My Borrowed Son

Tempest and Taxonomy

Chapter Seven | Tempest and Taxonomy

Time had truly flown. It was hard to believe, but a month had gone by and Amanda could hardly fathom she had been taking care of the little boy for all of this time. While he still hadn't uttered a word during the entire month, it was getting easier to decipher his requests through his body language and simple signs.

Hands up meant he wanted to be held.

Pinched fingers pressed to his mouth meant hungry.

Open hand to his mouth meant thirsty.

Rubbing eyes meant tired.

Wanting to play was spinning either clockwise or counterclockwise.

Bathroom was relatively obvious, but still something Amanda learned to read from the boy.

Every day, Amanda learned to read the boy a little more. The smallest facial expressions were signals he understood or was processing the world around him. Amanda could tell he understood quite a bit, especially when she brought him back to the park bench where she found him.

The little boy would fall very silent, and his shoulders would slouch. He would look around the base of the pole and, after a minute, would try and rejoin Amanda. When she stepped farther away, he would hunker down by the base and patiently wait for her to return.

That was something else Amanda had worked on with him – separation.

Amanda didn't want the little boy to become completely dependent on seeing her every second to feel secure and would step away a little for longer periods of time before returning. The most she was gone was for two minutes, but it seemed to be conditioning the boy to expect her to come back. He was still clingy and would ask in his own way to be picked up and held for comfort, and each time Amanda would make sure he understood she would always come back for him.

After three consecutive weeks of her returning him to the park bench, Amanda solemnly concluded that the parents of the little boy were not coming back.

What else could she assume?

A month had passed with no signs that anything or anyone had been back to that place under the bench.

The timing worked out well too.

Amanda's friend, Mel, had managed to secure the paperwork for the delayed birth certificate. One of Mel's midwife friends who was sworn to absolute secrecy agreed to help her out for a fee. Times were hard and filing a little paperwork that had "slipped her mind" didn't seem to weigh on her conscious. She managed to be convincing enough that she thought the paperwork had been filed by her trainee at the time and that she had forgotten to check up on them.

In all reality, Mel's friend didn't go into specifics of how she was able to get the proper documents to register the child's birth, just as Mel's friend didn't know the specifics about the boy and his size. What all parties understood, however, was that discretion and secrecy were paramount. Everything was meant to be kept under wraps about the boy. Amanda managed to get the necessary paperwork in the end and, all of a sudden, she was a single mother of one with no declared father. Her ex-husband would never have to know since he wasn't named on the certificate.

There was one last thing that needed to happen before everything was official, however, and that was the name of the child.

Despite every attempt Amanda made, she couldn't get the boy's name out of him. His unintentional vigil of silence was hindering the process, and it was getting close to when Mel's friend needed to finalize the paperwork.

"Mandy, do you think he even has a name?" asked Mel as she carefully handed the child a piece of cracker which he took timidly. His brow furrowed as he looked at the cracker piece, which Amanda learned that the boy did when he was confused or concentrating on something he couldn't remember.