Chapter 8

In some ways, Caleb was the same country boy that got off the rickety school bus at the beginning of summer, but in many ways, he was quite a different person.

Perhaps his classmates were more aware of the difference than he was. For starters, he looked different. He'd gained at least twenty pounds, erasing the gaunt, cadaverous look they were used to seeing (if they saw him at all). He wore nice clothes like Levi's and polo shirts instead of bib overalls, loafers instead of hightop shoes. His hair was trimmed.

But that was just on the outside. What his classmates and teachers saw emanating from within was unmistakable if difficult to pin down or articulate. There was a new confidence within him that they'd never seen before; tentative, perhaps, but it was there. He seemed to walk a little taller. His eyes weren't permanently fixed on the floor in front of him. When he spoke, he looked you in the eye, and he didn't mumble like he used to.

His grammar was much improved. He still made mistakes and Annie still corrected them, but it had become a game between them, eliciting laughter rather than frustration or resentment.

The night he spent in Annie's bed was never repeated, but a boy doesn't experience something like that without seeing the world from a profoundly different perspective. He was no longer innocent in that way. The girls in his ninth grade class didn't seem so distant, so unattainable as they did in the eighth grade. There was no real mystery there. He'd seen and experienced a woman's body. It was a very private thing, a thing he'd never brag about, but it was something he owned, something that could never be taken away from him. The loss of his virginity had been thing of beauty, not a thing to be ashamed of.

They moved to Bill's house right after the wedding. Caleb had a nice room of his own, much larger than the one at Annie's house. School was ten blocks away, far enough to justify riding his bike. On days when the weather was really crappy, Bill would drop him off on his way to the office. Annie had to leave pretty early in the morning to drive to Maywood High.

Even before the adoption was finalized in November, they were evolving into a solid family. It wasn't easy for him, though. Hell, it wasn't easy for any of them! Caleb didn't just fall into the role like a normal, well-adjusted fifteen year-old boy might, and parenthood was a day-to-day challenge for Annie and Bill.

Everything about the boy's life up until the time he met Annie had taught him to be suspicious, to keep his thoughts to himself. He still wasn't used to people being so solicitous, so interested in how he was feeling, wanting to know what he thought about things. Sometimes, it felt like an intrusion. With Aunt Nag, he never expressed his true feelings. With Annie and Bill, he was expected to.

But gradually, they adjusted. Bill and Annie were wise enough to allow him a great deal of personal space, not to smother him with too much affection. He was allowed mistakes, and he was expected to accept the consequences like an adult.

Many of the scars the boy suffered in his childhood would never heal, but he had someone to talk to who truly understood. Bill. His dad. He'd grown up under similar terrible conditions, and he knew the pain, the anger, the frustration Caleb had to live with. Annie was sympathetic and caring, loving him unconditionally. But Bill had felt what he felt, suffered what he suffered, and that created a bond between them that would remain unshaken for the rest of their lives.

Two days before Thanksgiving, the adoption was finalized. The day after, the three of them took the adoption certificate to the courthouse and changed Caleb's last name to Simpson. That's all they had to do. Bill would go to school with him the following Monday and make the changes there.

Caleb Simpson had a family.