MILK LOW.
LIGHT IN HALL FLICKERS.
NEED POSTER BOARD TUESDAY.
One morning, I found a square piece of paper beside the coffee machine.
YOU HAVE DENTIST 3:30.
I laughed so loudly he came around the corner to see what was wrong.
“I forgot.”
He looked at me.
“I completely forgot my own dentist appointment.”
His mouth twitched.
It wasn’t quite a smile.
But I saw it.
“Are you making fun of me?”
One tap.
No.
“That’s a lie.”
His mouth twitched again.
That was probably the first time I realized he had a sense of humor.
A dry one.
Quiet, obviously.
But devastating once you learned where to look.
Inside the house, Alan began changing too.
He stopped carrying his duffel bag from room to room.
For the first two months, it had stayed zipped beneath his bed.
Then beside the closet.
Then inside it.
Eventually, he unpacked everything.
I discovered this one Saturday while putting clean towels outside his door.
The navy bag was folded on the highest closet shelf.
Empty.
I stood there longer than I should have.
An empty bag shouldn’t have made me cry.
But foster care teaches you to recognize commitment in strange objects.
A toothbrush left in a cup instead of a travel case.
Shoes kicked beneath a couch.
A poster taped to a wall.
An empty duffel bag.
None of those things meant forever.
But they meant today.
Sometimes today had to be enough.
He started standing closer to me in public.
Not holding my hand.
Never that.
But at crosswalks, his shoulder would almost touch mine.
In grocery stores, he followed half a step behind.
When strangers moved too close, he shifted toward me instead of away.
He remembered things about me that I forgot about myself.
My keys belonged in the blue bowl.
Coffee filters were bought on the first Saturday of the month.
I hated grape jelly.
I sometimes rubbed my left wrist when I was nervous.
If I came home tired, Alan noticed before I said anything.
One evening, after an awful day at work, I collapsed onto the couch without taking off my shoes.
I had spent eight hours fixing another person’s mistakes and then had a forty-minute phone conversation with insurance over one of Alan’s therapy claims.
I closed my eyes.
