Ethel had been planning it for agesadopting a child from a childrens home. Her husband of six years had slipped away to a younger, more successful woman, leaving Ethel feeling as though the very fabric of marriage had torn around her. She was exhausted, bereft of any desire to try again at building a family, to find someone who would stay through thick and thin. No, she thought, enough of that. If she was to pour her energy and love somewhere, it would be not into a partner but into a little soul who truly needed it.
So she set her plan in motion. She learned the ropes of social services, gathered all the required paperwork, and then faced the biggest hurdle: locating the boy who would become her son, the continuation of herself, the vessel for the warmth she had stored up over thirtyeight years.
She didnt want a newborn; she feared she had passed the age when a woman secretly longs to stay up all night, swaddling and humming babies to sleep. Instead she drove to the childrens home, hoping to find a three or fouryearold little fellow who could become her own.
On the tram, she felt the flutter of nerves as if before a first date, oblivious to the fact that spring had finally settled over the citysoft, silvery, and impossibly bright under a clear sky. The tram groaned around each curve while Ethels thoughts lingered on the future child, already existent somewhere in the world but not yet aware of the destiny she imagined for him.
Outside the windows the city pulsed with spring: cars gleamed like polished glass, people hurried to places unknown. None of them knew that Ethel was on a quiet pilgrimage toward her own happiness. She turned away from the other passengers and stared at the glass, yet she saw nothing beyond it, because a smile already warmed her face, aimed at the son she would meet mere minutes later.
At the proper stopaptly labelled Childrens Homeshe stepped onto the platform. The next stop whistled Nursery. She emerged onto a street where an old manor stood, its columns stripped of plaster, the oncewhite stone now painted in a camouflage pattern, as if to hide it from an unseen enemy.
Inside, a guard directed her to the headmistresss office. The woman who greeted her was an elderly matron, wrapped in a crocheted cardigan that had gathered lint. She was provincial, slightly disheveled, but her eyes announced that she belonged exactly where she waslong enough to have seen many seasons pass.
Shall we go choose? the headmistress asked, rising from her seat.
Obediently, Ethel followed. Down a long corridor paneled in deep navy, the headmistress murmured over her shoulder, The junior group is in playtime, so well go there. She pushed open a door, and the two of them crossed the threshold together.
Inside, a handful of childrenboys and girls, perhaps fifteentumbled across a carpeted floor among toy cupboards. A caregiver sat at a small table by the window, scribbling notes, occasionally glancing up to keep a watchful eye.
The moment the adults entered, the children darted toward the doors. They swarmed the women, clinging to Ethels knees and the headmistresss arms, lifting their heads like startled chicks and shouting in a chorus:
This is my mum! Follow me!
No, this is my mumI recognised her! I saw her in a dream last night!
Take me, take me! Im your daughter!
The headmistress absentmindedly patted the childrens heads, whispering brief notes about each one to Ethel, who felt bewilderedshe wanted to adopt them all.
All except a small boy perched on a chair by the window, who lingered apart, turning his head to watch the familiar scene before him. Ethel felt drawn to him. She approached and placed her hand gently on his crown.
From beneath her palm peered tiny, slightly slanted eyes of an indefinable hue, set in a cheeky face with a broad nose and faint, light eyebrows. He looked nothing like the boy Ethel had imagined in her minds eye. As if confirming her suspicion that he was not the usual type, the child said, You wont pick me anyway.
He stared at the unfamiliar woman with a hungry intensity, as if pleading for something else.
Why do you think that, dear? Ethel asked, keeping her hand on his head.
Because Im always a bit runnynosed and I get sick a lot, he replied. I also have a little sister, Nell, in the baby group. Every day I run to her and rub her head so she remembers Im her big brother. My name is Victor, and without Nell Id go nowhere.
At that moment, a trickle of snot escaped his nose, a sudden burst born of the tension.
In that instant, Ethel realized she had been waiting her whole life for a runnynosed Victor, forever ill, and for his sister Nell, whom she had never seen yet already loved.
