Chapter 27

CHAPTER 12 — BOOK II

 

The Name on the Form

 

(Early 2002, Sydney)

 

The conversation did not begin as a conversation.

 

It began as paperwork.

 

A thin folder lay on the dining table, its edges squared too neatly to suggest anything personal. Delima Galang set it down beside the fruit bowl, moved it once to make space, then left it where it was. No one mentioned it through dinner.

 

Geoffrey noticed it anyway.

 

After the plates were cleared and the kettle filled, Awan sat down and opened the folder without ceremony. He adjusted his glasses, scanned a page, and nodded to himself.

 

“This is not urgent,” he said.

 

He said it the way he said most serious things—without urgency, without leverage. Geoffrey had noticed that Awan never rushed decisions that involved money or names. He treated both as things that could be damaged easily if handled too quickly.

 

Embong looked from the folder to Geoffrey, then back again.

 

“What is it?”

 

“A question,” Awan replied. “One we should answer properly.”

 

Delima joined them at the table, wiping her hands on a cloth she folded twice before setting it aside.

 

“There are options,” she said. “We don’t need to decide anything tonight.”

 

Geoffrey sat very still.

 

He had learned, over the past months, to listen for what people were not saying. What he did not know how to ask—what he did not yet have words for—was whether love, once written down, could be contested the way property sometimes was.

 

Awan slid one page forward—not toward Geoffrey, but into the centre of the table.

 

“It concerns guardianship,” he said. “And adoption.”

 

The word landed without force.

 

Geoffrey felt a familiar tightening in his chest, not fear exactly, but alertness. He waited.

 

“We’re not talking about replacing anything,” Delima continued. “You already have parents.”

 

Geoffrey nodded. “I know.”

 

“This,” Awan said, tapping the page lightly, “is about what happens next. About certainty.”

 

Embong spoke then, quietly.

 

“He already lives here.”

 

“Yes,” Delima replied. “And that matters. But there are times when what is lived needs to be recognised.”

 

Geoffrey looked down at his hands.

 

“Is this because of school?”

 

“Partly,” Awan said. “And partly because you shouldn’t have to explain yourself every time a form is printed.”

 

The folder remained open, its contents visible only to Awan and Delima.

 

“We would do this properly,” Delima said. “With your consent. With respect.”

 

Awan added, “And with time.”

 

No one rushed to fill the pause.

 

Geoffrey thought of his parents’ handwriting on old birthday cards. Of the will lodged with the trustee lawyer, the care taken to protect him even in absence. Of the name he had begun using without announcement.

 

“I don’t want to erase them,” he said.

 

“You won’t,” Embong replied immediately.

 

Delima nodded. “Nothing here does that.”

 

Awan closed the folder.

 

“This is not a decision for tonight,” he said again. “But it is one we should talk about openly.”

 

Geoffrey exhaled, a breath he had not realised he was holding.

 

“Thank you.”

 

That night, Geoffrey lay awake longer than usual.

 

The idea of adoption did not frighten him. It unsettled him in a quieter way, like a door he had been leaning against slowly opening. He wondered whether stepping through meant leaving something behind.

 

In the early hours, he got up for water.

 

Embong was already in the kitchen, leaning against the counter.

 

“You okay?” Embong asked.

 

“I think so,” Geoffrey replied. “I just… didn’t expect it.”

 

Embong nodded. “Neither did I. But I also kind of did.”

 

Geoffrey smiled faintly.

 

“You’re not worried?”

 

“No,” Embong said. “You’re already my brother.”

 

The word settled easily between them.

 

Geoffrey had the elastic band in his hand.

 

It would have been easy. A cupboard handle. A sharp sound. Familiar territory.

 

He paused.

 

Once, when he was younger, Lachlan had raised his hand and flipped his mother the finger—an act born more of anger than intent. The slap had come so quickly it startled them both. Josie had looked shocked immediately after, as if she hadn’t meant to do it at all, and Lachlan had learned something in that moment that stayed with him: not about fear, but about limits—how quickly words and gestures could cross into places you couldn’t undo.

 

Geoffrey opened his hand and let the band fall into the drawer.

 

From the sink, Embong watched him. Not suspiciously. Just aware.

 

Embong nodded once.

 

Later, Embong picked up Geoffrey’s phone.

 

Stopped.

 

Set it back where it was.

 

They stood there, kitchen quiet around them, neither laughing, neither tense.

 

After a moment, Embong said, “Enough?”

 

Geoffrey answered immediately. “Yeah.”

 

That night, Geoffrey reached for Embong’s hand without thinking.

 

Embong didn’t tease him for it.

 

The language they’d invented together was no longer needed.

 

The next morning, Geoffrey was tying his shoelaces when Embong stopped in the doorway.

 

He watched for a moment, then said mildly,

 

“You realise those are not the same length.”

 

Geoffrey looked down.

 

He stared.

 

He retied them without comment.

 

Embong waited.

 

When Geoffrey stood up, Embong nodded once.

 

“Good. I was worried we’d lost standards.”

 

Geoffrey snorted despite himself.

 

“Shut up.”

 

Embong smiled—not sharp, not triumphant. Just there.

 

They walked out together.

 

In the weeks that followed, nothing visibly changed.

 

Meetings were scheduled and postponed. Papers arrived and were set aside. The trustee lawyer confirmed details. The school requested clarification. Everything moved at the pace of institutions—slow, deliberate, impersonal.

 

Geoffrey waited until lights-out.

 

The pebbles were smooth, chosen carefully. Not enough to injure. Enough to announce themselves. He placed them inside the boots and slid them back into position with military precision.

 

The next morning, Embong put the boots on without pause.

 

He marched. Ran. Stood to attention.

 

That night, Geoffrey reached for his own boots.

 

Inside were the pebbles—returned—and one additional stone, larger than the rest.

 

Balanced on top sat a leaf.

 

No note.

 

Inside the house, life continued uninterrupted.

 

Geoffrey still folded laundry the way Delima preferred. Awan still corrected him gently when he missed a detail. Hijau teased him for taking things too seriously.

 

Once, filling out a form together, Delima paused.

 

“Would you like your name written as it is now?” she asked. “Or as it was?”

 

Geoffrey did not answer immediately.

 

“Both,” he said finally.

 

She nodded, and wrote carefully.

 

No one announced the decision when it was made.

 

There was no single moment when Geoffrey became adopted. There was only the gradual alignment of paper with practice, of language with reality.

 

One afternoon, months later, Awan placed a completed form back into the folder and closed it.

 

“That should be enough,” he said.

 

Geoffrey looked at the folder, then away.

 

He did not feel changed.

 

He felt recognised.

 

Later that night, the house was quiet.

 

Geoffrey stood at the window for a while, looking out without really seeing.

 

Embong was in the room, not speaking.

 

Geoffrey exhaled once, steady.

 

Then, quietly:

 

“Ashhadu an lā ilāha illā Allāh,” he said.
“Wa ashhadu anna Muḥammadan rasūlullāh.”

 

He stopped.

 

The words settled between them.

 

After a moment, he said,

 

“I know what they mean.”

 

A pause.

 

“I know it’s not symbolic.”

 

Embong nodded once.

 

“Okay.”

 

Nothing else was said.

 

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