We Are Unprepared

“What’s going on? What happened?” I asked the group.

The new lady put her phone in her pocket and stepped toward me. “August has been gone since last night. He does this—wanders off sometimes—but this is a long one, even for him.” She glanced to her left at August’s parents and planted a lingering look of disapproval on each of them. “He goes into the woods. We need to get in there and fan out.”

“Have you called the cops?” I asked.

August’s mother stiffened. She hated that idea.

My stomach turned over and over on itself.

“They’re already in there,” the lady said, nodding at the woods behind me. “We have to get going, too.” She pointed at August’s parents now. “You guys go to the east. I’ll pair up with Ash and we can go to the west. Go on.”

August’s parents walked away quickly and obediently. They didn’t look confident in their ability to brave the woods alone, but this woman wanted to be alone with me for some reason.

“I’m Bev.” She put her hand out for a quick, joyless shake. “I’m the social worker. August says you’re his friend, so let’s talk.”

I nodded and we walked toward the woods with impatient strides.

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” I said.

“As you’ve probably figured out—” Bev was walking ahead of me and pumping her arms “—August’s parents are not up to the job. His father has paralyzing depression, which leaves him near comatose most of the day. And his mother is so panicked about the father that she barely notices the poor kid. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, but I know he looks up to you and I need another set of eyes on him. They abuse prescription drugs in front of him and can’t be bothered to keep a damn thing in the fridge. They’re not monsters. They love him. But they’re selfish and irresponsible and getting worse all the time. I first started coming around here a year ago when August’s ‘treks’ started. That’s what he calls it when he goes off into the woods. He always has some important mission or something in mind and just takes off with a backpack. But it’s usually just for four to maybe six hours. Once, it was eight. But he has never been out overnight and this is just... These goddamn people... I’m sorry. I’m mostly mad at myself. I should have removed him months ago.”

My toe caught on a root and I nearly fell over as I tried to wrap my head around what she was saying. “He’s been out here overnight? What could have happened to him? What does he do out here? We’ll find him, I’m sure.”

“I don’t know. I think we will. August is a real adventurer, but he’s not stupid. This is really bad, Ash.”

“Wait, you said ‘remove him.’ Are you going to take him away from his parents?”

She shook her head, still walking quickly ahead of me, and said, “Forget that for now. Let’s just find him. We have to just find him.”

My head was spinning now, on top of my churning stomach. August had been out there all night long. I tried to imagine him smiling, sitting at the base of a tree with a piece of beef jerky in hand, talking to a chipmunk. But I couldn’t hold on to the cheerful image. Unwanted pictures kept flashing before me: August, shivering in the dark; August, injured and crying; August, facedown in the fall leaves. The feeling was unbearable, like no other concern I’d ever felt. That wasn’t even the word for it: concern. It was heartsickness and desperation—and I had known August for only a few months. I wondered how his parents were feeling at that moment. Desperation mixed with guilt. Those motherfuckers. I felt guilty now, too, for not seeing it all sooner. All of a sudden, I wanted to find them and push them into the forest floor, make them stay there all night. Whatever happens to them will be deserved, I thought. But August, we have to find August. Stay focused.

“Ash? Ash!” Bev was right beside me, yelling to break through my nightmarish thoughts.

“What?”

“You look pale. Are you okay? I need you to stay with me here.”

I rubbed my face with my hands. “Yeah, I’m okay. Should we be shouting his name? Let’s do that.”

“Yes, okay,” Bev said. She seemed at least as frightened as I was, but not as confused. Bev had seen families like this, cases like this, no doubt. She was probably fighting back her own images of what had become of August, but hers would be more vivid and plausible because she’d seen it all before, I imagined.

We watched our feet as we walked along the uneven forest floor, veering close to each other and then back out again. I shouted August’s name, loud and hoarse. It hardly sounded like my own voice and I wondered if the boy would recognize me if he heard it from afar. As I walked, I had a strange realization that this was the longest I’d gone in weeks without thinking of The Storms. The weather seemed insignificant all of a sudden. And then it didn’t. What if the weather changed tomorrow, before we find August, and he’s trapped out here without a coat? What if the cloud cover gets so bad that he can’t use the sun for direction and time? This was fear compounded by fear.

