Moving Forward in Reverse (35 page)

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A typical Saturday in the Martin Family Home:

‘Nadia have you seen your brothers?’ At the sound of my voice,
Nadia glanced up from the easel where she had been very carefully painting
something which may have been a horse, but could also easily become a dog or a
deer or pretty much anything with four legs.

‘Outside, Tata,’ she told me with a staid expression. Painting was
serious work. I nodded to her but she had already turned back to her easel,
dabbing her brush in brown then blue then red paint with painstaking care. My
last encounter with Danny and Andy had been as they were hastening towards the
door, locked in hushed conversation. They were about to ‘go exploring,’ they’d
said. With Andy having been home for only a couple of months, Danny appeared to
have taken the lead on this expedition.

‘Wow! Look at this,’ Ellen gushed from behind me. I glanced over
my shoulder to see her bending down to gaze at the bruise-colored construction
taking shape on the page.

‘It’s a giraffe,’ Nadia proudly declared. I could now see that the
line at one end of its body was not, in fact, the trunk of a tree but rather
the very elongated neck of a giraffe.

‘Very beautiful,’ Ellen praised her before straightening to follow
me outside. We cut through the mudroom then emerged from the garage to search
for our boys.

The air was beginning to whisper with the sharpness of Autumn.
Surrounded by evergreens as we were, though, you would never know the seasons
were changing. I scanned the nearest wall of forestry, idly skimming the
vicinity for colors which didn’t belong – the bright yellow of Andy’s t-shirt
or the orange and white stripes across Danny’s – as we navigated around the
back of my new, bronze Chevy Trailblazer. The Trailblazer was an upgrade from
the CRV; a necessity to accommodate the three car seats it now carried.

As we crossed behind the SUV, my eyes caught on something lying on
the driveway. Roughly the size of a twig but with angles too sharp and material
too black to be natural, I stooped to retrieve the mysterious object with
pursed brows. As I bent nearer, I realized the left myo was closing around the
wiper blade of a car –
or of an SUV,
I thought and swiveled my gaze to
the Chevy. There, just right of the keyhole on the back of my new Trailblazer
protruded the jagged piece of fractured plastic where a wiper arm used to be.

Frowning, I looked to Ellen who looked to me, our eyes locking
with new understanding. This wasn’t the work of dogs, nor that of the
industrious beaver family living in the creek ten yards away.

I leaned towards the back of the Chevy to gauge the extent of the
damage. Ellen’s hand on my arm stilled me before I could get close enough to
make any determination, though, and I turned back to look at her. She had one
arm extended, her index finger pointing towards the cedar fence obscuring our
propane tank to the right of the driveway. Following the line of her finger to
the eight-inch gap between the bottom of the fence and the bark-covered ground,
I could just make out two pairs of tennis shoes peeking out from behind the
fence: one black set and one red, each attached to a pair of blue-jean-covered
legs. Smirking at Ellen, I cocked an eyebrow at her in silent commentary.
Looks
like we’ve found our offenders.

Together, Ellen and I crept up to the gate, moving slowly,
deliberately, and just loud enough to be heard over the pounding of guilty
hearts. We skirted the edge of the fence and came face to face with the alarmed
faces of two gaping four-year-olds. They stared up at us in terror, guilt for
what they had done written all over their panicked expressions. I held out the
wiper arm for them to see and watched as they debated the reaction most likely
to get them off the hook. I could all but see the options being weighed in
their mind: to cry or not to cry? To point the finger elsewhere and deny or not
to deny?

As Danny’s brows started to turn to remorseful peaks above his
nose, his lips beginning to quiver with a contrived whimper, I burst into a
broad grin. He froze mid-blubber and stared uncertainly at my expression.

‘Come on, you knuckleheads,’ I jested. ‘Let’s eat lunch.’

While Ellen and the kids – now content that they had been absolved
of their sins – were busy making grilled cheese sandwiches, I slipped away to
make a quick phone call. I tipped the desk chair back and swiveled gently from
side to side as I listened to the line ring. After a click, a familiar voice
ask, ‘Hello?’

