A Single Parent Solves a Problem

Adoption | Grotesque | Cove | Snail | Olive | Navel | Rivulet | Hollow | Ambrosia | Pale

There’s a small cove south of Mathers Key. Can’t get there unless it’s high tide. Or maybe you risk it in a kayak and turn your heels into carpaccio walking across the reef. But once you’re in, look for the little rivulet of a stream dropping down the side of the cliff. That’s the place, in the hollow right behind it.

The adoption process is fucked. No wonder all those African kids end up digging for diamonds or whatever. Dozens of them with the same grotesque bellies and sunken eye sockets. Just hordes of orphans, unearthing priceless gems while their skin turns pale and their gums bleed. All because some committee in Virginia decided potential parents needed to complete 43 goddamn steps to save a kid from becoming Starvin’ Marvin.

But we finally got ours, Mark and I. After we proved we were capable. We named her Olive. She was seven, and wore a pink shirt with a cartoon snail on it that read “I Snailed It.” Only English she knew was “I love you.” Dessert the first night was my Ambrosia salad (pineapple, cherries, marshmallows, navel oranges, but never coconut – she was deathly allergic, according to the paperwork). She had three helpings.

The next morning Mark left and never came back.

Her and I went to that hollow together a few days later, me piggybacking her across the reef with a tote of picnic supplies. Sandwiches. Crackers. Strawberries. Two juice boxes.

I paddled home alone.