All my nerves had been for nothing. It had been an amazing day. It’d gone better than I could’ve expected. The three of us were snuggled on Janie’s bed reading books together. We’d been in the same position for over an hour.
“One more,” Janie said after Hannah finished the book. She loved reading. It was one of her favorite activities.
“You promised you’d go to sleep if we read Whistle for Willie.” Hannah closed the book and gave her a pointed look. We’d already read it three times. It was past ten o’clock.
She stuck her lower lip out. “I don’t wanna sleep.”
“Christopher and I are going to be right outside your door if you need us, okay?”
“If you need anything, all you have to do is call us, and we’ll come,” I said, rubbing my hand across her cheek.
She nodded obligingly. We each gave her a kiss on the forehead. Then we laid her down on the bed, pulled the covers up to her chin, and tucked her stuffed animals around her. She smiled up at us. “Good night,” she said sweetly.
“Good night, Janie,” we sang back in unison.
We left her door open a crack and plopped down on the couch in the family room outside her room. The glow from the night-lights edging the hallway cast shadows on the wall. I put my feet up on the coffee table and let out a deep sigh. We’d no sooner settled on the couch when Janie bounced out of her room carrying her dinosaur.
“Hiya,” she said. “Whatcha doing?”
I looked at Hannah, and we both tried not to laugh.
“We’re resting. Just like you’re supposed to be doing,” I said. I took her hand and led her back to her room, where I tucked her in like we’d just done.
It wasn’t so funny when she popped out of bed as soon as I sat down again. We repeated the routine for the next two hours. Hannah and I took turns bringing her back to bed and laying her down. It grew more and more difficult each time, and eventually, we were practically dragging her there. By one o’clock, we were both exhausted.
“Why don’t you just lie down with her?” Hannah asked. “She’ll probably go to sleep if you’re in there with her.”
“I know, but Piper was adamant about not sleeping with her.”
Piper had stressed the importance of letting her sleep alone because otherwise it would be harder for her to leave when it was time. We were trying to facilitate a smooth transition, not make it more difficult.
“The first night isn’t going to hurt anything, and she’s clearly not going to go to sleep in there alone,” Hannah said.
I shrugged. “I guess it can’t hurt.”
Hannah gathered blankets from the linen closet in the hallway.
“What are you doing?” Janie asked, coming out of her room again.
“Christopher is going to sleep on the floor of your bedroom. Will that help you sleep?” she asked. She tried to keep her tone light, but I could hear the exhaustion in her voice.
Janie clapped, her face beaming with excitement. “Yes!”
I helped Hannah carry the blankets into her room, and I made up a pallet on Janie’s floor while Hannah went and grabbed a pillow from our bedroom.
“Janie, lie down and go to sleep,” I said.
She flopped down on her bed without a word.
“Good night,” Hannah whispered, handing me the pillow before tiptoeing out of the room and turning off the light.
I lay on the floor waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Slowly, her room came into view. Her small twin-size bed was pushed up against the wall on the right side, and we’d put a rail on the other side of it to keep her from falling out. The comforter was bright yellow with huge pink flowers stamped all over it. Her favorite stuffed animals from the hospital lined her bed. A circular rug with purple and blue stripes filled the center of the room. There was so much we’d wanted to get her, but it didn’t make sense to fill her room with stuff when she was only going to be with us for a short time.
I strained to hear the sounds of her breathing and listened for the weird clicking sound she made in the back of her throat whenever she slept. It seemed like forever before I heard it, but I finally did, and my body slowly relaxed. I closed my eyes and fell asleep immediately.
A sharp smack to my forehead jolted me awake. My eyes snapped open. Janie hovered over me, holding one of her toy trains in her hand. I rubbed my head. There was a lump forming where she’d hit me.
“Janie, did you hit me with your train?” I asked with surprise. My head throbbed in the spot where she’d hit me. Her face was blank, emotionless, an expression I’d never seen her wear before. “You cannot hit me. It hurts when you hit me.”
She just stared at me in the dark. The night-light cast an eerie shadow on her face. She raised her arm like she was going to hit me again. I grabbed her arm. “Give me the train,” I said.
“No!” she screamed and pulled her arm free.
“Janie, give me the train. You can’t hit people with your toys.” I kept my voice steady.
She shook her head.
“You need to get back in your bed, and I don’t want you to take your train with you because you hit me with it.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits, her pint-size body full of challenge. In one swift movement, she threw the train at me and took off, bolting out the door. I threw off my blankets and chased after her. She ran into the family room and tore the cushions off the couch, screaming at the top of her lungs.
Hannah raced out of our bedroom. “What’s going on?” she asked as she watched Janie tear through the room.
“I think she had a nightmare,” I said.
Hannah ran toward her as she grabbed the candles on the coffee table and smashed them onto the floor. “Janie, stop!”
Her face was contorted in rage. She ripped off her clothes, shaking in her diaper. Her fists clenched at her sides. She eyed the room, looking for something else to destroy. Hannah stepped cautiously toward her like Janie was a feral cat. She crouched down in front of her.