‘Mom,’ I said, fighting to keep the laughter from my voice. ‘I am
so sorry.’

‘Sorry? For what?’ A note of concern crept into her voice: ‘Scott,
is everything okay?’

‘For everything,’ I told her, ignoring the last question. ‘For all
the mischief Jeff and I must have caused growing up. I think I can finally
understand what we must have put you through.’

‘Oh, Scott,’ Mom replied, beginning to chuckle. I could picture
her perfectly in my mind: short, light brown hair curling above her ears;
wire-rimmed glasses and red lipstick; the sharpness of her high cheekbones
softening as she smiled. ‘You know nothing, yet.’

~~~

Things settled into a perpetual state of chaos in our home. Nadia
opened her mother-hen wings to include Andy in her protective embrace and Danny
continued to show his new brother the lay of the land. With Andy it was all new
again: new sights, new smells, new adventures in a new life. I received the
chance to re-live a lot of the joys I’d first experienced with Nadia and Danny:
teaching him how to swing, introducing him to the rhythms of rock, blues, soul,
reggae, and disco, and educating him in American culture via PBS cartoons. It
was all there, just waiting to be discovered again by new eyes. And discover we
did.

We discovered that where Nadia and Danny were outgoing and
effusive, Andy was shy and reserved. Everything I had inferred from his
headshot in Kathy’s packet was verified in knowing him. Life had not been kind
to Andy and he was long overdue for a break. Every day his smile grew, though,
and each week we saw more of it.

I discovered that as Andy began to open up to us and to trust that
this was his home, my own sense of self gradually took root and grew. I could
feel myself mending – rebuilding – like a trampled bush: every day growing a
little higher, a little firmer, a little more solid as branch-by-branch it
regained some of what it used to be.

I discovered that with my kids I was able to find myself beyond
the prosthetics and handicap. They knew me only as Tata – no Old Scott or New
Scott; no pre-illness and no post-illness; just the man I was that day, in that
moment, with them.

We discovered that two adopted children were a joyous wonderment
and three were unrivaled felicity. So what, we wondered, could four bring?

~~~

There was still a need for adoptive parents and our hearts and
home were more than ample to provide for another. So I returned to Ethiopia for
a second time and found that I had arrived during an African National
Conference (ANC) that brought various political elite to Addis Ababa.
Thankfully, with my two-year-old daughter, Kalista Kidist (pronounced Kid-ist)
Martin, nestled against my side, I was allowed to pass through the hotel
entrance without being frisked. We were not, however, welcome inside the same
store as the high-ranking officials sharing our hotel. At least, that was how I
interpreted the upraised hand which the rather large man in a dark, plain suit
and sunglasses presented to me at the open doorway to the shop. Beside him was
another large, suited man in sunglasses. They were each standing with their
legs spread and elbows protruding from their sides as if to take up as much of
the entrance as humanly possible.

As the guard on the right raised his hand, I caught a glimpse of
the black gun holstered to his side. I had Kali’s hand gently cupped in the
left myo as she waddled beside me so our approach was slow and far from
threatening. As we sidled closer, I glanced inside the store but could see only
the clean lines of wood and glass shelves layered with the usual gift-shop
paraphernalia. There was no sign that said ‘Important People Only’ or anything
to indicate that this should be off-limits to the general public. I continued
to guide Kali towards the gilded wood arch of the shop’s entrance.

This earned me a disapproving frown from the guard with the
uplifted hand. I could almost feel the condemnation of his glare seeping
through the black lenses of his sunglasses. When we were close enough to see
the discreet, plastic wires of earpieces curling behind their ears, I stopped
and peered around them.

From this angle I could make out the VIP occupant slowly
meandering along the back of the store. He was flanked by four suited- and
ear-pieced bodyguards and dressed in a beautiful, multi-colored robe. Russet
browns, golden yellows, rich ambers, and bright whites were painted in
triangular and diamond patterns across the robe’s front and back, outlined with
thick, dramatic streaks of black. It fell across his wide shoulders with the
majesty of a cape, blanketing him in an air of regal elegance. I watched him
glide along the rows, pausing to slide his spectacles down his triangular nose
as he examined something on one of the shelves.

