by Casey Watson
‘Oh, don’t be dramatic,’ I rushed to answer, keen to keep him positive. ‘We’ve had other foster kids since Sophia and they’ve been challenging as well, love …’
‘Not teenage girls, Casey,’ he shot back at me. ‘With all their teenage girl behaviours. You might have forgotten all about that, but I certainly haven’t.’
He was right to point it out, because of course I wanted to hurry past that. Sophia had been a teenage girl we’d fostered a few years back, and she had certainly been an eye opener. It had been only our second placement and I suppose we were still a bit inexperienced; certainly in regard to children as psychologically complex as she had been. She had been full-on, promiscuous, full of the usual teenage angst and lots more besides, and had come to us with only one mode of operation: flirt with the male of the species at all times. Not that it was her fault; she had become the way she had due to her terrible circumstances, and had learned flirting with men at her mother’s knee, practically – as a good method of getting her way.
Until she came to us, that is, and in Mike found an immovable object that would remain so however hard she tried to be an unstoppable force. We came through it, thank goodness, and so were able to help her all the better for having been through so much with her. But when you’re a middle-aged foster dad and have a fourteen-year-old foster daughter running around in her underwear, determined to create an impact, it’s not a very nice place to be. It was equally distressing – if not more so – for our son Kieron, then just coming up to twenty-two, because she created some uncomfortable waves between him and his then brand-new girlfriend, Lauren.
We’d all learned to love Sophia, once we’d got past all that, but Mike had every right to make me sit down and think about things before plunging in with both feet again without thinking, like I usually did.
And I did think – we’d also run it by the children the previous evening, because their input was as important as our own. Riley, predictably, was as excited as I was. ‘Oh, Mum, a baby? Oh, that will be such a lovely change for you.’
I grinned. ‘Um, yes, it will,’ I agreed, ‘but not just a baby. This one does come with a teenaged mum attached, don’t forget.’
‘Yes, I know that, Mum,’ she said. ‘But you’ll be fine. Teenagers to you are like toddlers are to me – easy peasy.’
I raised my eyebrows. Oh, really? I thought. She must have a short memory. Or just that selective amnesia that parents need to have, if every child in the world isn’t to be an ‘only’. Bless them, I loved them, but my grandsons had not been ‘easy peasy’ at all; they had been as demanding as any other little boys I ever knew, made worse by the fact that they were so close in age.
Still, I was flattered that Riley assumed teenagers were ‘easy peasy’ for me to handle, even if that wasn’t strictly the case either. I did have some considerable experience of them to draw on, it had to be said, having spent many years handling them in large numbers in a behavioural unit in a high school, but dealing with kids in a school setting and having them in your home were two completely different things, as our experience of fostering so far had shown us.
But I was pleased Riley was happy for me, and felt so positive about it. It was generally Riley who sided with Mike in all situations where jumping in with both feet was my normal way of carrying on.
Kieron and Lauren had reacted in a similar fashion. They’d probably not be that involved in any case because they were both busy with their own lives. Right now, specifically, they revolved around working as many hours as they could manage, to save up for getting their own place.
‘It’s up to you and Dad,’ Kieron had said, laughing, when I asked him how he felt about it. ‘I don’t even know why you feel you have to ask us, because you’ll only do what you want to do anyway!’
I jumped out of the shower, towelled myself dry and began to ferret in my wardrobe for something suitable to wear. Kieron was right, I supposed, though I’d keep asking him anyway. Because one day he might have strong opinions about a placement, and I knew that however headstrong I was I would respect that. In the short term, however, I had to get a move-on. Mike was taking time off from work to attend this afternoon’s meeting, so would be home before I knew it, for an early lunch.
And then we’d be up and running – and there was no mistaking the little shiver of excitement I felt about it. And also intrigue. The start of a new placement didn’t just mean getting to know a new child – in this case, children – but also the start of a new relationship with the child’s social worker, too, and I wondered what this one might be like. It might be someone I’d worked with already, of course; I’d certainly had dealings with plenty over the years. But in reality that had never actually happened. Every new child seemed to come with a new social worker, too, so it was no surprise that I didn’t recognise the name of this one.
