“Unfolding Rennie” Robert Rosen

CREATIVE NONFICTION

3 UNFOLDING RENNIE

Robert Rosen | 3rd Place

On a Tuesday in 1987, my ofce phone rang. A voice on the other end said, “We have a little boy who needs a home.” The sentence took my breath away. Julie and I had become impatient with nature’s resistance to add children to our lives. Deciding to take an alternate route, we applied, submitted to background checks, and passed the house inspection to become foster parents. Starting with that Tuesday call, it happened quickly. On Wednesday, we met a smiling, round faced 3 ½ year old bowling ball of a boy carrying a frayed teddy bear by one of its arms. René came running into the playroom flled with well-loved toys. It was love at frst sight. René rushed to Julie and motioned for a boost up into her arms. I took a seat on the foor and grabbed a dingy Tonka truck. It took several “brrroom brooms” to grab René’s attention away from Julie’s hair and glasses. Julie put him down and he came over to my spot to play. On Thursday, we bought a car seat, a race car bed frame and mattress, kidsized clothes, toothbrushes, no-tears shampoo, and Raf cassettes. We hit the grocery store and made guesses on what a 3 ½ year-old would eat. On Friday, René’s 17-year-old birth mom, Margo, put a faded plastic elephant toy box into the back of our minivan. She lifted René up, buckled him into the car seat, and kissed him goodbye. “Be good to Mama Julie and Daddy Robert,” she advised her son. Then she moved close to Julie. “The life you’re giving him is what I needed,” she whispered. Margo stepped away and waved as we pointed the van home. We were parents for We were parents for the frst time, even if it was just the frst time, even foster parents. As we drove home, Julie looked at me, if it was just foster and then back at René. René responded with a big smile. He then took the colorful toy harmonica next to parents. him, held it like a gun and said, “piooou piooou.” Julie and I burst out laughing. A topic of conversation on our way over was about banning war toys from the already growing collection of playthings. Julie and I were the babies in our respective families. We didn’t know shit about kids, let alone what living and raising one was like. All we had were preconceived ideas and a short note from Margo that told us that René did not like green foods and he would tell us what he wanted by pointing. René was an extremely happy little boy. He was afectionate with an easy, quiet laugh and a hearty appetite. He was also quickly comfortable with

adults and dogs. His speech was mono-syllabic. He called himself “Nay” and relied on pointing to communicate. He knew to put his hands together in prayer when we went to our Unitarian Church services. He loved the predictability of bedtime for brushing his teeth, saying “night night” to the dogs, and curling up with both of us and a book for the fve minutes it took to begin his long night’s sleep. We learned what we could about René’s early life. The last place he lived was a teen shelter. Margo was 14 when she gave birth to him. She was kicked back and forth between parents and relatives’ homes. At 15, she was pregnant again and got married. She then had a third son at 16. The marriage did not last, and at 17, she found herself homeless, losing custody of her two younger children to her ex-husband, and struggling to make it through a day. She knew it was time to give up her oldest son to a family who could provide a future for him. René was loved but neglected. Chronic ear infections left him hearing only mufed sounds. We entertained him in crowded county medical waiting rooms until he was ftted with a set of ear drum tubes. This intervention made an instant diference, not just in his hearing, but in his whole demeanor. His smile now was communicating amazement with everything he could now hear. Words and how to say them were no longer hidden. His speech and vocabulary built quickly with the help of a speech therapist. In the evenings, he was allowed to stay up as long as he was talking. René became a part of us, and us a part of him. There was no hesitation when ten months later adoption papers were signed. His new birth certifcate announced that his name was now Rennie Harris Rosen and Julie and Robert Rosen were his parents. Rennie made us a family. When you have biological children, their looks, movements, laugh, and speech patterns as well as their physical and academic gifts are not such a huge surprise. With adopted children, they’re all a surprise. The unfolding origami of Rennie was always a wonder. When he was small, I so wanted to crawl into his head to see how it worked. When he was a teenager, I wanted to crawl in there again, this time to tighten a few loose nuts and bolts. Unlike his adoptive parents, Rennie was stronger, faster, and more coordinated than his peers. His athletic gifts dominated his identity throughout his adolescence. After seasons in soccer, football, and karate, he found his way to a dance studio. Here, he discovered a place where his natural skills shined the brightest. Julie and I, with four left feet between us, had nothing to ofer other than taxi service and cheering at recitals. If anyone made fun of him for his ballet skills, Rennie would shame them by challenging them to perform a pirouette alongside him. Despite these gifts, Rennie’s growing up came with insecurity and a difculty to bond. In his drive to stand out, he invented stories about himself and me, as well. Early on, there were stories about me being a CIA spy, which I am not. Later, there were claims about him dancing in music videos and movies, which he did not, and being struck by lightning multiple times, which never happened. We had recurring discussions about

