In Poland, there’s a rule that says a mother has one month to change her mind about giving her child up for adoption, and during this time, the child must stay at the hospital. The nurses named him Christopher. One month passed and when Christopher’s mother didn’t return and didn’t change her mind, my mother’s friend Vera picked up and took care of baby Christopher while my parents pursued an American congressman to intervene on their behalf and accelerate the adoption and cut through the red tape.

And now, over five months after his birth, we are driving to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to meet this little baby boy. The drive will take about three hours.

We will drive, and soon we will arrive at O’Hare Airport. We’ll be greeted by Anthony, my mother’s brother, who wills capture the boy’s arrival on his brand new Zenith video camera. In nine more years, Uncle Tony will have divorced his wife, remarried and divorced again, then will to Mongolia for a fly fishing trip, quit his job as a physician and join the Mongolian Olympic team as theirs. But before that, today, in a few hours, Vera and the new boy will arrive in the same international airport that both my mother and Uncle Tony landed in when they became Americans.

Soon there will be another Polish immigrant living with her in the American city of Cornflakes and she will name the little baby boy ‘Julian.’ But for now, we just drive….

The little boy will have the flu and a crusty nose. He’ll have a big head, too, just like the photo told us. Beanie and I will take turns kissing him on his dimpled dumpling forehead and argue about whose turn it is to hold him. My father will cry, overwhelmed with joy, everyone will be touched and amazed. During the drive back home, the little boy will sit in the front seat of the Buick nestled between my parents, staring at Dad the whole time as if Dad came from another planet.

And soon, the little boy will get better, gain weight, gain color, his cold will go away and he’ll be christened at St. Phillip Catholic Church. We will have a little reception in the backyard under a little white tent, Mom will make Deviled Eggs. Soon there will be another Polish immigrant living with her in the American city of Cornflakes and she will name the little baby boy “Julian.”

But for now, we just drive. Our car joins the rest of the traffic on the highway and the road behind steadily diminishes into a thin, sharp line.