recognize that voice?
I
wanted so badly to recognize that voice. I twisted the dial on the computer
speakers, hushing Phil Collins’s voice from the music.

‘Yes?’
Shawn?
I wanted to ask. I was me, but was he Shawn?
It was noon on Monday, five hours from my imposed deadline. If it was Shawn, he
was cutting it pretty close.

‘This is Shawn from Senator Murray’s office.’ I exhaled and
fumbled my way back into the chair.
Thank you. Thank you thank you thank
you!

‘Hi, Shawn,’ I said, seconds before a dark fog cast ominous
shadows over my thoughts.
He said he’d call back, but he hadn’t promised
it’d be good news when he did.
I felt my hopes teeter like a tree whose
trunk had been cut.

‘I spoke with Senator Murray about the issues of your adoption as
we discussed,’ Shawn began. I nodded along forlornly, seeing that
all-too-familiar brick wall looming in the distance. ‘Well,’ he continued,
blissfully ignorant of the sway he held over the course of my life, ‘she was
able to pull a few strings. Your case is on the current court docket.’

I went still. Relief so potent it burned my eyes and throat came
flaring to the surface. I was suddenly acutely aware of what it must feel like
to be a father stranded in the waiting room of a hospital as doctors fought to
save his newborn’s life. How it would feel to experience that instant of
insurmountable and incomparable gratitude when they emerged from the room,
wiping hands on clean towels to say at last,
Your baby’s going to be fine
.

‘Thank you.’ The words were barely more than a whisper.. ‘Thank
you.’

‘You’re more than welcome, Mr. Martin.’

‘Please,’ I said, clearing my suddenly parched throat. ‘Please,
it’s Scott. And pass my thanks along to Senator Murray as well, if you will.’

‘Of course.’

Within seconds of ending my call with Shawn, I lucked out and
caught Ellen in her office between patients.

‘Free up ten days from your calendar early next month,’ I told
her. ‘We’re heading to Romania to get our kids!’

34

In preparation for leaving Romania, Nadia and Danny were placed
into foster care. It was their first experience away from the orphanage. They
were with different families – the fact of their separation aggravated me – but
the concept of using foster homes to ease their transition into family life
made sense.

With our Romanian adoption coordinator and interpreter, Katarina,
leading the way, we first went to the home where Nadia was staying. It was a
box-shaped house with mustard yellow walls and white trim around its windows.
The yard was nothing more than a couple feet of buffer between the house and
the road and neighboring buildings on either side. Four walls and a roof seemed
to be all these people had, but at least they appeared to be well-maintained roofs
and walls. I had a clear impression of people who didn’t have much, but
respected what little they did own.

Clutched to her chest, Ellen cradled a
carefully folded jean jumper dress with vibrant yellow, blue, and pink flowers
embroidered along its hem, a plain white t-shirt, and matching blue lace-up
sneakers. It was an outfit we had picked out for Nadia months ago.

We trailed after our liaison
, huddling against each other
like penguins in a snowstorm. My nerves were like the rope of a tree swing
that’d been through too many harsh winters and supported far too much weight,
frayed with only a few desperate threads left intact. I couldn’t breathe,
couldn’t even begin to fathom the torrent of emotions whirling within me; I was
about to meet my daughter for the second time.

An elderly woman with a short bob of grey hair layered on top of
black and round, clear-rimmed glasses, and the welcoming face of an
all-American grandmother from a cover of
The Saturday Evening
Post drawn
by Norman Rockwell answered the door. She wore a white, flower-patterned dress
with the shapeless cut of a smock but which she filled out in an ample,
motherly way.

After Katarina made the introductions, Ellen and I were each
hugged in turn, then beckoned into the square, little home where her husband –
a white-haired man with bronze skin and a shy smile – waited. The couple also
had a biological daughter, a petite girl of about seventeen with short dark
hair, whose hand, as she walked towards us from the back of the house, was
wrapped around Nadia’s. From beside me, Ellen let out a tiny, strangled whimper
and reached for my arm.

Nadia trailed behind the older girl as far as her short arm would
allow, and looked from Katarina to me to Ellen with wide, uncertain eyes. The
couple’s daughter led Nadia to the squat sofa on which Ellen and I sat and said
a few words in Romanian. I didn’t understand most of it, but what I did catch
was all that mattered: ‘Mama and Tata,’ she had said while Nadia’s face was
turned towards us.
Mama and
Tata
.

I started to cry then. Unsolicited tears welling up in my eyes
dangerously close to spilling over the edge. All I could hear were the words
‘Mama and Tata’ echoing in my head as I met Nadia’s searching eyes. Through the
glimmer of unshed tears, Ellen and I were beaming with irrepressible,
effervescent smiles as our little girl took our measure.

