No Kisses

Justuce doesn't like kisses, and she'll tell me straight out.

This is difficult for me, because I'm an affectionate person, and if a child is on my lap, it's as instinctive as breathing to touch their cheek, lean down and kiss the top of their head. I've been doing this to nieces and nephews since before time began and I couldn't stop if I tried. It's just what I do, and it's never been met with anything but a contented smile or sigh.

Until Justuce, of course, who counters each affectionate peck with her stern little girl reminder, "No kisses." This warning started early in our relationship as I was tucking her into bed. "Goodnight" was okay...maybe even a little touch on the forehead to brush the hair out of her eyes, but when I lean in, that's as far as it goes. "No kisses."

And I really don't blame her. Would you kiss your kidnappers?

As I've said before, Justuce has been in a well-loved foster home for the past three years. Her two moms and four sisters were everything to her. She built her world around them, until the State of Nevada and Clark County Department of Family Services made it all go away. Being seven, she doesn't understand this fully. To her, Adam and I drove to Burger King one sunny Tuesday morning, threw her clothes in the back of our car, and watched Bonnie and Beeba wave goodbye.

Intellectually, it was explained to her in advance we would be her "forever family." In her heart, however, I'm sure we're just the people who took her away from everything she held dear.

I've talked much to friends and family these past two months about Stockholm Syndrome, the perplexing affection that kidnap victims sometimes, if not commonly, grow to feel for their kidnappers. Justuce and Justin, although they're having fun some days and settling in for the most part, are probably still somewhere on this spectrum with us. It's right now affection required for survival and not a whole lot more. And honestly, that's okay. That's right where it should be.

But in my mind this morning, I'm already her hero.

I wake up in a hotel room in Waupaca, my hometown in Wisconsin. We've all come here this weekend for our annual family reunion, so Grandma Judy and Aunt Erin can finally meet the kids. It's been a wonderful trip. The kids are swimming in rivers and lakes, we saw a ski show, they chased a frog, and they were awed when they found eggs in Cousin Mike's hen house that came straight out of a chicken. They are having fun.

But the hotel room is dark at night and probably scary to a little girl who is far from home on too many levels.

We're in the queen-size and the kids are on the couch bed.

Four in the morning, Justin climbs in with us. Not unusual. He has bad dreams and comes to us when he's scared or restless. He goes right back to sleep.

I get up to pee and notice Justuce is sleeping on the floor.

In the bathroom, I notice her pajamas are under the sink. They're wet. I go back and feel the couch bed sheets. They're wet too.

She's wet the bed and in the middle of the night, got up, changed her pajamas (her drawer is still open), and laid down on the floor with her pillow and blanket.

I quietly roll up the wet sheets. I wipe off the mattress pad. I ball up her damp pajamas with the rest of the weekend's dirty laundry and tuck it into our Whole Foods bag. Later this morning I will run it across the street to the coin laundry and wash it with the rest of our things.

I will go to the front desk and get clean sheets.

I do this all in the dark. Quietly, so I don't wake her brother. I won't tell anyone she wet the bed. She's seven, and nobody needs to know. She'll be embarassed, and the therapist has mentioned it's important for children her age never to be shamed. And in this, I agree.

Quietly I clean up her nighttime mess and make it right again. This is our secret, and maybe, in some small way, I already imagine she'll love me for it.

In my mind, I'm already her hero.

I am the unseen champion who arrives invisible in the early morning hours to make her world perfect. There's nothing she can do that I won't fix. No mistake she can make I won't clean up. No accident she has that I won't erase. I am a knight in shining armor for you, little girl, this morning in our hotel room, today, and for the rest of your life.

I fold up the couch bed and I put the cushions back. I layer it in a downy blanket and I pick up my slumbering angel. I put her on the couch, swaddle her in blankets and I kiss her forehead.

In my mind, I'm already her hero. In my imagination she answers, quietly, "thank you, Dad."
Her sleepy voice comes back. I'm at arm's length still, even when I rescue her, and even in her dreams.

"No kisses."