The Martini Shot (4 page)

A couple of years passed. They were comfortable as a family and Van was still making significant money. They adopted Shilo, a large dog of indeterminate breed, from the Humane Society at Georgia Avenue and Geranium. The house seemed to grow smaller, louder, and hairier.

When Irene was about to enter kindergarten and Dimitrius was in his last year of preschool, Eleni Lucas got a call from Donna Monroe, now a partner in the O'Leary firm, telling her that another baby had become available. He was a black infant who had been due to be adopted by a white couple who changed their minds at the last minute.

Because they were happy, because they were now convinced that this adoption thing worked, Eleni and Van had already talked about bringing another child into the family. And there was another reason, unspoken to Eleni, which made Van ready to pull the next trigger: Dimitrius was not quite the boy he had imagined he would one day have. He was not particularly coordinated or athletic, and he shied away from any roughhousing or physical contact with his dad. Van loved him, but Van wanted a
boy
-boy for a son.

And so, a few hours after Donna Monroe's phone call, Van and Eleni studied the photograph of the boy Van had decided would be called Leonidas.

“He's beautiful,” said Eleni.

“Yeah, what's wrong with him?” said Van. “What I mean is, why did the first couple reject him?”

“Too dark,” said Monroe, who now operated without O'Leary in the room and was free to say whatever she pleased. “They initially saw the photos of him when he came into the world, and he was lighter skinned then. They do get darker after the first few weeks. I'm guessing these folks wanted a more Caucasian-looking black baby.”

“Their loss,” said Eleni, something she would say to herself many times over the years as she looked at her boy with deep love and wonder.

“I'm just curious,” said Van. “I know there's a school of thought with some social workers that says that black babies should go to black parents.”

“I'm a graduate of that school,” said Monroe. “All things equal, I'll try to place a black baby with a black couple first, every time.”

“So why'd you call us?” said Van.

“You've been in here with your kids a few times,” said Monroe. “I see that it's working, and you're not trying too hard. You don't do that over-earnest thing, trying to be all multicultural. I get those types, you know, ‘Look at me, I adopted a black kid.' You all just act like a family. You're not dressing your boy in kente cloth or anything ridiculous like that.”

“We don't celebrate Kwanza, either,” said Van.

“Neither do I,” said Monroe. “That's a holiday for Hallmark, not for me. Truth is, in this case, I feel like it would be a good fit. Dimitrius should have a black sibling. It would be good for both of them to have a brother to lean on if they get to where they're having identity issues. What would you name this baby, by the way?”

“Leonidas,” said Van. “It means ‘lion.'”

“Hmph,” said Monroe.

“My husband is trying to keep it Greek,” said Eleni.

“So are you ready?” said Monroe.

“Is this the part where Bill O'Leary bursts in with the contracts?”

“He saw y'all pull into the parking lot,” said Monroe with a small smile, “and he saw his next Mercedes.”

“Let's do it,” said Eleni.

Leonidas Lucas, wrapped in a blue fleece blanket, wearing a tiny wife beater, was put in Van's arms a few days later in the offices of O'Leary and Monroe. The boy was five weeks old, cooing, looking up into Van's eyes, and Van's thought at that moment was as it would always be when he saw Leonidas: This is my son.

“May I?” said Eleni, who had yet to hold the child.

“Looks like you're gonna have to pry him out of your man's arms,” said Monroe.

Van handed him to Eleni.

“He's a keeper,” said Van, rocking back on his heels, his face flushed.

“Y'all better get home,” said Monroe. “The snow is coming down hard.”

They looked out the office window. Indeed, the flurries that had been swirling all morning had turned to heavy flakes.

“He's going to be cold,” said Eleni.

“I bought a little something for him,” said Monroe, producing a Hecht's bag holding a new outfit. “Congratulations, you two.”

Van bear-hugged Monroe before leaving with his wife and son.