I wanted to ask Bev how this works. How long do we look and what clues can we search for and where were the police... But we just kept going. Step, step, shout. Step, step, shout. After an hour, I excused myself to pee behind a large tree and check my phone, hoping to see a message from Pia. I wanted to tell her what was going on and ask her to join me. This was too hard without her. She would be a help and a comfort. But she hadn’t called. As far as she knew, this was still a normal day in which she could stay mad for hours and wander back when the feeling faded.

I sent her a text: August is missing. Please come home. I’m sorry for everything.

Within seconds, she responded: I can be there in twenty. That’s horrible.

I felt a small, unsatisfying flash of relief as I pushed my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, but then I was back in reality, looking for my lost seven-year-old friend. He was my friend. That was the word, I suppose. Or was I his mentor? His surrogate big brother? It wasn’t the sort of friendship I’d had before, but I wasn’t a parent, so what else could I have been?

I looked up to find Bev talking to August’s parents. I wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying, but she was moving her hands around, giving them instructions.

When I approached them, Bev said, “These guys are going to go back to the house in case August shows up there. The police are moving toward us from the far end of this forest. Ash, if you’re up for it, you and I can just keep pressing forward until we meet the cops. Hopefully, one of us will find something before that happens.”

Find something. It sounded like a compromise in expectations and it made my head hurt.

“Yes, of course. Let’s keep going.”

I sent Pia one more text explaining that we were too deep into the woods for her to meet us and that I would be back when I could. I wanted to hear her voice, but the reception was too poor for anything more than that. I looked back up at Bev The Social Worker and nodded. Let’s keep going.

We walked for another hour. More yelling his name, mixed with feet crunching on branches, but no talking. There was nothing to say. It was starting to get dark and we didn’t want to acknowledge what that could mean. I was hungry, or I would have been if I could feel anything other than panic and sickness. We just had to keep going.

“Hello?” a deep man’s voice called from somewhere to our left.

“It’s Bev and Ash,” Bev yelled back.

“We’ve got him,” the voice said.

Bev and I broke into an awkward run toward the voice until a large police officer came into focus. At first, we couldn’t see him, but then the officer turned to reveal a tired, dirty August clinging to him piggyback-style. The boy’s too-short pant legs wrapped around his torso. A smaller cop stood next to them, holding August’s blue backpack and a large water bottle.

When August saw us, he released his hold and dropped to the ground, landing on his feet and sprinting toward us. For a moment, I wasn’t sure who he was running to, but it was me. He gave me one quick squeeze around the neck as I crouched down and I wrapped my arms around his little body so hard it made him squirm. He was happy to see me, but a little confused by all the adult dramatics. He seemed fine.

“I made a sweet fort, Ash! But then it got so dark and I lost my compass and I had to stay in one place. That’s an important rule of ranger safety: stay in one place if you’re lost.”

I smiled. “Yes! Good thinking, buddy. Are you okay? Were you scared?”

August shrugged. “Yeah, I was a little scared.”

And that was it. We would get more from him later about where and how he made it through the night, but none of that mattered at that moment. We walked back through the woods in a long line with the officers at the front, followed by Bev The Social Worker, then me with August on my back. It took over an hour and my legs ached, but I was so grateful for the weight of his body and the sound of his soft breath near my ear. I was surprised he let me carry him like that for so long. We had never before touched beyond the occasional high five, but this felt perfectly natural. August fell asleep like that for the final stretch and I wondered what his parents would think when they saw me deliver him to them, his body melting into mine, in all its trusting vulnerability. “Attachment issues” is what Pia once called it. She said August seemed to have some attachment issues with his parents, which may have explained some of his neediness with me. It made more sense now, though I’d thought she was overreacting at the time.

