This is Home

"I can't come tomorrow." Little arms wrap themselves around me like pipe cleaners, as if we are trying to melt into one body, one heart. "My mom says that I have to do chores."

So, I let her lead me outside to the shaded corner where we sat for so long last year. Pull her to her feet and spin, again and again, until she is dizzy and laughing. 

"Can you stand up?" I raise my eyebrows at this wobbly, giggling child, and she simply steps closer.

"Spin me!"

Spin her. Let her sit on my lap. Play with my camera. Chew a piece of gum. Cling like a tiny on my hip when she refuses to let her feet touch the ground.

Because, she is six now, only two when we first met, and we both know that this might be the only day until next summer. Another year before she is once again whispering my name into my ear.

"Jessica."

"Loveli."

"Jessica."

"Loveli."

She spins under my hand, dancing to the rhythm of a soccer game. Falls into my arms when I tickle her, teeth flashing in a bright smile, gum just poking out of the side of her mouth as she tries to convince me to give her another piece.

Because she is six. And, you can never have too much gum in your mouth when you are six.

***

Lovena comes the next day, eight years old and too big to sit on my lap, but just the right size to lean up against the stone wall, elbows using my knees as arm rests.

It's hot, and we're mostly quiet. Watching the boys run through drills and play scrimmage games. Taking a few selfies when she gets ahold of the camera. Pretending not to see the littles or the Play it Forward boys who point phones in our direction, documenting this pile of onlookers to their practice.

But, we still walk hand in hand like we have always done.

Still grin and smile and ask the occasional question when it feels like the conversation needs words.

Have I seen Loveli yet? Am I coming tomorrow?

Does she like school? Does she still like to play soccer?

We make for pretty minimal conversation between the pair of us, but there is something precious about just being introverted together. About sitting on our stone perch and laughing as the world does as it pleases around us.

Because, today isn't a memory yet, not yet a story we tell, or a moment we hold in our hearts.

Today is where our sweat muddles together. Where we match up brown hair and brown eyes and call it family.

Today, we are going to take a few hours to lean in close and make this time count.

***

Ewens Simon is the first one to spot me when I settle down on a familiar bench before practice, the first one to whisper my name to Jason and nudge the other boys into looking behind them.

"Jessica. Jessica, do you have your camera?"

So normal, so casual, that it erases any doubts about the two day layover in Atlanta.

Because, this isn't coming in late or cold turkey to someone else's gig. This is slipping into an old familiar pair of shoes, re-becoming part of a story that has been four years in the making.

Here, in this place, we already know each other's names.

Here, they know that my camera is their tool to capture their world, to keep record, even when something goes wrong and the pictures disappear before anyone has a chance to see them.

Because, my phone is full. Full of kung fu videos and soccer clips and silly poses. Full of little fingers half in the frame and unintended panos that have dismembered legs flying over the deep brown of the soccer field.

And, it doesn't matter that I don't keep track of any of it, that my most common answer is, yes, they can use my phone, but, no, I don't know where it is. 

They'll pass it off when it is their turn to play, or scold one another with a, "Jessica said to give it to me now." 

Just the way that my kids in the States do. My Haitian kids will put it in the hands of another blanc before they leave, the same way that my Sunday school kids will pass it off to another leader.

This is easy. This is normal. 

This is visiting and playing and loving, not because we are saviors, but because we are friends.

This is home.