When Babies Dream Read online

family room. It’s after he’s brought me home, after he’s shown me my room, and after Jessica has left. It’s just the two of us, and it’s so quiet I can hear the clock ticking.

  Perhaps it’s the calm of the room, or being so tired, or finally thinking it was okay, but I just start crying. On the soft couch, Jim rocks me in his arms. My body shakes like I’m caught in an earthquake, but it’s only Jim’s lap.

  My little fists dig into both eyes, but not a single tear comes out. Jim tries to pull my fists away, but I put them right back. He whispers to me, “I know it’s scary, Ciara. Cry all you need to.” Jim holds me closer. “Tomorrow will be better, I promise.”

  Then, he gently rubs my crazy hair back and professes, “Out of all the people in the world, God chose me to take care of you. I won’t let either of you down.”

  I’m crying less now, and I notice two large skylights on the ceiling. There’s a brown ceiling fan in between the windows, but it isn’t on. The blades from the ceiling fan block part of my view.

  I can see the moon outside, full, and so bright I can see branches from the trees in Jim’s back yard.

  As I watch the branches move against the backdrop of the moon, I stop crying. I let out a deep breath, my eyes begin to close, and I feel myself melting.

  As I look down into the family room, I can hear Jim’s thoughts. He’s wondering if she would have made different choices, if she could see how my night ended, in the arms and home of a stranger. My skylight recedes back into the depths of my tornado.

  As the walls of my gray tornado swirl all around me, I float in relative calm at the center. I can’t wait to catch the next window that passes by so I can see my new life with Jim. But before the next window comes, streaks of red and blue swirl to the top of my tornado like someone is running crayon marks through it. As the streaks of red and blue dance together, my gray tornado turns purple.

  Everything inside my purple tornado looks brighter. Small windows and big windows, round windows and square windows, even triangle windows, all orbit around me like moons.

  I reach out for a triangular window when it passes by, and I see Jim pushing me in a shopping cart on the second day I was with him. We’re in a department store in the health and beauty section. Jim pushes me up to the first African-American woman he sees.

  “Excuse me,” he says to her as she reaches for something. He startles her. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I just got this little girl. I’m a foster parent, and I know I have to put something in her hair, but I don’t know what.”

  The woman looks like she could be someone’s grandma.

  “Can you help me?” Jim asks, and he looks so desperate.

  The woman smiles back at us.

  “Sure, honey. I know exactly what she needs,” and she leads us into the next aisle.

  She takes a pink bottle from the shelves, but doesn’t hand it to Jim right away.

  Instead, she holds onto the bottle like it was a treasure, explaining, “After her bath, just use a towel to dry her hair, then put a little of this lotion in your hands and work it in like so.”

  She hands Jim the bottle, then picks at my hair like there was lint in it. “It’ll make her curls voluptuous!”

  She put her entire body into that one word; it looked like she was going to erupt into a song.

  Later that night, Jim gives me a bath, and afterwards he follows that lady’s directions exactly.

  “I’m not sure what voluptuous curls look like, but I guess we’re going to find out,” he tells me.

  Turns out voluptuous just meant my hair feels softer. I put the triangular window back in orbit around me.

  When it was just Mom and me, we lived in so many different places no place ever felt like home. So many different people watched me back then; I didn’t know who the strangers were from the people who were going to take care of me. If someone was bigger than me, I’d reach for them because someone to hold me was better than no one at all.

  It was easy to live with Jim because he started off as a stranger, and that’s all I knew back then. He didn’t stay a stranger for long, then he made all the other strangers go away and replaced the strangers with his own family.

  Jim’s mom and step dad lived two streets away, and they also fostered. They became almost as big a part of my world as Jim did, and I called them Mema and Papa. Jim had two sisters, Jill and Jenny, and they became my aunts. Jim’s dad lived four streets over, and he became my other papa.

  So many windows circle around me it’s almost dizzying. When a dome-shaped window with frosted edges drifts by, it’s perfect. I bring the window closer to me, and it starts to snow inside my tornado, the big kind of snowflakes that look like doilies. My face fits perfectly inside the dome, like I was looking out of a submarine, and I see Christmas time.

