On our way home ... Part Four
Five Years Ago Today ... an Abby’s Road
anniversary
Starting at page 176:
“Fond and familiar cities rumbled
past: Springfield Alton
By six that evening we pulled into
the St. Louis
Two days before, late that frantic
Friday afternoon, we called him to give him the news. “So you’ll be home Sunday night,” was the
first thing he said.
“How did you know that?”
“Your sister called me. She saw it
on the computer.” He volunteered his time working for the city clerk, and the
clerk and his secretary kept a Facebook watch to give Dad all the news.
And now here is my father waiting for
us at the station. I have never been happier to see his face in my adult life.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Did you have a nice trip? Where’s that bad mandolin music coming from?”
“I’d rather not talk about it. I’d
like to introduce you to your new granddaughter.”
with grandpa
He said he finally has a
brown-haired brown-eyed girl; he has always wanted a brown-haired brown-eyed
girl.
He drove our car to the train
station. We had a baby seat installed
for free that summer by the fire department during one of those baby-seat safety
seminars they give a few times a year. When we got south of Mascoutah, Abigail
cried. Esther asked us to pull over so she could feed the baby – Dad and I rode
in front.
We told her to take her out of the
seat and feed her.
“We’re not supposed to do that.”
“No jury in the world will convict
us. All we need is one mother on it…” It’s good to be a lawyer again.
We went to my sister’s house in
Coulterville. She took plenty of pictures and plenty of children looked at
their new cousin. My sister held Abigail the entire time.
with their new cousin
We found out later that she was
pregnant at that time – she just found out – but kept quiet for a few months to
let Abigail be the only baby for a while.
The plan was to stay in Coulterville
at Dad’s house overnight. But we wanted to go home. We’ve wanted to go home for
the past 23 days. Now that we were an hour away only extreme fatigue would stop
us.
We said our goodbyes, loaded up on
caffeine at the convenience store and headed home.
Our other babies, the cats, stayed
in the basement this entire time. Relax, our basement was bigger than my first
apartment. We asked our house-sitter to let them up from their basement home
the day before.
When I walked in with our luggage,
two of them sat by the dining room table and watched who came in. I called
their names. When Warlock saw me, he stalked toward me. I petted his head as
Esther came in with the baby.
By the time I moved the car to the
garage and came back inside; Esther sat on the floor as the cats rubbed against
her and the baby seat. Warlock sniffed at Abigail. Abigail stared back. I
snapped a quick photo. The caption: “What the hell are you,” each asked the
other.
***
“Abby’s Road, the Long and Winding
Road
Join Mike and Esther as they go through IUIs and IFVs, as they
search for an adoption agency, are selected by a birth mother, prepare their
house, prepare their family, prepare themselves and wait for their daughter to
be born a thousand miles from home.
Abby’s Road is available at Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Abbys-Road-Long-Winding-Adoption/product-reviews/0692221530/ref=cm_cr_pr_top_recent?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
at Barnes and Noble here: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/abbys-road-the-long-and-winding-road-to-adoption-and-how-facebook-aquaman-and-theodore-roosevelt-helped-michael-curry/1119971924?ean=9780692221532
Copyright 2014 Michael Curry
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