Well, well,
I thought and turned back to the guards barring my way. They
seemed to have grown in the few seconds I had been eyeing their charge,
expanding to take up even more of the space in the entryway. Perhaps they
possessed a superhuman ability to swell in open spaces like those expandable
water toys that balloon to five-hundred percent of their original size in
bathtubs. I wasn’t foolish enough to challenge these rhinoceros-sized men, but
I was still me and felt rather important myself with my daughter’s hand
clinging to the fingers of the myo; I had to say something.

‘I’m just buying gifts for my kids,’ I told the man on the right.
His eyes were obscured by the sunglasses, so I stared at the bridge of his nose
which was being rather severely pinched by his glasses, bulging around the
plastic of his glasses like fat spilling out of a corset.

‘When is he going to be finished so we common folk can shop?’ I
asked his scrunched nose.

With a dour turn to his wide lips, the fat-nosed guard lifted his
left arm and issued a series of clicks and grunts into his sleeve.
And here
I thought only Hollywood could be this dramatic
.

After a momentary pause and then another short burst of dialogue
with his cuff-link microphone, the guard lowered his arm and narrowed his mouth
at me.

‘The president will be finished shortly,’ he snapped monotonously.
‘Please be patient.’ I suppressed a snarl at the three little words which only
a few years ago had been the bane of my existence.

‘I’ll wait.’

Kali and I turned away from the store. We cut across the
glistening, golden ivory marble of the floor to an open café with a clear view
of the store entrance. I lowered myself into one of the chairs, sinking into
the dense, burgundy cushion, and hefted Kali into my lap. A waiter in a blonde
vest with a burgundy collar to match his burgundy slacks seemed to materialize
out of the rectangular pillars supporting the two-story roof. He drifted over
to us on silent feet and softly inquired if we would like to order anything.

‘Yes,’ I told him, knowing full well we could be here for a while.
‘Two Cokes and an order of French fries, please.’ I looked pointedly at Kali as
I emphasized the word ‘please’, never one to miss an opportunity for a lesson
in etiquette.

The waiter slipped away as silently as he had come and no more
than five minutes later a small, wicker basket of fries and two tall glasses of
Coke were placed on the glass table in front of us. The good waiter had even
had the forethought to secure Kali’s drink in a plastic cup with a lid and
straw. She greedily trapped the glass between her plump hands and began sucking
the sweet carbonation into her mouth.
I guess this isn’t your first Coke,
I
thought at her content expression and helped myself to a few fries.

Layla House had become overrun with orphans since I last visited
Ethiopia to bring Andy home. As a result, Kali had been living under the care
of a woman who operated a make-shift orphanage out of a shipping container.
Coincidentally, a few days before I arrived, a bed opened up in Layla House, so
I never had to experience the conditions of the shipping-container orphanage.
Having seen the homes most people occupied, though, I could only imagine what
such a situation would be like. But no matter how dilapidated the place may
have been, I was thankful to the woman who put the effort into running it.
Better a cramped and sagging shipping container than the cold, infested streets
of a starving nation. And now I knew she had at least acquainted her charges
with the joys of Coca Cola.

I reached for another French fry while Kali continued to slurp her
soda. As I was bringing the fry to my mouth, some spurt of spontaneity made me
divert its course to my nose. I nudged Kali with the right myo. When she turned
to peer at me, I grinned dopily at her from behind the fry dangling out of my
nostril.

She started to giggle mid-gulp. Before I could rescue the straw
from her mouth to prevent a choking incident, brown liquid began spewing out of
her nose. Giggles turned to open surprise as she stared cross-eyed at the
liquid dribbling down her chin and onto her crisp, Carolina blue dress. I burst
into laughter, unable to contain myself at the startled expression on her face
and the Coke oozing from her nostrils. She blinked, looked up at my tickled
expression and smiled sheepishly.