'Belonging' by Anna Peter

The ball flew into the air, knocking things off the table. The ayah shook the laughing child – his face turquoise blue, arms pink. 

Neels was rivetted. The superintendent gestured angrily to her assistant to shut the door. 

“Was that the child you were going to show us?” Neels knew he was.

“No, Sir. We have…  a different one for you!”

Neels glanced at Leslie. “What’s wrong with that child?” Their friend Prasad had told them they could choose a child, he’d arrange things. They had been in India for four years, so it meant a bribe.  

“Er… he was returned. Too naughty. You won’t like him.”

“Please ask him in?” Leslie looked at Neels. 

“No!”

“You have other parents?”

“No… But we cannot have children returned. It is difficult… for them...”

“Maybe he should decide,” Neels moved to the door and called out. The ayah stopped. Neels knelt and took a pink hand. He smiled and was rewarded with a shy smile. 

In Neels’s accented Hindi, they had gone for classes as soon as they moved to Mumbai, he said, “Would you like to join our family?” 

The ayah tutted. The child looked at him carefully, reached for Neels’s pen and clicked it open and shut. Neels continued to smile. The child touched Neels’s face, rubbing in wet paint, even though the ayah scolded him. When she shook him, Neels put his arm around him. 

Neels prayed to the God he had stopped praying to when their little Jakob died. It was when they had joined Prasad at the orphanage, to serve a meal in his father’s memory, that they had seen the little boy. 

Suddenly he pressed into Neels, his eyes on the pen, but his body stiff with uncertainty. Neels bit his lip. Thank you, God.