by Rosie Lewis
I was certain that once the baby arrived Zadie would brighten, realising that by accepting Megan as a new placement I was not severing the final safety rope and accelerating her downfall.
Megan was such a dear little thing. The first thing I noticed when I picked her up from her hospital crib was her downy hair, almost black in colour and so long that it fell in soft wisps around her ears, her delicately fine fringe brushing the tops of her barely there eyebrows. Tracing an index finger over the soft skin of her cheek, I took in her round forehead, her tiny nose and the large hazel eyes that swept over my face. Her pupils were dilated, inquisitive, as if considering the unfamiliar hands that cradled her, weighing them up. Swaying her gently in my arms, she fixed me with an unblinking gaze and I felt a rush of tenderness. A sudden flare of recognition passed between us, a silent accord, as if she was accepting of her fate.
She actually reminded me of Emily in her early days and I wondered where all the years had gone. How could it be that Emily, once tiny enough to fit snugly on my forearm, was almost at the end of her school years? It was a reminder to savour every moment I got to spend with little ones. Every baby deserved to be adored. Even though Megan’s mother was unable to cherish her daughter, there were thousands, actually probably millions, of women around the world who would be more than happy to do it for her, and I was lucky enough to be the one holding her in my arms.
For one brief moment my stomach rolled as I questioned the wisdom of taking another baby home with me, knowing how quickly a strong attachment can form. Babies have a way of nestling into your heart and mind, however many courses on undermining attachment a foster carer may attend. Taking her wrinkled hand in my own, I examined her pearl-like fingernails and planted a kiss on each one, brushing the anxiety away.
Running my forefinger softly over the neat row of dimples between each tiny knuckle, I marvelled how something so tiny could be so perfectly formed. And then my eyes took in the small gap, about a centimetre or so, in her top lip – not nearly as extensive as I had feared when I had spoken to Peggy on the telephone.
Megan’s birth mother was being supervised in the relatives’ waiting room, the midwives reassuring me that she wouldn’t be allowed to roam the hospital corridors until I was safely away. Social workers suspected that Megan’s mother had smoked throughout pregnancy, though they were most concerned about her drinking – she had turned up to ante-natal checks barely able to stand.
‘If they’re intent on having some sort of fix while they’re pregnant,’ the midwife said as she took me into a side room to show me how to feed a baby with a cleft lip, ‘they’d do far less damage with Class A drugs than a glass of wine.’ Her lips drew into a tight, wearisome line. ‘Why can’t they think about anyone else but themselves?’
Not for the first time I realised how vulnerable little ones were, at the mercy of their parents from the moment of conception.
Chapter 16
Maybe it was my unsettled mood or the unfamiliar snuffles and sighs coming from the crib beside my bed, but I found it impossible to sleep during the nights following Megan’s arrival. It was several days before I mastered the technique of giving her a bottle and I think at first I was a little anxious about that. The gap in Megan’s lip meant that it was difficult for her to create enough suction to get any milk so I had to hold her upright to avoid any liquid running into her nasal passage while stretching my arm round far enough so that my fingers could hold her lip together to create a tight seal. It was a tricky manoeuvre, especially as I also had to keep a bulb suction close by for those times when she jerked back, alarmed when too much milk pooled in her nose. But the sound of those clicking noises, the ones that meant she was getting the milk she needed, was a rich reward.
Since it took so long to feed her there was barely two hours between her finishing one bottle and needing the next and so, in that small window of opportunity, I should have gone out like a light. Instead, every time my mind drifted towards sleep my limbs tensed, snapping me back to full alert. I kept thinking about Zadie’s strange reaction to the baby when I first brought her home – she took one look at Megan, then paled and fled back to her room. I knew that some cultures shunned babies with birth defects and wondered whether Zadie had been told that dark forces were responsible for something like a cleft lip. As much as I loved caring for Megan, I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty that I had imposed a new situation on Zadie that she wasn’t comfortable with.
