by Amy Marie
It takes some time for Britton to settle down as I assure her that Halifax won’t be coming back. I ask her, “Britton what happened when the cat bit you at your friend's house?”
She holds up her arm to show me a small puncture mark on her arm, “It hurt a lot and they gave me shots at the doctor. Mommy said sometimes cats are unpredrible.”
“Do you mean unpredictable?”
She nods as she rubs at her arm. Her little lip quivers as she says, “My teacher says kitties are soft and good pets, but I don’t love the kitties no more. They are mean!”
It’s too much of a coincidence for Britton to have this reaction to a cat. There’s nothing in any of her files about her father, but if I were the betting sort of person I’d be placing a lot of money on the fact that her father is a dragon, a member of the Garrison Society. Maybe her mother knew that and brought Britton here for this purpose. There’s something that’s not right though. The only way to help this child is to call my mother. There may not be a place for me in the Garrison Society anymore, but there might be a place for this child.
Chapter Six
Malinda
After being unable to reach the next of kin for Judy Hilliard, that’s the mother of little Britton, it was decided she would remain in my care for a few days. This is something that both thrills and scares me. On Monday I take her to school, although the prospect of her staying there all day is slim. There wasn’t another option unless I take her to work with me.
Over the weekend I left several messages for my mother. My mother and I get along great unless we spend too much time together. There have been a few times that a meal is too long together. I tried to appeal to her inner dragon so to speak. It’s not something we ever talk about, not since I stepped away from the Garrison Society.
After notifying the school of the new arrangements for Britton and updating her contact information, I leave the school for my office. The conversation I need to have with my mother would be considered NSFW or not safe for work. It’s a strange concept to me, I’m a social worker there shouldn’t be a taboo on talking about life. Unless it’s also about the Garrison Society, that’s probably more of a NSFL or a not safe for life topic.
Instead of making another phone call that she can ignore, I detour to my parents’ house after leaving the school. As a single girl my weekends are usually quiet. There’s the occasional work call that will require me to visit a client, or sometimes I need to supervise a court-appointed supervised visitation. Otherwise I try to spend weekends with my friends or doing projects at my house. After doing all of the things to make my house foster care ready, my bank account needs a rest.
After parking in front of the house, I walk around the side door like always. The door is still locked, so it’s hard to say if they are decent in there. Because I don’t need to catch my parents having a quickie in the family room again, I knock waiting until my dad answers the door.
“Hey, there sweet pea! What brings you by this early?” Rather than let me in the house, my dad steps outside to hug the snot out of me. “It’s so good to see you little darling.”
“Hi, daddy.”
Hearing the words come out of my mouth make me grateful for my father, and also a little sad for Britton. She’s never had a father, yet I wouldn’t know what to do without mine. It’s true what they say, you can’t miss what you never had.
He lets me go as he says, “Well, come on inside and let’s get your mom to make you breakfast. I’ll just let the boys at the office know I’m running a little later than normal.”
As we go inside I start to tell him I’ve already eaten. He doesn’t listen as he calls for my mom to make more food. Entering the kitchen, mom is standing at the sink washing dishes, as she turns her hands leave the water and drip with soap.
“Well, good morning Malinda. I haven’t had a chance to return your call yet. I thought you’d already been at work by this time in the morning. I was going to see if you could stop for dinner one night this week.” She dries her hands as she talks and crosses the room to give me a superficial hug.
She hasn’t always been like this. At one time I was maybe her favorite child. It wasn’t until I got sick that she started to pull away from me. Dad said it was because she thought she’d lose me. He tries to be a mediator between us. It’s never said out loud, but I’ve always believed it was because I’m no longer like the rest of my family. All of my family is considered dragons with the Garrison Society. I was able to keep up with all of them before I went to summer camp one year. After being exposed to something at camp I’ve never been the same. My mother spent months sitting at my bedside while I recovered. In between treatments, she would read to me, or we would play games. When I had sufficiently recovered enough that they determined I could never breathe fire again, that was when she pulled away from me. Our relationship has never been the same.
It’s easy to paste a smile on my face for my mother, she does the same thing for me. There isn’t time for our usual dance this morning, “Sorry, to just drop by this morning. It’s been a busy few days for me.”
Offering a genuine smile, she asks, “Did you finally go out with Lou Mackey last week?”
That’s the other hot topic with my mother. It seems that lately, her goal is for me to date and marry a member of the society. Of course, it has to be someone she has chosen. As if getting married is going to solve all of my problems. She tells me that I don’t realize the power of having a good man in my life, but I don’t see how it can solve the problems of the world either. Well not the problems in my world.
“No, mom.”
“Don’t take that tone with me. Lou is a nice fella, and he’s already aware of your issues. So maybe you should consider going out with him again.”
