Talking Doctor

This afternoon I'm taking Liam to his first appointment with a therapist. I feel hopeful: I don't believe in cures, but I'm hopeful that his internal narrative can be recast somehow--that he won't see shadows of loss, even in the most beautiful things. And I haven't been able to do that with him myself: I think, actually, at certain points I've made things worse; I have told him almost everything I know about his life--I have hidden almost nothing, except for the worst things, because they're also the most obvious: he was given away when he was 3 hours old because he had a twisted foot--a foot that was largely fixed for a few dollars in an orphanage 40 miles away, but that nevertheless totally redirected the flow of his life. Club foot, at the village level, is a bad omen: bad luck--a signal of a mother's sin. I am not in their shoes, but I tell you, I can't imagine choosing what they did: I can't imagine caring more about what the neighbors thought that I would about a creature I grew from scratch in my very own belly. Even though I am not a village woman in West Bengal. And even now, though they know where he is--though I've revealed myself to them--given them my address, my phone number--even though they are not impoverished--they don't want to know. "No, really," I hear loud and clear, "we don't want him. Go away."

"Will you be in the room with me?" Liam asks this morning.

"I'll be there if you want me there, or I can wait in the car if you want me to do that."

"Is it OK if I cry there?" he asks.

"Perfectly OK. Lots of people cry with talking doctors. Sometimes that helps."

"Wait in the car," he tells me. "If she's nice, I mean. Wait in the car."