I don’t know if it was loyalty or stubbornness that had motivated me to still go with it. Loyalty or stubbornness that made me continue my quest to adopt a child.

John always used to say that he didn’t trust charities. “Money laundering, that’s what they bloody do, money laundering and nothing more,” He always used to say that whenever commercials about donations would come on TV. There wasn’t any malice in his unwillingness to donate to humanitarian causes, he just thought that all organizations were corrupt in some way and eventually he decided to stop donating his hard-earned money to what he considered useless organizations. The fact that he also didn’t believe in just slightly improving the living conditions of a few people also played in choice. Despite his decision, he actually cared a lot about those kind of causes, way too much even, I would always see him with tears in his eyes whenever commercials about hungry children would play on TV.

When we learned that he couldn’t father any children two years ago, it didn’t surprise me when he started talking about adoption. To be honest, I was cold to the idea. I was only 25 and I considered myself way too young to take care of a human being. Yes, I was and still am in the perfect age to have children but being able to do it didn’t mean I wanted to do it. After a few months of deliberating, I had to finally acquiesce seeing how much the lack of children was affecting him. We started the process and our quest began. We looked at different countries and orphanages, spent countless hours talking at the phone with many agencies and then spent the same amount of hours filling paperwork. It was tiring, but our quest had made us much closer than we were before. A month ago, I got a call saying that we could book a plane because the paperwork was done and we could come pick up our child. I was about to call John to announce him the great news, but before I could I got a call telling me that my 34 year old husband had just died from a brain aneurysm.

Common sense would have told me to stop the adoption process, yet I didn’t. Here I was, standing in front of an orphanage under the blazing sun about to pick up our kid. The kid we had spent an innumerable number of hours trying to get to. A kid that John would never meet in person, a kid that I was picking up because I needed a new reason to keep living. John had been my life and he passing away had tainted my existence grey, or perhaps even black. Saving a kid from a life of hardships was my way to cope, I knew that it probably wasn’t the smartest way to cope, but it was too late now I already rang the doorbell to the orphanage and I was hearing someone coming for me.
The orphanage gate opened and rather large middle-aged woman came out of it. She took a good look at me and came closer to me.

“Are you Mrs. Mirabelle Flannagan?” Asked the lady.

“Yes.”

“Welcome then, I am Alicia. I have heard about your husband and I am sorry for your loss. I found it quite amazing that you decided to continue with the process, it’s unusual for us to let a single woman adopt a child, but seeing the amount of money you inherited from your late husband we believe that you would have no trouble taking care of your new child. Hopefully, if your embassy gives you the right papers in time you will be out of here by next week. ”

I nodded at Alicia’s sentence. I was hoping that I could be out of this country as soon as possible because my mother called me to tell that there was talk last night in the news of a possible war brewing in the region. She wanted me out of this place for the precedent reason and because she still had many apprehensions about calling family a youngster that wouldn’t look like her .

Alicia opened the door to the dilapidated building and as I entered I bumped into a kid and we both fell to the ground. I didn’t have time to say anything, because the very thin child who bumped into was gone mere nanosecond after the incident.

Alicia frowned. “That kid really needs to learn how to deal with people!”

“Is he problematic?” I asked while getting up.

“Nameless? Yes, but it’s not his fault. He has had a hard life and he has trouble communicating with others. They found him near the northern border with a rifle in his hand and a bullet wound near his right kidney about a year ago. ”

I was shocked by what she had just said. How could anyone shoot such a frail looking child and how could anyone let him fight? I heard of child soldiers but I never expected they would use kids as young as him. I mean he looked barely ten!

Alicia saw my confusion and continued talking. “He probably was a child soldier that got hurt in battle. They surely thought he was done for so they just let him to die. ”

“How did he get here?”

“A few government officials found him, saved him and then took him here after his remission. That was about two years ago, but he still hasn’t found his place in the orphanage. The other children have has much trouble dealing with him and that he has dealing with them. He has been trying to solve everything with violence which hasn’t made him any friends. I am afraid that he might run away one day if we don’t do something,” She pronounced her last sentence looking directly in my eyes.