truth and lying. We have family jokes referencing stories he made up. When Rennie turned 16, we received a large envelope from the adoption agency. Rennie’s origin story was part of our family narrative. He knew he was adopted, and we shared photos from his frst days with us. He never had questions about his birth parents. He seemed satisfed with the little information that we had. What we did see were his deepening opinions against abortion and premarital sex as he grew into his teens.

The three of us unpacked the envelope. Inside were thirteen years of birthday cards and letters from Margo asking question after question about his life. At 16, it took threats and bribes to get Rennie to read and write for school assignments. This day was diferent. Rennie immediately began writing a return letter. The words poured out of him like water through a fre hose. He wrote ten pages describing his life, his interests, and his hopes. He expressed longing to know more about Margo with a question, more like a plea, for any information about his birth dad. There were holes in Rennie’s self-identity and a longing we had never seen in him before for answers to secrets kept from him. In the months and years that followed, Margo and Rennie established a relationship. It began with letters, then phone calls, and later, visits. Margo’s history unfolded with stories of health challenges, a house burning down, a preteen daughter she was raising herself, and a career as a long-haul trucker. Information on Rennie’s birth father was sketchy: only a frst name and his being a classmate of Margo’s at the time of her pregnancy. Much later, Rennie would move in with Margo after his tour in the Navy ended. He would join her as a partner in over-the-road trucking. Julie and I met adoptive parents and adopted people as we networked with friends, coworkers, and others we met along the way. We listened attentively to stories among adopted people willing to share details of their lives. Many of them confessed to being a “hot mess”— directionless, listless, and hurting as teenagers and young adults. They would go on to explain that it took confronting feelings of being rejected by their birth family and abandonment to turn things around. This was a revelation to Julie and me. Rennie’s later teens and young adulthood years were fraught with challenges. There was running away and begging to come back. There were loser friends, poor judgments, and being victimized by thieves. These were behaviors that we could hardly support or resolve with tough love or counseling. The insights we had from other adopted people helped fll the gaps on what was going on. Rennie successfully made it out the other side of his personal unfolding as an adult. He is a married man today, gainfully employed with a loving wife, raising two bright children. He is a warm and wonderful son.

There is one more part of the unfolding of Rennie I want to share. In 2017, Rennie, then living in Texas, called, and asked if Margo could park her car in our driveway for a few weeks as she was on her way to Phoenix to pick up a rig.

The last time Julie and I had seen Margo was for fve minutes, thirty years earlier. Before dropping her car of, we all met for lunch at Bobby Q’s, ironically on Mother’s Day. We got there frst. We looked up, and there was Margo, walking towards us with a duck-footed gait we immediately recognized as Rennie’s. Across from us sat a 47-year-old female version of our beloved son. Everything about Margo was familiar. Here was Rennie’s smile, his shoulders, his hands, and even his hair line. His voice infections, his laugh, and his sighs were coming from Margo. Emotions spilled over into tears. We thanked Margo for her bravery and her generosity that made us a family. Margo choked We thanked Margo for up seeing answers to thirty years of questioning her her bravery and her decision and surviving through days and years of generosity; that made regret and doubt. We toasted to the joint love of our shared son. us a family. Julie and I left the restaurant breathless and hand in hand. Once in the car, we called Rennie just to tell him how much he is loved.