August awoke as we approached his house and I watched his parents run out to make a big show of hugging him in front of us all. They had been terrified, no doubt, and were so grateful to have him back, but I saw them in a new light now and felt them unworthy of his return.

“Let’s talk,” Bev said, nodding at the path that led to my house.

We thanked the officers and walked back to my home, which was invitingly warm and bright as we stepped into the kitchen. I kissed Pia long and hard and introduced her to the social worker. She put a pot of water on for tea, but Bev said she wasn’t staying long.

“I wanted you to know that I’m taking August away,” Bev said. “This is the last straw for those two. Strictly between us, the officers searched their home and found illegal pain pills in several places. They’re probably high right now. Who knows how long he had been out there before they noticed. He can’t stay in that home.”

“But where will he go?” I took the kitchen chair opposite Bev and Pia sat down beside me.

“Into the foster care system. We will find a temporary home for him.” Bev shook her head. “It’s not an easy case. August’s parents don’t abuse him, but they aren’t present either. Neglect is easy to overlook, but it can be life-threatening, particularly because August just keeps wandering off. And who can blame him? It’s awful in that house with those two zombies.”

I tried to imagine August moving away, into a different family, a different house. It didn’t seem right. He would hate to be away from these woods and me and his stupid parents. He loved his parents. But I wasn’t sure how to talk about this. I didn’t have the language to navigate this world of social workers and foster care.

“What if...” I started. “Can you just wait? Do we have to do this now? What if I kept an eye on him? I could check on him every day, do activities with him. I could even make sure he eats a healthy meal each day.”

Bev shook her head. “Ash, you can’t look after him all day. August is desperate for attention and boundaries right now and he’s going to keep pushing limits and taking risks until someone provides him with that. Right now, he needs constant attention. Now, if you wanted to be a formal caregiver, that would be another question...”

Pia’s eyes opened wide. “You mean, be his foster family?”

Bev shrugged, leaving the possibility out there on the table.

I raised my eyebrows at Pia. It sounded crazy, but maybe it wasn’t crazy. Maybe this could save August; wonderful, weird August. She stared back at me in shock. I knew that look. We needed to talk. Of course I wouldn’t commit us to something so big without a lot of discussion between us.

Bev understood. “It’s not as simple as this. Any potential foster family needs to be thoroughly vetted. And you would need to be 100 percent on board with this idea. There can be no uncertainty.”

“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Pia said politely.

“Yes, we need to talk about this,” I added. “But what will happen to August for now?”

Bev took a deep breath. She was unsure herself and it struck me just how haphazardly a child’s future could be decided. This woman had too much discretion, nice as she was. And none of the answers seemed obvious to a table of adults. I wasn’t even sure I understood what the question was.

“I’ll let him stay over there for now,” Bev said, “on the condition that you promise me to check in with him every morning and evening. I’m going to be calling you for updates.”

I nodded.

“But we can’t do this for long,” she went on. “You’ve got three months to decide what you want. After that, I’m putting him in a foster family. I don’t want him in that house when these storms come. That’s not happening.”

Pia and I both nodded. We knew that she was serious. And she was right: August’s fate needed to be determined before The Storms came.

We sat silently at the kitchen table for a moment, listening to Bev’s car drive away. When there was no chance of her return, I put my head into my hands and yelled, then rubbed my face over and over. Pia walked over and wrapped my head in her arms as she stood above.

“I thought he was dead,” I said into her body.

“I know.”

“I kept seeing these images of him in the woods... It was so bad.”

Pia released me and sat in the closest chair. She nodded in sympathy, which was all I needed her to do. There was nothing else to be said about that horrible day. August was okay.

“How could his parents just lose him like that?” I asked. “The social worker’s right. He can’t stay in that house.”

Pia drew a reluctant breath. “You want to take him, don’t you?”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

She breathed again, then shook her head. “I see what you’re doing here and you have to stop.”

“What?” I asked.

Her tone was kind, but firmer now. “Don’t confuse this situation for a message from the universe about us becoming parents. Don’t do that. This isn’t serendipity; it’s ugly reality. It’s a poor kid in a marginally dangerous household. This isn’t ours.”

