The Perfect Child

by Berry, Lucinda

  “Honey, do you want to go outside?” I asked, moving to stand beside her, hoping I could distract her. It seemed torturous not to feed her, but the doctors had assured us that keeping her on her schedule was the best thing for her.

  She glared at me and shook her head, pointing to the refrigerator again. This time she smacked it. “Food! I want to eat!”

  We were one step away from a full-on meltdown. Suddenly, Christopher broke into a goofy dance and scooped her into his arms before she had a chance to protest. He swung her around. “Whee!”

  She looked longingly over her shoulder at the fridge, but he twirled her again.

  “Whee!” I exclaimed this time. “Look how fast you’re going!”

  Slowly, a smile spread over her face. Christopher kept swinging her. Finally, she started giggling and stopped trying to look at the refrigerator. I let out the breath I’d been holding. We’d just passed our first parenting test.

  But things didn’t go as smoothly during our visit the next day. We were sprawled out on the living room floor coloring when she suddenly started screaming. They were angry, violent screams. Not scared screams—rage screams. There were no tears. She wouldn’t let us get near her. Every time we inched closer, she screamed louder.

  “It’s okay, Janie. There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Christopher said.

  His words had no effect on her. It was like she couldn’t hear him; she was somewhere else. She panted like she couldn’t get enough air. Christopher reached out to bring her close to him, and she sank her teeth into his forearm. He yelled and jerked back instinctively, pushing her away. She howled.

  I crouched in front of her. “Honey, it’s—”

  Her spit hit my face before I finished my sentence. I wiped it off with the back of my hand and turned to Christopher. He looked as lost as I felt.

  She flipped herself onto her back and beat her fists against the wooden floor manically. Before we knew what was happening, she flung her head back and smashed it on the floor. It made a loud crack.

  “Oh my God!” Christopher grabbed her and wrestled his arms around her to hold her in a tight bear hug. She let out another wail and head-butted him in the nose. He let her go, and she threw herself back down on the floor. Within seconds, she was banging her head again.

  “She’s going to knock herself out,” I said. “You get behind her and hold her. I’ll grab her legs.”

  He held her from behind so she couldn’t head-butt him again. I held her legs down with my arms. She fought against us, her small body rigid with rage, but we refused to let go. I was afraid she was going to pop her hips out of socket with the way she tried to kick me again and again. It felt like hours before she stopped fighting and her body went limp. It was finally over, but we were afraid to let go. It took another few minutes before we released our hold, and she burst into tears immediately, her body shaking with heaving sobs.

  I ran to the bathroom down the hallway and grabbed a washcloth, running it under the faucet. I held it on her forehead like she was feverish, hoping the coolness would alleviate some of the heat flowing through her body. We tried everything to comfort her, taking turns holding her and rubbing her back. Christopher tried distracting her with videos on his phone—the ones with gorillas that usually made her laugh—but nothing worked.

  She cried until the visit was over and we had to take her back to the hospital. She wailed the entire drive and was still carrying on when we left her in her room.

  “Wow, that was so intense,” Christopher said as we drove away. Perspiration marks lined the armpits of his favorite T-shirt.

  “Have you ever seen her like that?” I asked.

  “I’ve seen her freak out before, but I had no idea it could last for so long. The nurses talk about how long she screams sometimes, but they never said it went on for hours. Do you think it’s too much for her too soon?” he asked. He was obviously shaken.

  I reached out and grabbed his hand. “I think it’s going to be a tough transition for her, and this is probably just the beginning.”

  “I don’t even know why she freaked out. I mean, one second we were coloring, and the next minute, she just freaked out for no reason. I didn’t even tell her no or anything.” His eyes were filled with questions, searching for answers.

  I squeezed his hand. “There’s probably a lot going on inside her that we don’t even know about.”

  “It’s just that I can usually calm her down. What’s going to happen if I can’t calm her down?” Worry flooded his face.

