“Daddy, what’s ‘adoction’?

”
Juan Carlo Rodríguez

— Daddy...

— Mmmm? —, I answered, without looking away from the screen.

— Are you busy?

— Piji, if you see me watching my laptop, it’s because I’m writing, right? —, I
answered, trying to hide with a smile the classic writer’s irritation when they’re
interrupted (don’t judge me). Even by someone I love so much as my eight-year-old
daughter.

— Right. I’m sorry —, she answered, and it was my turn to feel bad. At least we did
that right, Daya; good manners always. My smile faded, a project for a later time.

But she just stood there at the study door like the world’s cutest satellite. I saw her
through the corner of my eye with her little hands by her side, twiddling her fingers
like she always does when she’s thinking real hard. I turned to look at her. She looked
back, unsmiling. I took off my glasses, put them on the desk, and turned to her again.

— What’s up, Piji? You OK?

— Yes, yes, daddy, yes. It’s just that... Well, I…

She gave me a long pause she didn’t want to give, but I understood now. When there’s
something that’s really bothering her, her little head works faster than her tongue.
That’s why I learned to pick up extra patience in those moments. It’s never easy. But
it’s always worth it.

Or at least I hoped it was always worth it.

— It’s that... I wanna ask you something.

— Sure, sweety, Daddy’s here to answer anything. Tell me.

— Daddy... What’s adoction?

-------------------------------------

1
Dayana always wanted to be a mother, as much as she wanted to be a journalist. She
was convinced she could do both things, that that was what meant to be a full-fledged
woman. Two incidents proved her both right and wrong. The first was an accident she
was in a year before she met me, as she was covering the 2020 elections. While her
crew was trying to escape a group of government thugs, their SUV crashed into a truck
on the highway. By some miracle only killed her ability to produce babies. Yet she
dove into her career as soon as she left the hospital, now covering Venezuelans living
abroad.

That’s how she met me. A mutual friend introduced us at a party in the Venezuelan
embassy in Argentina. Part of the new administration's program for attracting
expatriates and exiles back home to make “not the great country, not the country that
was; the Venezuela that will be”. I had left to try my luck writing down south, had had
some success, and the new Culture minister had plans for me. Dayana was there to
cover the event and the new young Venezuelan writing sensation. There was a
“something” during that first meeting. Some look, something when the recorder was
turned off. I took the ministry’s offer --something about educating new writers or
other-- just to make sure I could be with her.

One year later, she agreed to coffee. Three months after that, lunch. Five months and
three weeks later, dinner. And one year, eight months, two weeks, one day and five
hours later, we were married. From the beginning she reminded me she couldn’t have
kids. I have never even thought about it. I just wanted to be with her. We spoke about
our parents. Her mother was a hag that forgot about her as soon as she found Jehova,
probably at the bottom of the bottles she emptied daily since Dayana was five. Her
father, an old-school news photographer, basically raised her alone. My parents were
two book-loving lawyers who raised two boys with that same love. I became a writer,
my brother Juan Andrés an engineer. Daya and I felt we both had a lot to offer. And
the new government’s slogan gave us hope. I don’t know if they were justified. But we
did believe that “there was no more danger in dreaming”.

So we adopted a baby. We even drove the four hours west to the state of Lara to get
her. All legal. We called her Sundri. Sundri Alexandra. Shut up, it’s no “ghetto name”.
It comes from the Sanscrit word sunduri. It means “beautiful girl”. And she was. And
she is. And it was our dream to tell her she was adopted, that we chose her for being
special, that God lead us to her because her mother couldn’t take care of her.

Dayana was as great as a mother as she was as a journalist. We had the rare privilege
that we could both take care of her: while she was out working, while I waited for the
ministry, I played dad during the day, writer in the afternoons while Sundri slept, and
husband and father at nights. The weekends she had off were to explore a Caracas that
was slow in letting go of past vices and felt the push of the future. Dayana felt
complete, being a professional mother. Being loved. She was happy. We were happy.