Sighing, I close my eyes and try counting to five. It used to be three but it wasn’t long enough to chase away the negative comments. After saying five in my brain a few times I calmly respond to her, “I’m sorry, Lou is great. We’ve talked about this before, I don’t want to get married and have an instant family. Also, his ex isn’t someone I want in my life for the next fifty years.”
Shaking her head, she walks away to pour a cup of coffee, “Oh, stop exaggerating. Sherry is just a little protective of her children. If you’d settle down and have a few of your own you’d understand.”
She abruptly stops where that was headed as dad returns to the kitchen. He puts a protective arm around my mother as he kisses the side of her head, “Isn’t it great to have Malinda here for breakfast this morning?”
There’s no point in going overboard on this charade. My mother has herself in a snit this morning, and it’s time to make my escape.
“I’m sorry, I’m already late for work this morning. I just needed to ask if you know a woman by the name of Judy Hilliard.”
“No, I don’t think so. Do you want some coffee?”
Shaking my head, I need some help, but coffee isn’t going to do much this morning. “No, I just need to know if you knew a Judy Hilliard. She has a small daughter.”
Dad looks concerned, “What’s going on, sweet pea? Are you in some type of trouble? Who is this Judy Hilliard?”
“I’m not in trouble, dad. She’s just, it’s just, she passed away on Friday.”
My mom gasps like this is the first time she’s heard of someone dying. Our friends and family usually live a long life, so there aren’t many funerals in our community of friends.
My father has moved from being the mediator this morning to putting on his fix-it hat. There’s never been a problem in my life that he hasn’t tried to fix for me. This is definitely something I need his help with, so I’m grateful he’s ready to fix this.
“Why don’t we sit down, and you can tell us about your friend Judy.”
As we sit at the table, mom gets the orange juice from the refrigerator and some glasses. Setting a glass in front of me she pours a generous amount into it. Without saying anything mom sits next to me and holds my ha
nd. It’s such an unusual thing for her to do that at first I’m a little speechless.
“Now, sweet pea, tell us about your friend.”
It’s difficult to tear my eyes away from my mom’s hand, it’s comforting to know she’s trying to comfort me even in a small way. Taking a sip from my glass, I say, “I didn’t know Judy Hilliard. I never met her. I was assigned to be the social worker for her daughter after she passed on Friday night. Britton, that’s her daughter stayed with me over the weekend.”
Mom makes a little sound like it’s a gasp before asking, “So this Judy is a stranger?”
My parents weren’t supportive of my choice to be a social worker. My desire to help people in our community was good until it went outside of the Garrison Society. After that my mom lost interest in most of what I have to say.
“Mom, she moved here a few years ago with a baby. She doesn’t have any family in the area, and it seems like she only has a few friends.” Mom starts to interrupt me but I push on not letting her change the topic. “Her daughter is six, she stayed with me over the weekend. Halifax went nuts when I brought her into the house. The first night I put Halifax in the basement. Then the next day I tried to introduce Britton to Halifax and this time both Britton and Halifax went through the same thing.”
Mom leaves the table, muttering, “I told you that beast wouldn’t make a good pet.”
“Mom wait, she was bitten by cat recently and she has a mark that’s similar to Auggie’s mark on his arm.”
The silence is deafening in the room. Mom returns to the table to ask, “Who is this woman, and why is she here?”
Chapter Seven
Malinda
As lunchtime approaches, I’m already emotionally spent for the day. Phone call after phone call has left me with more unanswered questions than I started the day with this morning. Whoever Judy Hilliard was, and wherever she came from she didn’t seem to have anyone she trusted. As for family, her parents are deceased. That was a dead end. She has two brothers that live in Florida. One has asked not to be contacted again. The other one I’ve left a few messages for him, hopefully he’ll call back soon.
My morning surprise is that Britt is still in school. Considering she just lost her mother, I expected her to be sent home from school before lunchtime.
Checking my email, I see four new messages from my mother. She was barely interested in listening to what I had to say this morning about my weekend. That was until I mentioned the cat bite. My mother has never gotten over the day my brother was bitten by a cat. It seems simple enough, cats are small, but as a dragon a cat bite is sometimes lethal to our powers.
As I read through the first message from my mother, I’m about to respond to her endless questions when my cell phone rings. Absently I answer it thinking it’s probably the school calling to send Britt home for the day, “This is Malinda Williams. How can I help you?”
“Malinda, I thought you would have gotten back to me before now.”
Sighing, there’s no hope for this conversation. Even if I had called her back when she sent her first email to me, checking the time stamp on that email it was exactly thirteen minutes ago. It would have still been too long to make my mother wait for me to respond to her.
“I’m sorry, mom, I was reading your email now.”
Shuffling the papers on my desk, I listen as my mother rambles on about the bad luck that is going to fall upon our family.
“Malinda, you never should have taken this job. I told you that you should have applied for that teaching job, you could have gone back to school to be certified.”