About a week into the placement, Megan woke a little after 2 a.m. for her feed and it was half an hour later, after I had settled her back in her crib, that I was drawn to check on Zadie. As I neared her room I felt an intangible clawing deep in my stomach and by the time I tapped on her door I knew there was something badly wrong. Perhaps it was sixth sense or my imagination but there was something unnatural about the cold silence answering my increasing vigorous taps. Half-frightened that I’d find her lying lifeless in bed I threw the door open and strode into the room. Worryingly, her duvet remained still even though I called her name over and over. Flicking on the light, I took a deep breath and caught hold of the top of the duvet, almost crying out as I flipped it back.
Zadie was lying still on her side, her stomach covered in blood. I clamped my hand over my mouth and strangled a moan, my eyes running over the length of her body trying to absorb the extent of her injuries. Her arms were by her side, her left hand curled loosely around a knife and her pyjama top was bundled up around her chest leaving her bloody abdomen horribly exposed. Her eyes were half-open with an awful glassy stillness and she seemed to be muttering feverishly under her breath.
‘What’s happened, Mum?’
Emily was at the door. When she caught sight of Zadie her mouth dropped open in horror.
‘Emily, bring me my phone and then go back to your room, honey. Make sure Jamie doesn’t get up.’
Moments later three luminous nines glowed on the screen of my mobile phone, the handset on loudspeaker as I tore into the bathroom. As I wrenched open the medicine cabinet door I remembered that children in care were far more likely to die than their peers in the general population. Please, I repeated over and over again, don’t let Zadie become another of those statistics.
The operator’s calm but insistent tone floated across the landing. ‘Help is on its way, Mrs Lewis. Try to stay calm.’
It’s strange how in moments of panic my brain seems to constrict, sharpening its focus on small details and crowding everything else out. All I could see as I pulled the contents of the cabinet to the floor and rummaged through the boxes of painkillers were those dreaded numbers – 999 – the ones I hoped I would never have to dial again after Phoebe left us.
I had known something was wrong. The feeling had dogged me for weeks and I sensed that some main event loomed in the future, waiting for me. Even so, I had to admit – I hadn’t seen this coming. It was almost a blessing that I didn’t realise at the time that the most shocking event still lay several months into the future.
Armed with bandages and padded gauze I raced back to the bedroom, hesitating for a fragment of a second in the doorway. Zadie began to shiver uncontrollably, her eyes fluttering towards unconsciousness. She let out a strangled gasp and I sprang into action, kneeling beside her bed. With timorous fingers I did my best to stem the flow of blood coming from her stomach.
‘Mrs Lewis?’ The emergency operator was still on the line.
‘I’ve done what I can,’ I said, my voice quivering, ‘but I can’t seem to stop the bleeding.’
Pacing the floor of the relatives’ waiting room, I clenched my hands together and prayed with full concentration so that I said all I wanted to without my mind drifting off in other directions as it usually did. Wherever I was in the room, my eyes were trained continually on the small rectangle of glass in the door, watching for a nurse to pass by so that I could pounce on them for some news. When the door clicked open I darted across the room, my heart beating so hard that I could feel the puls
e reverberating up to my neck and deep down into my stomach.
The doctor was young but tense and tired looking. He entered the room with a grave expression and I felt a jolt of panic; he didn’t look like a man about to deliver good news. Meeting my anxious stare with a sympathetic smile, he seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second before saying anything. I steeled myself. ‘We’ve managed to stop the bleeding,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘A couple of the wounds were fairly nasty but nothing too alarming.’
I let out a huge breath, thinking that the doctor, being young, was probably still perfecting his bedside manner. Zadie’s injuries were not alarming. As far as I was concerned that was good news. He probably needed to lighten up a little bit, I thought, wondering if he’d had a particularly difficult shift. ‘Oh thank goodness,’ I said, immediately tensing when I saw that the young man still looked gravely concerned.
‘But?’ I said, my stomach beginning to perform a slow churning somersault.
He ran his forefinger around the inside of his collar, pivoting his head as if it was too hot in the room. ‘I understand you’ve been Zadie’s foster carer for a while?’