Her name was Maggie Cunliffe, and I wondered what she was like. With the name Maggie, I pictured her to be in her mid-forties to fifties, which pleased me for some reason. I tutted to myself – how very ageist of me!
The truth was, of course, that good social workers, like the kids in their charge, came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I’d met young, fresh-faced types, just out of university and keen as mustard, right through to the battle-worn, tattered-suited, ready-for-retirement types. Where would Maggie fit in here, I wondered? Well, we would soon see.
Very soon, as it turned out, the already short morning having disappeared from beneath me, with Mike dashing in with less than fifteen minutes to spare. And my response to his greeting of ‘Get the kettle on, love, will you? While I run up and shower’ was greeted, in return, by my usual pre-meeting answer of ‘Don’t you dare leave so much as a drip on my bathroom floor!’
I was always a bit like this when an important meeting loomed. I’d done the house from top to bottom yesterday but I still felt I could do more. I’m a bit of a clean-freak and was characteristically anxious in case I’d missed some speck of dust or splash of water somewhere. Ridiculous, really, since neither John nor Maggie would be up inspecting my bathroom, but even so I just couldn’t help it.
‘Now, remember,’ Mike warned me, having come back down and joined me at the dining table, ‘we’re here to listen to what they have to say; to mull it all over and consider the possibilities. Not to immediately ask when the girl can move in, okay?’
‘Oh, be quiet, Mike,’ I chided him. ‘I’m not a child, you know. Anyway, they’re here now,’ I added, gesturing to the car that was pulling up outside. ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘Go let them in.’
I smoothed my blouse down over my jeans and glanced again out of the window as Mike did so, childishly pleased to see that I’d been right; Maggie Cunliffe looked exactly like a Maggie. Mid-forties or thereabouts, I decided, with a lovely warm expression and curly blonde hair. She was also, I noticed appreciatively, dressed in jeans and a warm jumper. Nothing prim or proper about her. I felt immediately at ease.
The file itself, however, looked rather more daunting. Introductions done, the coffee poured, the biscuits politely declined – so far – it appeared out of Maggie’s briefcase and landed on the table with a dull thud. Which was unusual. It was normally the case that we had almost nothing to go on, and had to find out the extent of a child’s difficulties the hard way.
Not so here, clearly. Maggie dived straight in with a summary.
‘Emma’s mum was only sixteen when she had Emma,’ she began. She had a soft Scottish accent, which seemed to go just perfectly with her name. ‘There was no boyfriend – again, there’s no knowledge of who the father was – and, as you already know, Shelley – that’s her name – has battled with her demons since we’ve known her. She’s an only child herself and has long since been estranged from her own mother, and has a long history of substance abuse. Various addictions have been on file here: alcohol, prescription medicines, as well as an array of illegal drugs. During her worst periods – and there have been quite a few down the years – she’s had Em
ma placed into care, or had the authorities just step in and take her, but, because she never objected and so often put Emma in care voluntarily, a court order’s never been sought.
‘Every now and then,’ Maggie continued, ‘Shelley would sign herself up for rehab, get clean, and then come out determined to step up to the plate and take proper care of her daughter, but of course the harsh reality is that with each new episode of this kind she was just chipping away at Emma’s trust.’ Maggie sighed. ‘So, as night follows day, each time Emma went back into care – and the older she got – the more and more she felt she didn’t need her mum. It’s a really sad one, this.’ She glanced up and looked directly at me. ‘You can see how the picture’s formed here, can’t you, Casey? And it’s why we’ve ended up with the Emma we have today.’
I nodded sadly. I could see it all too clearly. She’d be feeling lost, hurting lots and desperately needing some attachment. In my years working with teenagers I’d seen so many like her; girls who’d gone on to get pregnant at such a tragically early age simply to stop an ache that they had inside them. It was partly a need to nurture, a need to have at least something – someone – to call their own, to replace the pain of not having a mother’s love and affection.