They drove through the snow in Van's Silverado, Leonidas secured in a car seat between them, the truck weighted down by sandbags in the bed. Van and Eleni giggled all the way home. Irene and Dimitrius, being watched by a neighbor, were waiting for them at the door.

“Say hello to Leonidas,” said Van, snow in his hair and beard, carrying the infant football-style into the house. “Your new brother.”

Leonidas was an early walker and it seemed that he would be athletic. He laughed huskily and charmed everyone he met, and he did not cry when the doctors stuck him with needles. Van would never admit it, but Leonidas was his favorite. Van nicknamed him Cool Breeze because it felt that way to him whenever Leonidas toddled into a room.

Dimitrius did not seem to notice or mind that his father was overly focused on Leonidas. Irene and Dimitrius by now had become a unit. They played in their bedrooms, separately or together, and did not spend a great amount of time paying attention to their parents or their new baby brother. As for Leonidas, his eyes followed Van and Eleni as they moved about the room. When he could not see them, he smiled at the sound of their voices. Even Shilo was smitten, and he growled when anyone outside the immediate family approached Leonidas.

Despite the pressure of the new addition, Van and Eleni were getting along fine. They made love a couple of times a week, ate in restaurants without debating if they should, and went out on the occasional movie date. Because they wanted little in the way of material possessions, they felt they lacked nothing. In fact, Van was still doing quite well despite his seeming lack of interest in making money. They had the family they wanted. They hadn't planned any of this and they felt lucky.

Then, when Leonidas was a year old, they got a call from Donna Monroe. Another baby was available. That night, Van and Eleni discussed it over a bottle of red. They didn't
need
another child. Was this a bridge too far? Why tempt the gods?

“Why'd she call us?” said Van.

“I think she likes you.”

“Or her partner got a look at my financials.” Van shook his head. “This house is already too small.”

“We can move.”

“I like it here.”

“You're a builder. We'll make the house bigger.”

“I dunno,” said Van.

“There's a reason Donna called us. Someone whispered in her ear and told her to.” She reached for his hand. “Aren't you curious?”

The next day they went to the law office. Van remarked that the furnishings were more lavishly appointed than the last time they had visited, but Donna Monroe ignored him as they walked down the hall to an office that Van now called “the closing area.” Monroe was seven months pregnant and she lowered herself carefully into a chair as they found seats. Her belly swelled beneath her maternity outfit. She pushed a photograph across the table, and Van and Eleni bent forward to have a look.

“You don't have anything against white babies, do you?” said Monroe.

“We're color-blind,” said Van.

“Why us?” said Eleni. “There's gotta be a line out the door for a white infant like this one.”

“Actually, not at the moment,” said Monroe. “The couple who had identified him claimed that he came available too quickly. They weren't
ready.
I guess they needed to get the nursery set picked out and delivered first. Or have the artist paint the mural in his room before he could sleep there. What they want is a doll, not a child. No lie.”

“But there must be other couples.”

“None on our list who are uncommitted to other kids. None currently who have completed their home studies. Course, I could put him in foster care for a month or so. But I don't like to do that.”

“I should say not,” said Eleni, looking at the photo, falling in love.

“Aw, Jesus Christ,” said Van.

“He
is
handsome,” said Monroe.

“Van,” said Eleni.

They named him Spero and brought him home the next day. Upon entering their house, Eleni took a photograph. When it was developed, it showed Spero still in the car seat, Irene and Dimitrius off to the side, Leonidas with his arm around his new baby brother, Van down on one knee, broadly smiling, and Shilo sniffing at the new arrival in the foreground. Behind them, through the double glass doors of the family room, there was a thick wall of clouds, and though it was midday, a light appeared to wink in the gray sky. Van said it was the camera flash reflected in the glass. Eleni claimed it was a star. She would not tell him what she truly believed: that the light was a kind of eye. That there was something out there, watching them and watching over them, this family of six.

