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  He had never exactly been unhappy, but he had come to believe that the “she” of his unformed fantasies simply didn’t exist. Not really. When Edward first met Anna, it was not exactly love at first sight. But in short order he quickly came to accept that she might be the one. Turned out she was, and he had stumbled into a relationship with the one woman who could cut through the dense outer layer of his emotional defenses. She loved him and took great care with his heart.

  There had only ever been one before her and that experience had been heartbreaking. A second heartbreak might have closed him off for good.

  Now Anna was dead, murdered in cold blood, probably by some accident, mischance or simply by being in the right place at the wrong time.

  He was soon lost and cast adrift. Edward had no brothers or sisters and his parents had passed away only a few years before in a traffic accident. Edward had colleagues, mostly single and with less experience with babies than him. Panic began to set in. He needed help, he needed to stop drinking and he needed to solve his dilemma as rapidly as possible. He tried to remember every instruction that Anna had ever given him, but he could never seem to get the right steps in the right order.

  One day, unannounced on a Saturday morning quite early, Maria and Agustin Suarez heard a knock on the door of their small, on-campus apartment for married students. Standing at the doorstep was a disheveled Edward, a baby bag filled to the brim and one squawking baby: Adam.

  “I need your help. You’re the only two people I know and can trust. I know that this is asking for way more than my friendship has ever earned me, but can you please teach me how to care for my own child?”

  Maria smiled, and Agustin said, “We’ve been waiting for you Edward. Waiting for you to come over and ask when you were ready. We hoped you would come to see us; we’d be happy to help with little Adam. Now Rodrigo will have a friend and playmate too. Why don’t you come in and let’s discuss what we should do?”

  ***

  Maria and Agustin knew Edward and Anna from the social events and mixers and through professional events on campus. The two couples had become close and they often spent weekends together at Edwards and Anna’s overlarge condominium off campus working and minding the two boys together.

  Mom and Pops, as they were later to become known, were both born and raised in Guanajuato, Mexico and had themselves only one son. Rodrigo Aleman Diego Suarez de Garcia, “Rod”, was born to them in Los Angeles, California only a few months after the birth of Adam to Edward and Anna St. James.

  Though from the same town growing up, they hadn’t known each other very well before college. Maria and Agustin met fortuitously at the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City as undergraduates and were married soon after graduation. They both then received offers from UCLA to study for their respective Ph.D.’s in their respective fields and had distinguished themselves during their studies. So had Edward in his own field and that was how they originally met. They had been rising young stars in the constellation of rising young stars that was, and is, UCLA.

  Edward, adopted by his parents late in his childhood, had been severely emotionally damaged by his gypsy life moving from foster home to foster home as a young child. At age eight, he met and was adopted by Fred and Emma St. James, an older couple who finally provided him with the love and stability he craved and badly needed.

  Edward was raised by the older couple with a firm but loving hand and in a safe and stable environment. They gave him a keen love of education tempered with practical experience and knowledge. Edward was fit, as his father demanded, and academically advanced. However, he always seemed to be lacking in basic social skills and the ability to connect emotionally with other kids. He had few friends growing up, one giant broken heart by the end of high school and a strong desire not to feel that kind of pain ever again. He retreated deep within himself and his mind and didn’t emerge again until Anna came into his life.

  Anna was a very different story and her life no fairy tale either. Anna was the youngest of three children born to Larry and Martha Theal, both high school teachers at a private religious academy in then still conservative Orange County, California. The Williams School Academy was less concerned about the academic and behavioral well-being of their resident charges and much more concerned about saving their lost souls. The Williams School Academy was designed for tough love, harsh punishments and troubled youth. Their old-testament philosophy and educational approach to children were entirely Old Testament; in the end, the harsh lessons and harsh environment accomplished little or nothing. It did, however, succeed in turning out some very angry children. Many ran away as quickly as they arrived.

  Success was seen by parents as pumping their troubled child out of the Academy with a high school diploma. They could then be discharged like effluent, if possible, into their next academic holding tank: college. Any college. Academic institutions were not exactly lining up to recruit graduates of the Williams School Academy, so placement in good schools was always somewhat problematic.

  Anna had two older siblings, a brother and a sister. How Anna came to the Theal family was simply unknown and a source of pure misery for her. She bore little resemblance to her parents or siblings and often cried as a child begging God to correct His horrendous mistake. Her punishments were often severe and cruel and frequently resulted from her siblings ratting her out, or simply fabricating minor transgressions. For them, there were tangible rewards and fewer restrictions on their conduct as a result. They delighted in tormenting their little sister and watching her endure her private hell.

  The Theal parents were, for lack of a better term, just plain mean. They didn’t just reserve their special brand of cruelty for the children of others; they occasionally tried out new techniques on their own children. All three children could be punished in severe ways, but it seemed the two older children received less punishment while the youngest bore the brunt.

  The Theals believed their strict ways had made their children better behaved, more obedient and better citizens. They were incorrect. It made the two older children just as mean and cruel as their parents, and assured Anna’s eventual departure from the family home and personal hell. When Anna ran away at age fourteen, the Theals didn’t even bother to report her as missing.

