Searching Lucas

28 days—a sad smile on my face.

First, we had a continental breakfast at a Latino-owned restaurant next to the apartments, where the servers poured our coffee into porcelain cups. In the glass display case at the end of the room were all kinds of bread: with cinnamon, oatmeal, without raisins, rye, and sourdough.

Monica made her attempt to bond with Lucas by asking trivial questions and feigning interest in his car-related hobbies. She might have failed to name the luxurious cars from beyond the window pane—out of the 27 cars she guessed 6—but at least Lucas seemed glad to be here with us.

Monica then took us on a fifteen-minute walk across the sidewalk to the pier, where a Ferris wheel stood high and mighty on plank boards, kiosks, vendors, cotton candy, balloons, and people galore. We spent the hour underneath the noon sun watching the rows of fishing lines, the yachts in the far distance amid the ocean, and the stray dogs that walked on the shore, reminding me of The Greasy Spoon dog pack.

Then I remembered to make haste to a nearby payphone and call Sylvia. She sounded like crap, hoarse, as though she had just woken up. Thankfully she didn't ask too many questions, and in sixty seconds, she hung up.

Afterward, we headed to the mall. Monica even gave money to Lucas for him to spend. I declined, reasonably so. But Monica insisted that I should get something nice. To settle her down, I grabbed a baseball cap from the gift shop: DisneyWorld, with the Mickey Mouse outline at the end. Lucas bought a jacket with an engraved on the heart space, the letter "L" in red. The white and red sleeves were too big for his body. Monica said it'll adjust once Lucas grows a little bit.

We ended up on the food court, where we settled for a medium-sized veggie pizza with a bottle of Coca-Cola. We ate our slices and washed them down in ditsy cups. On one instance, when Lucas excused himself to use the restroom, Monica's tone shifted suddenly: this bubbly, confident woman who had redeemed herself as a worthy caregiver better than Michael's family or Sylvia could ever do, was about to change my mind.

"I'm sorry, Jess," She said. "You're probably thinking the same as him, but I must be honest with you. I don't think I can take care of him."

Monica's vocal cords had that structure and diplomatic stance. Her strong traits made her a top property seller in the Bay of Tampa. These same skills that helped her also gave her a disadvantage: the inability to connect with young minds. In Lucas's eyes, she was abrasive, strong-headed, and difficult to bond with. For grown-ups, Monica was an example of how to persuade clients with charisma and rationale. Monica never struck me as inattentive or irresponsible. Her confession surprised me—I couldn't hide my reaction. Monica had already seen it. Even she admitted she didn't qualify to care for someone else. Lucas shared the same DNA as hers, but even she knew he deserved better than a lifetime of solitude in the confines of an enriching apartment with non-safe activities and barely teens his age.

"I don't know what to say," My mind was drawing a blank. The entirety of this trip, the ordeal of sneaking Lucas out of North Carolina to bring him here—it all seemed like I did all this for Monica to tell me that she didn't think she'd be capable of caring for Lucas. And I couldn't beg her. I could have saved my dignity by nodding and saying it was fine. I'll then bring him back home—wherever that was in Lucas's world, certainly not with Sylvia. "Are you sure you won't consider?" Terrance might have said to me once that I was too stubborn with myself. And I think he was right.

"Before I called you, I had my doubts. And when you told me about your tumor and Terrance. I thought I would change my mind if I said yes to taking Terrance's kid into my home. I want to do it, Jess. Really, I do."

It wasn't her fault. Monica had her weakness, her uncertainty. She thought of herself as capable—or at least, she wanted to believe so. Monica had the intention of helping. In the end, we were fooling ourselves into thinking that we could succeed in doing so, in finding a new place for Lucas.

"It's OK. You don't have to agree. I understand."

"Thank you," She slumped her shoulders with a sad smile, the one I see in myself, knowing the days I had left. "I'm sorry, Jess."

When Lucas showed up, neither of us spoke another word.