‘I can indeed,’ I agreed, visualising this poor child so very well. ‘And we’re up to speed with the situation with the boyfriend, as well. John’s filled us in there.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ John confirmed. ‘So the next stage, if you wouldn’t mind, Maggie, is to fill Casey and Mike in – well, fill all of us in, actually – about anything extra that has to happen, given this is a mother and baby placement. I’m not fully conversant; is there some extra training that might need to be involved?’
Maggie shook her head. ‘Not in this case, I don’t think. If you were new to fostering, obviously, or if you’d not brought up your own kids, but, no, in this case, I wouldn’t insult your intelligence. It’s obviously not going to be like your usual programme – no points system for Emma to follow or anything – just gentle guidance; it’s more a case of both providing a loving, supportive, non-judgemental home for the two of them, and helping Emma take responsibility for taking care of her child herself.’
I nodded. There was a world of difference between that and being looked after. Emma was Roman’s mother and had to be a mother to him. It would be all too easy for her to slip into a completely different, more dependent role, were she allowed to. I’d seen it happen myself. And it was understandable to some extent, as any mother would probably know; even if your child becomes a mother they are still very much your child, so if they were thirteen or fourteen – even fifteen and sixteen – the urge to mother both child and grandchild would be strong. I would have to guard against doing that, for definite, because it was the sort of thing that would feel so natural to do.
Mike must have been reading my thoughts.
‘How much “help” would this entail, specifically?’ he asked Maggie. ‘I mean, you obviously wouldn’t want us taking over, here. She’d have to do all the usual baby-related tasks herself?’
Maggie lifted a hand and waggled it slightly in front of her as if to indicate there was a degree of give and take here, that we’d have to use our judgement about how strict the division of labour needed to be in this specific situation. ‘Well, in normal circumstances – whatever “normal” is – yes, that’s what we’d expect. However, in this case, we do have to make some allowances. Emma obviously hasn’t had the usual sort of upbringing. No younger or older siblings, no extended family, no experience of babies. The place she’s at now is that she seems to be coping quite well; with the support of the baby’s social worker, who stops by a few times a week to teach her the basics, she is coming on okay. Roman’s social worker also has to record supervisory visits, where she’s been noting down Emma’s ability to care. She’ll continue to do this, obviously, because it really is central to the placement. It’s on the basis of those visits that the court will eventually decide if Emma’s fit to look after her child on her own.’
There was a short silence after Maggie said this, as perhaps there would be. This wasn’t just a case of us providing a home for a young mother. Our home would be the stage on which both mother and baby’s whole future would be played out. At some point – and it only just hit me at that moment – someone other than me would stand in judgement over Emma and make a decision that would affect their whole lives.
‘Wow,’ I said quietly, as it sank in how much this period mattered. How much my input or otherwise might affect things. ‘Does this happen with all underage mums or just those in care?’
‘In theory, all of them,’ Maggie explained. ‘When a young girl like Emma becomes pregnant, it doesn’t matter what her background is. The midwives are obliged to inform social services. They also have to record how responsible the teen is; whether she attends appointments, takes advice, eats healthily, plans properly for when the child is born … And, because of this, social services are alerted where it appears help may be required – and that’s whether the child’s in care or otherwise.’
I nodded my understanding. ‘So,’ John said, picking up his pen, ‘do we know who the baby’s social worker is?’
Maggie rustled through her paperwork. ‘Hannah Greenwood. She’s visiting three times a week at present, but if Casey and Mike take Emma on we’d probably cut that down to two, then after a while, if things are going okay, one.’
‘And how long is all this for?’ Mike asked.
Maggie shrugged. ‘How long is a piece of string?’ Then she grimaced. ‘Sorry – that’s not very helpful of me, is it? But, in truth, it’s impossible to say. In some cases it’s evident in a matter of a few weeks that the mother’s capable and has a strong attachment to her baby, whereas in others – well, sometimes, it takes longer to tell.’