  At age fourteen, Martha Theal recalled, she too had been lost and on the streets before meeting the Reverend Alvin Tinder who raised and mentored her for many years. He was everything to her, until she met Lawrence Christopher Theal, himself a piece of work. The Reverend Tinder was a strict disciplinarian and felt no constraint in corporally instructing his ward in the proper ways of behavior. The strap and frequent prayer and penance were the lessons he taught her. She eagerly shared her experiences with Larry and faithfully practiced this kind of discipline on her own children.

  ***

  Anna left home for the streets at the tender age of fourteen and never looked back. She completed her high school education through a state program for runaways and began taking college classes, one at a time, at a local Junior College. Anna worked at whatever she could to pay the rent, but her life had been difficult and a constant struggle. At age twenty-two, now wiser than a woman of thirty, she met a strange young man one day at the coffee shop where she worked. He was a profusion of hair: a giant unkempt beard, long wild hair about to go Rasta and dressed in old army fatigues.

  This was Edward’s standard outfit which one of his grad school friends had accurately called his “Cong” attire. Retro seventies, Edward then looked like he belonged to a different and distant age of the American experience than that of the sophisticated and technological present. His attire didn’t suggest his authentic standing as an outstanding academic prodigy; his physical appearance wasn’t exactly evidence of genius.

  Six months later, after carefully unwrapping and decoding the odd package that was Edward St. James, Anna was a married woman, a newly enrolled student at UCLA and happier than she had ever known could
be possible. Her husband, Edward, was a complete doof but she loved him madly. Life was new, exciting and delicious every day. If it had been in God’s mind to challenge her every day as a child to establish her worthiness to take on Edward as her charge later in life, then she gladly accepted it as a fair price for her current happiness.

  ***

  Maria, Agustin and Edward sat all morning in the small on campus apartment living room that the Suarez family was allocated by the UCLA Housing Authority for married students. It was good housing and cheap, but it was small and life there was cramped.

  Edward excitedly told his friends Maria and Agustin that he had an idea, although he noted that even he understood how one sided it probably was in his favor. His suggestion was simple: Agustin, Maria and Rod would move in with Edward and Adam at his lovely place off campus, a large three-bedroom condominium not far from the main entrance to UCLA. The boys could share a room, and everything was paid for. No rent, no food, no utilities, no nothing for the Suarez family. Living with Edward would be one hundred percent rent and expense free. In exchange, Maria was to help him with Adam and teach him how to be a parent. Maybe, he told Maria, both he and Agustin could learn how to be fathers together.

  Maria and Agustin agreed to a trial run of six months. That experiment then eventually blossomed into twenty-five years together as a family unit. An unusual family, an unpredictable and often quixotic family, but a modern functioning and loving family nonetheless.

  The experiment in parenting had worked and worked well.

  If Edward would later become the patron of an even larger extended family, later to become known as the Eight Families, then Maria would become la patrona. What went on in the Eight Families of Seattle and Barrows Bay concerned Edward and Maria greatly. Little went on that they didn’t know about, and the Eight Families were all, for the most part, genuinely happy to have Edward and Maria at their head.

  Edward had, to his own great relief, found his place in his new “family” and a secure emotional home. None needed it more than him except for one small child: Adam. Adam now had two fathers and one very loving and protective Mom. Adam was soon also to be blessed with a passel of doting aunts and uncles topped off by a raucous and animated crowd of cousins he would love and treasure all his life.

  Chapter 15

  Edward’s early life had been tumultuous, having been adopted by his parents quite late as a child at the advanced age of eight. His adoptive parents, both professors at the University of Iowa, had been childless. Due to advancing age, the St James couple hadn’t been successful in finding “the right match” for an adoption. They believed this was “adoption talk” for “you’re too old to adopt a young child”. They had all but given up when an agency called to say that they had a young boy, presently in foster care, and would they like to meet him?

  Several days later, in a small town in rural Iowa, they met young Edward. The agency had warned the couple, both now in their late forties, that Edward had been a behavioral problem in almost every home in which he had previously been placed. He could be moody and sullen and occasionally given to bouts of rage. He could sometimes be unmanageable and would often lash out wildly and angrily for no apparent reason. In school he was a slow learner and often failed to complete even minimal homework assignments.

  Punishment had long failed to have any meaningful effect on his behavior, so he was simply warehoused in one home after another for as long as his foster parents could handle him. Then he would be sent to group homes or other social situations “more suitable to his untoward behavior”. Nothing seemed to work until his new social worker, a recent graduate of the University of Iowa, came into his life.

  Over a period of months, Teresa Kay had begun to suspect that there was nothing wrong with Edward that a loving home couldn’t fix. He was quite clever and sharp, bright in fact. But he was extraordinarily reluctant to verbalize his feelings or knowledge; he preferred keeping quiet and to himself. This, Teresa thought, was Edward’s coping mechanism.