2
Until the day of the second incident. The one that proved her right and showed how
wrong she was, about being a mother and a journalist. It reminded me of a line in a
Stephen King book, where they talked about something like destiny called ka. “Plans?
Silly girl; ka will blow down your plans like the wind blows down a tree”. You were
supposed to make plans and follow them, but sometimes, well, plans are made for you.

Dayana traveled to cover the capture of a former minister --I’ll call him “The Captain”
-- in a certain eastern European country, the only country that had taken him in. But the
former ruler was assassinated, after he finally fucked the wrong woman, leading to a
notable change in all the region. And since the new regime did not quite sympathize
with Venezuela’s former government, it didn’t take long about extraditing the bastard.
Dayana was among those front row covering his less than triumphant return to the
country. But “The Captain” had no intention of spending time behind bars. And he
only needed two hundred dollars for the easiest way out. A former aide-de-camp,
fanatically loyal, shot him in the head as soon as he arrived in the airport. When the
police returned fire, the bullets activated the explosives he had on him. He killed eight
people. Including my wife.

Having to tell my six-year-old daughter that her mother would not come home again...
I won’t even try to explain to you how that feels. Just know it is horrible and that
doesn’t even begin to cover it. I gave her no details, of course, although Dayana always
wanted us to tell her every detail about what happened in her life. I just told her a Very
Bad Man had paid another Bad Man to do something Really Bad and Mommy
couldn’t get away. I think we both spent a year crying.

That year was a horror novel. I forgot about the book I was writing. I only lived to pay
therapy for her and me; after a while, just for her. The ministry’s project was still on
hold, and I stopped caring about “future teachers and writers”. I lived off past books’
royalties and English and Literature classes I gave at a school. Which I hated; I lost all
faith in humanity teaching. It all seemed so pointless. If it weren’t for Sundri. I just
wanted to protect her, to stop crying at night, to let her miss her mother a little less.
Make her stop trying to hurt herself. That she stop hitting cats and dogs, no matter how
much they bit and scratched her.

But kids are like those punching dummies I remember from my own childhood. One
good punch, they fall down, and up they go again. One day, when she turned eight, she
finally slept all night without screaming. The scratches stopped showing up in her
arms. And one day she got in the car when I picked her up from school and instead of
saying “hi Daddy” she said “lo siento”. I didn’t ask why she was apologizing, and in
Spanish to boot. I just held her tighter and gave her a kiss. “Lo sé, mi cielo. Lo sé”, I
said. It was that easy.

3
------------------------------------------

Trying to hide the fact that my body temperature had dropped ten degrees, I asked my
daughter as casually as I could:

--Where did you hear that word, Piji?

--I heard it from some kids at school.

--What did they say?

--That they heard that the parents of a girl in first grade had her for “adoction”. And
that it was bad.

--Ok, Piji. It’s pronounced “adoption”. How do you say it?

--A-DOP-tion-- she repeated, emphasizing as I did.

--All right, why did they say it was a bad thing?

--But what does it mean?

--I’ll explain in a moment. Come here-- and I patted my lap twice.

She’s always loved that, to sit in my lap. But I already feel the time she'll with less and
less enthusiasm coming. Teenhood is right around the corner. I try not to curse the fact
that I’ll deal with them on my own, and I pray that therapy will continue to work, that
it won’t be “monster” years. But I don’t know. It’s not in my hands. Ka. God. Nothing.

Without thinking she settles on my leg, and I start feeling her weight. At eight years
old she reaches my navel. She’ll be tall. Beautiful. Thank God she has a strong
character and I’ll sign her up for karate.

--Aha-- I say--. Why was it bad. Let’s see.

--The boys said that somebody who’s adopted was somebody whose parents didn’t
love them.

I didn’t know any more if the knot in my throat was showing or not, but I did manage
to hide the distant call of protective fury. Why do brats nowadays need to be so cruel?

--Is that true?

4
--Ok-- I cleared my throat--. Let’s do first things first. Adoption is the process where
parents who can’t have children look for a child that doesn’t have parents, or whose
parents can’t take care of them, or...

