Today, Maia and I looked through a gallery of photos from Shymkent, the orphanage, and Almaty. There were more than 400. She sat on my lap, and we went through each one.
I talked about her--how Kristina had gotten the cone game for her, how we had visited her at the orphanage and taken her to Almaty to be seen by a doctor, how we had finally adopted her. Kristina had been so pleased by Maia's little triumph over the cone game.
I showed her the parks we took her to, the other people who were on that trip with us, the Kazakh people who helped us, the place where we used the internet--the whole documented trail.
I showed her, too, some of her mugging for us--how she liked to make us laugh from the very beginning.
She was progressively happier during those days, it seemed to me at the time and has remained my impression since.
At one point, she wanted to know what Maia meant in Kazakh. I told her that Kristina and I had given that name to her. Because we adopted her in May. Because her skin coloring reminded us of the color bananas sometimes get and that Maia is the name for banana in Hawaiian.
She wanted to know what name her mother had given her.
"Fatima," I said.
She thought about that name for awhile, saying it, and asking me to repeat it.
"Do you want to keep it?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "I have two first names."
She wanted to know what kind of name D'Amato was.
"Italian," I said.
She wanted to know why Kristina hadn't taken that name. I told her that it had been Kristina's choice, and she kept her own name.
She wanted to know what her other last name was.
"I don't know," I said. "We know the name, but I can't pronounce it. We will find it for you."
When we went to bed tonight, the photos were still on Maia's mind. I found Kristina telling her the story of how we had first met her. How a lady from the orphanage had carried her in and given her to Kristina. "We fell in love with you at once," Kristina said.
She wanted to know why.
"Because you were so little and afraid and alone. You didn't have anybody," I said.
"Well, you had your friends and the people at the orphanage," Kristina said.
"What is my mother's name?" Maia asked.
"I don't know," I said. I felt a pang about not knowing that. "We have it written down. We will get it."
"Was my mother there?"
"No," we explained.
"We never met your mother," I said. "Your mother and father left you at the orphanage, and you had been there for two years--almost two years--when we adopted you."
"Where was she?" she wanted to know. This was the first time that any of her questions had a note of distress in it.
"I don't know," I said. "Your mother and father left you there because couldn't take care of you," I said.
"Maybe they thought that the orphanage could take better care of you," Kristina said.
"Yes," I said.
Later I said, "Whatever your mother's reason for leaving you at the orphanage, she loves you."
She went to sleep soon after that.
John, Friday, July 3, 2009