“I’m not doing that,” I said, shocked. I didn’t think I was doing that. I wasn’t sure.

Pia looked at me kindly, almost pitifully so. “I love that you want to save him and that you think we can. I love that about you. But it’s not black-and-white, Ash. This is so much more complicated than what we’re equipped for. It can’t be solved with love.” She said the last word as one might refer to Santa Claus.

I understood the point she was making, but it seemed irrelevant. “Some of this is perfectly black-and-white, though. He either stays here with us or he goes somewhere else, with people he doesn’t know and a million other unknowable variables. There’s a deadline and a decision to make. It’s not a philosophical difference we’re talking about here; it’s August’s life. He’s here or he’s somewhere else, probably somewhere worse.”

I suspected that Pia thought this sort of reasoning made me simple and naive. I was okay with that. A problem existed and we could offer a solution. It wouldn’t be uncomplicated or easy, but how could we leave this helpless young human to such an uncertain future? It was uncertainty multiplied by uncertainty with the storm looming. And I wasn’t suggesting it out of a misguided sense of poetry—to have a child that binds us forever—I was suggesting it because it was right.

“This is the right thing to do,” I said. “You know that it is. It’s not a fashionable reason, but it’s just the right fucking thing to do and we will always hate ourselves for doing the wrong thing.”

“Oh, don’t do that.” Pia shook her head. She had shifted back in her chair, away from me. “Don’t be good because it makes you feel superior to me. The stakes are way too high for that. You’re not considering the very real possibility that we would be terrible parents to this kid. With his upbringing, he probably has special behavioral needs that we know nothing about; and maybe he needs special doctors or schools that cost more than we can afford. Maybe we are the bad option for this poor kid. It’s arrogant to assume we’re not.”

She was making perfect sense and gaining speed with her strengthening argument. It was true that we probably weren’t equipped to handle a traumatized seven-year-old boy. Was that what this was: trauma? I didn’t know. Pia was right about all this, but it still made me sick to imagine him alone in a world of strangers who didn’t appreciate his specialness. Or worse, people who confused his specialness with dysfunction, something to be fixed and medicated. It got worse and worse as my mind wandered.

“But did you read that think piece, in the Nation, I think it was, about how horrible foster care is?” I asked. “All that sexual abuse and fraud. We can’t let him go into that.”

“I’m sure it’s not all like that,” Pia said. She paused and then seemed to collect herself after a moment of weakness. “Anyhow, it’s not a problem that we can solve. That’s the point here. All of these options are bad, including us...especially us.”

I stood up and walked to the sink, which was filled with dirty mismatched coffee mugs from the previous three days. A rind of whole wheat crust floated in dirty water. “I don’t know. I have to think. We have to decide quickly.”

“Also, who would be the primary caregiver?” she asked. “It can’t be me. I have to figure out my career.”

“Yes, you do,” I agreed.

“Well, don’t say it with such disdain. It’s not a crime to be unemployed and confused.”

I had never heard her describe her situation so honestly.

She went on, “You know, we were told our whole childhoods to find something that we love doing. Major in something we love in college and all that. So I did those things, but then the world changed, and now we have to just do anything that pays. I’m sure I sound like a privileged brat, but I haven’t adapted to this new world. I don’t want to just do something that pays.”

It was privileged and bratty, but Pia was being honest and she looked ashamed by this admission. I didn’t want her to have to do something she hated either. For me, it was different. I didn’t have a singular passion like she did for art. I was better when I was working and the work could be more broadly defined. I didn’t really know the feeling she was describing, but I knew she was sincere about it.

“I’m sorry, honey,” I said. “This is a discussion worth having, but it’s a different discussion from the August one.”

“Well, maybe not.” Her shoulders rose and fell. “It’s a discussion about what we want to do with our days. I’m telling you I don’t know what I want to do with my days and that’s not the right way to be thrust into parenthood.”

“Everyone is thrust into parenthood, though.” I didn’t mean for it to sound so grim. “I mean, it starts abruptly.”

