On a lovely day in early spring, Barbara loaded my sister, Christy, and me into her car. Our foster parent of eight months, Barbara was in her late sixties or early seventies, with short, silver hair. Lean and standing tall, she constantly dangled a cigarette between her dainty fingers. Always clad in tan khakis and a turtleneck, she had the look of the stereotypical librarian. A career librarian, now retired, she donated time at the local library on a weekly basis.
“Where are we going, Barbara,” I queried from the backseat. “We’re going to meet Della and David,” she said. Who could these people be, I pondered to myself. I’d heard very little about these people, just that they were related to my father, something that later turned out to be a very cloudy subject. They lived in Wichita, Kansas, and had driven over three hours to come see us. My mind began to race. Trembling with excitement to meet these people, I could barely contain myself. Maybe they could tell me about my father, a man I had never met. The two-mile drive from Barbara’s house on BJ Tunnel to the Department of Human Services building on Main Street turned out to be one of the most confusing rides of my life. Are these people going to like me? Are they going to be nice? A more important question remained-- would they bring me any toys? Pulling into the parking lot, we looked around for their car, not realizing we didn’t know what they drove.
Entering the building, we saw Darryl Ingram, who had been our caseworker for as long as I could remember. Strolling into Darryl’s office, I saw two people sitting in her chairs. One of them, Della, a well- rounded woman in her forties with shoulder-length brown hair and giant Coke bottle glasses held a dollar store Barbie in her hand. An older man, David, probably in his fifties, with salt and pepper, shoulder length, unkempt hair sat next to her. He wore a blue hat that read “Boeing” along with a matching blue and white jacket. In his hand, stained yellow from many years of smoking, he held a NASCAR die-cast car. I, being outgoing person, immediately stated: “Hi, my name is Loran Calvin Edward McLean Jr. Is that car mine?” Much to my delight, it was!
Soon, Darryl led us into a playroom, complete with a table of oversized Legos and trucks. One particular truck, a three-foot-long replica of a Wal-Mart truck, immediately caught my attention. The white cab, trimmed in chrome exhaust pipes -a beautiful item- had Wal-Mart scrawled across the cab in a navy blue. I instantly saw the potential for hours of endless fun, and before long I took off, in my six-year-old mind, driving the truck around the blue and grey speckled carpet. Navigating through the obstacles, I narrowly avoided a collision with the fridge, veering right only to see an even larger obstacle looming in the way, David. He asked if he could join me on my drive, and soon we both drove off, navigating our way through obstacles and narrowly avoiding collisions.
In another corner, piled high, I saw dolls galore, dolls of all sizes and colors. In the middle of the room there sat a table with chairs. On one side of the wall loomed a fridge, which, much to my delight, I soon found out was filled with pop. Three of the walls had been painted a crème white, while the fourth I discovered was a one-way mirror Darryl used to observe us.
Now, I’m not sure if you know it, but driving a truck can make a little boy very hungry, and soon Darryl came in and asked if we would like to go to lunch. We decided to go to McDonald’s and get a bite to eat. Naturally wanting to make a good impression upon these new people, I got the huge Cheeseburger Happy Meal, amazing Della and David by eating every last bite of the cheeseburger and fries. After performing this amazing feat, we decided to go to Rocket Park.
Rocket Park was so named because of the humongous, bigger-than-life thirty-foot rocket that towered over the park. Once a beautiful blue, was now faded with a weathered red cap on top of it. It sat in the middle of a large pit filled with shredded tires. It had monkey bars on it, a pole that you could slide down, and a giant slide coming down from the top of the rocket. In the distance, you could see children swinging on the swing set in the park. As Christy and I played on the rocket, Darryl, Della, and David sat on a bench about sixty feet away, watching us enjoy ourselves as they had an “adult” conversation. After a while, Darryl called us over and asked if we would like to go and live with Della and David in Kansas. Wait a minute, my mind said. Is this a trick? All of the other times we’d moved, someone in a suit just showed up and said we had to move to a new house. Millions of thoughts began to cycle through my mind. Would we finally have a place to call home? When would we have to move? Can we say goodbye to all of our friends? Would they be our new parents? Would we be able to call them mom and dad? All of the events of the day were confusing and jumbled up.
A few weeks later, our things packed in fruit boxes and black trash bags, the house tingled with excitement and anticipation. David and Della were coming to pick us up. A depressing drizzle fell outside and it was starting to get late David and Della should have arrived here hours ago. All of the what-ifs and maybes began to rush through my mind. What if their car had broken down? Maybe they’ve forgotten about us. Maybe they got lost. What if they’ve gotten in to a car wreck? What if they don’t want us anymore? Have we gotten our hopes up just one more time to just to have them crushed again? The dreary drizzle that continued to fall outside reflected upon the ominous 9mood of my heart. Barabara, finding me curled up in the gray Lay-Z-Boy, gently took me into her arms, soothing my fears. “Don’t cry, baby,” she cooed, “go to bed and I’ll wake you when they get here.” “Do you promise?” I asked between sobs. “I promise. Now go get some sleep.” As I crawled between the sheets, I reluctantly slipped into oblivion. Still unnerved from thoughts of disaster, I slept restlessly, tossing left only to turn right all through the night.
Awakening the next morning to the scent of fresh coffee, I heard voices coming from the kitchen. Gingerly traipsing into the kitchen, I spied David and Della sitting at the table, drinking coffee with Barbara. “Where have you been,” I asked. David was the first to speak. “We got a flat tire just outside of Coffeeville and it took a long time to get it changed. By the time it was, it was late and we figured you’d already gone to bed. We didn’t want to wake you up, so we waited until this morning to come pick you up.” “Oh,” I mumbled in acceptance. All of the fears of the evening before forgotten, I began to quiz David and Della about my new home and family.
As I climbed into the car, I spied a single tear spill from Barbara’s tired green eyes, betraying the fact that we were not the first set of children that she had said goodbye to, even though she had not wanted to. Driving away, I watched her faux smile slowly disappear.
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