I paused for a few seconds. Dayana and I had always been very honest about anything
that came her way at her very short age --where do babies come from, there are bad
people who do war-- but the rejection parents feel towards a baby was not something
that had been breached. Of course, we had wanted to wait before telling her. Goddamn
“Captain” changed all my plans. Let’s continue with the honesty. But carefully, I
thought I heard my wife whisper in my head.

--...or well... they might not want them because they’re just not ready to be parents.

--How could they not be ready?

--They could be very afraid, thinking they’re going to mess up, and maybe they don’t
know how to deal with it. They could be bad people that abandon their baby. Or who
knows, sweetheart, everyone has their own baggage.

She paused thinking about what I had said. God bless her, she was so... analytical.
That’s why she never settled for “other things” as an answer. Nope, she had to know
everything.

Everything...

I pushed a thought far away and violently, almost afraid she could read it. Because I
knew where that train stopped. I wished with all my might that she wasn’t all that
analytical to reach one conclusion. I didn’t want to have that talk, not now, God, pl---

--Daddy...

--Yes, Piji?

--Am I... am I adocted?

I tried to swallow, but the stone over my Adam’s apple didn’t let me. As best I could,
with a dry tongue, I corrected her: --It’s pronounced “a-DOP-ted”, sweetheart.

--Daddy...-- she said, looking at me with tear-filled eyes, no doubt a reflection of my

own--. Am I... Am I adopted, Daddy? Was Mommy my mom?

Neither of us could fake it. She started to cry, burying her face in my shoulder, huge
sobs that I feared would break her in half. It was certainly killing me. Not because my

5
daughter --because she is and will always be-- could think she was not loved. But
because I knew she missed her mother, ripped away from her life so cruelly. This new
information was just the bitter frosting on a negative emotions cake.

When I felt she had calmed down --and that I had, as well-- I sat her up and told her to
look at me, after she dried her eyes (and I did, too). I took a deep breath, open ed my
mouth, and let any higher power take over.

--Okay. Do you think Mommy and I don’t love you?

She just shook her head: no.

--But...

--Wait, you’ll tell me in a second. Do you remember any moment where you didn’t
feel we were your parents?

Again the little head: no.

--I’m your father. I’ll be it till the day I go up to the stars, and even after that, because
I’ll be here --I pointed at her heart--. Just like your mom... is still your mommy, taking
care of you from where she is. Get it?

She wrinkled her face, and I feared another sobbing fit, but she composed herself, took
a deep breath, and nodded.

--Now. I promise I’ll answer. But if you know that, why are you asking that, and why
are you crying so much?

Another wrinkled face, but she got the sobs under control, and I filled myself with
pride and love.

--It’s because after the boys said it I... I started thinking... and I remembered that
Mommy kept all her pictures in the old tablet, so I went to see them... There are
pictures of me when I was a baby, but none of the hospital... and none when I was
really, really little... And nobody has ever told me, ‘You look just like Mommy’ or
‘You’re just like Daddy’... But I look like you, right? I have dark skin, like you... And I
got really sad because... because I really want to be your daughter, but then I think that
if I’m not, there are bad people out there that didn’t want me... and then if I have that
bad thing inside me, I... I...

She couldn’t hold it in much longer, and she wasn’t the only one. I held her again and
said that no, that wasn’t like that, of course not. When she calmed down again --when

6
we calmed down again-- I looked her in the eyes again.

--Okay, now listen to this story-- I started, using every inch of my strength to not break
down and cry. I cursed everything that gave the “Captain” that kind of power, that
forced me to live this moment on my own, for making my wife miss it. And I kept
going.

--A long time ago, your mommy was in an accident that left her kinda broken up and
she couldn’t have any babies. But she and I really wanted to be parents. So we went to
this places where they take babies that need parents. We were there for two hours, until
we saw a baby that was tiny but really strong, because she had this huuuge voice that
MADE EVERYBODY SHAKE IN THEIR BOOOOTS...

I ogled my eyes and opened my arms wide saying that last part, and that eked out a
smile. The clouds were passing. I kept on.

--So your mom and I said, ‘It’s gotta be that one!’. And eight years later, that little girl
still has a HUGE VOICE that makes EVERYBODY SHAKE... and has this huge
heart. And an amazing brain.