I looked at Mike. It was really sinking in now that this was a lot to take on. We weren’t just providing a place of safety, a warm and loving home. We would be part of the process. There was also the small matter – no, the huge matter – of our own attachments. It wouldn’t just be Emma who’d be forming a bond with her baby. We would be too. We’d be fools to think otherwise.
And I knew how I was around babies. It would be impossible for me to see this as just a job, and Mike knew that. But at the same time I knew that I wanted to accept this placement, even knowing that the end of it would probably break my heart. ‘What happens at the end?’ I asked Maggie.
She glanced at John before answering. ‘It depends on the outcome, Casey. If all goes well, Emma and Roman will move on to a sort of halfway house; in a unit with maybe one or two other young mums and their babies until she’s legally old enough to live on her own. We’d assist her then, obviously, with getting a place to live. But if things don’t go to plan, then we’ll have to think again, obviously. But let’s not dwell on the bleak side just yet, eh? Hopefully we’ll get a happy ending out of this.’
Happy endings. You didn’t hear of them so often in this game. Sometimes, yes, and we’d had our share of them, even if ‘happy’ was always qualified – those damaged pasts couldn’t just be spirited away that easily. But if we could have a happy ending for this child-mum and her baby, that would be fantastic.
I was still musing on just how fantastic it would be when Mike did something entirely out of character. Coughing slightly, to get my attention, he looked pointedly at me. ‘I think we’re of a mind about this,’ he said. ‘Aren’t we, Casey?’ He then looked at John and Maggie. ‘We’d like to give it a shot,’ he said, before I’d even opened my mouth to answer. ‘That is, if you two think we’re up for it.’
Well, I thought, having to haul my jaw back into position. Now, that was a turn-up for the books.
Chapter 3
In the normal course of events before taking on a new foster child, the next few days (following Mike’s jaw-dropping but very pleasing agreement to us having Emma) would involve a meeting between the three of us – us and the child,
so that we could see if we all felt we clicked. This was obviously sensible; for all the discussions over coffee and plates of biscuits, meeting the child who was potentially going to share your home and lives for several months was an essential part of the process. Suppose she hated us on sight? Suppose we felt we wouldn’t be able to bond with her? It hadn’t happened yet – well, not from Mike and my point of view, anyway – but that certainly didn’t mean it couldn’t. And better to say no than to get a placement under way and then terminate it. For a younger child, in particular, this could be extremely emotionally challenging. The children we fostered had already known so much rejection that to inflict more, by getting their hopes up and then deciding we didn’t want to have them, would be nothing short of cruel.
But in this case we were happy to go with Maggie’s instinct.
‘She’s so excited,’ she said. ‘I’ve told her all about you and the family, and she really can’t wait to move in.’
I took this with a slight pinch of salt. I didn’t doubt Emma would be happy to get settled somewhere – anywhere – but I didn’t imagine for a moment that ‘excited’ would be her principal emotion. I also wondered if there was pressure being brought to bear on the situation by the mum of the girl she was currently staying with. If so, better she come straight to us than have the upheaval (a new baby is upheaval enough anyway) of having to move somewhere else as a temporary measure.
And, well, a bit of me was pleased to hear she was pleased. We’d be fine together. I didn’t doubt it for a moment.
Over the past few days my house had been a hive of activity, and I had taken no prisoners. It was all hands on deck and, boy, did the family know it. No stone would be left unturned in my quest to seek out dust and destroy.
‘Honestly, Mum,’ Riley had said to me, exasperated, when I dispatched her into town to get a new duvet set, ‘the house is already perfect as it is! You have the beige bedroom all ready and you have the blue bedroom all ready. Which covers both bases. If she has the cot in with her – which she probably will – they can both go in the beige room and, if not, Roman can go in the blue room. Why on earth,’ she asked pointedly, ‘do you need new bedding?’