“A lot of things feel abrupt lately.”

I knew what she meant. We had moved to Vermont only months before with only peaceful daydreams of a more rustic life, and then we learned of The Storms, and now this. Things just kept happening at us.

I stood up and kissed the top of her head. “I hear everything you’re saying. Please, just think about this for a few days. I will keep an eye on August for now, but let’s keep talking about this, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed, but her thoughts were already elsewhere.

FIVE

BY MID-OCTOBER, insomnia had become a regular occurrence. I had always been an easy sleeper, out by eleven most nights and unmoving until dawn. But everything changed that fall when the fear crept into our lives. At first, it was just a few restless nights—I hardly noticed the change—but soon a pattern emerged. And by the time this particular evening rolled around, October 18, I expected one to two hours of generalized anxiety before I had any chance of sleep. My mind jumped back and forth between present dangers and old memories. I tried to dwell on the old stuff, the good stuff.

* * *

“Our kid will be cool,” I said. “Or kids, plural.”

We were lying on our backs in the grass of our backyard, looking up at the clouds. It was the second day in our new Vermont home.

“Yeah, they’ll be cool,” Pia agreed. “But not, like, into being cool. They’ll just be really great people, but they won’t care about the idea of being cool.”

“Right. Smart and funny and fearless.”

“So fearless,” she went on. “They will need to be... The world is changing. Things might be harder for them.”

I remember wondering what she meant by that, but I didn’t ask.

“Oh, I’m not worried about our imaginary kids,” I said. “They’ve overcome every imaginary obstacle they’ve faced.”

“They’re really kicking imaginary ass,” Pia agreed. I could feel her smile beside me.

“They are.”

We laughed and kissed, so pleased with our wit and drunk on our hopeful fantasies.

* * *

I tossed in bed with my gentle memories and emerging concerns. Would the world be different for our kids, I wondered. Of course, it’s different for every generation, sometimes easier, occasionally harder. That’s just the ebb and flow of humanity, right? Cultural pluralism is winning in America, but California is running out of water. Gay marriage is law, but social mobility is reversing. Is it getting better or worse? And do we have an obligation to consider the conditions our not-yet-conceived children might live under?

Finally, I drifted off, only to be woken again by a clanking. Bink, bink, bink. It sounded as though someone was banging on the kitchen sink with a hammer. Oh my God. Pia? She wasn’t in bed beside me. Where was she? I reached under the bed for a wood baseball bat that had been signed by Wade Boggs in 1990 and ran downstairs in my boxers. I imagined that someone was breaking in through a window, maybe collecting what little we had of value or, worse, attacking my wife. Though I had been asleep less than a minute before, I could already feel my armpits tingling with sweat and my head pounding audibly. At that moment, only my truest, most elemental feeling about Pia was known to me. It was the feeling of desperate, protective animal love that a parent might have for a child. I was ready to attack, maybe even kill someone at the thought of helpless, beautiful Pia being harmed. It’s a thrilling feeling—to know that your primal self has not been dormant for so long that you can’t transform into an attack dog when you must.

I thudded downstairs with my arm cocked back, ready to strike with the bat at whatever I encountered. But there was no intruder. Pia stood at the kitchen sink in a long, ratty nightgown with a hammer in one hand and a plastic tube in the other. She obviously heard me but didn’t acknowledge my arrival.

“What are you doing?” I huffed, still on a breathless high from the sprint downstairs.

She looked frustrated, close to tears, over whatever project was keeping her up at three o’clock in the morning.

“This, this thing!” She waved the tube in front of her, looking near me but not exactly at me. “I have to get it to fit into that other piece, but it’s impossible!”

There was a pile of odd parts on the floor beside her, which, according to the empty box nearby, was supposed to be a hand-crank water sterilizer. I noticed that her feet were filthy, as if she’d been walking around outside. I thought I would find a robber or rapist when I ran downstairs, which now seemed like a much less complicated situation. The obsessive, wired woman before me was more frightening.