She laughed again, but sadly. Because something was still on her head.

--But then... do you know who my real mom and dad are?

Pretending that didn’t hurt, though it did, a lot, I told her: --Of course. I’m your dad,
and Mommy is your mom.

--But...

--Look, Piji. There are two kinds of parents. There are the parents that bring you to the
world in their belly and all that. And there the parents that raise you, that are there, that
dry off tears, that feed, that make you laugh, that scold. Sometimes, they’re one and the
same, and that’s the ideal situation, but sometimes they’re separate. That doesn’t make
either one less “real”, Piji.

I hoped with a passion that how much the question angered me didn’t show. It didn’t,
apparently, because she stayed thinking. And she asked me:

--And do you know who my... my other parents were?

I took a deep breath. --In the end, your mom and me, good reporters that we are, still
wanted to know. Just out of curiosity. The place didn’t want to tell us, saying it was
confidential. A secret, that means. But your mom, who you know how hard it is to say

7
no to her, pushed. So the lady who talked with us started looking. Do you know what
we found?

She shook her head.

--Well, Piji...

I didn’t know if I wanted to tell her. I even briefly considered telling her the first lie in
her life. But what the hell. Like my uncle Julian used to say, “once you’re on the mule,
there’s nothing left to do but say giddy-up”. I wanted for Dayana to send me a signal
from the great beyond that I shouldn’t tell her. But none did. So I did. In a much softer
manner than what Dayana and I learned.

--Turns out that who brought you into this world is a girl from a very humble place
who nobody ever taught to take care of herself. She was studying at a school in Apure,
you remember where that is from your classes about Venezuela, right? And she fell in
love with the son of a German doctor that had gotten there. They were basically kids.
Turns out that when they went back to Germany, the doctor’s son had planted his seed
in this girl. And she got very scared because her father wasn’t a bad man, but he had a
very bad temper. Her mother was a very nice woman, and she convinced him to send
her to Barquisimeto to her grandma’s house. And when the time came to bring you
into the world, this girl knew she couldn’t take care of you, and she was all alone,
because there was no way to contact the doctor’s son. So she tried to do everything she
could to make sure you had a good house. And that’s where we came in.

She paused to think again. I was hoping she didn’t ask anything else about her
biological mother’s family, because the few things we knew about her weren’t bad, but
were worrisome. Of the “former government” kind.

--So they weren’t bad people-- she said at last.

--Nope.

--Just poor.

--That’s right.

--Did you meet her? Did you look her up on Facebook?

God, those smarts are going to kill me, I thought. --No, we didn’t.

--Can we?

8
Now it was my turn to stare back. There was no point in asking why: she just wanted
to see herself. The shrink had warned me about this day, telling me it was likely that
the absence of her mother would lead her to this when she knew the truth. When I
asked him how she could react when she saw her birth mother, having lost her real
mother in such a tragic way, he told me it was unpredictable, but if she was as mature
as I had described her, she would likely be all right.

Five clicks later, Sundri was looking at the face of a twenty-seven year old woman
with honey-colored eyes like her own, standing in front of a building, wearing what
seemed like a secretary’s uniform. My heart was ready to gallop out of my mouth as
my daughter saw her birth mother for the first time. What the hell was I thinking?
What had I done?

--She’s pretty-- she said, all innocence. I smiled, but I didn’t calm down just yet.

And she turned and looked at me. And smiled her angel smile, before which I have no
power.

--But Mommy was prettier.

With eyes under water, I smiled back. --Yes, honey. Yes she was. Sooooo much.

Her next reaction did take me by surprise: she kissed me and slid off my lap.

--That’s it?

--Yeah! I know that I come from somebody good, and that you and Mommy are my
real parents. I know she didn’t leave me because she didn’t love me, but because she
couldn’t take care of me. Now I know that adoc-- sorry-- adopted children don’t have
parents who didn’t want them, but can’t look after them. I know I won’t become a bad
person. Because you won’t let me, right, Daddy?

I felt I couldn’t cry anymore, but apparently I had one more tear left. --Never, Piji. But
thank God, you’ll always be a good little girl.

She smiled again. And went off to play.