“Kissing spreads diseases, Aunt Naomi.”
Following her voice to the kitchen, I leaned against the door frame, watching them prepare dinner. Shanti had an oven glove that went up to her elbow and was stirring something in a bowl while Naomi stirred a pot on the stove. Neither Melba nor Toast turned around to look at me, their eyes fixated on the food being prepared.
“Who told you that?”
“Uncle Bond. He said boys are dirty and me and Nemi need to kick ‘em in the junk and run.”
Naomi’s shoulders shook slightly as she laughed. “I thought it was Cole who told you to do that?”
“Nah, he said to do it in the peanuts. What’s a junk?”
“Uh, don’t kick the boys there, honey. It’s not nice.”
That should have been enough, but not for Shanti Kelly. “But what is it? Is it like a garbage?”
Naomi cleared her throat and glanced over her shoulder at me, knowing I’d been standing and listening to them. “It’s a sensitive area and hurts really bad if it gets hit.”
No shit. Even a tap felt like someone had gelded you with a stick.
“Oh.” She was silent for a moment and then asked, “Is it like the peanuts? Why do they carry nuts in their pants like that?”
“God help me,” Naomi muttered, moving to the fridge to get the milk and butter out of it. “Just don’t hit boys there, okay?”
She was quiet for so long that I assumed incorrectly she was done with the conversation. What came out of her mouth next proved how wrong I was.
“Girls have a penis, and boys have a bagina, you know.”
Naomi dropped the knife she’d been cutting off some butter with on the floor and stared at Shanti with her mouth open. Taking pity on her, I moved farther into the kitchen, winking at her when she turned to wave at me.
“No, Shanti. Boys have the penis, and girls have a vagina.”
“Nuh uh, Carter. Who says?”
“Um, science? Biology, to be precise.”
Putting her hands on her hips, Shanti scowled at me. “Well, it’s wrong. I got a penis, and I might even put some nuts down there, too. So there.”
I can remember when I was around sixteen, and I’d been in the store picking something up for Mi-mi. A woman had been walking around with three little kids who were screaming, throwing shit at each other, and kept saying, “I want.” I’d been adamant my kids would be well behaved all the time, they’d be respectful, quiet, and they’d do as they were told.
Mistake.
Shanti wasn’t rude or disrespectful, and on the whole, she was well behaved, but she had a will of iron and a personality that made it impossible for her to be quiet. To some, she’d be a nightmare, to me, she was perfection in every way. There was never a dull moment, never a day where I felt like tearing my hair out because of her. What did happen every day was she’d make me smile like I was at this moment.
Every. Day.
And I had so much to blackmail her with when she got older.
Nine weeks later…
“I spoke to the lawyer today,” Naomi said as I sat down next to her after reading Shanti her night night story. “The adoption papers have been handed in, so now we just have to wait.”
My Christmas present from Shanti was huge. She’d drawn me a card with an anorexic Santa on the front, who looked like he was suffering from gangrene and a three-legged Rudolph with a penis for a nose.
When I’d opened it up, she’d written inside:
Merry Christmas. Can I call you Daddy?
Naomi hadn’t known what she was doing because Shanti had made it while she was at Heidi’s, helping her make a cake for us for Christmas Day, so she’d been as stunned as I was. Heidi had texted Naomi to ask her what I’d said, and she’d explained that Shanti had asked her for help writing it, so that’s what she’d done.
Best present ever. Unbeatable.
Naomi’s card had been equally as spectacular.
I choose you for my mommy.
We were giving her time to start calling us by the new names, and although she’d done it on a couple of occasions, she didn’t do it constantly. I knew it’d be hard for her to make the change, so we’d agreed to let her do it in her own time.
It’d also made what Aunt June had given me burn a hole in my pocket.
Apparently, after the fire, they’d found a ring in a box in Dad’s home office. Mom had lost her original engagement ring at the beach, and the ring in Dad’s desk had a card addressed to her, with, “I’ll always choose you, a thousand times over.”
Knowing he was going to give this to her on their anniversary, three days after the fire that took them, June and Mi-mi had held onto it to pass to me when it looked like I’d found my thousand times over. I had, but I’d always call Naomi my monkey wrench, though.