  “Thankfully, we don’t have to do this alone.” Janie went to so many different therapies each day I didn’t know how she had time for anything else. Each of them had given us a detailed summary of her care. “Rhonda told me she’s going to give us a bunch of sensory toys that she uses with kids who’ve been severely abused. She says they work great at helping them learn to self-soothe. She’s got stacks of other resources for us too. All kinds of different therapeutic games and books.” Rhonda was the chief psychologist at the hospital, and she worked with Janie for two hours every day.

  “Do you really think they’ll help?”

  “Absolutely,” I said, trying to be strong for him despite the fear gnawing in my gut.

  CASE #5243

  INTERVIEW:

  PIPER GOLDSTEIN

  The sun hit my eyes, making me squint, but I didn’t care. It felt good to be outside, even if it was only going to be for five minutes. For a second, I wished I smoked. At least then I would have had a valid reason for asking them to let me step outside for a minute. Instead, I’d just looked shady when I’d asked if I could get some air. They’d looked at me suspiciously, but it wasn’t like they could say no.

  “Let’s make it quick, though, so we can finish this thing up,” Ron had said, as if we were almost finished. I hoped we were, but I doubted it. We hadn’t even gotten to any of the hard stuff yet. They’d spent way too much time on the Bauers’ first home visit.

  Hannah had called me afterward, worried and frazzled, wondering if they’d gotten in over their heads. I hadn’t told the officers that, but they hadn’t asked the question either. Besides, I knew what they’d think if I told them, and it wasn’t even like that. She had just been concerned. She was always so much more practical about Janie than Christopher.

  “Is there anything we can do to make things better for her?” she had asked that day.

  “Just keep doing what you’re doing, but honestly, it’s going to take a long time for the psychological and emotional healing to happen. That part isn’t going to start until she’s settled in a more permanent home. Even if she’s not consciously aware of it, at some level, she still doesn’t feel safe. No kid feels safe when they don’t have a home.”

  “How are the prospects looking?”

  “There are a lot of people who want her.” I had rubbed my forehead just thinking about the hundreds of pages of paperwork I had to go through. “But it’s a good problem to have.”

  “Still no luck tracking down any of her family members?”

  “Nothing worth reporting,” I had said.

  It wasn’t exactly a lie—telling her about visiting Becky’s mother in jail would have served no purpose except to upset her more, and nothing good had come out of our visit anyway.

  We started with family members whenever we needed a permanent placement for a child, and Becky’s mother, Sue Watson, was the only relative we’d found. She had a criminal record spanning the last two decades and was in Fodge County Jail awaiting her trial after pleading not guilty to her third DUI charge and reckless driving. I’d gone to see her last week.

  Sue was so obese her folds had slid over the aluminum chair, since her fat was the loose kind. She had worn the characteristic orange jumper. Usually women swam in them, but hers had hugged her body tightly. Her hair had been a frizzy mess, long and bushy, like it’d been years since a brush had passed through it. She had wrapped her arms around her wide chest and glared at me. “Who are you?”
Her teeth were as rotten as Janie’s had been.

  “I’m Piper Goldstein. We spoke on the phone? I’m the social worker who’s been assigned to your granddaughter, Janie’s, case?”

  “What’s Janie need a social worker for?” she’d asked, eyeing the other visitors in the packed room like they might be able to hear, but there hadn’t been any reason to worry; visiting hours were short, and nobody cared about any other visit but their own.

  “The courts assign a social worker when a child is in need of protective care,” I’d explained like I’d done the first time we’d spoken on the phone.

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  I’d hated to even bring it up, but I hadn’t had a choice. The state insisted we pursue family care if at all possible. Sometimes it worked, but more often than not, it didn’t. Dysfunctional parenting usually spanned generations, and most of the time, the family member didn’t do any better than the parents. In Janie’s case, I’d known she wouldn’t stand a chance with any of her extended family because Sue had been arrested more times than Becky.

  “We’re trying to determine the best placement for Janie and thought you might be able to help us find the information we need to do that.”