  Actually, it’s the weekend before Christmas. I get to go to New York for a ski trip with Jim and his family. Our hotel has a pool and a big Christmas tree in the lobby, and everything is decorated for the holiday.

  Mema and Papa and Jim’s sisters are there and so is Jay, a boy Mema and Papa used to foster, but they still get to see. Jay is four, and he’s bi-racial, like me. Jay thinks I’m his new sister, and I don’t talk well enough to correct him.

  I have so much fun swimming and running around with Mema and Papa and Jay while Jim and his sisters ski. Then, we all have dinner together, and afterwards Santa is there to take pictures with. Jim tries to get me to see Santa but I prefer to watch from a distance and scream if Jim gets too close.

  That night, we’re all in the hotel room together. It’s late, but I’m still up. Mema and Aunt Jenny are lying in bed with me, trying to get me to sleep, but I keep talking. They pretend to sleep, but I can hear them laughing. Soon after, they put me in bed with Jim, who’s already asleep.

  “We tried to get her to sleep, but she just keeps talking!” Aunt Jenny tells Jim, who doesn’t say anything, just moves over.

  “There’s no diaper under her pajamas,” Aunt Jenny explains. “Mom couldn’t find them when she changed her.”

  “Okay,” Jim mumbles, but he doesn’t get up.

  A little later that night, Jim wakes up shouting, “Oh Ciar!” and Mema sits-up from a deep sleep in the next bed.

  “She peed on me!” he yells, and rolls out of bed.

  “It’s just baby pee,” Mema tells him as she lies back down.

  “It’s still pee, Mom!” Jim snaps.

  I can’t help but smile from inside my domed window. I was only with Jim for two weeks then, and I already get to feel what it’s like to be part of a family. It feels safe and comfortable, just like my blanket.

  Giant snowflakes fall all around me as I look deeper into my domed window. It’s Christmas morning, and Santa did find me! He found me at Mema and Papa’s house because that’s where Jim and I stayed for Christmas. We stayed there because Jim didn’t even have a Christmas tree at his house, and he wanted me to celebrate Christmas with lots of people.

  Santa ate most of the cookies I left out for him, but he must have been in a hurry because he left lots of crumbs. The reindeer must have liked the carrots I left out for them because they were all gone.

  That Christmas I get presents from Santa, Jim, and Mema and Papa, Aunt Jenny, and Aunt Jill, then we go to Jim’s dad’s house and I get even more presents. By the time I open everything, I have more toys than ever.

  As I take a candy cane from Mema’s tree on that Christmas night, I let go of the domed window. The window floats away as Jim unwraps the candy cane for me. It stops snowing inside my tornado, and I realize I went the whole winter without seeing or hearing from Mom.

  It’s hard to explain, even now, but it was like Mom disappeared for a season, and I got to live in a dreamland. In my dreamland, there was Jim to take care of me and we got to be a family, even if we were just two people. Jim did all the things dads do, like toss me in the air and play toys with me. But Jim was also the one who cooked for me and gave me baths, and he
was the one who put me to bed.

  That winter, Jim became the arms I went to, and I became his someone to love.

  The next window that passes by swings open, and there’s a windowsill underneath filled with flowers. The flowers smell like spring, then daffodils begin to fall like rain inside my purple tornado. I catch enough flowers for a bouquet, then lean out the window and see a movie playing about my spring.

  There must be something wrong with the projector because the scenes from my spring flash by so fast I can’t focus on those memories in any great detail, beyond a smile. Sometimes, the projector freezes up during a scene, and an image floats like a picture inside my window and I can remember more.

  The first time the projector freezes it’s during a scene from when Jim took me to see the Easter Bunny. Just like Santa, I wanted nothing to do with the Easter Bunny. The movie freezes right when I’m burrowing into Jim’s arms and he’s standing several feet away from the Bunny.

  The next scene is Easter morning, and I’m looking for my basket. Somehow, the Easter Bunny knew exactly where my favorite hiding place was, a cabinet in Jim’s kitchen, and the movie freezes just when I find my basket.

  The movie fast forwards a month, and it’s May. Mema takes me to get my pictures taken. She bought me a pretty dress, shiny shoes, and even a pink bow. The picture place is crowded, we have to wait a long time, and I’m being so bad, I want to reach out the window and spank myself. I keep taking