‘Hello, Nadia,’ Ellen cooed gently. ‘I’m your mama.’ Her voice
hitched on the word ‘mama’ and another whimper escaped as her hand fluttered to
her mouth.

‘Hello, Nadia,’ I said quickly to draw Nadia’s attention long
enough for Ellen to regain her composure. Despite my certainty that under the
devoted care of her foster parents Nadia had experienced parental affection, I
feared that such emotional displays from Ellen and me, who were still virtual
strangers, might do more harm than good.

‘I’m your Tata,’ I told her and watched her blink owlishly up at
me.

Recomposed, Ellen reached for the pile of clothes on her lap,
holding it out to Nadia with the shoes on top. Nadia’s brow furrowed and she
backed hastily away from the proffered bundle, bumping into the legs of the
couple’s daughter behind her. Slowly, Ellen lowered the gifts to the sofa and
extricated the navy jumper from the rest. She let it fall open as she held it
out to Nadia once more, waiting while Nadia eyed the colorful flowers
embroidered on the garment. After a few moments of consideration, Nadia reached
out and took the dress from Ellen, holding it up against herself as if judging
its size. A round of stifled chuckles and encouraging oo’s and ah’s floated
about the room. When Nadia looked up again, she met our eyes with the same bold
smile on her face she had worn under the sunglasses back in the Giurgiu
orphanage.

That’s my girl,
I thought and nodded encouragingly back at her. With the ice
successfully broken, the couple’s daughter began inveigling Nadia into trying
on the shoes. I hated to rush our stay but neither Ellen nor I could fully
relax until we had both of our children with us and were heading back to the States
once and for all. Danny was still who-knew how far away in some other home;
every minute seemed an interminable period to wait.

‘Katarina?’ I probed. ‘Do you think we could get Nadia’s foster
parents to pose for a picture with her? Ellen and I would like something for
Nadia to remember them by.’

‘Oh, of course! I’m sure it won’t be a problem.’ Katarina turned
to the couple, hastily translating my request with a few vague hand gestures
and a heartening tone. When her query earned two assenting nods, I nudged Ellen
and we pushed to our feet with grateful smiles. After some Romanian discourse,
it was determined that the picture should be taken outside. We all shuffled
from the house to the square of front porch where a luscious green vine climbed
the corner of the house, white flowers sprouting in sporadic clusters along its
length.

The wife called to Nadia who skittered over to stand between her
foster parents, wrapping one hand around the first two fingers of her foster
father’s left hand and bunching the other fist in her foster mother’s dress.
Katarina, Ellen, and the couple’s daughter clustered behind my right side as I
lifted the camera. .

‘Okay, ready?’ I called cheerily, smiling encouragingly from
behind the viewfinder. ‘One … Two … Three.’ I pressed the button and watched
the trio blink out of sight then return, frozen in a single instant on my
screen.

‘All right,’ I said, looking up from the image of the shyly
smiling couple and my daughter eyeing the small crowd to my right with open
curiosity. ‘All finished. Thank you!’

After more hastily translated conversation, a clothes change on
Nadia’s part (assisted by the couple’s daughter), and a series of effusively
ardent goodbyes translated in hugs and kisses, we followed Katarina back to the
car. Nadia skipped between us, seeming not in the least worried about heading
off with these near strangers. As Ellen slid into the backseat of the car and
Katarina encouraged Nadia to do the same, I had a suspicion that Katarina had
also had a hand in Nadia’s easy willingness to leave.

She probably told Nadia we’re going to see her brother,
I thought as I slid into the
car beside Nadia and closed the door behind us.
Good thinking.

When Katarina started the engine and we began to roll away, Ellen
glanced down at the little round head of our daughter, an adoring smile curving
her lips. When her eyes met mine she grinned and winked. I let out a whale of a
sigh, releasing some of the tension that had ridden with me since we left the
States.