  She’d leaned forward on the table. “What kind of information you looking for?”

  “Anything you might be able to tell us about Becky and Janie.”

  She’d snorted. “I haven’t seen that child in years.”

  “Janie or Becky?”

  “Both.”

  “Did you use to see them frequently?”

  “I raised Janie.”

  I’d picked up my pen. This had been new information. “Can you tell me more about that?” I had asked, sounding just like a reporter.

  “Becky never wanted that baby. Only reason she even had her was because she waited too long to go in and get it taken care of.”

  “What about the father?”

  Sue had burst out laughing. “Father? Becky can’t keep her damn legs shut. Who knows who that baby’s daddy is? Definitely not Becky. She don’t have a clue.” She’d snorted. “I brought them two home from the hospital to stay with me. I thought I’d give Becky another chance. Maybe give her time to get off that nasty junk, but I should’ve known better.” She’d rolled her eyes. “She was back smoking within three weeks. Didn’t even last a month with her baby. Took off one night and never came home. Left me with the damn baby to take care of.”

  “How long was she gone?” I’d asked.

  She’d laughed again. This laugh had been so deep that it had shaken her belly underneath her jumpsuit. “She didn’t come back until Janie was almost two.”

  “And Janie was with you that entire time? Nobody else?”

  She’d nodded.

  “Why did Becky come back for her?”

  “She’d gotten herself clean. Been in some kind of program for six months. I gave her Janie, but there’s no way I was letting that girl back in my house.”

  I had scribbled down the timeline. “What was Janie like when she was a baby?”

  “She never slept. Ya know how they always be saying babies sleep all the time? Not Janie.” She’d shaken her head. “She came into the world woke, and she stayed woke.”

  “You mean she was colicky?”

  She’d looked puzzled. “What’s that?”

  “It’s when babies cry a lot. Babies with colic usually don’t sleep much.”

  “Oh, hell no. That ain’t what she was like. She never cried. She just stayed woke. Like I said. She just laid there staring at the ceiling. She didn’t want nuthin’ to do with me. Didn’t even care I was her grandma. How you s’pposed to care about a baby who don’t care nuthin’ for you?”

  “I don’t know. That must’ve been really hard for you.”

  She’d shrugged. “Oh well, I just figured you can’t pick babies. Sometimes ya just get a bad one.”

  “So what’d you do?”

  “I just let her do whatever she want till she got bigger, but then she turned even worser.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Couldn’t get her to do anything you wanted her to. She freak out if you told her no. That girl would kick me. Try and bite me. If she couldn’t bite me, she’d bite her own self. Craziest thing I ever seen.” She’d nodded her head, agreeing with herself and gaining momentum as she spoke. “Then she start taking off her diaper and peeing all over everything. Not just in the room. Everywhere in the damn house. She drop a dookie whenever she feel like it. Get all mad and make herself throw up. I was like, nuh-uh. Ain’t no child gonna act all crazy like that, messing up my house. That’s when I had to start whooping her good. That’s what I did with all my kids.” She’d locked her eyes on mine pointedly. “I had a right to whoop my children when they got out of hand just like Becky got a right to do the same to Janie when she was getting out of hand.”

  Everyone who beat their kids had an excuse, and it was usually because they thought it was their right to do it. People even used Bible verses to justify beating their children. I couldn’t count the number of parents who’d quoted the “Spare the rod, spoil the child” verse to me. I hadn’t bothered trying to change her mind. She’d be locked away from children for a long time.

  “Were you concerned that there was something wrong with Janie?”

  She’d leaned forward again and lowered her voice, whispering like we were best friends. “You ever looked in her eyes? Those eyes turn black as night. Sometimes, I just had to smack her upside the head just to get her eyes look blue again. You know what I mean?” She’d laughed, but I was pretty sure she was serious. “I woulda just got rid of her. Believe me, I thought about it. But then Becky came back. She’d gotten herself clean and wanted Janie again. I was like, ‘Hell yeah—take her.’”

