“I know,” said Eleni. “The whole female package.”
They were coming out of the city, going up Alaska Avenue near the District line. Soon they would cross into Maryland and arrive at the close-in neighborhood where the Lucas family made their home. Van and Eleni were in their early thirties. They had four children, ages seven, six, two, and one. All but the oldest had been adopted. It seemed to have happened very fast.
Van Lucas was a big man of Greek descent with the kind of open, honest facial expressions that could be read with ease. The Reagan generation baffled him, and he did not feel he was a part of it. His black curly hair was unfashionably long at a time when the hard-chargers kept theirs short and spiked. He wore a heavy black beard when most went clean shaven and some reached for androgynous. He had the beginnings of a gut inching over the belt line of his Levi’s. His appearance suggested casual good nature and a lack of vanity. He was as advertised.
Eleni reached across the buckets and squeezed Van’s right hand, which rested on the console between them.
“You are good,” she said.
“Ah,” said Van, “knock it off, Eleni.”
He felt electricity when she touched him like that. They’d been together many years and it had never subsided. For a moment he thought he might get lucky that night. But it was false optimism. There was little spontaneous lovemaking between them these days, what with all the commotion around their house. What with all those kids.
When he was single, he had never looked forward to a family. He had no daydreams of watching his children play sports, reading to them at night, helping them with their homework, or kissing the tops of their heads before they left the house. Van Lucas didn’t have a great need for fatherhood, and he didn’t think he would be particularly good at it. But when it happened, he took to it. It was chaotic at times, but it was manageable. He liked being a father, and he loved his kids. Later, he would look back on that time of his life and think: It was easy when they were young.
Within a year of their wedding, Eleni gave birth to a girl they named Irene. “It means ‘peace,’ ” said Van, selling the name to Eleni. The baby was born after a very difficult pregnancy during which Eleni was required to lie in bed for most of her third trimester. Even with this precaution, Irene arrived prematurely and her survival was in doubt for the first week of her life. But she did fine and progressed without complications. Eleni’s doctor suggested that a subsequent pregnancy would be just as problematic, if not worse, and that Irene should be looked upon as a single blessing and not the first of many blessings to come. Or something like that. Eleni got the convoluted message: Do not tempt fate and try to have another child.
Van was fine with having only one child, but Eleni was not. When Irene got to walking a year later, Eleni decided that a child was not “whole” without a companion. Van said, “We could get a dog,” and Eleni said, “I was thinking along the lines of something on two legs,” to which Van replied, “A monkey, then.” She didn’t smile, so he knew she was serious. He also knew where this was going. Eleni wanted to adopt.
On the subject of adoption, Van suspected he was in the camp of many other men who were not quite sure. Will I truly love a child who did not come from me? Would I be as good a father to an adopted child? Do I want a kid who doesn’t at least look a little like me? He kept these questions to himself for the most part. But they were there.
The one objection a man could legitimately raise was the cost, but Van couldn’t belch about money with a straight face or a clear conscience. He had the dough. A high school friend, Ted Leibovitz, an ambitious renovation man turned builder, had invited Van into his venture when both were right out of college, and they had bought properties in the U Street corridor at fire-sale prices while the Metro was being built, the street was torn up, building windows were boarded, and businesses were failing. The sale of these properties at profit a few years later had funded bigger projects, commercial and residential, in soon-to-be-hot Shaw, Logan, and Columbia Heights. Ted had an eye for seeing the possibilities in run-down areas, while Van’s talent was in sensing when to sell at the top. Van, despite no visible signs of type A drive, was making a small fortune as a relatively young man. He was liquid and he had real estate. He couldn’t cry poor to Eleni.
“What are you going to do with all of our money?” she said. “Buy things? You’re not about that.”
She was right. He was not a clotheshorse or into labels. His work truck, a two-toned Chevy Silverado, was his only vehicle.
Eleni was similarly uninterested in material things. She had inherited a deep reserve of compassion from her parents, who had preached and practiced Christian charity throughout her childhood. Hell, Van had met her at one of those Christmas Day dinner-soup kitchen things, to which he had been dragged by a community activist he had been courting for zoning favors. The moment he saw Eleni, her hair under a scarf, an apron not even close to concealing her figure, he fell in love with her. Looks aside, it was the fact that she was there in that church basement on a cold Christmas morning, trying to reach out to people who had next to nothing, when she could have been sitting comfortably by a fire, sipping tea and opening gifts. Her obvious kindness was what closed the deal for him.
“You could do some good,” she said. “Think about the difference you’d make in some kid’s life.”
“While he’s stealing my silverware.”
“Van, come on.”
He threw up his meaty hands in a gesture she recognized as near-surrender. “I don’t know.”
They were seated at the kitchen table of their bungalow. Irene was in her high chair, aiming Cheerios in the general direction of her mouth. Eleni reached across the table and took one of his hands. He felt the current pass through him.
“You know what your name means?” said Eleni.
“Evangelos? It means ‘big stud.’ ”
“No, but nice try.”
“So tell me.”
“It means ‘evangelist.’ Someone who spreads the gospel. Or, if you want to take it a little further, someone who does good.”
“So you’re sayin what? ”
“Somewhere in your past your ancestors probably adopted kids, too, I bet.”
“When men were men and sheep were nervous.”
“Huh?”
“You’re talking about ancient times. When guys wore metal skirts. The meaning of my name is supposed to make me go out and adopt a kid?”
“Honey, let’s do this,” said Eleni. “We have the money and the opportunity. To, you know, have a reason for being here. Don’t you ever think about why we’re here?”
“Not really,” said Van. “I’m not that deep.”
She came around the table and sat on his lap and kissed him on the lips. His sudden erection was like a crowbar underneath her bottom.
“You’re right,” she said. “You’re not that deep.”
“I’m not doing any of the legwork,” he said. “I got a business to run.”
“I’ll take care of the details.”
“I want a son,” he said, rather petulantly.
Eleni said, “Me, too.”
Through the recommendation of friends in their neighborhood, Eleni made an appointment with an attorney, Bill O’Toole, who specialized in adoptions. Van and Eleni met O’Toole and his assistant, a junior attorney named Donna Monroe, at O’Toole’s downscale office in Silver Spring. O’Toole seemed both distracted and intent on securing them as clients, while Monroe appeared to be more interested in exploring their motivations and needs. Eleni sensed that the lively eyed Monroe was the conscience of the outfit.
After O’Toole had explained the financial aspects of the adoption, in which he pushed for a flat fee rather than itemized billing, they got into the logistics of paperwork, home visits, and matters of timing.
“I’ve heard this process can take years,” said Eleni.
“If you want a baby that looks like you,” said Monroe.
“You mean a white baby,” said Van.
