To the End of June : The Intimate Life of American Foster Care (9780547999531) Read Free Page B

parents, and so on. Which agency the child is assigned to is usually a matter of sheer luck, as they vary in aptitude as much as they do in approach. The kids too are subject to this roulette; if the ACS worker can’t find a kinship match, the child is shuttled to whichever agency has an available family on its roster.
    After Bruce and Allyson took the call and accepted the nephews, they were sent to an agency near their home for their licensing. Because Bruce’s sister terminated her parental rights without a fight, they were able to adopt the older child. But the process took six years. The younger boy, who was severely autistic, ultimately had to be institutionalized. With four other kids in the house, Bruce and Allyson just didn’t have the extra reserves to take care of him.
    But still, they wanted more kids. Or rather, their daughter, Sekina, wanted a sister; the house was full of boys. When I first met Sekina, she was a bubbly and outgoing sixteen-year-old. She looked like a girl version of Bruce: same round cheeks and full lips, same large dark eyes that could spark with mischief or anger in turn. But Sekina’s hair was what got her attention. When I met her, it was shoulder-length and streaked through with pink and neon purple, but I would see it red, blue, platinum, short, shaved, and razored through with her name curled around her skull.
    Sekina started pestering Bruce and Allyson for a sister; now that they were licensed with an agency, she reasoned, they could just go back and ask for a baby girl. But Allyson was tired. She started longing for her life before motherhood, when she could go out with her friends on Friday nights, or take some space to herself. But with these desires, Allyson said, came illness.
    The doctor called it depression. She called it her “mental battle”: between what she
wanted
to do and what she was
supposed
to do. “I didn’t want to be tied down with no children. I was crying all the time; I wanted to be free. So I get down on my knees and I pray, saying Lord help me. And after that is when the dreams come to me.”
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    In Belize, Allyson was raised primarily by her grandmother, along with thirty-two brothers and sisters (“My father was a bit of a rolling stone,” she admits), and her grandmother had dreams, too. Her grandmother’s dreams were prophetic, or instructive, so Allyson learned from an early age to trust their messages.
    Allyson’s dreams were full of children, sitting on the floor with her grandmother. Her mother served them homemade apple juice. “I said, ‘Ma, why are you giving them that? They don’t want that stuff.’ And my grandmother says to me, ‘It’s not what they want; it’s what you have to give them.’ And finally I got up and understood.”
    We were sitting in the living room, which, like most of the house’s common areas, seemed designed more for quiet contemplation than for entertaining children. The couches are low and comfortable, the lights dim and soothing. In the bathroom, a tile mosaic covers the large domed ceiling, and candles circle the tub. Allyson interpreted the apples in her dream to be symbolic of appreciation and knowledge, the gifts you give a teacher. “I’m here to be a teacher to these children—the same thing that was given to me by my grandmother, I’m supposed to give back.” Allyson told Bruce she wanted more children and the depression went away.
    But what of her desire to be free, I asked, to live her own life? Allyson sighed and shook her head. “My will was to do what I wanted to do, but God’s will—God’s will was for me to do what I’m doing.”
    So Bruce and Allyson called the agency. Per Sekina’s request, they told them they wanted to adopt a little girl. Or maybe two. Somewhere between the ages of six and ten, but definitely younger than Sekina.
    â€œBut they called us with a baby,