“It’s okay, honey. You’re okay,” she said softly. She grabbed Janie, encircling her small body with her arms. Janie kicked and screamed against her. Suddenly, she plunged her teeth into Hannah’s arm just like she’d done to me before. Hannah yelled and instinctively let go. Janie took off again, this time running into the kitchen.
We followed her. She had flipped over one of the barstools and was standing in front of the refrigerator, pounding on it. She grew even more frustrated when the refrigerator wouldn’t open and threw herself down on the floor. She flipped around, and before we knew it, she was bashing her head violently against the floor. We rushed to her side. Rhonda had instructed us on the importance of keeping her from hurting herself during her tantrums and shown us some holding techniques.
“Grab her,” Hannah said, lurching into action. She tried to grab Janie’s legs, but Janie writhed and moved around, making it almost impossible to grab her and keep her still. It was easier for me to grab her upper body and twist her arms behind her back the way we’d practiced with Rhonda.
Janie strained against us. She growled and grunted, alternating between screams. It was hard to believe we weren’t hurting her, but Rhonda had assured us it was a safe hold. We stayed in our position for an hour before she was finally still. Not asleep but still. The fight had left her body. I scooped her up and carried her to her room. I placed her on the bed, and she lay there motionless, staring at her ceiling.
“Do you think she’s all right?” Hannah asked. “Should we take her back to the hospital?”
I eyed the clock. It was four thirty. “I don’t know.”
Hannah rested her hand on Janie’s forehead. “It’s okay, Janie. You’re safe.”
Janie didn’t move or respond. It was as if she hadn’t heard her. We crawled onto the bed with her, resting against the wall. I took one of her small hands in mine and held Hannah’s hand with the other. We sat that way until the sun came up.
FOURTEEN
HANNAH BAUER
/> Allison waved to me from a spot in the corner, and I made my way through the crowded coffee shop over to her. She jumped up and hugged me before sitting back down and sliding my latte across the table. “Okay, you have one hour to tell me everything. Go.”
Janie had been with us for five days, and I hadn’t talked to Allison since her first night. We’d texted, but even that was minimal. I didn’t even know where to begin. I took a sip of my coffee.
“I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve rested since we brought her home.” We’d assumed that if we mimicked the hospital structure, Janie would respond to it in the same way that she’d done there, but it hadn’t been the case. She screamed and cried for hours. Most of our days were spent trying to console her. Her doctors and therapy team had warned us about her episodes, but it was different once you were in them yourself. “She has fits every day, and they can go on for hours—I’m not even exaggerating when I say hours—and there’s nothing you can do to calm her down. I’m continually amazed at how much rage can come out of such a little girl. She’s got that frothing-at-the-mouth kind of rage, and you just have to sit with her during it and restrain her if she starts banging her head. I hate holding her down, but we have to do it to keep her safe.”
“What gets her so upset?”
I shrugged. “We never really know what triggers her. Certain things are a given, like taking away her food or being told no, but most of the time we have no idea.”
Allison’s face filled with sadness. “That sounds terrible.”
“It’s pretty awful for her right now. She gets overstimulated really easily, and she’s hyperaware, so she jumps and plugs her ears every time a car goes by. Tuesday was one of her worst days since it was trash day. Most of the day was spent trying to coax her out from underneath the bed. Oh, and she’s decided she doesn’t want to wear clothes anymore. She scratches and claws at them like they’re burning her skin. We spent the first two days getting her dressed over and over again because she kept ripping them off.” I laughed. “Now we just let her run around in her diaper.”
“Her diaper?”
“I thought I told you she wasn’t potty trained?” I could’ve sworn I had. They had put her in diapers in the hospital, and she’d been content running around in them ever since. She wasn’t bothered by her soiled diapers even when they were packed with feces. If it weren’t for the smell, we wouldn’t have noticed because she never complained about it or told us she’d gone. Urinating was the same way; she’d sit in her mess all day.
Allison shook her head.
“Yeah. She has no idea how to use the toilet. At least she’s good about changing her diapers, though. She lies right down on the floor and raises her legs for one of us to change her. There’re so many things she doesn’t know how to do. Like she doesn’t know how to hold silverware. Isn’t it weird that holding silverware is a learned skill?”
Allison laughed.
“What?”
“It’s not all that weird when you have kids.” Her eyes widened in horror. She reached across the table and grabbed both my hands. “I’m so sorry, Hannah. I’m such an idiot. It just came out of my mouth. I wasn’t even—”
I interrupted her. “Stop. It’s okay. Really, it is.” I gave her a convincing smile. “You know how you used to say motherhood was a world of conflicting emotions?” She nodded. “I get it now. I mean, I said I did before, but now I do in a way that I don’t think you can understand unless you have kids yourself. Like last night after the dinner battle finally ended, we were all exhausted and frustrated, but as soon as we got Janie in the bath and started splashing around with her toys, it was all forgotten.”
Allison took a bite of her muffin, chewing quickly before talking. “You’re going to have such a hard time when she leaves.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I smiled, tossing a napkin at her.