Van blew out the back of the house and raised the roof, and their Sears bungalow replica became something taller, deeper, and architecturally unidentifiable. The days became compressed by activity. Time went quickly and there was laughter in their home and raised voices and sometimes tears, but it was good and they were thankful for all they had. As the years passed, the children grew taller and Van grew heavier. Eleni's face became pleasantly lined and she noticed the beginnings of turkey neck beneath her chin. Shilo passed and was replaced by a large tan mixed breed they named Cheyenne.

Aside from the usual fights, vandalism, and mild behavior problems at school, all of the children's lives had been free of serious trouble when they were young. Dimitrius was a skateboarder and video gamer. Leo, as he was known outside his home, played multiple community sports, as did Spero. Irene was into dance, gymnastics, and horseback riding. In Van's and Eleni's eyes, the boys did not seem to have a problem with their adopted status. But they may have been blinded by love. The truth was, they simply felt that these were their children, not their adopted children, and so it was easy for them to deny that in the minds of their sons there could be more complicated feelings swirling in the mix.

In high school, Irene, black haired like her father and lush of figure like her mom, found the influence of her peers stronger than that of her parents, and she began to use pot, alcohol, and speed. She had sex with boys rather indiscriminately. She also kept up her grades and scored high on her SATs. Her crowd was punk in look only, interested in drugs, not music, and did not have the positive, community-activist bent for which the D.C. punk scene was known.

Dimitrius still idolized Irene and trailed in her wake, and because he was black, an outsider in a group of self-proclaimed outsiders, he felt he had to prove himself and did so by being a harder user than his peers. Like any addict, he lied constantly. He stole money and jewelry from his mother, and his grades dropped to failure across the board. His parents set him up with a shrink, but Dimitrius bailed on the appointments until finally, unreasonable and illogical, he announced his intention to drop out of high school and leave home. Van and Eleni pleaded with him to obtain his diploma. They told him that they were there for him. They told him they loved him and had faith in him, and he replied that he didn't care.

Irene, just as eager to get away from home, was no help. She was accepted to the University of Washington in Seattle and took off after her high school graduation. Dimitrius got his GED and soon followed Irene, promising his parents that he would enroll in Seattle's community college. They reluctantly agreed, put him on a plane, and staked him in an apartment out there; soon after he was gone they began to lose touch with him, and eventually there was no communication at all. Van flew to Seattle, looking for his son, but the apartment they had rented for Dimitrius was vacant, and the landlord had been given no forwarding address. Irene, now in her sophomore year, claimed to have no knowledge of her brother's whereabouts, but Van suspected that she was covering for Dimitrius. He drove and walked around Seattle for several days and nights, looking for Dimitrius among the city's numerous homeless kids, many of whom were drug abusers. He hired a local private detective to continue the search and then, angry and anguished, he flew back to D.C.

In their home the night of his return, Van and Eleni discussed the situation. Eleni was not happy with the turn of events, but she was less emotional than Van and told him they needed to concentrate on the children who still lived with them. She noted truthfully that the house was more settled since Irene and Dimitrius had left, and probably a better atmosphere for Leonidas and Spero, and Van had to agree.

“But it shouldn't have happened like this,” said Van.

“Irene's always gone her own way,” said Eleni. “Her independence is going to serve her well as an adult.”

“I'm not worried about Irene. It's Dimitrius. He's lost.”

“We'll find him.”

A week later, the detective, Paul Garner, phoned Van.

“I located your son,” said Garner. “He's staying in a warehouse with a bunch of kids near the university. Living hand to mouth, but he's under a roof.”

“Living how?”

“You want it unvarnished?”

“Of course.”

“The drug of choice out here for a certain kind of kid is meth. I went to that area near U of W first because that's where a lot of the users are concentrated. Showed around the photograph you gave me, and when I put some cash on top of it I got the information I needed.”

“How do you know he's using?”

“Because I live here. He had the complexion and the look. His teeth are brown. He had the rank smell they get from all that perspiration.”