Page 32 of AMS.TER.strum

‘Mom was here, and her first reply was, “It’s the way you and many other people were born, kid”. Which didn’t help matters much.’

‘Not far from the truth…’ When I get the same look she probably gave Iris, I go for, ‘I bet it didn’t.’

‘So I told them it’s like a knock-knock joke, and they know I hate those, I never got why people find them so funny.’

‘O…kay.’

‘The matter was put to sleep and forgotten, or so I thought. Until a few days later, I was asked to drop by their school.’

‘Oh-oh…’ Now my curiosity is piqued.

‘At first, I thought it had to do with some fight. There’s a little shit in their class who’s a bully tolerated by the teacher, but that’s a different story…’

I bristle at the idea, all papa-bear mode, which obviously I am not, so I opt for clearing my throat. ‘I can help bury the body.’

Now Corrie leans her head against my shoulder as we walk back to the kitchen. My spontaneous thought, after the electric surge that puts every cell in my body in alert mode, is to wrap her in a side embrace, but I hold myself back, afraid of my body’s response, and let her continue.

‘I might take you up on that… so, the teacher told me about my son singing that knock-knock melody, which the bully kid asked his mom about, which then led to a whole discussion amongst some parents about proper behavior at school.’

‘Seriously?’

She nods, lips pursed. ‘Yeppp… they took it a bit too far, but the bottom line is that I need to be very careful about what I say in their presence. And that goes for both English and Dutch.’

‘Luuk!’ Ada jumps in front of me. ‘What is this?’

She holds out one of the snow globes I got for them from a souvenir shop in Banff. Soon, we’re immersed in stories that continue as we’re ready to move from the living room and sit at the table.

‘This is your chair,’ Otto says, and I notice the strips of paper on the backs of the remaining three chairs, each with one of our names on.

I frown. ‘No name tag on mine?’

Ada looks at her brother, who dashes to their room. ‘Otto only finished it when you arrived and didn’t have time to stick it on your chair.’

I feel my throat stuffed with cotton and my nose tickle, because being included in the life of these two small humans is a bigger deal than they’ll ever fathom. I thank the little boy who proudly presents me with my name strip, a piece of tape in his finger, so that I can stick it on the chair. It’s a warmth that I can only be enclosed in one word: home.

This tangle of voices, as the kids shower me with questions, at the same time impatient to tell me about their life and friends—correction, friend, Kalvin—and the incident at school that Corrie mentioned in passing but makes my blood boil when I hear the details, my mind creating interesting scenarios involving the little jerk’s demise.

‘Luuk…’

Ada waits for me to turn her way, and in her tone that asks for permission, I realise the different intonations each of them uses when calling my name—Otto, as if he’s about to grab my hand and get up for us to run; Ada lets it linger, as if preparing me for the question to come. As for Corrie, that soft voice, light as a feather landing, yet shaking my whole world. And I want to hear them call my name over and over again. I want to be theirs. Not just their friend Luuk but their Luuk.

‘You don’t have a papa, right?’ Ada asks now.

‘Ada, that’s not nice.’ Corrie sounds shocked.

‘But he told us that his papa died, mama,’ Ada says. ‘So he has no Papa, like us.’

‘It’s okay, Corrie. Really.’

And it is okay, still, my throat constricts at the pragmatic tone that kids use to seek information. I’m caught by surprise, because it’s been three years since Dad’s passing. Still, his smiling face during his lucid moments was my home in the US, and now it’s gone forever.

‘That’s right, I don’t.’

‘So you can also be our friend,’ Ada says.

‘Not having a papa sucks,’ Otto says, and it breaks my heart.

It’s different, of course, his lack of dad to mine, because they never met Johan. No matter how much of a jerk he was, it does suck, and my heart aches for the little boy, who doesn’t even have a face to remember, other than the photographs. Unlike me who had to watch my dad fade away, both our hearts breaking little by little.