‘Yes,’ I said quickly, my alarm growing by the second. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
Another pause. ‘Were you aware that she’s pregnant?’
I didn’t register what he said instantaneously, my mind taking a few moments to process the words. When it did my eyes widened and I stared at him agog, blinking rapidly. My arm flew out to rest on the back of a chair and I held on tight, my legs suddenly unable to hold up my own weight, as if the floor had suddenly become soft.
‘I’m so sorry. I can see this has come as a bit of a shock to you.’
‘No,’ I said firmly, recovering my wherewithal. ‘She can’t be. It’s not possible.’
He cleared his throat and locked eyes with me. ‘I’m afraid there really is no doubt.’
I began spluttering, then gasping for breath as if someone had clamped a hand over my mouth. There was a humming noise in my ears. ‘But how can that be?’ I asked, searching his face. He moved his mouth but didn’t manage to produce any sound before I shook my head and said, ‘I’m sorry, that was a stupid question.’ I rubbed my hand across my forehead. ‘I just don’t understand.’
He nodded patiently, then cleared his throat. ‘I’m afraid I must ask – how long has she been in your care?’
I felt the heat rise to my face, the implications beginning to dawn on me. ‘About ten weeks, I think,’ I said, a new wave of panic coursing through my stomach.
He nodded and relaxed a fraction, seemingly satisfied. With my hands on my cheeks in a futile attempt to shield myself from the answer I asked a vital question, my voice weak. ‘How far gone is she?’
‘I can’t say for certain. We’re organising a scan at the moment but I’d guess somewhere between 20 and 25 weeks.’ He patted my arm. ‘This must be distressing news for you, I’m sure.’
I nodded vaguely, my mind still catching up with events. When I actually thought about it, it simply wasn’t possible that Zadie had become pregnant in my care; she had hardly been out of my sight since she first arrived. ‘Does she know?’ I asked suddenly.
‘It’s difficult to tell. One of the nurses tried discussing it with her but she seems to have completely withdrawn. I suspect she has known for a while. It’s not unusual for girls to bury their heads in the sand. The reality is too frightening to acknowledge.’
Of course she knows, I registered with a jot. Of course she does: the manic exercising, the nausea and tiredness. Suddenly it all made sense and I felt incredibly, ridiculously stupid. How could I not have noticed? But then, she was only 13 years old and from a devout, religious home. It was the last thing I should have expected, surely?
As I walked along the corridor to the accident and emergency department, I gazed at the stark white walls, wondering what I could possibly say to Zadie to reassure her. While fostering I have supported lots of children through difficult times but in Zadie’s situation I knew that there was simply no easy solution. Whatever happened, whatever decisions were to be made, her life from that moment had changed irrevocably. The thought made me a little dizzy and I slowed my step as I neared the double doors of the emergency treatment area, the sight of her waxen face through a circular glass observation panel making my pulse play even louder in my ears.
Partly because social services needed to be informed but mainly, I think, to give myself more time to gather myself, I slipped through the exit doors and dialled the number for the emergency, out-of-hours duty social worker. The stench of stale tobacco hit me, the brown droopy plants in a nearby flower-bed festooned with hundreds of cigarette butts where petals should be. Wrinkling my nose, I moved several metres away and leaned against the cold concrete wall for support as I rattled off a summary of the night’s events to a man with a heavy foreign accent who yawned several times during the largely one-sided conversation. While he thanked me for letting him know, he said very little else and offered nothing in the way of advice. Still, my duty was done and the fresh cold air had cleared the fuzzy feeling from my head.
Zadie was propped up on several pillows on a hospital trolley pressed against the far wall of a large treatment area. Three other trolleys were lined up along the space, each of them surrounded by canisters and tubes but all empty of patients. A nurse was crouched beside an open cupboard on the other side of the room, filling the shelves with small boxes. She gave me a brief smile as I walked in and nodded in answer to my quizzical look, waving permission for me to come in with her free hand.