“You are, and you know it.” She shook her head.
“Of course I’m attached—I’m not going to deny that—but it’s actually been good for me. It really has in a lot of ways.”
She tilted her head at me, skeptical still. “How so?”
“Before Janie, I was thinking about giving up on my dream of being a mother. I didn’t tell you that, but I was. As much as I wanted to be a mother, I didn’t think I could stand to get my hopes up another time and end up disappointed, but Janie’s made me realize that I don’t want to give up on it. I can’t ever give up because no amount of disappointment is worth giving up on what it feels like to be a mom. She gave me a taste of it, and I know I’ll never be satisfied until I get to enjoy the experience.”
FIFTEEN
CHRISTOPHER BAUER
I watched as the man, Carl, squeezed Janie’s cheeks playfully.
Don’t do that. She doesn’t like her face touched, I wanted to call out. It was so hard not to say anything. All of this was so painful to watch, but I couldn’t walk away. I couldn’t just leave Janie with a stranger. I didn’t care if the stranger had been screened and thoroughly investigated by the Department of Children’s Services.
His wife, Joyce, stood next to the bookshelf in the living room talking to Hannah, but Hannah’s eyes were glued to Janie and Carl just like mine. She didn’t trust him any more than I did. It didn’t matter that they looked harmless in their worn jeans and tucked-in T-shirts, but they weren’t doing things the way Janie liked. They weren’t in tune with her. Carl still hadn’t noticed that she flinched each time he spoke because it was too loud. Janie looked back and forth between Hannah and me, chewing on her thumbnail, something she only did when she was uncomfortable.
“Janie, sweetie, do you want to come over here and talk to Joyce?” Hannah said, right as I was about to create a similar diversion. I grinned. She wanted to rescue Janie as badly as me. Janie nodded and quickly walked over to Hannah. Joyce knelt in front of her before she reached her.
“Do you like playing outside?” Joyce asked. She was in her early fifties, slightly on the heavy side, and wore a long red cardigan despite the heat today.
Janie froze.
It’d been like this for over an hour, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. These people might have looked good on paper, but they were not good with her in person. Hannah scooped Janie up, and she laid her head on Hannah’s shoulder.
“I think she’s overtired today,” Hannah said, looking apologetic. “Maybe we should set up a visit for another time.”
Joyce huffed, clearly offended.
I shook Carl’s hand. “It was nice to meet you.”
“Likewise. I’m sure we’ll be in touch,” he said.
He seemed like a nice-enough man, just not the right match for Janie. I walked over to Joyce and put my arm around Hannah’s shoulders. “It was nice to meet you as well, Joyce.”
“It really was,” Hannah said. It sounded genuine if you didn’t know her like I did.
I excused myself and headed to the backyard, where I walked to the far corner. I didn’t want to take the chance of someone overhearing me. I called Piper, pacing back and forth as I waited for her to answer. Relief washed over me at the sound of her voice.
“That was awful,” I blurted out, skipping all the small talk. “They looked like they walked out of a car-insurance commercial.”
Piper laughed. “Really? They were that bad?”
“Yes. Janie froze every time they talked to her.” She’d been that way from their first hello. She’d refused to move from her spot behind me during introductions. It’d taken over ten minutes just to get her to show her face.
“In their defense, she probably would’ve done that to anyone regardless because she really likes you guys.”
The next set of prospective parents was even worse. The woman had terrible breath, and Janie plugged her nose every time she came near her. Her husband had shifty eyes, and I didn’t trust anyone who had trouble with eye contact. I stepped out to call Piper like I’d done before.
“Where do yo
u find these people?” I asked.
I expected her to laugh again, but there was silence on the other end. It was a few more beats before she spoke. “I think you need to lower your standards for parents.”
I was taken aback. “What do you mean? Neither of these couples was a good fit for her. It was obvious immediately. They had no clue how to interact with her.”
“You’ve seen two of the best sets of parents we have.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope.”
This time the silence came from me.
“What if I said we were thinking about becoming her permanent foster parents?”
It wasn’t exactly true. I hadn’t even considered it until I blurted it out, but I realized as soon as I did that I meant it. I wanted to be her dad. What if she was the child we’d been waiting for all along? Maybe this was the reason things had worked out the way they did.
SIXTEEN
HANNAH BAUER
I gripped the edge of my seat and glared at Christopher. “Are you serious? How could you? How could you possibly make that huge of a decision without asking me first?”
His eyes widened in shock. “I didn’t . . . I just . . .”
“Spit it out. What? What were you thinking when you told Piper we wanted to keep Janie?” I stood up, my chair slamming into the wall behind me.
“Keep your voice down,” he hissed. “She’s going to hear you.”
I worked my jaw back and forth, too furious to think straight. “How could you assume you knew how I felt about something like this?”
I watched as the realization hit him. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “You don’t want to keep her?”
He looked like he was going to cry, and Christopher rarely cried. I’d only seen him do it a handful of times in all our years together.
The Perfect Child Page 8
