Dani's Story: A Journey From Neglect to Love (15 page)

After her fourth successful journey across the sand, Bernie/Dad picked her up and put her on his shoulders. Then he ran and turned in circles, with Danielle grasping his head, laughing out loud. Willie chased after them. We looked like any other family enjoying a day at the beach.

The Revenge of the Saltwater was especially severe after dinner, so bad, in fact, that I couldn’t risk taking Danielle to walk the dogs, so I sent Bernie and Willie without us. The smart move would have been to just keep her on the toilet, but she was not cooperating. So I gave her some Kaopectate, then we read and played with her stuffed animals between explosions. By the time the boys and the dogs came back, she had been in the shower three times and had wiped out three outfits, three pillows, a comforter, and a rug. I put out her medication and handed her off to Bernie so I could take a shower. Naturally, she was a little angel for him. When I came back to the living room to tell her it was time for bed, she was already dozing off, sitting in his lap watching
Sponge Bob
, her head on his shoulder. Daddy’s little girl.

Sunday morning I went in to wake Danielle and found her lying quietly in her bed, squeezing Lullaby Gloworm to make it sing. “Good morning, Sunshine! Let’s get you changed.” She had slept for nearly nine hours, so it wasn’t surprising that she had wet through her diaper, pajamas, and sheets onto the plastic mattress cover. Before breakfast she had a shower, and I put on her new dress, since we were going to try church.

Danielle dressed for church.

 

We attended Beach Baptist, a small church with a membership that spanned the ages from infant to eighty, sometimes all in the same family. We loved the classes and the activities for kids. There was always something going on that Willie could participate in. The congregation was very committed to outreach service, and there were adult and youth Bible study classes on Wednesday nights following a fellowship meal.

Breakfast and Sunday school preceded Sunday service, but we decided not to press our luck and just to see how long Danielle might be able to sit in the chapel with us. Our church family was so close that everyone knew we had been to see Danielle and had been waiting for a home visit. The Sunday before this, people were asking if we had heard anything, and at that point, we hadn’t. I couldn’t wait to introduce Danielle to our pastor and his wife.

Danielle with the famous Lullaby Gloworm.

 

With all of the excitement of the last three days, I had completely forgotten that it was Palm Sunday. Standing at the top of the wide staircase that led to the entrance were some of the older teens, holding armfuls of palm fronds to hand out as people arrived. We all took one, including Danielle, although she promptly tried to put it in her mouth. The teens laughed, then were embarrassed for laughing. Bernie reassured them, “It’s okay. This is Danielle. She is visiting with us this weekend. She does some funny things.” Personally, I hadn’t found the explosive eruptions the night before that amusing, but it was better to laugh than get upset over them.

From the foyer, we walked through the double doors into the sanctuary, and the people who were already seated glanced back to see who was coming in. Their smiles of recognition and hello turned to puzzlement when they saw Bernie holding Danielle’s hand, then back to beaming smiles again when they realized who she was. For a second, I thought people were going to applaud, with palms waving in their clapping hands. I was struck thinking of the images we grew up with in the church, of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, and the residents laying down their cloaks and palms on the road before him.

People in several pews moved over to make room for us, and we chose the one closest to the rear. I knew Danielle wouldn’t make it through the entire hour, and I wanted to be able to get out without disturbing the service.

The choir and the clergy proceeded in. The pastor, whose wife’s interest in adoption had inspired us, reached out to pat Bernie’s back as he walked past, then he beamed at us from the pulpit.

He welcomed everyone to Palm Sunday services and invited people to raise their palm fronds in the air. The palm branch, he said, is a symbol of triumph and victory. I smiled over Willie’s and Danielle’s heads at Bernie, thinking that God was sending us another message.

Less than ten minutes later, Danielle was sending a message loud and clear: I’m done. She began rocking, moaning, and making the woo-woo-woo sound again, so we made a hasty exit just as the choir stood to sing “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna.” Danielle, Loud Danielle.

At home, she threw a major tantrum with real tears. All three of us tried to comfort her with no success until Willie went and fetched her Lullaby Gloworm, and that quieted the storm.

Bernie suggested that instead of the beach, we try the pool for an afternoon swim. I seconded the motion, thinking it would save me several trips to the shower and the washing machine. At lunch we discovered something else that Danielle loved as much as French fries: watermelon. I had cut hers into bite-size pieces, but one second of inattention cost Bernie his slice and then Willie his. Watermelon juice dripped down both sides of her mouth, making her look like a vampire who had just feasted on a particularly robust victim. From her mouth it dripped to her chest, her lap, and her legs, necessitating her second shower of the day before we could get into the pool.

