T's Show and Tell

A young woman leans forward, pulling a large green storage container towards her chair. Snapping off the lid, she examines the contents within.

The sound of a woman in labor breaks the still, summer morning air at the county correctional facility. The inmate is transferred to a nearby hospital, where she delivers a child. A girl.

The soft sound of Christmas music wafts through the air as the woman reaching into the box and pulls out an ornament.

A phone rings. A social worker has a ward of the court that needs placement. She’s been in an emergency home for a couple of months, but will need a long term home. The couple agrees to foster the baby.

The woman stands, smiling at her mother as she holds up the ornament for her to see. Her mother smiles back, a warm sense of understanding passing between them.

The child arrives at the couple’s home. She is pale, underweight, sick. She comes with outdated medicine. The foster mother immediately takes her to the doctor. The doctor looks grim. The child has failed to thrive. She fears mental and physical delays, prenatal drug exposure. She looks to the foster mother. “You aren’t planning on keeping this one, are you?”

The woman turns, moving towards the tree that stands in the living room corner. She looks the tree over, for the perfect spot.

The foster family works with the child. She gains weight, becomes healthier. The doctor is still skeptical, claims chronic developmental delays, but the family does not give up. The biological mother gets released from prison, gains visitation rights. The child has bonded with the family, does not take well to this stranger.

The ornament is large. It can’t be placed just anywhere. It is difficult to place it so that it will hang properly, as it must.

The foster mother leaves the room during one visitation. The child does not see her go. She looks up, finally discovering her gone, herself alone with the other woman. She panics, runs crying from the room and down the hall, searching. She finds the foster mother, clings to her. As they leave, the foster mother glances in her rearview mirror, sees the biological mother standing in the rain, watching them go. It is the last time she sees her. Later, they get a call. The biological mother has relinquished her parental rights, had asked them to adopt the child.

The woman finds a sturdy branch overhanging a bare patch in the tree. She hangs the ornament, stepping back to admire it, glittering in the glow of the Christmas tree lights.

It is December, and a four-year-old girl sits in Santa’s lap. Her mother smiles, tells Santa that it is a special day; they have just finalized the adoption of the child. Santa smiles, tells the child that he, too, is adopted. He reaches behind him, taking an ornament from the tree, and presenting it to her. It is a large snowflake, crafted from a thin, lacquered wood; lightly dusted with snow-white glitter, and with a shiny purple ribbon looped through one of the holes, to hang it on the tree. It is lightweight, but durable, serving as a reminder for over twenty years of just how lucky she has been in her life.

The woman turns back to where her mother sits, bending to kiss the older woman on the top of her head, her arms wrapping around her neck in a hug.

“Love you, mom.”