Throw-away Kids

“Hey, Dad!”  The word “Dad” was dripping with as much venom and sarcasm as a 13-year-old boy could muster.  It wasn’t lost on Dad.

              “Is something wrong, Josh?”

              “Uh, well, if you consider that I just found out you’re not really my dad something wrong, then, yeah, I suppose so.”

              “What exactly did you find out?”  Dad trying hard not to be baited into a fight.

              “What I found out, exactly, was that you had a vasectomy a good five years before I was born.  Three years before Jeremy was born.  So I guess he’s not yours either, huh.  So you can stop pretending to be our dad.”

              “I’ve never pretended to be your dad.  I have been your dad, just not biologically.  Look, why don’t we sit down and talk.  If Jeremy’s not busy, we can all talk.  Mom, too.”

              “I don’t know what for.  It’s not gonna change the facts.”

              “Well, you might be interested in finding out what the facts are, how you guys came to be our sons.”

              “Whatever,” was the muted rebellious reply.

              When the four of them were seated around the kitchen table – where most of their serious talks took place, Dad began.  “You’re right, Josh, I had a vasectomy before you guys were born, before we ever even got married.  Though I’m not really sure how you found that out, but I guess it doesn’t matter.  When the doctor told Mom that getting pregnant could kill her, I decided to get a vasectomy before we got married, or, um, did anything.”

              “Have sex, you mean,” Josh’s statement, not a question.

              “Yeah, have sex.  I decided that since the doctor had also said that any kind of internal surgery was potentially deadly, I would be the one to make sure Mom never got pregnant.  I wasn’t going to trust her life – our life – to some device.”

              “A rubber, you mean,” Jeremy clarified, adding to Dad’s discomfort.

              “A condom, yes, or the pill, or a diaphragm, or anything else.  Anyway, when we’d been married around three years, we were looking into the possibility of adopting.  But one evening when we were out driving, we were behind a car that was slowing down a lot; I was about to go around it when we saw the passenger throw something out of the car.  We thought it might have been a cat or a puppy, and Mom screamed and told me to stop so we could rescue the animal.  She was always picking up strays – cats and dogs – and bringing them home.  She had to stop that after you guys came along.”

              “’Cause we’re allergic!”  Josh suddenly sounding more like an excited little boy than a sullen teenager.

              “Right.  You guys are allergic.  Now, where was I?”

              “You stopped the car so Mom could pick up the animal.”

              “Oh, yeah,” Dad said grinning, “I stopped the car and Mom jumped out.  And there, in the tall grass by the side of the road, she picked up… a tiny little baby boy!  A newborn, just a couple days old.”

              “I couldn’t believe it," said Mom, picking up the story, "a sweet little baby boy, not a scratch on him!  The tall grass broke his fall.  I told Dad to catch that car.  I was so mad!  I couldn’t believe someone would throw out a baby, like some piece of trash!  I wanted to catch those people and yell at them.”

              “So I took off after them, and caught up to them before long.  Their car was pretty junky – wouldn’t go over 40, if that.  I followed them to a trashy little motel that rented rooms by the week.  I told Mom to stay in the car with the baby, but she said ‘No way!’  So I told her to stay behind me.  I didn’t know what these people would be like or what they might do.

              “The door to their room was wide open and we could see the young teenage girl sitting on the bed crying.  The boy, not much older if at all, was rocking a toddler who was crying like crazy.

              “Your mom handed the baby to me, which felt pretty scary, then she went over and sat by the girl and put her arm around her.”

              “What?  You mean she didn’t yell at them?”

              “I couldn’t yell,” Mom said softly, “I just felt so bad for the little girl.  She was heartbroken.”

              Dad went on.  “We found out they were 16 years old.  They’d been trying to make it with the toddler they’d had when they were about your age, Josh.  But these two kids – whose parents had thrown them out when the girl had gotten pregnant – couldn’t get enough money for the two of them, let alone a baby.  And then when the second baby came, the girl said her milk didn’t come, so she knew she couldn’t feed it.

              “Anyway, we made a deal with them to take the babies – you guys – and we’d help them get on their feet.  They had mixed feelings about it – they hated giving you up, but they were glad for the chance at a new start and knowing that their baby boys would be well taken care of.”

              “And not starving to death by the side of the road,” Josh said somberly.

              “Yeah, Josh, they were really glad of that.”

              “So, where are they?  Can we meet them?”  Jeremy asked.

              “Oh, guys, it’s so sad.  Before we even had the legal papers written up, we heard their car had stalled on the railroad tracks, and they got run over by a train.  I’m so sorry.”

              “So, then, you just kept us?  Are we even legally yours?”

              “Nobody’s gonna take you guys away from us, if that’s what you mean, Jeremy.  We took care of everything and got you guys legally adopted.  But I want you to know is that I’m your dad and Mom’s your mom.  Everything we have is yours, except our DNA.  And we’ll never let you go.”

              “So, when you’ve always said you picked me up alongside the road, you weren’t kidding.  It was the truth.”

              “We’ve never lied to you, and we never will.  But sometimes you might have a hard time knowing if we’re kidding or not.  But know this, boys: we love you no matter what, and we always will.”

by Eric Miller  Thanks, Dad!