We Are Unprepared

I looked up to find Bev talking to August’s parents. I wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying, but she was moving her hands around, giving them instructions.

When I approached them, Bev said, “These guys are going to go back to the house in case August shows up there. The police are moving toward us from the far end of this forest. Ash, if you’re up for it, you and I can just keep pressing forward until we meet the cops. Hopefully, one of us will find something before that happens.”

Find something. It sounded like a compromise in expectations and it made my head hurt.

“Yes, of course. Let’s keep going.”

I sent Pia one more text explaining that we were too deep into the woods for her to meet us and that I would be back when I could. I wanted to hear her voice, but the reception was too poor for anything more than that. I looked back up at Bev The Social Worker and nodded. Let’s keep going.

We walked for another hour. More yelling his name, mixed with feet crunching on branches, but no talking. There was nothing to say. It was starting to get dark and we didn’t want to acknowledge what that could mean. I was hungry, or I would have been if I could feel anything other than panic and sickness. We just had to keep going.

“Hello?” a deep man’s voice called from somewhere to our left.

“It’s Bev and Ash,” Bev yelled back.

“We’ve got him,” the voice said.

Bev and I broke into an awkward run toward the voice until a large police officer came into focus. At first, we couldn’t see him, but then the officer turned to reveal a tired, dirty August clinging to him piggyback-style. The boy’s too-short pant legs wrapped around his torso. A smaller cop stood next to them, holding August’s blue backpack and a large water bottle.

When August saw us, he released his hold and dropped to the ground, landing on his feet and sprinting toward us. For a moment, I wasn’t sure who he was running to, but it was me. He gave me one quick squeeze around the neck as I crouched down and I wrapped my arms around his little body so hard it made him squirm. He was happy to see me, but a little confused by all the adult dramatics. He seemed fine.

“I made a sweet fort, Ash! But then it got so dark and I lost my compass and I had to stay in one place. That’s an important rule of ranger safety: stay in one place if you’re lost.”

I smiled. “Yes! Good thinking, buddy. Are you okay? Were you scared?”

August shrugged. “Yeah, I was a little scared.”

And that was it. We would get more from him later about where and how he made it through the night, but none of that mattered at that moment. We walked back through the woods in a long line with the officers at the front, followed by Bev The Social Worker, then me with August on my back. It took over an hour and my legs ached, but I was so grateful for the weight of his body and the sound of his soft breath near my ear. I was surprised he let me carry him like that for so long. We had never before touched beyond the occasional high five, but this felt perfectly natural. August fell asleep like that for the final stretch and I wondered what his parents would think when they saw me deliver him to them, his body melting into mine, in all its trusting vulnerability. “Attachment issues” is what Pia once called it. She said August seemed to have some attachment issues with his parents, which may have explained some of his neediness with me. It made more sense now, though I’d thought she was overreacting at the time.

August awoke as we approached his house and I watched his parents run out to make a big show of hugging him in front of us all. They had been terrified, no doubt, and were so grateful to have him back, but I saw them in a new light now and felt them unworthy of his return.

“Let’s talk,” Bev said, nodding at the path that led to my house.

We thanked the officers and walked back to my home, which was invitingly warm and bright as we stepped into the kitchen. I kissed Pia long and hard and introduced her to the social worker. She put a pot of water on for tea, but Bev said she wasn’t staying long.

“I wanted you to know that I’m taking August away,” Bev said. “This is the last straw for those two. Strictly between us, the officers searched their home and found illegal pain pills in several places. They’re probably high right now. Who knows how long he had been out there before they noticed. He can’t stay in that home.”

“But where will he go?” I took the kitchen chair opposite Bev and Pia sat down beside me.

“Into the foster care system. We will find a temporary home for him.” Bev shook her head. “It’s not an easy case. August’s parents don’t abuse him, but they aren’t present either. Neglect is easy to overlook, but it can be life-threatening, particularly because August just keeps wandering off. And who can blame him? It’s awful in that house with those two zombies.”

