NIKKI & JOE, CASUALLY |

52: humiliation as familial love

            Shayna is already waving at us from the doorway as Caleb and I approach the house with our arms linked.

All the parking spots on the curb were taken up and we had to leave the car two streets back which makes us a little more than fashionably late. It didn't take me more than a few months of living with Shayna and Desmond to understand that when they say seven they mean eight, and when they say five they also mean eight.

Caleb releases my arm to stay a few metres back while I step inside to hug Shayna. She rocks side to side in the embrace.

Her arms feel the same around me now when she has to stretch to reach me as they did in the entrance of the police station. A decade later, Shayna still smells the same: chilli that tickles the nose and earthy patchouli, tied together with a sweet thread of sativa.

It's nearly a minute later when we pull apart. I hand her the ice cream container of buñuelos, still pleasantly warm from the oven.

She laughs at it. 'Nicolás, we're the ones feeding you.'

It's a futile argument which Shayna knows too. She steps past me with a jangle of wooden beads knitted into her shawl and a wave of the locs that reach past her thigh, arms spread to welcome a new hug.

'Caleb, I've missed you. You really should let us adopt you so you'd be obligated to visit more.'

'Hey! I've already got two mums,' he snaps only to grin. 'Who says I can't have three.'

Shayna and Desmond's parties probably break fire hazard regulations with the number of people that pack into their house. Invitations are sent to everyone they've ever fostered and since they've been doing this for over thirty years, many of those old foster kids come with partners or children of their own.

But as Desmond says, "laughter begets elbowroom". And laughter there is!

People who don't fit around the table are more than happy to take seats on the stairs or lean against the bookshelf. I sit on the armrest of the recliner Caleb is prioritised for on account of being disabled. With so many people, I barely get the chance to talk to Shayna and Desmond but being in this house is enough to revitalise me. I absorb love from the walls themselves.

Though I used to cook with Papá, Shayna was the one who taught me to feel at home in a kitchen. Shayna and Desmond are Rasta so being vegetarian were never an issue here. They showed me how easy it really is, they taught me to love the ingredients Earth gives us.

Desmond loced my hair when I was twelve, showed me how to take care of it so it would grow nourished. He taught me how to nourish plants too. Anything grows with love, he would always conclude.

Shayna and Desmond never felt to me like parents. They never tried to be parents—since they exclusively foster kids above eleven, they're aware most of us remember our biological parents, not to mention that Shayna and Desmond have always worked hard toward reunification. But this house was always full of love.

            It's two am when the only people around are those of us who insist on helping with clean up. Caleb sits on the kitchen counter and dries the dishes I hand him as I wash them. There are others picking rubbish around the house and returning chairs to their correct places, music still playing somewhere, interrupted by laughter, but the kitchen is peaceful.

Desmond has locs even longer than Shayna's: even folded in half in his ponytail, they reach his lower back. His scraggly beard is equally impressive. It twitches each time he smiles. Which it does as he wraps aluminium foil over the leftover tray of roasted vegetables. 'So, Nicolás, when are you bringing a date to meet us?'