  Teresa thought, as she began to understand his back story, that any child in his dreadful circumstances might not be well adjusted and happy: there was little reason, given the number of “professional” foster parents he had endured and the lack of warmth he had experienced. The only thing that astounded her was that this child had not long ago balled up into the fetal position in order to deal with the emotional and psychic pain of one childhood rejection after another.

  So, one day she remembered a story she had heard just before graduation at the University about two older professors who had no luck in adopting. They certainly were not getting any younger and might just want to take on a challenge like this. So, she called them on the off chance they were still interested; now they were both standing just outside Edward’s room waiting to meet him for the first time.

  ***

  Emma and Fredrick St. James were both raised in a small Iowa farm community northwest of Cedar City. The town was small, the high school smaller and their career options somewhat limited. Both of their parents were quite religious and raised their kids to be God fearing Americans. Their expectations were that the kids would grow up, finish high school, get married and farm. Children would come a few years later, with time enough for them to get settled in life first. This was rural Iowa and everyone in their small community had a pre-ordained path to follow.

  But Emma and Fred were high school sweethearts who had other plans. Though they loved their parents deeply, they had no intention of following the path preplanned for them. Some anger, many tears and much recrimination later, the two departed together for college in Pella, Iowa, each with a full academic scholarship. They graduated with Honors, got married and moved to Ohio to attend graduate school. Emma pursued her studies in Political Science; Fred in Mathematics.

  They both secured teaching positions at the University of Iowa and never left. They bought a hobby farm outside of Iowa City and settled into fulfilling careers as academics. They published sufficiently, became tenured then decided to make some babies.

  Sadly, they could not.

  Emma and Fred worked hard at baby making for many years, saw many doctors and could not understand why God was challenging them in this way. Since they had never considered adoption, by the time they decided to try, they were no longer in the goldilocks zone of adoptive parental age. Obstacles seemed everywhere so they eventually decided they would no longer seek the adoption of a child who would never likely come into their lives.

  Then came a call to Dr. Emma St. James that would change the remainder of their lives.

  Teresa Kay asked if they were ready to meet “little Eddie” and they definitely were. She opened the door to his shared room, and found a little boy alone on his bed, his head buried in his pillow and crying. Emma and Fred urgently wanted to rush to his side, but Teresa motioned them back.

  She said, “Eddie. Eddie, it’s me Teresa, Teresa Kay. I brought those nice people I told you about. Would you like to meet them, sweetheart?”

  Eddie stopped crying, but he still wouldn’t show his face. He mumbled something into his pillow, but Teresa couldn’t understand him.

  “Eddie, I can’t hear you, baby. Maybe you could sit up and we could talk for a moment. Mr. and Mrs. St. James have come all the up from Iowa City just to meet you. Wouldn’t you like to meet them? Eddie?”

  Nothing.

  “Eddie?” Teresa persisted.

  “Make them go away. They don’t want me. No one wants me, and I always get sent away. I hate you, and I hate them. Just leave me alone. Go away!”

  Emma was on the verge of tears listening to this little boy who knew more about pain and rejection than both she and Fred could ever imagine. Her heart was breaking watching how he tried to be brave in a world that should not have demanded it of him.

  Teresa said, “If you don’t want to talk to these nice people then maybe we should leave you alone. Maybe they can come back another day when you are
feeling a little better. What do you think?”

  “They won’t come back. Nobody wants me. Go away and leave me alone. I don’t need them. I don’t need anyone.” With that Eddie started crying again, sobbing great sobs in the way that little boys do when they are trying to be brave and failing miserably at it.

  Emma said, “Eddie, my name is Emma and my husband Fred is here too. We’re teachers, you could say, and we came here to meet you because we are very sad. We are so sad because we came here not because you need us but because we need you. Teresa told us all about you, what a good boy you are and how, if we were just right, you might think about letting us spend some time with you. We live on a big farm real far from here, but we live there all alone. Sometimes it’s scary but Teresa says that you are a very brave little boy and that you might be able to help us. Help us not be afraid all the time. Do you think you could help us with that? A little maybe?”

  Eddie quieted down, listening to the older lady and sneaking at peek at her and her husband. “Maybe,” Eddie said cautiously. “I don’t know, but maybe.” Then, suddenly, he asked, “Do you have animals on your farm?”

  “Of course, dear. We have dogs and cats, a few chickens and a big old horse, but he mostly sleeps all day. Fred is gettin’ kinda old, you know. He could use some help and maybe that could be you. I mean if you thought you might want to, of course.

  “I suppose I could, if you really need me to, I guess.” He sat up and turned around, seeing both of his new parents together for the first time.

  Emma burst into tears, dropped to her knees and opened her arms, beckoning him to come to her. He jumped off his bed and raced to her arms, sobbing all the way.

  “You’re home now, baby, and we’ll never, ever send you away, never. We will always love you, baby. Always.”

  ***

  “Eddie” went home that very night and stayed with his Mom and Dad until they died in a traffic accident while he was a student at UCLA. In the end, they had been blessed with many years of happiness together as a family. Each had fulfilled what the other most needed: unconditional love.