How He Became Our Son, Part I

We had been married for nine months when we got the call.

We were going to have a kid--a three and a half year-old kid!

Wha?!

Parental responsibilities were to begin in forty-eight hours!

Holy shit on a cracker! In forty-eight hours?! What do I need? What do they eat? Where will he sleep? What does he do when we go to work? What about when we're at happy hour?

There had been those three days a month after our honeymoon when I thought I might be pregnant, but it was a false alarm. Even then, I would have had nine months to prepare for the arrival. But this? We weren't getting much notice.

Then I found out why.

Life with my sister has never been what you'd describe as predictable--life with a drug addict rarely is. I'd lived through screaming matches, visiting hours at rehab, sketchy friends, suicide attempts, rehab, dropping out of school, "your sister has run away," "well, I'm going to live with Dad," parents kicking her out, rehab, wrecked cars, the MS diagnosis, arrests for posession, rehab and then finally "I'm pregnant, can't work, not married, but I'm keeping the baby anyway."

Seriously, mom's Christmas cards were always the first ones opened I'm sure.

I was fully prepared to step in if the MS ever got too bad for her to care for my nephew. This had been made clear to the husband when he was still just the boyfriend. Luckily her disease had progressed slowly and my nephew's birth didn't cause her any loss of mobility (as we were warned it might). The possibility of taking on his care seemed a long way off.

But of course there I was on the phone getting the "your sister's in jail and you need to come get him now" call.

I know, hindsight is 20/20. I should have seen it coming, right? As stupid as it sounds though, I just didn't.