Was she insinuating something? Was she trying to get rid of that poor child by giving him too me? If she did the answer would be no. I hardly knew if I could handle a child that had no serious problems, how could I handle a kid with a history of violence? A child soldier named Nameless in my house… mom would laugh at me and probably try to have me declared insane. What kind of name was Nameless anyway? Was it really his name or was it a nickname? I wanted to know, no parent would ever call their kids like that would they?

“Is he really called Nameless?”

“That what we call him. Officially he doesn’t exist. He has no papers. We only know what he want to tell us. ”

I felt bad, that kid probably didn’t have any family and would have difficulty finding one if he didn’t have any legal documents. If I could do something I would but I really didn’t think that I could do anything for him. I guess I could hope that war doesn’t break out again in his infancy, but wishful thinking won’t change anything… I guess I could make a donation directly to the orphanage hoping they would be alright. It might not be much, but I was already going to be keeping a child out of the horrors to come. Elizabeth, god, I forgot about her! It’s for her that I am here, not for Nameless.

“Where is Elizabeth, my daughter-to-be?”

Alicia looked at the ground and started talking. “I don’t know how to say this, but you can’t adopt her... ”

I gave her a puzzled look.

“What?”

“It’s not allowed,” She said looking me in the eyes this time.

“What do you mean it’s not allowed? John and I were sent pictures, we signed paperwork and we spent thousands of dollars! You can’t tell we did all of this and now I can’t adopt!”

Alicia looked at me with guilt in her eyes. “You can adopt a child, but it isn’t called Elizabeth, it doesn’t have a name.”

I gave her a second puzzled look. “Nameless? You want me to adopt him? ”

She nodded.

“How? You told me he didn’t have any papers? ”

“The agency, the orphanage and the local government have been talking with your embassy since the moment we found out about your husband’s death in order to produce a few papers for him.”

“Why?” I asked very confused by all of this.

“Like I told you, we don’t let single people adopt children, not because we don’t want to, but because there are international adoption conventions and they don’t allow us to do it. We can let you adopt because Nameless is a special case, if he isn’t adopted soon we don’t know what’s going to happen with him. He only has enemies around here, the villagers don’t trust him. There was an incident a few years ago where a child soldier posed as an orphan and then proceeded to poison the water supply, the villagers think that Nameless might have been planted here to do the same. The kids in the orphanage don’t like his attitude and the local government thinks the same way as the villagers. I know that Nameless isn’t bad, but the others don’t trust him. There is been attempts on his life since his first day here and a month ago the villagers gave me a time limit to get rid of him. There is no way a local might adopt him and even less chances that a foreigner will. You on the other hand, wanted to adopt a child, but suddenly you didn’t have the qualifications anymore, so we had hoped that you would be desperate enough for a child that you might want to adopt Nameless. Some officials of your government and some of mine discussed it with me and decided that if you wanted it, we would quietly break the convention and let you have him. I had to lie to you to get you here and for that I’m sorry, but please save him! ”

I was flabbergasted by everything she told me. “Can’t you send him to another orphanage?” I asked.

Alicia started crying. “He wouldn’t make it there. The villagers want him either adopted out of the country or dead. If they see him leave to go to another orphanage, they might try to grab him and lynch him. ”

“Can’t you do something else?” I asked anxiously.

“No,” She said with a river of tears dripping out of her face. “He is either leaving with you tonight or leaving in a body bag tomorrow. I have reached the maximum time allowed by the village elders to get rid of him.”

I was overwhelmed. I essentially had the power of life and death over a child I barely knew. Could I do that, leave an unwanted child to die? Could I become an accessory to child murder? I doubted it, but adopting a child with a history of violence wasn’t really something I wanted to do. John would have said yes without any hesitation, but I wasn’t as impulsive as him.

“May I talk to him before making my decision?”

“Of course you can,” She said cleaning the little bit of make-up she had on and then taking a stairway. I heard her scream and then heard the sound of dozens of kids taking off. I wanted to go upstairs but Alicia came back a few seconds afterwards with the orphan. Nameless looked quite bruised and tired.

