He's my son
I'm surprised Ryan cooperated that well. He didn't argue about my suggestions and already tries to implement them. I'm glad about his reaction, as it saves us a lot more arguments.
The first part of the day was managed. I talked to Dr. Kim about Ryan's schedule change – that he won't any longer take all those supporting curses - and I take care he doesn't learn too much. I enjoy watching him being a normal teenager again. Ryan doesn't like to be mothered. But I want him to feel better again. I want him back again. Thus I go to the pool house, seeing whether he's ready for bed and not learning – a mug of tea in my hand, which should make him relax a little. I open the door and there he sits on his bed, open book and writing. I put the mug down on a nightstand.
"I thought there was a deal about this." I say.
"Yeah…I just need to get this finished. Math is really killing me this semester…as last one." When he's speaking his voice becomes lower and lower with every word.
"Since when is Math a problem?" I wonder. He used to be very good at it. He only shrugs his shoulders.
"C'mon, put it away and get ready for bed. It's nearly eleven. You need your sleep." He rolls his eyes and sighs. I look at him and he puts his book away and heads for the bathroom. While he's gone, I make the bed ready for him. I sometimes wonder if his mother ever had done something like this for him. Had she cared? I don't know. We don't know a lot about his past, as he never talks about it. It feels as if he has no past, at least none he'll share with us. He comes out of the bathroom – white t-shirt and sweatpants.
"So, what do you read tonight?" I ask him. I want him to stick to the plan and I'll make him if I have to.
"Uh…nothing…I…I don' read…before…you know switching the lights off." He says. Again the phenomenon: getting more and more silent with every spoken word. Why can't he act as easy around us, as he can act around his father?
"Why not?" I ask him. I want to get him to know better. I know he doesn't want to lie to us, but be honest, thus I decide it's time for the rough direct questions. No beating around the bush.
"Can't sleep then…it's like…when I start a book I can't stop until it's finished." He whispers the last words and blushes. I can't see any reason for embarrassment. But he didn't grow up with us. Who knew what sixteen years in a place like Chino had taught him? I only can say it's nothing good, when he blushes by admitting that he likes reading.
"Oh, I know that. It's the same with me. Well, you're right that's not really helpful then. Do you know what I do, when I can't sleep?" I ask him. I want him feel familiar around me. He shrugs his shoulders.
"I do these japans puzzle Sudoku. Do you know them?" He shakes his head. Why can't he talk to me like Seth is talking to me? I want him to act around me like he was my son. He is my boy and I feel for him as I he was my son. He only doesn't see that. He doesn't feel the same about us, as we do about him. Or does he? It's so hard to read him. He's always shy, always distanced, never demanding, never taking too much attention.
"We need to change that." I say and go out, to get my puzzle book. I reached a point on which I have to act offensive if I want to be close to him. Maybe he needs to be forced to be social with us – to be a family with us.
"Here I am." I come back and sit down on the bed next to him. "Do you know how this works?"
"No…sorry." And always his apologizes. I'm waiting for the day he's apologizing for his existence. But as I see him, he does everyday, only not aloud.
"Okay, we have nine squares with nine fields. You have to fill into every field the numbers one to nine. You don't have the same number twice in one square as well as in one line." I watch him. He's listening carefully.
"Understood?" I ask.
"Dunno." He says.
"Well, then let's try together." I say and hand him a pen. I place the book between us. He's looking at the page. I don't believe he didn't understand. He's just to shy. Thus it's on me to make a start.
"Look, here we have a five, because it's the only field where it fits in." I write it into the field. Ryan's watching me.
"And here we also can fill in the five. See, it's very easy." I try to encourage him. I lose hope he might turn in.
"Maybe…the six there?" He asks shyly. I'm glad he starts to participate.
"Yes, that's good." And thus we start to work together. He shyly fills the numbers in and I'm doing the main work. But who knows? Maybe in a few weeks he feels a little more comfortable. But there was something else. Ryan was concentrating on something different. He was thinking. That was the only thing I can make out of his expression: when he was thinking.
"What's up your mind?" I ask him, not expecting an answer.
"Just thinking about…my Mum." He says, shyly. I'm stunned to get an answer and I'm afraid of the guilt in his voice. Sometimes I think that's why he isn't talking a lot. Because you can hear what he feels when he's talking.
"Miss her?" I ask. He needs to know that it was okay, when he thought of her or of his brother. It was okay that he missed his family – his biological. We can't replace that. We only can be a different family for him, but we can be one. He only needs to accept.
"Actually I…I don't know."
"Why?"
"It…She wasn't like you. She didn't care when I couldn't sleep or didn't feel well. She pretty much only cared about herself. I can imagine how this might sound to you, but it wasn't that bad. It just…was different. I had a different routine then." He says. I never thought he would open up to me. But he does. I glimpse of hope arises in me as I think he starts to trust us. This day had brought him far in my opinion.
"Would you like to tell me about your routine?" I'm interested. I need to know my boy – wanted son. Sandy had said we need to know what was in his file to be able to cope with him. I think this is just one part of a few more. We have to know his feelings to know how to handle him and this file can't offer us that.
"Just different. I got up at five thirty and decided whether to school or looking for a job. The past few years I decided more for the job than for school. Then, dunno…just you know took a shower, looked whether there was something else in the fridge beside my Mum's booze and then left. When I came home it was often six in the evening and then I just cleaned up the kitchen, did the laundry things like that. Mum often was already pretty drunk then. Then I met with friends, did some homework or had a job. I used to come home pretty late, finding my Mum passed out on the couch in front of the TV. So it was me who had to bring her to bed." Wow, I guess he never had spoken so many words in a row to me.
"Did you like it?" I can't imagine a boy his age and even younger did. This was a mother's job.
