aag

Early February brings tax season to the aag household. Under normal circumstances I would have had mine at least estimated by now but as I’ve been busier than (as my dad likes to say) a one-armed paper hanger, the forms got pushed farther back on the counter and lower in my overburdened thoughts.

At least they did until the ex brought up the topic. He was prompted by a desire to submit his own taxes, which he proudly told me would bring about the issuance of a quite pleasant refund. I’ll try to do them this weekend I promised, then scurried off to address other brightly burning fires. He questioned me again before he left for the night. “You’ll take care of your taxes this weekend, right?” I assured him that I would do everything in my power to pull off that miracle. “Good,” he said, “because I really want to see if you can afford to let me use one of the kids as an exemption on my taxes again this year.”

I think I’ll be able to, I told him, but I won’t know for sure until I see all the numbers in one place. With a final admonition to hurry up, please, he left. And by god I did do the taxes that weekend, keeping watch over a sick boy as he coughed and flailed upon the couch from 10pm until midnight, at which time I sent an email to the ex with details of the tax situation, phoned him to request his help in watching the other children, then took the boy to the emergency room; and I can assure you that the emergency room on a weekend at midnight is not nearly as much fun as it sounds.

We arrived home near three am, at which point I sent the child (much improved after medicine and a breathing treatment) to bed and thanked the ex most profusely for curtailing his alone-time activities to bail us out. I gave the time-honored hint of walking toward the door to hurry him on his way but he didn’t take the bait. “I read your email,” he told me, “and we really need to discuss this tax situation.”

Three am isn’t a good time, I pointed out. Can we talk later, when everyone has had some sleep? But he seemed unwilling. He planted himself at the kitchen counter and laid out an argument explaining why it was brutishly unfair of me to keep all the children as tax exemptions when he so abundantly deserved the extra money the exemption would bring into his life.

How much money that exemption would take from my life apparently did not cross his mind.

Later that weekend I sat down with pencil, paper and calculator. Ten minutes of math revealed that after child support, taxes, health insurance and other deductions, the ex brings home a sum of money that is approximately $400 less than my net monthly income. It’s $400 less, but it supports a single human being, where as my net monthly income feeds, clothes and shelters four.

I feel entirely justified in keeping the exemption, especially since the ex spent the next day dealing with the delivery of his 46″ television set. But perhaps I’m missing some crucial fact here that would reveal why I should allow him to claim one child on his taxes?

Maybe you could help me discover it?

Imagine:

It’s Tuesday night and you’re slogging through the usual Tuesday night routine. Dinner is spaghetti. The sauce is from a jar and doesn’t contain all that much meat but you’ve certainly had worse. You read the newspaper while your kids do homework then run off to play. There’s an overabundance of whining during the former and screaming during the latter but it all blends in to the sound of the television (flickering ominously enough to make you wonder if it’s not about time for a new one), the dishwasher (another thing you know will soon need to be replaced if you’re honest about the difficulty you have in latching the door) and the laundry (you hope the burning-rubber smell that hangs over it during the spin cycle won’t get any worse at least until the teevee and the dishwasher issues have been addressed).

Around 9, kids finally in bed, laundry (for the moment) caught up and dishwasher unloaded, you collapse onto the couch with the remote and a handful of Cheese Nips. Randomly you flip around the channels for an hour then doze off before the weather comes on. The only reason you rouse enough to stumble to bed is that a rogue spring rubs into your lower back, but with so many other things near the end of their life-cycles it will be years before you’ll be able to afford a new couch.

Before falling fully asleep you sort through your duties for tomorrow, the usual Wednesday routine of getting reluctant children to school, working for an irascible boss, coming home to a wrecked house and falling asleep with a spring in your back before 10:15. You drift off, wishing vaguely that things were just a little bit easier.

When you awake the first thing you notice is the smell, or rather the absence of the usual smell, which at this hour of the morning should be your partner’s shampoo, your kids’ cheap body spray and the faint tang of your own unwashed, sleep-sticky body. Instead you get a whiff of what seems to be flowers. You hoist open an eye. It is flowers, a whole bouquet of them, and as far as you can tell these are no grocery store posies. They look professionally arranged and far too big for your bedside table.

Except that it isn’t your bedside table. Now that you’ve cracked through the layer of sleep in your eyes you can see that it’s been replaced by something on an altogether different scale from the one that’s served you since college. Your bed feels somehow different too, and as you struggle upright to see what’s happened you notice that in this vast and soullessly clean white bed you’re not alone.

“Good morning sweetheart,” says a beaming woman dressed in head-to-toe white so pure it almost glows. “Welcome to your new home! I’m so glad you’re here!”

Despite her radiant happiness you can’t choke back the fear-spurred anger. “Who are you? Where the hell am I?”

“This is your new home, darling. I rescued you from that horrible place you were in before. I’m going to take care of you. Everything’s going to be just fine,” she answers, and you are stunned when she reaches over to stroke the damp hair gently off your forehead.

You pull away, as guilty as if you’d cheated. “You rescued me? I didn’t need to be rescued!”

The woman in white laughs softly and moves on to stroking your arm. “It’s ok, honey. I know this is hard, but soon everything will be fine. You’ll forget all about that horrible place.”

That wasn’t horrible. It was my home. You think this but do not say it because the white woman has smoothly exited the bed and seems bent on pulling you after her. Stunned, you can’t even speak as she efficiently undresses, bathes and dries you, murmuring softly the whole time about the wonderful adventures the two of you will soon enjoy. “We’ll just get rid of these nasty things,” she says, dropping your old garments into the trash before replacing them with brand-new clothes still stiff from the wrappers.

Finally the questions start to flow when she places a vast assortment of your favorite breakfast fare on the table. “What about my job? Where will I live? I want to see my family!”

She hovers over you, ensuring that neither your plate nor glass empties while not once raising her voice above the most gentle of tones. “You don’t want to go back to that place, dear,” she says. “Here you’ll never have to worry. I can give you anything you could possibly want. Nothing is broken, nothing is old. There’s plenty of money. You don’t even have to work. This is why I took you away from that other place. You can have a happy life here.”

But here’s the thing, which you realize but can’t quite articulate to the beaming woman as later she tucks you back into the vast white bed. You really weren’t all that unhappy in your old life.

Can you imagine how this would feel? Now imagine it from the perspective of an infant who has the most vague understanding of what’s happened — or an older child, who horrifyingly does.

Adoption’s blessings get all the press, but no blessing arrives without at least a hint of tragedy in its wake, made even worse by the failure to acknowledge it.

Child One’s allergies: Penicillin. Cat hair. Peanuts.

Cat Two’s allergies: Pork. Corn. Venison. Peanuts. Brewer’s yeast. Kelp. Flax seed. Alfalfa. Oak. Grasses. Human hair.

Child Three’s allergies: Dust mites. Cat hair.

Cost of special allergy formula cat food: $33 for #6.

In unrelated news, I am told by my parents that they are experiencing sad feelings of sadness because I have no husband. Apparently being unwed at my advanced age all but dooms me to a dotage spent tottering around with no one to help button my boots or wipe my incontinent fanny and also to death alone (the children will have long since abandoned me like all kids do despite the exhaustive attentions I’ve given to ensuring they don’t run afoul of their allergies) with no succor but for any cynical feline companions who will no doubt celebrate my kicking of the bucket by eating my face.

Wonder if the cat is allergic to face?