It was an ordeal getting the “bathing suit” on Danielle that the foster family had sent, and when she and I walked out to the pool where Bernie and Willie were already swimming, they both laughed out loud. “She looks like the Michelin man!” Bernie kindly observed. “No!” Willie countered. “She looks like she’s in one of those sumo wrestler costumes!” Any other girl would have been reduced to a puddle of tears by such humiliating commentary on her appearance in a bathing suit, but Danielle was blissfully unaware, focused on the hot tub. Completely unafraid, she lowered herself in using the rail and splashed happily at the bubbles. I asked Willie and Bernie to get in with her, although it wasn’t deep enough to get her in any trouble, particularly with that ridiculous bathing suit. Willie showed her how to make a water tornado by running in circles, and she grasped the concept very quickly, laughing with delight at the swirling water. When she tired of that, she pulled herself out, walked two steps to the edge of the pool, and, before any of us could react, took one more step into the pool. “Danielle!” we yelled simultaneously. We needn’t have worried. The suit didn’t even let her head go under but kept her right at the surface, where she bobbed like a human buoy, not too happily. Danielle liked going underwater, and this was next to impossible in that suit. Still, I felt as if she needed something—it wouldn’t do to have her drown under our watch—so I went to her room to get the new bathing suit we had bought the day before and changed her in the downstairs bathroom. “Look how pretty you are!” I said as I pointed to her image in the mirror. I got Willie’s life jacket out of the storage box, snapped it on her, then watched as she ran to the pool and jumped in. The life jacket gave her just enough buoyancy to keep me from worrying and little enough that she could touch the bottom of the pool for a second or two when she jumped in, then bob back to the surface.

Jump. Bob. Get out. Jump. Bob. Get out. Each time Danielle got out and stood at the side of the pool, Bernie and Willie would say, “Ready, set, go!” The key word “Go!” roughly corresponded with the moment she leaped into the water.

Danielle in the hot tub wearing the Michelin man swimsuit the foster home sent with her.

 

After about a dozen times, she hesitated, and I thought she must be getting tired. Not exactly. I don’t know whether it was the repeated leaps into the pool or the tornado-making adventure in the hot tub, but just as Willie and Bernie shouted “Go!” out of Danielle’s mouth came a stream of projectile vomit so forceful, it shot like a fountain over at least half of the pool’s surface, as well as onto a horrified Bernie and Willie, who shouted, “Gross!” at the top of his lungs. At first I thought the bright red vomit was blood, but the pieces of watermelon floating all over the pool revealed its true nature. Gross, indeed.

Willie dove deep and swam underwater to the other side of the pool, checking himself for watermelon as he scooted up the ladder. Bernie came through the vomit, while I grabbed Danielle up in a towel and carried her inside, with Willie and Bernie on my heels. I sent Willie into his bathroom to shower off, sent Bernie outside to hose off, and ran up the stairs with Danielle, who continued to spew watermelon vomit down the hallway to her bathroom. I was just hoping to get her in there before diarrhea hit again, which seemed inevitable, considering the amount of pool water she must have drunk. I sat her on the toilet with her Hello Kitty musical pillow while I peeled off my puke-covered clothes, washed my face, and put on the first thing I grabbed out of the dirty clothes hamper. Sure enough, what hadn’t come out of her mouth was coming out the other end, but at least she was on the toilet. Progress!

As I took her off the toilet and put her into the shower, Bernie came in, phone to his ear.

“Yes, Garet, everything is still going great. We’re having lots of fun. . . . We went to church this morning. . . . Today is Palm Sunday, you know. . . . It was really nice. . . . We only stayed about ten minutes, though. . . . Yes, she’s sleeping well. She loves the room Diane made for her, it’s very pink. That girl thing, Hello Kitty. . . . Really, she hates cats? Funny, she loves Hello Kitty. . . . She doesn’t like shopping much. . . . . Yesterday, we went to Target to get her some clothes, what the foster family sent didn’t fit. . . . Too big. We got her some shoes and a new bathing suit. That thing they sent her is crazy. . . . It’s like a flotation device. . . . She didn’t wear it to the beach. . . . Yes, twice. The first day she got here and yesterday, but she drank so much saltwater it gave her terrible diarrhea. She wiped out everything she had. . . . Today we tried the pool. We put her in her new suit and a life jacket, and she loved that because she could go under. She loves the water. . . . She’s eating great. She must have eaten a quarter watermelon at lunch today. Unfortunately, it’s all over our swimming pool right now. . . . Yeah. We’ve never seen such powerful projectile vomit. It was pretty impressive. . . . No, no worries. Diane has her in the shower right now. . . . We’ve been cleaning up one end or the other since we got her. . . . Yeah, it’s pretty comical. . . . No big deal. She’s sleeping pretty well. . . . The rocking is less violent, and she only gets up two or three times. We just put her back in bed. I think she feels better with the door open so she can see the nightlight in the hall. . . . Willie’s fine, thanks for asking. He’s been great with her. . . . Yeah, he’s a good kid. What time are we supposed to bring her back tomorrow?”