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She stared at me, uncertain. I could tell by the way her ears moved. Yeah, her ears talk, too. Her little black snout reached out to nearly touch my nose. She sniffed and lowered her head to lick my hand.

“Thanks a lot, Poopsie,” I snarled, hugging her. “They don't know that I don't really want you to lick my face, do they? It's our little secret.”

I did this often when I really, really needed Poopsie's affection. I pretended that her refusal to
kiss-kiss
didn't matter. Today, it did.

Sorta.

Dan's arrival raised her head and lifted her fuzzy little ears to full attention. In one leap, she was on the floor before he fully opened the door. She knew his footsteps, and by the time he scooped her up into his arms, she kisskissed his entire face.

I sighed and got over it.

“Here's a postcard for Faith,” he said and deposited on the coffee table. “Looks important.

“What's important?” Faith stepped from the staircase, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She picked up the envelope, turned it over. “It's a roll call. Court.”

I heard the sobering of her voice. The dread.

“This is not the one I've dreaded,” she murmured. “I've still got time before the hearing.”

Faith sought counsel with Otto, her attorney.

“I don't get it, Mom. But Otto said another official round of rehab would weigh heavily in my favor with the judge's decision at the official hearing later on.”

I was stunned. “Where will the money come from, Faith? I cannot for the life of me follow Otto's glib reasoning. You've already done the detox and drug rehab, thousands of dollars ago.”

Faith rolled her eyes and shrugged, which summed up her attitude toward Otto. “I know, Mama. Sometimes, I don't think he even listens to me. He lives off the druggie's need for his representation. His own testimony.”

I had my doubts about Otto's depth, too, but kept it to myself. At the moment, he was well paid up and owed Faith his continued representation.

He owed us. Dan and me.

We certainly could not switch lawyers in mid-stream and pay another retainer fee of thousands of dollars.

“I haven't saved any money this year,” Dan had only last night groaned. “We have virtually no retirement left.”

Worst of all offenses, however, was that Dan and I now shouldered another burden. Faith's ex, Jack Kenyon, had, in the end, demanded retribution by filing for child support payments from Faith, whose drug habit had cost her a viable income. In a sense, his demand was justified because she'd shown him no mercy when she'd had sole custody of Maddie.

Faith's drug-fueled mean-spiritedness had, in the end, caught up with her and kicked her in the fanny. Only it turned out to our fannies, mine and Dan's.

She had been in the midst of drug rehab when she got the official notice that she was months behind in support payments. Seemed Jack had — accidentally or by design — given the wrong address to the magistrate and Faith never received the notice.

“He's such a
jerk
,” she'd said, crying, frantic with fear that the police would pick her up any minute.

Bottom line with Dan was that he could not see her go to prison. Underneath that steel exterior, his father's love for Faith waxed as strong as ever.

Because Dan knew in his heart of hearts that Faith was, in our divinely ordered world, special.

But, in the end, would we have a choice in the matter? Or would Faith be swallowed up by the prison system?

During that slice of time after Faith was unjustly declared delinquent in the child support payments, she was terrified of sudden arrest.

Jail, to Faith, equated holocaust.

“Mom!” She grabbed my arm as I drove into our neighborhood one day. “Keep driving past our street. I think there's a patrol car in the drive.”

I drove past the turn off to our comfortable residence with its wraparound porch, feeling Faith's panic start to transfer to me. “No,” she said, peering anxiously out the window. “It's not. I'm sorry. It looked sort of official with that luggage carrier — it's Aunt Lexie's van, I think.” I glanced over my shoulder and it was, indeed, my sister Lexie waving at me from my porch, obviously dropping by for an impromptu visit.

For a time following her rehab stint, Faith had continued to wrestle with lingering drug withdrawals and panicked each time a car passed our house, thinking it might be a county patrol car coming to arrest her for nonpayment of child support.

Her fears were well founded.

One night at two a.m., a loud knock at the door startled us from sleep and on to our feet. Dan tip-toed to peer through the blinds.

Poopsie, from her bed in the den, barked and yapped ferociously.

“It's the police,” he whispered and crept back to my side. “Two of them.”

We remained silent as church mice for long moments as the pounding on the door and doorbell ringing continued. We quietly lowered ourselves onto the bed and heard one leave the porch. We heard his footsteps mince
around the house to the back, presumably, we figured, to make sure Faith didn't escape that way. We felt Faith, being a light sleeper, would hear the commotion and hide as well as possible, in the event that they force their way in.

But we knew they weren't supposed to break in. If they didn't know for certain that we were home, we could bluff it.

So we dug in, determined not to allow them to drag our daughter off to jail over child support payments she'd not even known existed. Too, already experienced with these nighttime arrest episodes, we knew her being jailed would merely reap more court costs and fines for us. Eventually, the policemen left.

