When You Were Mine

“Yes, of course. I know more people should volunteer, but it is a big commitment, isn’t it? You look tired.”

I am exhausted. I’ve spent the last three nights sleeping next to Dylan. He starts off alone, but inevitably he wakes up in the middle of the night and I go in and sleep next to him. Whether it is allowed or not, I can’t care about. It’s what works.

Nick has told me I should just let him scream, that I have to set boundaries, but his well-meaning advice only annoys me. Somehow in the last three days, Dylan has become primarily my responsibility, which I realized is something I probably should have expected, yet still resent.

Nick and I have always had a fairly stereotypical division of labor—he takes care of the trash and the yard, the cars and our taxes, and I manage household stuff, laundry, cooking, and the minute details of kids’ schedules, along with birthdays and Christmases and family vacations. And now I add Dylan to that list, while Nick satisfies himself with supervising bath time and the occasional “Okay, buddy?” It doesn’t exactly feel fair.

Even tonight has been, on some level, Nick letting me go out, acting all magnanimous because he’s going to stay in and babysit. Dylan was already asleep when I left, so it was hardly an onerous task, and it didn’t have to be mine alone.

I don’t feel like explaining any of that to Julie, though, even though we’ve compared and complained about our husbands on plenty of occasions, complicit in our understanding that we actually loved our spouses, that we knew how good our lives were. This feels different—too new, too raw, and I already feel as if I am being judged. I am judging myself.

The truth is, taking care of Dylan has forced me to start to reassess my own life, my own home. Having his silent gaze constantly on every aspect of both is nerve-wracking and deeply uncomfortable, and it makes me start picking holes in what I thought was a smooth, blameless blanket of privilege and blessing.

Dylan’s presence makes me realize how little Josh talks to us, how his bedtime and phone use has somehow slipped out of my control without me even realizing it. It makes me see that Nick and I often exist day to day on a superficial plane of banal exchanges, and how we generally spend our evenings apart, on our laptops in separate rooms, not because we don’t like spending time with one another, but because it just feels easier to surf the internet alone than make an effort with another person. It makes me count the days and realize that Emma hasn’t called me in over a week. My happy, “#blessed” family seems to have lost a little of its glossy shine, and all without Dylan having to say a word.

I say none of that to Julie. As much as I love her, admitting so much weakness and doubt feels like handing her a knife to slip between my ribs. Although we’ve supported each other over the years, it has been with the sure and certain knowledge that we’ve never had anything serious

to complain about.

Instead I ask about her kids—Brad in grad school down south, Tyler about to be married this spring. She is more than happy to tell me how well they are both doing, and I am more than happy to listen and think about someone else’s happy life for a little while.

I’ve just said goodbye, with kisses on both cheeks, and am heading back down the street towards home when my cell rings—Emma. My heart lightens.

“Hey, Emma! We must be on the same wavelength. I was just thinking about calling you.” I hear the smile in my voice and feel it on my face. Emma has been gone for less than two months, but I miss her terribly. We’ve always got along well together; even in the most difficult of the teen years, she was happy to hang out with me, always up for a movie night in or a girls’ shopping trip out.

“Hey, Mom.” She sounds a little subdued, but it is late after all, although maybe not by college-student standards. It is only a little after ten o’clock.

“You okay?”

“Me? Yeah. Josh texted to say you have a foster child staying with you?”

“Yes, his name is Dylan.” Guilt needles me for not telling her sooner; I kept meaning to, but it all happened so quickly and somehow there never seemed to be the right time. “He’s only been here for a few days. I was going to call you and tell you…”

When we started the fostering course back in June, Emma barely registered it. She’d just graduated from high school, and she’d scored a summer internship at a local law firm. She was in and out of the house, working, going out with friends, living life to the full before she headed off to Harvard.

She was also, I think, feeling very grown-up and like she didn’t need to care about what happened at home. In her head, she’d already left. Now I hear a wobbly note of concerned woundedness, and I wish I’d made the time to call to tell her.

“So how long is he staying with you?”

“Hard to say. He might be gone next week, it might be for a few months.”

“Months. Wow.” I stay silent, sensing something more. “So will you be able to come to the Family Weekend?” she asks, and the raw note of vulnerability in her voice makes me ache.

I can’t believe I’ve completely forgotten about that all-important weekend—it’s been the highlight of my entire autumn, a weekend at Harvard to see university through Emma’s eyes, to go to parties and concerts and receptions, as well as the big football game on Saturday afternoon. Nick and I had booked our hotel as soon as Emma had been accepted to Harvard. And yet somehow, since Dylan had catapulted into our lives, it has completely slipped my mind.

“Yes, of course we’ll come,” I say, because I can’t say anything else. And yet right now I can’t see how to make it happen, not with Dylan.

“Will you… bring him?”

“Dylan? I don’t know. We need permission to take him across state lines.” And, truthfully, I can’t see how bringing Dylan could work. Everything will be so unfamiliar to him, and he has enough to deal with already. Besides, I don’t want Emma’s weekend to be all about Dylan, and not about her.

“So if you don’t…?”

“There’s respite care.” But that doesn’t feel right either, so soon after he’s come to us. “And actually, he might be leaving next week, if the court hearing goes in his mom’s favor.” And right now I am hoping it will. That would make my life so much easier. All these thoughts jostle for space in my mind, making me feel guilty because they never feel like the right things to think, but Emma seems to brighten.

“Oh, well, if he’s gone by next week…”

“He might not be. He’s a lovely little boy, Emma. I think you’d like him.”