Alicia cleaned the boy clothes and started talking with him “This is Mrs. Mirabelle Flannagan she wants to talk with you,” The child nodded and Alicia took us to her office were she made us sit. “If there is anything call for me,” She said presumably talking to the both of us while blowing her nose and leaving the room.
Nameless was looking at me, waiting for me to talk. I had to gather my thoughts, so I didn’t say anything for perhaps 30 seconds, while I was thinking the youth kept staring at me.

“Is this as awkward for you as it is for me?” I asked.

“Awkward?”

“Uncomfortable. Is this situation uncomfortable for you?”

The child looked at me curiously and then started talking. “No, you look don’t look like a mean lady and I like silence. Silence means calm and I like calm. ”
The way he responded surprised me, I wasn’t expecting that.

“Alicia tells me you get in trouble all the time for fighting, if you like tranquility why do you fight?”

“The others attack and insult me, so I fight back,” He paused and then restarted talking “Thomas…” He shed a few tears. “Thomas told me to always fight back if I was insulted or attacked,” He sniffed as he finished his sentence.

“Who is Thomas?”

“Thomas was my best friend, my big brother, he discovered me and raised me. Thomas taught me how to survive, and how to read and talk French, Spanish and English,”
I was surprised by the amount of knowledge held by that Thomas, but I decided to not comment on it.

“He discovered you? Where? ”

“Thomas told me that he found me on a battlefield, he told me that when he saw me he thought of a great warrior he read about who was found in his dead mother’s womb just like I was.”

“You were found in your dead mother’s womb?” I asked in disbelief.

“That was what Thomas told me.”

“And you believe him?”

“Yes, Thomas would never lie to me. Thomas told me that lying was bad even if it was necessary sometimes.”

I gave him a look.

“And fighting isn’t bad?”

“Fighting is essential to survive. If Thomas and I didn’t fight we wouldn’t have been fed.”

Fighting to survive at such a young age, really?

“Why? Why would you need to fight to survive?” I asked, getting upset.

“The General told us that if we wanted to be fed we had to be useful.”

I wanted to ask if fighting was the only way his general considered his child followers to be useful, but I realized in a matter of a few nanoseconds the possible implications of a negative answer. I didn’t want to know that, I really didn’t, I didn’t want him to relive the trauma if it was there and I just decided to keep that possible part of his past out of my head. Or at least I intended too, but curiosity got the best of me.

I got up, told nameless to wait here for a while and I went to see Alicia.

She was in the kitchen preparing food. She saw the look in my face and asked somebody else to take care of it.

“Did he ever tell you if he was …” Alicia interrupted me.

“Sexually abused? He wasn’t, but from what he told me about his personal hero, Thomas, I could assume he was and that he died from it. Nameless told me that Thomas went to see the leaders at night for the both of them to have extra food.”

“How did he die from it?”

“I don’t know, probably AIDS.”

I understood the sadness in the lad’s eyes now…“Do you know anything about that Thomas?”

“Nameless doesn’t like talking about him, but I heard him say that Thomas was 11 years old when he discovered him.”
An eleven year old kid raising another child while they were both fighting for a militia… this story only kept getting more and more miserable and I started to see what I had to do. I had to take nameless me didn’t I? I had to… It was the moral thing to do, the right thing to do. It perhaps was burden too big for me but it probably was a bigger one in his prepubescent little shoulders.

I got up and went back to Alicia’s office where Nameless hadn’t moved a centimeter since I was gone. I sat in the chair next to him and I asked a few more questions to confirm my choice.

“If I asked you to stop fighting would you?”

“Would people beat me or insult me?”

“No.”

“Would I get food?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to take me home with you?”

“Yes.”

He made a faint smile, looked at me and said “Then I wouldn’t have a reason to fight anymore.”

I hugged him.

That was the right answer and he seemed truthful. I guess now I didn’t have any excuses to not adopt him. If I were to leave him here to die I would probably end up killing myself because of the guilt. I was going to have to call my mom to tell her that she was getting a new grandson instead of a new granddaughter. She might slightly freak out when she hears about his past, but judging the way Nameless spoke and judging by the way he answered my questions, he simply seemed to be a kid who grew up in a bad situation. I am sure that mom would get that, or at least I hope she did. Because I would need her help to raise him after all. I guess now I have to announce to Alicia the good news. I hoped the authorities would get me the right papers in time because a kid’s life was in danger or should I say my child’s life was in danger.