“Mom, I like my job, and I’m happy here.”
My phone signals another call coming through before my mother can tell me about all the other mistakes I’ve made in my life. Pulling the phone away so I can see the caller id, it’s Britton’s school calling. She must be ready to leave for the day.
“Mom, I need to take another call. Will you stop at my house tonight?”
Grumbling, she says, “Oh, Malinda, you know I can’t be at your house with that creature.”
“It’s a cat mom, only a cat. I can’t do this; I need to take this call. Love you.”
Later I’ll hear about being the worst daughter in the world for hanging up on my own mother. She’s probably going to call my father and brothers to tell each of them how I hung up on her today. She doesn’t understand that I have a job that needs me, and maybe more than that is this child that needs me too.
“This is Malinda Williams.”
My heart beats hard in my chest as I listen to the voice on the phone tell me about Britton’s day so far, “We’ve had Britton Hilliard in the nurse's office this morning. We think it might be best if she comes home for the day. Can you pick her up?”
Checking the time on my computer, I ask, “Was she able to have lunch already today?”
“No, the note here says she is complaining about a stomach ache.”
Closing down my computer, she continues to tell me about Britton. I thought it was a bad idea to send her to school, but I needed to go to work and I didn’t have another option. The biggest thing I needed to do at work today was to work on her case. At this point I’m hoping for a return call from an uncle for Britton.
“Thank you, I’m on my way to pick her up. If you could have her books ready, she will probably be out of school for the rest of the week.”
Chapter Eight
Malinda
It’s been a week and a half since Britton came to live with me. The prospect of raising a child was never something I aspired to do at my age. Planning to have a family in the future was always in the back of my mind, but the idea of giving up this child tomorrow is crushing me.
“Malinda!”
Pressing my hands into the kitchen counter, I struggle to keep myself together. Tomorrow morning I have to take Britton to live with a new family. This is part of my job, it shouldn’t be bringing me to tears in my own kitchen. Instead I’ve spent days getting attached to the girl that has no family of her own.
“Malinda!”
Her little voice is closer now, and I’m not prepared to let her go. It broke my heart to speak to her uncle yesterday. Although I tried to assuage him, he was firm in his resolve to want nothing to do with the child of his sister. That’s the way he referred to her as if she isn’t a real person. He would only refer to her as ‘the child of my sister.’
Over the years, there have difficulties in my own family. A lot of them are petty differences. There is no way I could see any of my family turning their backs on a child.
“There you are!”
Taking a deep breath, I turn at the sound of her voice. She has a bright smile on her face as she holds a stuffed bear in her hands. This is one of the few things I brought to her from the home she lived in only a week ago now.
“Here I am.”
She looks at me skeptically as she asks, “Didn’t you hear me call you? I’m waiting to read a story with you.”
That’s another thing I’m going to miss. Having Britton here for just a few days has encouraged me to read again. My schedule has been so busy that I rarely take the time to read anymore. It doesn’t matter what’s going on; every evening Britton wants a story to be read to her. This little bear seems to be her favorite, so she likes to have him there for story time too.
Rubbing my fingers over the soft arm of the bear, I laugh, “And you want your bear to be with us for stories tonight?”
She huffs a little, the same way she does when she has to tell me how to do something multiple times. It’s easy to figure out she’s going to remind me of the bear's name before she says it, “This is Mr. Hank and he likes a story at night, it helps him to relax so he doesn’t keep me up late.”
She giggles at her own explanation, and I love the sound of her happiness. This has been the most difficult week of her life, and there’s going to be a lot more of it to come in the next few years. This is a little girl with no one on her side. She lost
the only parent she knew, and the rest of her mother’s family doesn’t want her. The idea of her being alone in the world makes me grieve for her. The other option to help her is to find her father, which doesn’t seem possible. This morning we submitted a DNA sample to the state for Britton.
“Well, we need to find a good story for Mr. Hank. You need a good sleep for tomorrow.”
Pulling her bear in tight, she looks fearful as she asks, “What’s tomorrow?”
Taking her by the hand, I lead her upstairs to read stories. Tonight I’m going to let her have as many stories as she wants to hear. If only reading stories together would delay the inevitable of her moving tomorrow.
Today before I left work, I talked to my supervisor about adopting Britton. It’s a hasty decision, but it feels like the right thing for me. A week ago I couldn’t imagine having a child, now I don’t want to imagine life without Britton. She has to go to another foster home tomorrow, but I’m going to do everything I can to get her back here at home with me again soon.
As Britton grabs for a blanket, she points to the big book on her bedside table, “Can we read more about the bear and the tiger?”
“And the pig!” She shouts before covering her mouth with her hand, “sorry. I want to read about the pig too.”
This is a book that my own mother used to read to me as a child. I lovingly run my fingers over the blue cover as I promise, “We’ll read all of the stories in this book together. Let’s see where we left off last night.”
