The Education of Sebastian & the Education of Caroline(289)

She glanced up suddenly, and her huge brown eyes made me catch my breath. She looked so lost and alone, such an adult expression of suffering on her small face.

I could help myself. I went over and sat next to her, kicking off my sandals and making my own mud pie next to hers. She watched me seriously, then continued to make her pile grow, her hands and nails filthy, like mine.

“Sofia,” I said quietly, not looking at her. “That’s a pretty name.”

There was the tiniest pause, when she heard her own name.

I talked quietly, chattering about nothing in particular, until Marco came and plopped himself in my lap.

Sofia’s eyes widened, and after a moment’s thought, she reached out to touch his gold-colored hair.

Marco squirmed and blinked with one eye scrunched up. Without warning, he launched himself at her, squashing her mud pie completely flat then laughing like a small hyena.

And that was it. They were up and running around the garden together, squawking and chattering, each with their own childish babble.

Sebastian came and sat down in the dirt next to me.

“What do you think?”

I shook my head slowly. “I think I’m in a lot of trouble.”

He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in for a hug.

“Guess we’ll be in trouble together then.”

“Guess we will.”



Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that, no matter how much we might have wished it. For one thing, Child Services were horrified by the informal way everything had happened, and threatened to take Sofia away. But by then, she’d been living with us for six weeks and had settled incredibly well. And yes, I admit it; we’d deliberately dragged our feet informing them.

They continued to be quite threatening for a while, but I played the journalism card, and then the refugee card on Sofia’s behalf. Sebastian threw in the vet card as well as the work he’d done in the local refugee community, and in the end, they had to admit that they didn’t have any better alternatives to offer her. A fact that we already knew.

Her formal adoption would take much longer, but to us that was merely a thin strip of red-tape.

Marco loved his new ready-made sister and she seemed happy, as well, although there were times when she was too quiet and we wondered what heavy thoughts and memories troubled her.

She had night terrors sometimes, but that was something we understood, having lived through Sebastian’s PTSD as well as my own grim, clouded souvenirs of war.

We’d decided that it was important for Sofia to know as much about her own culture as possible, so we spent even more time with Atash and his extensive family. Not only that, but Sebastian spoke to her in Pashto, so she wouldn’t lose her language. I spoke to her in English, and she seemed to grasp that distinction very easily.

Soon, she was chattering away in both languages. Marco took it all in his stride, but surprised us one day by calling Sebastian ‘baba’—the Pashto version of ‘daddy’. It seemed likely that we’d have two bi-lingual children on our hands.

Sofia had been with us for three months and I couldn’t have been happier, but then something else happened that sent my well ordered world spinning on a different axis. Again.

And I blamed Sebastian.

That man had always been trouble. God, I loved that about him. One of the many things.

Marco and Sofia were safely corralled, playing in the backyard. Sebastian was in the living room doing sit-ups, a sight that very nearly distracted me from what I had to say.

I sat down on the edge of the couch, more than a little anxious.

He grinned at me as he caught me checking out his abs. Alright, I was counting them—and possibly imaging running my tongue over them.

He winked and did another ten crunches before I finally got up the nerve to speak.

“Sebastian, we need to talk about your … about your disability money.”

He stopped immediately and scowled.

The money he’d been given for his injuries had been gathering dust in a bank account, untouched for three years.

“For fuck’s sake, Caro! You know I don’t want anything to do with that shit. It feels … I just can’t.”

“I know, but we’re going to need it. Now we have Sofia.”

He sighed.

“They’re just kids, Caro. They can share a room for a few years.”

“Yes, but I think we’ll need somewhere bigger than the bungalow before that.”

“You need an office, baby. I know. Maybe I could build something in the yard and…”

“No, Sebastian. We’ll need another bedroom.”

His eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Why? What did you do?”

I took his hands in mine and smiled at him. “It’s more what you did.” Nope, the penny wasn’t dropping. He continued to look at me blankly; I was going to have to spell it out. “I’m pregnant.”