I invited Nameless to take my hand and we both went to see Alicia to tell her the good news. Alicia seemed to tense up as she saw me coming, but then relaxed when she saw that I was holding my protégé’s hand.

“I’m bringing him home with me.” I affirmed.

“Thank you so much Mrs. Flannagan, thank you so much...” She said in tears “I am going to search for the birth certificate given to me by the Canadian embassy.”

“Birth certificate?”

“Yes, seeing how we can’t legally let him being adopted by you, the Canadian embassy and my government decided to play it off has if you were his naturally born mother. He would be a Canadian citizen and you would only have to say that you lost his passport.”

I agreed with the plan, if my government was OK with it then so was I, but really? Making me pass as Nameless birth mother? We contrasted so much no one would believe it, his milk chocolate skin was the opposite of my ghostly one, my straight blond hair couldn’t in any way shape or form look genetically related to his extra-curly jet black hair and my pale grey eyes didn’t seem to have any relation either with his obsidian ones.

I commented my observation to Alicia who laughed it off, saying: “Maybe you have weak genes.”

I laughed at the absurdity of her comment while we went back to Alicia’s office. She gave me a pen and the Québec birth certificate and I started filling it out.

“I don’t think it would be a good idea to call you Nameless, is there a name you want?”

My son hesitated for a while and then he squeaked “Céleste.”

“Oh, beautiful name, but it sounds quite feminine to me. Why would you want that? ”

“It was the name of the French doctor who saved me and that allowed to meet you Mrs. Flannagan.” He said sounding quite embarrassed.

“Hum... Call me Mira for now, Mrs. Flannagan is a way too formal way to address your new mother. Now about your name, I can understand the reasons of why you chose it, but it might get you in trouble, it’s quite a feminine sounding name after all. ”

My son’s spirit seemed to drop.

“But I guess a boy can still bear it, it’s not one hundred percent feminine.”

The child smiled and so Céleste became my child.

I gave him Montreal as birth place and then asked him when he thought he was born.

“I don’t know.”

“Ok, let’s say you are ten or at least your age should be near ten years old, that give us 2000 as your year of birth. Hum… today we are the 20th May and we should be home by next week so let’s say that Céleste Flanagan was born on the 27th May 2000. Meaning that you will be getting gifts as soon as we reach home because it would be your tenth birthday. ”

Céleste smiled.

“Good,” I said.

Alicia who had been observing us started talking. “Now, I will fax this to the embassy and ask for someone to escort you. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble with the villagers before Céleste got a chance to truly live,” The corpulent woman got out of her office.

“Céleste, do you have anything personal you want to take with you?” I asked him.

He took a collar with a tooth out of his pocket and showed it to me.

“This is a lion tooth collar that Thomas made for me, it is the only thing from Nameless that will survive me becoming Céleste.”

“Are you sure? Alicia doesn’t want us to come back here ever again meaning that you will be losing forever whatever stays here.”

“Yes, I am sure of it, today Nameless died and Céleste was born.”

It was harsh, but I guess it was true. Nameless would cease to exist in the last place where they would know about him. Knowing my new son’s past I couldn’t help but agree with his decision to forget the past and accept the future with all that it entails.

Alicia came back with two letters. “Little Céleste, it was an honour knowing you, I hope you fare well, in your new house. Even though I don’t want you to ever try to come, back here for your own sake, I want you to know that I will always be thinking about you.”

Alicia then addressed me, “Mrs. Flannagan, I want to thank you very much for what you are doing. Saving and adopting a child you barely know isn’t something that most people would do, furthermore, doing it after being deceived like you were, shows that you are an absolutely respectable person. I’m sorry for all of this Mrs. Flannagan, I would never be able to repay what you have just done.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded. Alicia hugged the both of us and then waited with us for our embassy escort to come pick us up. When the bell rang we hugged again and she gave us the two letters, one for Céleste and one for me and told us to wait until we were in our hotel room to open it and we decided to oblige.
The embassy’s men surrounded me and Céleste and told us to advance. I understood there was need for precaution, but wasn’t this a little bit too much. “We are going to have to be careful, I think that half the village is here,” Said one of the men.