  “When was the last time you saw them?”

  Her forehead had creased as she’d tried to remember. “Two years? Maybe three?”

  “And what was Becky like then?”

  “Crazy as ever. Strung out again and talking about taking Janie to church so she could have the pastor pray over her again.”

  “I know you said that you didn’t know who Janie’s father was, but were there any men in Becky’s life?”

  We had to track down the biological father or any other male figure who might have custodial rights. Even if they weren’t around, we had to give them an opportunity to take Janie. I’d never seen it happen. Deadbeat dads didn’t resurrect themselves to show up for their kids when they needed it. It was just another box I had to check off my form.

  “No idea.”

  “Were there any men who’d hurt Becky in the past?”

  She’d raised her eyebrows. “Were there any who didn’t?”

  THIRTEEN

  CHRISTOPHER BAUER

  I was so excited to bring Janie home, but the sheer magnitude of the task at hand pummeled me when we walked through the front door, and I froze. The entryway stretched out in front of me, leading to our rustic living room with the burnt-orange accent wall I’d insisted on. The sun from the bay windows drenched the room in light, illuminating every piece we’d so thoughtfully and lovingly designed, but nothing felt safe or familiar. Everything looked different, even the artwork. Suddenly, all this time opened up in front of us. Hannah and I had each taken three weeks of vacation to be with Janie until they matched her with a family, but now that we had her home, what were we supposed to do with her?

  Hannah took one look at my face and read what I couldn’t say.

  “Why don’t we all get something to eat?” she asked. Even though food was a touchy issue with Janie, it was the one thing guaranteed to make her happy, and we’d purposefully scheduled our arrival to coincide with her snack time. Hannah stretched her hand out to me, and I grasped it, grateful for her lead. We filed into the kitchen.

  The rest of our house was homey and inviting, filled with our down-to-earth style and lived-in looks, but the kitchen was a different story. It was set
up with purpose and function in mind. The kitchen was supposed to be the heart of the home and the place people spent the most time, but not with us, since both of us hated to cook. I would be perfectly content ordering takeout every night or heating microwave meals, but Hannah insisted on cooking, so it was all designed to make things easy for her. There was open shelving so that she knew exactly where everything was, and it was easy to grab.

  We had set up a whiteboard on the refrigerator so Janie could see when she was going to eat, just like at the hospital. Her timer was on the kitchen island. We had bought the same one the nurses had used. Our goal was to keep everything like the hospital so we could maintain her routines. We hoped her adoptive parents would do the same.

  Hannah unlocked the refrigerator. Janie let go of my hand and ran to it. Her eyes grew big as she took it all in. She’d probably never seen a full refrigerator before, and ours was stacked. It was all neatly organized and labeled in storage containers.

  “Janie, I want you to know that this is your food.” Hannah waved her hand around, pointing to each shelf. “All of it. You will always have enough to eat in our house. We are always going to feed you, okay?”

  She was too busy eyeing all the food and fingering the Tupperware full of colorful sliced fruit—Hannah’s work—to respond. She pointed to the strawberries. “That. I want that,” she said.

  Hannah pulled out the strawberries.

  “And that. And that. And that.” She pointed so quickly it was hard to tell what she was pointing at.

  Hannah laughed and pulled out some cheese along with a few slices of salami. “How about we put some of these on crackers?”

  Janie’s smile grew even wider, and I finally felt like I could breathe. I took a seat at the island. I had only sat on the stools when we were deciding which ones to purchase, because we rarely ate in the kitchen. We usually carried our meals into the living room to watch whatever show we were currently bingeing on. A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth as Janie crawled onto my lap. Maybe we didn’t spend time in the kitchen because we’d never had a reason to before. Hannah lined the island counter with food and pulled the other stool closer to us. I reached over and rubbed Hannah’s back as she stared at Janie in awe. Janie shoveled food in her mouth. Hannah flashed me a smile, her eyes filled with happy tears.