Quincy Trochue

“Mom, somebody at school asked about my dad today, and I might have made something up,” he confessed from the back seat. 

I glanced back at him in his car seat as we pulled out out of the daycare parking lot. “Oh, yeah? What did you say?” 

“I told them that me and my mom and dad went on a trip to see a volcano, and when we got closer to look at the lava, a Guinea pig pushed my dad into the lava, and he died.

“I think they knew I was lying.”

I may not have given him his blue eyes, ADHD, or high IQ, but I like to think the off-kilter sense of humor and corny dad jokes are me. When nosy parents at the playground glance down at my bare left hand and ask, “Is his father around?” I lean in and say, in a conspiratorial tone, “I’m not super sure who his father is.” 

When I became a mom, I was a 29-year-old single in the South, and I had already passed that indefinable tipping point where “You’re young, take your time!” becomes “Maybe you’re too picky.” It wasn’t romance that brought the boy into my life. It was a phone call.

Once I was officially licensed as a foster parent, I jumped every time my phone buzzed. Not only where telemarketing calls annoying—they were disappointing. 

Then it happened. It was a Friday evening in October. I paced in circles around the couch as I spoke to the case worker. I tired to make a mental checklist without checking out of the conversation.

“How old is he?” 

Call the daycare. Call the school. Call Mom.

“Why was he removed?”

Cancel tonight’s plans. Buy a car seat.

“What’s the case plan?”

Stir the soup. Wait—adoption? Adoption is permanent. Am I ready for permanent? 

“Yes,” I heard myself say. “I would consider adopting if that’s how his case plan continues.” 

When he walked through my door a few hours later, he was walking into his third foster home in two months, and starting over was normal to him. I was a single woman with a closet full of high heels, and nothing about parenting a 5-year-old boy was normal to me. 

He wore a Lightning McQueen racecar t-shirt, a hint at the speed at which he lived life. His hair was a little too long, his pants a little too short. He was small for his age, but articulate. His icy-blue eyes scanned the living room and spotted the basket of toys by the fireplace. Without a word, he dropped to the floor and started playing. I asked him if he had eaten dinner. He said no. He ate while I sifted through his duffle bag looking for pajamas. 

A little stranger had moved into my home and become the center of my universe. A stranger who called me “mom.”

The wave of unbridled emotion and affection that I’ve heard comes with the last push of birth—the kind of love that grows in you as you come to know the person growing inside you—isn’t what I felt our first night together. Instead, I felt the kind of love that steels you for battle. The kind that says, “I do not know you yet, but I will fight for you. I would die for you.” 

It’s how I imagine a dad might feel when he’s handed his newborn.

At work, the new dads managed to turn even the birth of their children into a competition, and I played along. 

“We stayed at the hospital two nights,” said one.

“Oh, well we only stayed one night,” bragged another.

“Yeah, we were in and out in 24 hours.” 

“They dropped mine off and said, ‘good luck,’” I added with a shrug. 

But at home, I was living under the new-parent fog. This time he was the one lapping the sofa in mad circles of nervous energy. 197…198…199…I quit counting at 200 laps. The kid was fast. I traded in my stilettos for more sensible flats after needing to tear off my shoes and run after him in public too many times.

We learned to channel his speed together, though as a sports parent, I had my deficiencies. I stood on the sidelines at his first flag football game screaming as he ran for a touchdown. He came bounding over to me yelling, “Mom, Mom! I ran all the way to the other side of the field for a home run, and they had to king me!” 

I spent a lot of time on Google trying to keep up with the sports. Of course, as the single mom of a boy, sometimes I had other questions—the kinds of questions you can’t search online. On more than one occasion I found myself hiding in a closet at work—the only privacy to be found in an open office plan—trying to have an awkward phone conversation with the pediatrician about anatomy I don’t possess. 

I gradually learned how to be a two-in-one parent. I fell into a routine where court dates outnumbered regular dates, and I learned to engage in lengthy conversations about velociraptors and ninjas. And as I assumed the role of wrestling partner and tree-climbing coach and dad-joke teller, I independently wrestled with the idea that adoption would mean that he would likely grow up without a male role model at home. He noticed the absence, too.

“I don’t have a dad,” Milo remarked to me once over dinner.

“Well, you don’t have a dad here, but everybody has a biological father. It takes a mom and a dad to make everybody. You just don’t know your dad.”

“Oh. But why does it take both?” he pressed.

I took a deep breath. “Boys and girls are different, and you need both parts of the different to make a baby.”

“How are boys and girls different?”

I gave him the very basics of anatomy.

“Oh, so it’s like innie and outie belly buttons.”

“Sure, buddy, it’s kind of like that,” I responded.

As the months passed, we moved from acquaintance to fond comradery to familial bond. Skepticism became trust. Cautious reservation became genuine affection. Duty became love. 

We made that love official with his adoption almost two years after his first night with me. A judge’s decree doesn’t make everything easier to navigate. It just means we’re committed to navigating them together.

A week later, while browsing the racks in the kids’ section, he came to me and said, “I’ve found something that I can’t have.” He took me by the hand and lead me to a shirt emblazoned with the phrase “My Dad is Rad.” 

“Yeah, bud. That wouldn’t make so much sense, would it?” I asked. He shook his head.

As I put him to bed later that night, he said, “I really wish I had a dad.” 

I hooked my arms over the rail of his top bunk, and he scooted closer to me, resting forehead against mine. “Can you tell me more about that?” I asked.

“You protect me and take care of me,” he said, cupping my face in his hands. “But who’s going to protect you and take care of you?”

“I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job taking care of both of us,” I responded with a smile. 

“Well, I want a dad, but you are all I need. You’re the love of my life,” he added.

“I love you, too, kiddo.”

We sat there for a moment holding onto each other before he said with a yawn, “Mom, I’m tired.”

I smiled and replied, “Hi, Tired. I’m Mom