What? How? He was lying, right? How could anyone know that I was exiting the orphanage? Had a child managed to skip the information outside? Did the villagers get tipped off, by the arrival of our transport? I didn’t matter, because we had to advance.

As soon as we exited the gates of the orphanage, I realised that he wasn’t exaggerating, there was a sea of people between us and the embassy’s vehicles. They were chanting for Céleste blood and I was scared, very scared. I felt like I was about to get hit by a Maglev train or mauled by a bear. Worse actually, those were accidents or acts of nature, there wasn’t any hatred in those events. Here, hate was as common in the air as nitrogen.

Thump-thump…

My heartbeat started ringing in my ear.

Thump-thump…

I held Céleste has close to me as possible.

Thump-thump…

I started advancing as fast as possible.

Thump-thump… thump-thump… thump-thump…

A hand grabs me and I am dragged away towards the vicious crowd.

My heart skipped several beats.

I get more and more scratches and while looking for a way out I see two of my bodyguards, probably dead, trampled on the ground.

Thump-thump… thump-thump… thump-thump…

I am about to accept my fate…

Thump-thump… thump-thump… thump-thump… thump-thump…

Somebody tries to take Céleste out of my hands and as the adrenaline circuits through my body I am brought back to reality.

I lifted my child and carried him in my hands as I ran towards the cars. I opened the door clumsily while still holding him and then shoved him in the vehicle. I enter the vehicle and I then I try to close it as people try to get in. I try to kick a man out of the car but he grabs my leg and, with a machete, he proceeds to cut clean my limb under the knee. I kick him with the other leg and then my thoughts went blank, the adrenaline, which had kicked in a few minutes before, had attenuated my pain until now, but the shock of losing a limb was getting to me. Céleste, noticing my state of shock, jumped on my side of the car and closed the door before anyone else could get in.
I ushered Céleste to lie down in order for him to avoid any weapon’s fire that the villagers could direct toward us. But…

Too late… six shots were fired through the window. The bullets avoided me and my son, but the glass that flew everywhere highly damaged him. I pulled Céleste near me to avoid him getting pulled through the window and kicked the front seat. Where the driver had been in stupor since we entered the car. The chauffer regained his senses and accelerated. But the driver had not even made 20 meters that a bullet went through his window and killed him instantaneously. The shards this time managed to lodge themselves into my left arm. I wanted to check the damage on Céleste but, he was already in front of the car trying to avoid a fatal crash. I went through the front and put him aside.

“I’m going to drive Céleste, you don’t know how. Cut the man’s shirt and make bandages or we might bleed out to death! ”
While I was driving and fighting pain like a berserker, Céleste had managed to stop the bleeding of my stump leg, as well as the bleeding of both of our arms. I had lost quite a bit of blood, but I was still functional unlike my new son who was getting slower and sleepier by the minute I didn’t understand until I saw his bloody pants and realized that the lower half bleeding profusely the result of the glass shards.

“Céleste, please stay with me, don’t fall asleep, not now! You are too young to die!”

Céleste opened his eyes and then closed them again.

I felt weak, I went off-road, stopped the car and my world went black.

I would open my eyes every few hours to realize that even if I was too tired to move, I was still alive… and I didn’t know how I felt about that. John was dead and I assumed that it was the same for Céleste. I had probably lost a limb, possibly two, and that would make a few things harder for me… Life had really been kind to me.

I had lost all notion of time and I just slept, slept and …

One day, I opened my eyes after a dream I had where I saw myself hiking with Céleste and John. I wanted to cry because I thought that those events would never happen.

“She is awake!” Screamed a woman in an accent I knew very well.

“She is? How? It’s not even been 3 days! ”

“She is strong and so is her daughter, Céleste, who woke up yesterday, must run in the family.”

I felt my strength surging back… Céleste was alive! But what was that about him being my daughter? Last time I checked, Céleste was a boy… I then remembered the damage to his crotch … Oh, god! They didn’t do what I just think they did, right? Don’t tell me that seeing his name they thought that he felt like a she…Somebody is getting sued!

Please comment, I really appreciate it.