I tried to imagine August moving away, into a different family, a different house. It didn’t seem right. He would hate to be away from these woods and me and his stupid parents. He loved his parents. But I wasn’t sure how to talk about this. I didn’t have the language to navigate this world of social workers and foster care.

“What if...” I started. “Can you just wait? Do we have to do this now? What if I kept an eye on him? I could check on him every day, do activities with him. I could even make sure he eats a healthy meal each day.”

Bev shook her head. “Ash, you can’t look after him all day. August is desperate for attention and boundaries right now and he’s going to keep pushing limits and taking risks until someone provides him with that. Right now, he needs constant attention. Now, if you wanted to be a formal caregiver, that would be another question...”

Pia’s eyes opened wide. “You mean, be his foster family?”

Bev shrugged, leaving the possibility out there on the table.

I raised my eyebrows at Pia. It sounded crazy, but maybe it wasn’t crazy. Maybe this could save August; wonderful, weird August. She stared back at me in shock. I knew that look. We needed to talk. Of course I wouldn’t commit us to something so big without a lot of discussion between us.

Bev understood. “It’s not as simple as this. Any potential foster family needs to be thoroughly vetted. And you would need to be 100 percent on board with this idea. There can be no uncertainty.”

“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Pia said politely.

“Yes, we need to talk about this,” I added. “But what will happen to August for now?”

Bev took a deep breath. She was unsure herself and it struck me just how haphazardly a child’s future could be decided. This woman had too much discretion, nice as she was. And none of the answers seemed obvious to a table of adults. I wasn’t even sure I understood what the question was.

“I’ll let him stay over there for now,” Bev said, “on the condition that you promise me to check in with him every morning and evening. I’m going to be calling you for updates.”

I nodded.

“But we can’t do this for long,” she went on. “You’ve got three months to decide what you want. After that, I’m putting him in a foster family. I don’t want him in that house when these storms come. That’s not happening.”

Pia and I both nodded. We knew that she was serious. And she was right: August’s fate needed to be determined before The Storms came.

We sat silently at the kitchen table for a moment, listening to Bev’s car drive away. When there was no chance of her return, I put my head into my hands and yelled, then rubbed my face over and over. Pia walked over and wrapped my head in her arms as she stood above.

“I thought he was dead,” I said into her body.

“I know.”

“I kept seeing these images of him in the woods... It was so bad.”

Pia released me and sat in the closest chair. She nodded in sympathy, which was all I needed her to do. There was nothing else to be said about that horrible day. August was okay.

“How could his parents just lose him like that?” I asked. “The social worker’s right. He can’t stay in that house.”

Pia drew a reluctant breath. “You want to take him, don’t you?”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

She breathed again, then shook her head. “I see what you’re doing here and you have to stop.”

“What?” I asked.

Her tone was kind, but firmer now. “Don’t confuse this situation for a message from the universe about us becoming parents. Don’t do that. This isn’t serendipity; it’s ugly reality. It’s a poor kid in a marginally dangerous household. This isn’t ours.”

“I’m not doing that,” I said, shocked. I didn’t think I was doing that. I wasn’t sure.

Pia looked at me kindly, almost pitifully so. “I love that you want to save him and that you think we can. I love that about you. But it’s not black-and-white, Ash. This is so much more complicated than what we’re equipped for. It can’t be solved with love.” She said the last word as one might refer to Santa Claus.

I understood the point she was making, but it seemed irrelevant. “Some of this is perfectly black-and-white, though. He either stays here with us or he goes somewhere else, with people he doesn’t know and a million other unknowable variables. There’s a deadline and a decision to make. It’s not a philosophical difference we’re talking about here; it’s August’s life. He’s here or he’s somewhere else, probably somewhere worse.”

I suspected that Pia thought this sort of reasoning made me simple and naive. I was okay with that. A problem existed and we could offer a solution. It wouldn’t be uncomplicated or easy, but how could we leave this helpless young human to such an uncertain future? It was uncertainty multiplied by uncertainty with the storm looming. And I wasn’t suggesting it out of a misguided sense of poetry—to have a child that binds us forever—I was suggesting it because it was right.