"No Biking in the House Without a Helmet" by Melissa Fay Greene, Sarah Crichton Books, 368 pages, $26
In 1991, at age 41 and with four children of her own, author Melissa Fay Greene (“Praying for Sheetrock,” “The Temple Bombing,” “There Is No Me Without You”), was struck by “a sudden onset of longing and nostalgia” for another baby.
When her next pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, she and husband Don Samuel, an Atlanta attorney, decided to adopt.
Though clueless about how to proceed, they were sure of two things: They felt “most alive, most thickly in the cumbersome richness of life, with children underfoot,” and there was definitely room for one more: “Life was short and our family capacity was big.”
Greene jumped into the fire, sifting through the “980,000 links” that came up on her Internet searches and the mailers that arrived containing videotapes of orphans from countries like Russia and Romania.
Despite the excitement that soon gave way to anxiety, then “icy panic” and finally a feeling of “Whose idea was this anyway?" she eventually adopted five children, one from Bulgaria and four from Ethiopia, ranging in age from 3 to 12.
“No Biking in the House Without a Helmet” is her sprawling, imperfect, courageous and joyful account of the adoption process, warts and all -- the heart-wrenching trips to orphanages, frustrating delays, visits with living relatives, and the way her family welcomed and made room for each child, as well as the inevitable homesickness and culture clashes and sometimes rocky emotional terrain.
Her story begins in 1998 with 4-year-old Jesse, a Bulgarian Romani child with a “snaggle-toothed smile.” After three years in an overcrowded rural orphanage, he hoarded food, had never seen the letters of the alphabet, and recoiled in terror when handed a stuffed animal. Beyond throwing sticks and rocks into a pond, Jesse had no concept of how to “play.”
What he did have was an unguarded desire to win Greene’s heart. In a scene that takes place at the end of their first day together in Bulgaria, she can see that despite his exhaustion and bewilderment, “he would do whatever it took to keep me nearby and to have the magical day continue.”
As he plays quietly with some Legos at her side, she feels “tendrils of yearning” emanating from him that will eventually take root and flourish.
Greene makes much of these clues that a child is fundamentally OK and that he or she has a healthy instinct for bonding, elements that push parent and child past predictable bumps in the road like tantrums and sibling rivalry, or the wildly unanticipated -- such as a mother, presumed dead, who turns up post-adoption.
She also shares an impressive array of parental coping mechanisms, in particular her willingness to solicit advice and support from powerful allies: experts, neighbors, friends, and her husband and birth children.
It’s not that easy to guess, when you’re “weeping over sheets!” in the laundry room, that you’re in the grips of a crippling but common post-adoption depression.
But perhaps her most powerful secret weapon in the adoption process is that Greene is a big overgrown kid.
Sure, she has an adult side -- she can say “No” and mean it, lock a tantrum-throwing 5-year-old in a therapeutic jaws-of-life grip, and wisely remind the reader that an adopted child “is not a blank slate to be wiped clean by a new mommy and daddy.”
But beneath the mature surface lurks a tall, curly-headed, grinning Pop-tart lover who adores science projects and has no idea how to dress like a grown-up (“For the love of God,” her teenage daughter says, seeing one of Greene’s outfits).
Her idea of fun is the whoopee cushions she offers the kids at an Addis Ababa orphanage, only to discover they have no earthly idea what to do with them; she’ll have to demonstrate.
“I threw a second whoopee cushion onto the chair and sat on it. It made its big, prolonged, gurgling, blubbery snort. I jumped up as if startled, as if embarrassed, and -- thank God -- a boy burst out laughing.”
Like the children she adopts, Greene is prepared to go to any lengths to win their hearts.
Take this scene with Ethiopian Fisseha: He and Greene do a lot of foot racing, a way they’ve learned to bond because at 9 he’s too old to cuddle and Greene knows little Amharic:
“During one race I suddenly stopped, looked at Fisseha sternly, shook my finger and said, ‘No running indoors. Not good.’ He halted, chastened. Then I race-walked away and just beat him to the elevator as we both slammed into it, laughing.”
The moral of her story? Just the opposite of the title’s warning. Don’t be afraid to break the rules, to “steer by the light of what makes us laugh, what makes us feel good” -- especially if it means biking in the house, with or without a helmet.
With deep compassion, sparkling humor and an unshakable faith in the power of the whoopee cushion, she leads the way.
Melissa Fay Greene, "No Biking in the House Without a Helmet." 7 p.m. (doors open at 6), May 12. Talk and signing. Free. First Baptist Church of Decatur, 308 Clairmont Ave., Decatur. 404-373-1653, www.georgiacenterforthebook.org.
About the Author
