Keith sent me a text day before yesterday.
It read "go log onto bank account. now. i love you."
I thought, oh no. What could possibly be going wrong now? Have I forgotten to pay something?
So of course, I'm scanning the account, looking for signs of calamity, but there are none. I call him.
"I don't see anything," I say, with calm assurance.
"Nothing, huh?" he asked, dryly, and then he had to go.
I get back on and look more closely. There is this mind boggling number next to our accounts and I realize that it is the adoption loan.
Of course I called him back, babbling in excitement.
"There it is," Keith said, fondly.
Keith said he was sitting at his desk, just thinking about it, over and over again, until he came to terms with the fact that there would never be a perfect time to begin, that we would simply have to start.
So he committed. He sent the title of his beautiful truck, so recently paid off, away to back the loan and now, we are really doing this thing.
Yesterday he got the last of his medical tests back, and everything is normal but for one thing. That one thing is rather a big thing, but one thing at a time.
I still feel numb. It might be a while before the numbness wears off. And I feel skittish, as if unsure when the other shoe will drop.
But I guess that's life. The one thing we know for sure about life is that eventually, a shoe will drop, and it will hurt and it won't match our outfit, to take that metaphor places it was never meant to go.
Still, sometimes one just has to take out the loan, and place a big bet on life, despite it all.
