Now That You’re Here, Why Not Stay?

*

Our home life was tense. Ben was paralyzed with guilt, haunted by the chaos Kevin must’ve endured with his mother as she moved him every year to a new town with a new boyfriend. Despite his efforts, the judge didn’t award custody to Ben. As Kevin’s stepmother, I was determined to swoop in and offer him a loving haven, but he was wary.

One day, Kevin and his friends took Paloma out. He tied her outside a bodega and went skateboarding, forgetting her. She found her way home on her own. Kevin was a confused teenager who was all angles and angst, banished from his California home abruptly, sent to live with a father he barely knew in gritty Brooklyn, and forced to repeat the seventh grade. The school suspended him often. We longed to make him feel part of our family. On his first Thanksgiving, he ran away angry over something minor, and we couldn’t find him for three days. We were terrified, thinking he was lost forever.

Nine-year-old Kevin was a bright, exuberant boy on his first Brooklyn visit. But he’d changed by the time he came to live with us. I searched for a way to help him feel safe and loved, but I was a first-time step-mom to a teenager without ever being a mom to a baby.

*

One afternoon, when Paloma and I were out for walkies, a tempting pigeon strolled down the center of our street. She lunged for the bird as a car reached us. Paloma must have seen the vehicle and dove underneath the bumper. The driver stopped and got out. He was pasty-faced, wringing his hands, a dog-lover. I fell to my knees screaming, afraid of what I’d see. She was awake, breathing heavily, laying on her side with her legs splayed, pressed against the pavement by the car’s undercarriage. She moaned in despair.

I became her, an animal trapped. Her pain and fear were mine. I wept. My mind raced. My heart ached. I felt I would break in two. Her front legs were between the car’s tires, so the vehicle couldn’t move without crushing her paws. Paloma’s brown eyes flashed in panic. She pleaded with me to be her savior.

Afraid of hurting her, I lay on my stomach on the street, grasped one paw in each hand, and pulled her toward me. Inch by inch, the gap between us shortened. I slowly eased her out until she was no longer under the car. She panted, her tongue limp against her teeth. I touched her head, her chest, her paws. She wagged her tail listlessly. When I felt her side, she cried. Kevin appeared on the street as I was carefully picking her up. He called to me and held his arms out to take her. We drove straight to the vet.

She had no broken bones, but the car’s muffler had burned her side. The doctor injected an anesthetic to numb the area so she could shave off the fur. Paloma lay on the table patiently waiting for the doctor to finish, licking Kevin’s hand and the tears on my face. We brought her home with a cone around her neck.

Kevin sat on the floor nursing Paloma. He petted her, fed her bits of food, and cooed to her for hours until she fell asleep. He was still the cynical, pissed-off kid we’d been living with for months, but as he comforted Paloma, I detected a tenderness he’d hidden from us and we’d been too blind to see.

I tousled Kevin’s hair. He didn’t pull away.