Zadie’s arms were tightly folded over the white sheet covering her, her hands clamped around a white cellular blanket as if she was afraid someone was going to snatch it away. She looked so young and vulnerable without her headscarf that my heart squeezed at the sight. Looking up, her face clouded with apprehension when she saw me. With a smile from me the muscles in her face softened and her lip quivered. Still several feet away I whispered, ‘Oh, Zadie.’ That was enough. Her eyes crumpled and she began to cry, unravelling her arms and holding them out to me. It was a childlike gesture and I was immediately undone. Welling up, I closed the space between us and through the haze I leaned across the bed, taking her hands in mine. ‘It’s going to be all right, you know,’ I said, planting a kiss on her hair. ‘We’ll take care of you.’
When I got home Mum greeted me at the door. I had called her on the way home from the hospital, unable to keep the news to myself, and, with Megan fast asleep in the crook of one arm, she draped the other around my shoulders and guided me into the hall. While Mum settled Megan in her crib I walked through to the dining room and as I lowered my keys to the table I noticed signs everywhere. They hit me with full force, making me feel even more ashamed of myself than I had at the hospital. I had wanted so much to help Zadie, but now the seemingly innocuous incidents all connected up to make me feel like the worst foster carer in England. I pictured Zadie sitting down to meals, her drained face edged with a tinge of green.
And then, standing at the patio doors and staring into the garden, I remembered how Zadie had thrown herself around on the trampoline as if she were representing her country in the Olympics and then, coming in, her robe held out in front of her with nervous fingers that never kept still.
I had wrongly attributed it all to anxiety instead of a burgeoning tummy. I covered my face with my hands, incidents playing hazily over in my mind like poor-quality podcasts. I replayed our conversation on the swing when Zadie had slipped up and told me that she preferred to wear school uniform to school. I had thought it strange that when I took her shopping all she wanted was robes. She hadn’t preferred the anonymity of the burqa at all; she had been hiding her growing tummy. Zadie hadn’t said much at the hospital. She had cried and clung to me but after that she seemed to be exhausted, her voice so deep and slow with tiredness that I hadn’t pressed her to talk.
I clapped my hands to my face, trying to push aside a rush of
angry frustration. The clues had been dangled in front of me and I had been blind to them all. If I had realised the truth sooner, Zadie may have had more choices. None of them would have been easy but she would have had more control over what happened to her. At this late stage it was possible that there would be no way out: it was likely that she would have to carry the baby to term.
‘She’s off and dreaming somewhere peaceful,’ Mum said behind me. Turning, I gave her a weary smile and she sighed. ‘It never rains but it pours,’ she murmured. ‘Come on, you.’ And she slipped her arm through mine, steering me towards the kitchen. I sank down onto one of the stools and watched her bustling around the place.
‘I do wish you’d get yourself some proper cups and saucers,’ she said as she flicked the kettle on and draped a tea towel over her elbow, the red and white striped cloth occupying the soft space Megan had just vacated. It was such an everyday, ordinary thing to say that if I’d had the energy I would have got up and hugged her. It had been a horrible night and so to hear that Mum was still disturbed by the prospect of tea served in a mug was strangely comforting. Being gently nagged took me right back to my childhood where decisions were made for me, my responsibilities limited to making my own bed and remembering to take my packed lunch for school.
Registering with a start that Zadie would be craving such solidity, especially in her time of crisis, I resolved to be her bulwark, supporting her through the tough months that lay ahead. Mum tutted as she examined my mismatched crockery, curling her lip and sighing with resigned exasperation. ‘It just doesn’t taste the same in these things,’ she moaned, dropping a tea-bag into my chunky bright red mug.
I smiled to myself, filled with gratitude for her presence.
Zadie sat quietly in the back of the car as I drove towards home the next day, but when I pulled the car into our street she loosened her seat belt, leaned forward in her seat and slipped a hesitant hand over the head rest behind me. ‘Rosie,’ she whispered in a shaky voice, ‘do Emily and Jamie know?’
