The Accidental Siren

1.4 Once Upon a Time

For years, my parents feared I'd never come. After twelve months of failed attempts, Mom was finally diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, a disease that made it difficult to ovulate and, twenty-three years later, is harboring the cancer that's draining her life. When she lost all hope of giving birth, she quit her job as a realtor and enrolled in a class for foster parents.

Six months later, Olivia came into their lives. They fostered her from the day she was released from the hospital and adopted her the day the courts allowed. Seventeen days after signing the papers, Mom discovered she was pregnant with me.

Her love of children (and a knack for stirring spaghetti while burping a baby) yielded a crop of little brothers and sisters for Livy and me; “temporary gifts,” Mom would call them, and when they lived with us, they were family. Bobby and Jake were temporary gifts too, the “on-again-off-again” type whose mother wobbled the line between “stable” and “unfit.” The twins were weasely little rug-rats with no vital affect on my story, but provide a colorful backdrop none-the-less.

The parlor had green carpet and a tin ceiling and served as the central hub for every room on the main level. The kitchen could be accessed from two open archways separated by a piano that never got played. Livy's bedroom was on the left. Dad helped her nail a chalkboard to her door so she could “express her individuality”; today it read “KIMMY IS THE COOLEST!!!” and, hidden in the bottom corner, “livy loves ryan!” I could hear her boom-box through the wall, the soft baseline gave the castle a steady pulse. Studying... my butt!

My room was next in line. A glow-in-the-dark galaxy of stars clung to the door with poster putty. I cracked it--just an inch--and peeked inside. Bobby was in his undies, hugging his knees and sucking his thumb as if my beanbag was a womb.

“Whadja do?” I asked.

“J-Jake stole my orange c-c-c-crayon and I dinin't even do noffin!”

I grinned and sealed the little jailbird back in my room. I slunk past the library hallway to my parent's room and pressed gently on the door. Jake was in the fetal position too, wrapped in my father's robe and sucking his thumb. “Hey, Jake the Snake,” I whispered, “whadja do?”

He sniffled. “I stole Bobby's crayon and he punched me in da nose!”

I snickered and quietly closed the door.

Next were the two stairwells. An antique iron gate blocked the downward steps on the right. They led to the foyer, garage, playroom and the unfinished guest room. I barreled up the other set with leaps and bounds, zoomed passed the thin windows where I sometimes pretended to be a medieval archer, then emerged into a vast and glorious ballroom with twenty-foot ceilings and awful floral-print carpet. I tugged the lapel of my invisible velvet robe, straightened my jewel-studded crown, bowed to my minions, then strode with lumbering poise to the base of the spiral staircase. “Dad!” I called. “Dinner in ten!”

Silence. Then, the click of a pen... the thump of a hardcover book... the shallow cry of a wooden chair... five intentional steps above my head and my father appeared at the balcony rail. He wore square glasses--always--and held himself with a scholarly demeanor. Despite his ruffled hair and loosened tie, David Parker was as mild and structured as his blueprints. “I'll be right down,” he said.

Believe me when I tell you that--like most boys--I lost all reverence for my father by the time I could drive a stick-shift. But now that I'm older, I find myself reverting to that childhood sense of bridled awe: my dad can do anything. He's in his sixties now and still a master architect. He's a carpenter, an artist and a connoisseur of wine, beer, books and film. He's an avid fishermen, a poet, and an amateur photographer. On his forty-ninth birthday, he went bungie-jumping from a helicopter... probably thought about work the whole way down.