Read Online Rescuing Julia Twice by Tina Traster - Free Book Online Page A

want to bring him home, we won’t.”
    A shock rips through my body.
    Barbara is considering leaving the baby behind. How could she? How cruel that seems. What would I do if I felt that way? I’m glad I don’t. Those back-arching movements have scared me but not enough for me to reconsider my decision. Maybe Barbara’s unstable. I don’t know what to think.
    We are ushered from the room and taken back to our apartment block. Barbara and Neal hurry up the steps and close their door.
    â€œWow, that’s got to be torture,” I say to Ricky.
    â€œYeah, she seems a bit kooky.”
    â€œYou know what I think?” I say, not waiting for him to answer. “I think that Barbara is very happy with her family of three, and somewhere along the way she convinced herself she needs a brother for her daughter, and here she is, ten thousand miles away from her daughter, and she’s miserable and wants to go home and has no interest in this child.”
    â€œCould be,” Ricky says. “I just think she’s a bit wacky.”

    A couple of hours later, Vladimir returns to take us into the business district for lunch and free time. Only Neal comes downstairs.
    â€œWhere’s Barbara?” I ask.
    â€œShe’s lying down,” he says. “She’s not feeling too well.” I’m not sure what to say. I don’t know what I can say that would be at all helpful.
    Happily, he’s willing to talk. “She’s concerned about the baby,” he says. “She’s afraid he’s not going to be able to bond with her.”
    â€œCan she really know that from meeting him just one time?” I ask.
    â€œWell, with our daughter, she fell in love instantly,” he says. “She just felt like her mother immediately, but this time it feels different.”
    â€œMaybe it’s because he’s a boy?” I say, thinking but not saying I have not fallen in love with Julia either as of yet. She is beautiful and I’m not having second thoughts about taking her home, but my heart has not given way to some convulsive feeling of passion.
    â€œMaybe,” Neal says, pausing.
    â€œBarbara’s done a lot of reading about Reactive Attachment Disorder,” he continues.
    â€œWhat’s that?” Ricky says.
    â€œIt’s a syndrome that is not that uncommon among kids who’ve spent their early months or years institutionalized in orphanages. By the time they are adopted, they often have trouble bonding or attaching.”
    â€œOh, I’m sure that’s the exception and not the rule,” I say. “It seems your first Russian adoption has been successful.”
    â€œYeah, Barbara bonded with our daughter Amelia right away.”
    â€œI think everything will turn out fine with Brandon,” I say.
    â€œYes. I’m sure that most times things turn out fine. But there are many documented cases of Reactive Attachment Disorder, especially from Romanian orphanages, and from Russian ones, too. Sometimes it’s okay. But sometimes these kids are not all right. They can be very difficult to live with. They have a lot of emotional problems, and it can be really disruptive for the whole family.”
    I look at Ricky. He is listening intently. I think back to the day in the bookstore when, perhaps, I should have picked up a book or two on foreign adoption.
    Neal sees he’s unnerved me.
    â€œWell, don’t worry. Your baby seems very animated. I’m sure it will all work out as it’s supposed to.” I accept his answer, believing Brandon and Julia are so fundamentally different that I don’t need to worry about the scary words he’s just uttered.

Six
    We are dropped off at a cafeteria-style café. We line up and put our food on trays. We invite Neal to sit with us, and he does. He discusses his work. I chat about my writing career, telling him I worked at New Jersey newspapers for ten years. Barbara is a