Cat's Cradle

It was the middle of April, when the showers were supposed to come. The rain never came, not until the beginning of June. It was dry outside, the land cracked like winter lips. Aunt Gemma called the land “too irritated to irrigate”.   The land was beyond useless. At six o’clock in the morning, she stood on her porch with Uncle Pepe looking over their dry fields. The two of them did this every morning. They would wake up, make tea with honey, and stand on their porch. Jinna-Lee and Luke weren’t usually awake to watch their Aunt and Uncle in the morning. After the two finished their tea, which they sipped nice and slow, they would wake the children for breakfast. Jinna-Lee loved living on the farm. She chased the chickens, tested Aunt Gemma’s pies and watched her brother ride the horses.  

            Luke, who was twelve, could handle the horses by himself. Jinna-Lee would hop up on the stable fence and watch Luke go round and round. Sometimes, Luke would take Jinna-Lee on rides through the woods. Jinna-Lee was only two years younger than Luke. It wasn’t her age that kept her from riding. She was diagnosed with autism soon after her parents left her and Luke. Her parents called her the slow child when she was in the room, and the dumb one when she wasn’t. They didn’t know why she acted so differently. It made them self-conscious about their own family.  They put her up for adoption when she was seven.  One night, late in December, Luke’s parents sat down with Luke and told him the news. They found someone to adopt Jinna-Lee. She would go to another home where they wouldn’t need to watch her. Luke watched her the most. He took her to school, did homework with her afterschool and taught her how to play Cat’s Cradle. She could play Cat’s Cradle for hours. When Luke heard the news, he reacted instantly, like he couldn’t control his feelings. Sitting in his bedroom, his parents sat next to him with the door closed.  It was a secret meeting place while Jinna-Lee was fast asleep in another room.

“ Your doing what??” Luke cut his mother off as she explained.

“Honey, she is only holding our family back from all that we could be”, she tried to calm Luke as his eyes began welled with anger.

“She IS part of our family!!” Luke spoke loud in a surprisingly deeper tone than usual.

His father stepped in explaining that it was a hard decision but this other family will be able to love her in a way that they can’t. Luke shook with unbelief while staring at his parents. Their calm faces made his arms tense and his fists tighten. He was never going to let Jinna-Lee leave their family. She was his best friend, and he needed her just as much as she needed him.

“ If you send my sister away, send me with her.” Luke responded through clenched teeth.

“You have a great future with us and we want you to stay”, his parents consoled in him.

“ I don’t want to stay with you”, Luke made his final comment and stood to leave the room.

“Shhhhh, you are going to wake her!” His mother spoke to his back as he walked towards the door.

His mother’s words made Jinna-Lee sound like some type of monster that shouldn’t be disturbed. Luke opened the door and slammed it shut behind him. He knew Jinna-Lee was awake now, probably sitting up in bed and scared. Luke couldn’t tell Jinna-Lee what had actually happened. He needed to distract her somehow. Slowly opening her door, Luke spotted her figure, sitting up in bed and holding Mr. Teddy. 

“Luke, I’m scared. I heard a loud sound and now I’m scared”, Jinna-Lee spoke with a shaky voice.

 Luke felt bad about waking her up. He also needed to get the point across to his parents. After their private conversation, he wanted Jinna-Lee to be adopted. He wanted to be adopted along with her too. They could move together to another family. Luke tried to think of things to tell Jinna-Lee to comfort her. All he could come up with was a distraction.

“ I’m going for a night trail ride, do you want to come along?” Luke excitingly asked as he thought of the distraction just in time.

“Yes!! I want to go with brother; lets go on a trial ride! It is dark outside, and all the stars will be out.” Jinna-Lee kept talking the whole way to the horses stable.

            They rode Jinna-Lee’s favorite horse, Hershey. She was one solid color and had a mane that appeared to be flowing silk. Her body looked like it was dipped in Hershey’s chocolate. She was very docile and trustworthy. The best type of horse to take on night trail rides. It seemed like Hershey enjoyed the stroll through the trails just as much as Luke and Jinna-Lee did. Several times throughout the ride, Jinna-Lee asked Luke what the loud sound was that woke her. He would again make statements to distract her. He would talk about the stars, asking how many she would guess are in the sky. He would talk about the tree’s and what it would be like if tree’s could speak. All the while, Luke was thinking something else while Jinna-Lee rambled on about his questions. When would their parents tell Jinna-Lee?  How would they break the news to her? Were they going to just drop her off at somebody else’s house? Then she made a statement that brought his other thoughts to a sudden halt.

“Luke, you are my best friend.” Jinna-Lee patted the top of his knee the way their grandmother used to.

He suddenly felt the responsibility weigh upon him. She needed a family that would truly care for her. Luke accepted Jinna-Lee for everything she was. He knew she had a disability, but not sure what it was. That was part of her that wasn’t leaving, and neither was he.

            The adoption process took much longer than expected. It was only for one child, Luke was meant to stay back and have a “successful future”. There was one piece of the whole process that made Luke uneasy. The adoptive parents didn’t want to meet the birth parents. It was like a secret adoption, seemingly a voluntary kidnaping. The parents were required to drop Jinna-Lee off at the attorney’s office. Then the adoptive parents would arrive later and pick her up. Luke rode along, scheming the whole way. When they walked into Jeffery Sanders office, Luke suddenly knew what to do. Standing calmly next to his parents, he watched the papers surface from a brown folder labeled “confidential”. They had many X’s to sign next to, but he only needed one. There were several lines stating how many children would be adopted. When he saw that page atop of the stack, he lunged forward and grabbed the sheet and pen from his mother’s hand. With the golden page in his hand, he ran swiftly out the door and down the hallway.  As he ran straight forward, he signed his name underneath his sisters. After he completed his task, he calmly walked back into the office.

Luke stood with confidence as he spoke, “There you go, Mr. Sanders, it’s legit. I am signed for and ready to leave with Jinna-Lee. I want to be adopted.”

Sanders leaned back in his chair, crossing an ankle over the knee and curling an eyebrow towards the parents. They stood in an embarrassed shock.

The mother spoke calmly as if trying to tame a wild lion, “ Honey, we already talked about this, remember.”

Luke knew Sanders would honor his choice, so he put up no fight.

“It’s over mom and dad, you are no longer our business.”

Luke took Jinna-Lee into the waiting room. An hour later, knocking at the door grabbed their attention. Luke’s heart began to flutter at the excitement of a new life for Jinna-Lee. He soon discovered the reasoning behind the secret adoption. They weren’t leaving family at all, just switching. Luke opened the door to see his aunt and uncle waiting to pick up the two of them.