Twister

"Ya'll better hurry up, the storms blowing in."

The drawl whirled off her tongue as fast as the wind picked up in the sky.

Where did that come from? A dialect so distinct you would have thought we were deep in the boot of Missouri. But we weren't. We lived in Bozeman, Montana and she had never been out of the state.

Claire was 5 years old when she started to have break through speech impediments that consistently sounded like a midwestern woman in her 70's. It wasn't all the time but enough to make me worry.

"We need to see a specialist, Dan." I pleaded with my husband to make an appointment. He never got as worked up as I did about these things. I was the textbook helicopter parent. "People are going to think she is illiterate!" I screeched. He put his arm around me and laughed it off.

Ever since we adopted Claire, she was my world. As two dads who once thought having a family was just a dream, I wanted to protect the life we had built with everything I had in me. She came into our lives when she was only fourteen months old. Her biological mother was in her twenties at the time and had been trying to make it as a single mother in the slums of Billings, Montana. She eventually succumbed to her life of drugs and overdosed in the one-bedroom apartment she was being evicted from, leaving Claire to cry out into the night alone and scared. Eventually, one of the questionable neighbors who could no longer stand to hear the cries of a baby in the early hours of the morning came to beat down the door. When he found the lifeless young mother lying cold on a mattress in the middle of the room with Claire sitting next to her crying, he called 911. Officers arrived shortly and took Claire out of that scene she had been in so many times before and started the chapter to her new life.

We had been on the waiting list for 6 months before we got that phone call, and I was elated to finally start earning my new title of dad. Horrified of her back story, I swore to protect her at all costs and give her the best life I could.

"She is fine, Chris. It is her age. She is experimenting and finding new ways to communicate." He seemed annoyed that I was even bringing it up. "Remember when she came home from daycare after the first week and had a lisp?" We both smiled. "It was just a new discovery she had to try out for herself, but it went away just as fast as it came on. This will pass."

Maybe he was right. I was overreacting again. We packed up our bags at the park and headed to the car. After all, she was right a storm was moving into the area.

Once we returned home, I asked Claire what she would like for dinner. "Nothin beats fried chicken and mashed taters. I haven't had a good home cooked meal like that in years." Appalled I stopped and stared as she continued coloring at the kitchen table.

"Oh yeah? And who made you that meal?" I asked skeptically.

"Memaw used to make Sunday dinner after church each week. She taught me er'thing I know about good cookin. I s'pose that would be the last time I had a meal that good. Memaw's house." She had stopped coloring and was staring off as if lost in a deep memory of time that she vividly could see. She smiled and then returned to coloring.

I looked over at Dan who had walked in on the back end of the conversation, and he shrugged his shoulders and moved on.

"How about we order a pizza?" He said smiling and changing the conversation. He thought it was all just some sort of a game.

Dan and I stood next to each other in the kitchen, and I gave him the look that meant it was time to do something. He sighed and quietly said "It is just pretend, make-believe childhood fun." I wasn't having it. "It is getting worse." I urged.

"What are you two fairies yabbering on about in there?" Claire was now standing with her hands on her hips staring at us both.

We were stunned, frozen in time unsure of what just happened. She had never spoke like that before, and she had never been around anyone who would have taught her such phrasing.

"Claire?" I said soft and firmly.

"What daddy?" Her voice sweet and innocent as before. "Do you know what you just said?" Dan asked her, still taken back with what had just happened.

"I said what daddy." She smiled and shook her head as if he was the crazy one, and then skipped away to her room like normal.

"See! There is clearly something wrong. When are we going to do something? Are you waiting for us to walk in and find her smoking a pack of Marlboro reds while doing the daily crossword?"

Dan shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. "It just doesn't make sense."

I walked over to the table where she was coloring before and looked down at the papers. My eyes widened and my heart stopped. Dan saw the shock on my face and quickly rushed to my side. "What is it?" He demanded.

Once he was next to me, we both stared down at her artwork mortified that any of this was actually happening.

A perfectly drawn Confederate flag filled the page she had been coloring.

"YEE HAW!" Claire exclaimed loudly down the hall from her bedroom.

"Okay, it is time." Dan agreed.