One down; one to go,
I thought with a wistful smile.
We were almost home free.

~~~

Similar to Nadia’s foster parent’s home, the apartment in which
Danny had been staying was meticulously clean and moderately furnished; what
little furniture they had showed wear but little signs of dirt or dust. Again
reminiscent of Nadia’s foster parents, Danny’s foster mother greeted us with an
ebullience that eclipsed the scarcity with which she lived. Her frizzy, black
ponytail bobbed behind her head as she nodded welcomingly towards Ellen, Nadia,
and I, prattling on in rapid Romanian to Katarina.

‘Danny’s playing outside,’ Katarina explained during a lull in our
hostess’s dialogue. ‘Andrei will go get him.’

Andrei was a tall, lean young man with short-cropped black hair
which hinted at harboring his mother’s frizz, who, at his mother’s summons,
detached himself from the wall against which he’d been leaning. His eyes peered
at us from beneath a prominent brow, his head angled humbly downwards as he
ducked around us to the front door at our backs.

I glanced down at Nadia, stationed between Ellen and I with one
hand contentedly wrapped about the first two fingers of the right myo and the
other lost in Ellen’s gentle grasp. Nadia was ogling everything around her with
wide eyes, wondering, I was sure, what this place had to do with her brother. I
wanted to squeeze her hand reassuringly, but didn’t trust the myos not to
frighten her with their cat-screeching cry.
He’s coming,
I thought
instead, consoling, I realized, only myself.
He’ll be here soon.

Danny’s foster mother was speaking in Romanian again, her tone
animated and eager. I smiled, watching her hands fly about her face as she
spoke. Katarina laughed and said something in return. Before she could offer a
translation to include Ellen and I in the conversation, a gust of air brushed
against our backs. The front door had opened.

My heart rate surged inside my chest. I stole myself for the sight
of my son and glanced down to prod Nadia to do the same. But she was gone. Her
hand had slipped from the myo unbeknownst by me.

I spun around. Anxiety trolled through my gut. I had come for a
son and ended up losing a daughter. As I came to face the door, all thoughts
and fears stopped.

There she was, my little girl in her new blue jean dress, her arms
wrapped around a smaller, brown-haired boy: Danny. All I could see of him was
the top of his head and his pudgy hands flung about his sister’s back. I
watched their reunion with stinging eyes, a tension across my chest making
breathing difficult. If this was reuniting, I didn’t want to imagine what their
separation must have been like.

Never again,
I vowed silently.
Never again would they be separated.

Nadia pulled away from Danny and looked down at her new dress,
tittering in Romanian as she grabbed the hem and pulled it out from her body on
both sides. Danny’s foster mother clucked over her (also in Romanian) and soon
Nadia was twirling around for all of us to admire her new clothes again.

‘Oh, here,’ Ellen said, stepping forward when Danny started to
look pouty. ‘We brought some for you, too.’
She held out the army-green
nylon shorts with an elastic waistband, yellow and white cotton t-shirt, and
pint-sized, white Velcro sneakers, and his face instantly brightened.
After seeing his sister model
her new attire, Danny eagerly made a fumbling grab for the gifted clothes,
causing the shoes to tumble to the floor in his clumsy haste. His foster mom
stepped forward to collect the fallen items, prattling a few words in Romanian
before taking his hand to lead him into a back room past the kitchen.

‘She’s going to help him change,’ Katarina explained, adding, ‘and
apparently so is she’ with a laugh when Nadia glanced at us then scampered off
after her brother. We waited patiently while the undressing and re-dressing
took place. I tried to quell the impatience that jittered inside of me, anxious
to have our children home with us in the United States.

When Danny and Nadia reemerged, scurrying back into the room like
a couple of pups racing for the same bone, we came to attention and made
encouraging sounds of approval at both children’s outfits. After snapping a few
adoring pictures of Danny with his foster mother, Katarina, Ellen, the kids,
and I said our goodbyes. Standing on the threshold of this meager apartment,
giving well-wishes in English that only Katarina and we could understand, Nadia
and Danny two giddy balls of energy at our feet, I knew nothing could compare
to this moment.

~~~

A sentimental smile stirred across my face when my eyes found
Danny and Ellen sleeping across the aisle as we flew the last six-hour leg of
our journey home. They were a perfect pair: Danny, his head in Ellen’s lap,
feet flopping over the edge of the seat and lips parted in sleep; and Ellen,
her head lulling towards him, lips with just a hint of a frown and eyelashes a
dark curve against her cheeks as she dozed with one hand resting on Danny’s
back, gently rising and falling with his breathing. I shook my head in near
disbelief. This was it. They were ours. Five years earlier I wouldn’t have
thought anything could mean more to me than reaching the Division I level of
collegiate soccer. Eight years ago, I was just coming out of a coma and
learning my life would never be the same.

Never would have guessed,
I thought as my eyes strayed to Nadia, leaning
against my left side with my arm draped over her like a protective blanket,
that
this was where I was headed and that it could mean so much more to me than where
I thought I was going.

Seventeen months I’d been hoping for this, whereas I’d dedicated
over seventeen years to coaching soccer. And yet, it was this moment, looking
at the poignant scene of my wife, son, and little girl all soundly asleep at my
sides, which would come to bring me such peaceful contentment. All my prior
aspirations seemed paltry in comparison. That this moment could imbue me with
such ineffable tenderness and joy; feelings so raw and encompassing as to only
be describable in their physical symptoms: a clenching of my abdomen,
weightlessness in my chest, and a hot restriction in my throat that rose
upwards as if floating up from my heart and into my eyes where it settled to a
simmering sting – an oddly welcome burn.