Looking back, I remembered how Dan and I looked at each other, eyes glistening sadness in the gloam of our bedroom, each knowing what the other was thinking.

So we've come to this … hiding in the dark, and we've done no wrong.

The next day Priss, generous, giving Priss, had given Faith sanctuary at her house until we could take care of the legalities, pay the whopping fines and catch up the child support payments.

Again.

Looking back on that time, I had to be grateful for how far we'd come in recent months.

“I think I'll lie down for awhile,” Dan said as he arose from the table. “I'm more tired than usual.”

We'd just finished lunch. “Sure. Why don't you?” I encouraged him.

Dan looked more vulnerable lately. Not exactly frail. Just — beyond tired.

He —
we
still wrestled with debts and obligations. With Faith's neediness. Yes, deprivation covered her like a thick cloak. But she was still Faith, with her edge and brilliance, with her air-charging impact.

In his weakened state, I suspected that for Dan, Faith proved increasingly too much.

One night, Dan and I escaped to a nice restaurant and had a thick, juicy steak with crisp salad greens smothered with Greek dressing and heavenly buttered asparagus. “You're still my hero.” I shamelessly flirted with Dan.

He loved it. “And you're still
the most beautiful girl in the world
,” he sang in his warbly, off key voice, which endeared him even more to me. How handsome he looked, even tired and disheveled in his constant frustration. His black slacks and shirt hugged his slender frame quite nicely. He'd not lost his youthful aura, not to me. Never would he.

“Why can you eat all you want and still stay trim?” I pouted and sipped coffee while he ate a rich chocolate dessert. I peered down at a slight padding around my middle. “Just look at me … and I deprive myself constantly.”

His green eyes glowed as they swept slowly over me. “I'm not complaining. I like what I see.”

Those marvelous eyes still sparkled with passion, whether from anger or his love for me.

My view of him was, I knew, through a benevolent filter that erased lines and wrinkles from his dear Tom Selleck features. He remained fixed in my mind as that brash young man I'd loved all through the years, the man who adored me and yearned for this time alone with me.

Lately, I'd sensed a deeper strain of territorialism interlacing with that passion.

Last night, he'd grasped an eerily correct inkling that Faith and I had been locked in one of our seamless conflicts. We'd clammed up in a flash when he walked in from work.

Later, he looked at me, confused, irritated. “I don't know why I get this feeling that I'm left on the outside of the loop.” He plowed his hand through his thick, salt and pepper hair, then rolled the tension from his shoulders.

“Dan, you're not left on the outside. You come first.”

The dark gleam in his eyes flattened into sadness. “Sure could've fooled me. You keep things from me now. I'd call that being left out. And I wouldn't call that being first.”

But to express myself would only lead to more of the same. His feelings were easily hurt.

He'd slowly climbed the stairs to the guest room and I slept alone. So tonight's intimate dinner together was special.

It was healing.

“Families are the compass to guide us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights and our comfort when we occasionally falter.”

— Brad Henry

 

 

“Mom, do you ever wonder about your biological parents?”

Faith's question struck me as surreal, referring to something I'd buried deep, deep inside me. It had remained submerged through the years, except for brief guilt-ridden moments during a movie about happy or tragic reunions, years later, between adopted children and their biological parents.

Her curiosity surfaced today during one of our
together
times on the shady front porch. They were coming more frequently in recent days. I enjoyed them. And so did Faith. Her rarely exposed sweet side struck beautiful chords in my heart.

But this taboo subject jerked something loose inside me, a clamoring, jangling alarm. I surreptitiously sucked in a deep, settling breath. I didn't want Faith to know how insecure I felt. How badly I wanted to be — normal.

Whatever that was.

“Uh, sure. At times. But not overly so. Why?”

Faith shrugged. “Why not? I've got a grandma somewhere who maybe looks like me or you. And a grandpa, too. Since Papa Eagle died, I really miss having a Papa. Y'know?”

I nodded, feeling a bit numb by it all. “I guess I always resisted thinking about it because I didn't want to hurt Mom and Dad. They've given all to raise me and my two sisters. I don't know how they would react to either of us, you know, looking for our biological parents.” I shook my head slowly. “I just don't know.”

“What if Noni didn't know?” Faith asked and her laidbackness about it began to transfer to me. That's what frightened me — being casual about something so significant. I would never hurt Mom.

“I don't know.” I felt uncomfortable with the subject. “I need to go check on my giant white limas, simmering on the stove. They're about done.”

“Mmm, I love those big white butter beans,” Faith murmured.

Good. She'd dropped the subject.

I was relieved.