"I guess. I mean I wouldn't have done all this if I haven't, or?" I'm not sure about that. As I see him, he pretty much would do everything for those who mean something to him.
"Tell me? I wouldn't have liked it. But I grew up different, so…you're right for me this rather sounds like child's labour than a nice daily routine." I admit. He's honest to me, so I own him my honest answers.
"Had no choice then. I…just don't want to imagine what had happened, if I hadn't done so." And that's what frightens me. He's only sixteen years old and used to carry so much responsibility on his shoulders.
"No, but here things a different. You know that. You really can leave things like that with the adults – meaning Sandy and me. You don't have to be the parent anymore." I try to explain him that this time had changed and that this might be a good change.
"It's hard to break with all these habits."
"Nobody expects it to be easy. But you have to give it a chance – to give us a chance." I watch his face. He gives me a lopsided smile.
"We only want to help you to get settled. But this doesn't work if you're pushing us away by every attempt." I say.
"Know. Guess I just need to learn getting help." He says. My heart clenches. This statement gives me a big view into his life back in Chino. Nobody should have to learn how to let others help him – especially no kid.
"Talking is enough. Just let us know when something is bothering you. That's what we're there for. And when I say it, I mean it."
"You won't say it then." This sentence forces me to a smile. He had understood me. At least something.
"Right. And now get some sleep." I say and get up. He carefully curls together and I put the blanket over him. I stroke through his hair and I feel how he tenses up immediately.
"Sorry." He whispers.
"It's okay. It'll get better. Step by step and you'll see, soon things will be better." I say and then leave him. I have gained new hope. This evening, together with him, had shown me that he's willing to let us. He just can't.
The next evening I come back my puzzle-book. Ryan again is busy with his homework. He looks up at me.
"Hey."
"Hey yourself. Have you taken a look onto the watch?" I ask him.
"Yeah, sorry. Just this line, okay?"
"But only this one." I determine. He finishes it and then disappears into the bathroom. I again make his bed and then wait for him.
"Have you slept at least a little better last night?" I ask him.
"No…sorry."
"Don't be sorry for that, it's not your fault. Nightmares?" I ask. He nods. He comes and sits down on the bed. He looks thin. He definitely has lost weight.
"Always the same?" I ask him. He shakes his head.
"There are a lot. Every night another one. They rarely repeat each other." He says. He worries me. He's so indifferent about that. He should be more concerned about himself. Instead he's more concerned about everyone else.
"Okay, then let's have a look whether you improved." I say encouraging. I have to hide my worry. Because if he figures out I'm worried, he immediately would draw back again. He doesn't want to bother us. It's again me who does the main part of the Sudoku. He's too shy to say anything, although I see he could do more than he shows me.
"Are…are you doing this with Seth too?" He asks me, when we're finished.
"No. Why do you ask?"
"Uh…just…I…I don't want him to be annoyed only because…you're spending so much time with me." What? Half an hour is much time? I realize more and more what the boy had been missing and that he must have been pretty much alone. This hurts me. I can't imagine letting him alone.
"Don't worry about that. I spend so much time with him, despite he knows he only has to ask and I'm there for him. I more worried about whether I spend enough time with you." I answer him.
"Oh…no, I'm okay. I just thought…Seth…is your son…so…" Again his words get drowned in a whisper.
"As you are." I answer him. He doesn't look at me. No matter how often I tell him, I have the feeling as if he doesn't believe me.
"Did you sort things out between you and Marissa?" I change the topic. I see the discomfort in his eyes and with Marissa I always move on safe ice.
"Uh…no…unfortunately. She didn't want to talk to me and…uh…now she's probably too busy with her preparation for her trip to France." Oh. I never thought that I'll drop a brick with this topic. I only hope this doesn't throw him off track.
"France?"
"Yepp, school trip. Six weeks. Really bad." He admits.
"I hope you declared your love to her because France – especially Paris – is known as the place of great love."
""I don't think I want to know that." He answers and I have to laugh. He had learned sarcasm quite fast.
"I'm sure things will be okay again, before she leaves for France."
"Hope so."
"And now it's time to sleep." I say and get up. He again curls into a tiny little ball. I can't imagine that this position is comfortable for sleeping. I tuck him in and then stroke through his hair. He again tenses up. But he doesn't flinch at my touch and that's enough to me.
"You're playing a dangerous game." My husband says when I go to bed and lay down next to him.
"What do you mean?"
"The bonding you start to build between yourself and the boy. We both know when his father has fixed his life, we'll lose him." He reminds my. No, I don't want to be reminded of the fact that I'll lose one of my babies.
"We should have adopted him." I say and that's really what I'm thinking now. If we had, his father won't be able to take him away from us that easily. But we haven't. We're only a kind of surrogate-parents and I hate this feeling.
"And then we would have to deal with a drop-dead-sad teenager who wants to live with his father, but can't. Kirsten his father is his last family. It's the best for him and I'm sure we'll stay in close touch with him. He and Seth are so close friends I can imagine that the only difference will be that he'll sleep somewhere else." He wants to tell me that it won't be that bad. But it will be.
"And this is a huge difference. Sandy, it's…I start to build up a relationship to him. He trusts me and tells me things he wouldn't have talked about to any of us only a few weeks ago. I don't know if you can understand how I feel. But he became my son." I try to explain him.
"My too and that's why it is even hard to me to think about it. I don't want to tell you to keep away from him. I only want you to consider that he'll leave us. I don't want you getting hurt too badly through his loss. So I think it's better if you just back off a little." He says.
"What? Have you thought about how he might feel about that? First I try to build up a relationship and then I start to reject him?"
"I didn't say you should reject him I only…"
"Sandy, stop it. I can't treat him against my feelings. He's my son and I want him to know that." I say and the topic is finished in my opinion.