good in such situations, beat her to it. Sweeping Darby up, with a bright ‘Come on, let’s see your bedroom, shall we?’ he took her off up the stairs, one decisive step at a time, weathering her kicking and bucking and screaming.
Chapter 4
Darby had cried her eyes out for almost two hours after Katy had left. Having seen the bedroom and having allowed Mike to bring her back down again, she’d sat briefly on the sofa, seemingly drained of all emotion – or, more likely, realising resistance was useless – then was off again, in some sort of panic attack, stamping her feet, pulling her hair and railing at us all to go away, then dissolving into paroxysms of gulping, racking sobs, which went on well into the evening.
Unable to comfort her, I let her cry. She probably needed to cry it out a bit in any case. At least if she did so she’d have a chance of falling into an exhausted sleep. Because, in truth, there was almost nothing anyone could do for her – not in the short term, anyway. We couldn’t grant her wish to go home, and we couldn’t make any promises about the future. From the few details we already did know – particularly about the collusion of the mother – there seemed little possibility she’d be allowed to return home ever again.
And she did eventually tire, and she did eventually stop, and though I had to accept that there was no way we’d be able to bath her or get her into pyjamas, I was happy enough for her to sleep in her clothes.
And now it was morning. Tyler, being naturally curious about why she’d come to us, was bombarding me with questions I couldn’t answer.
‘But what did they do?’ he wanted to know. ‘Why did the police have to bang the door down?’
‘Tyler, they didn’t exactly bang the door down.’
‘But the social worker said they burst in.’
‘Knocked on the door –’
‘And wasted no time in taking Darby out, Mum.’
‘You, young man,’ I said sternly, ‘do a great deal of earwigging.’
‘So did they beat her up? She looks okay. And she obviously loves them. And they obviously didn’t want her taken away, did they?’
I didn’t miss the look of wistfulness that visited his face briefly. No matter how much love he was showered with by his new forever family, the memory of his rejection by his father would never wholly go away.
I pointed towards the kitchen clock. ‘Don’t you have to be showered and dressed in ten minutes, my lad?’ I asked him pointedly. Mike, who was thankfully now off till New Year, the factory he worked at being closed, was taking Tyler and Kieron, and Tyler’s mate Denver, on some tour of their beloved football club’s ground. Santa was said to be putting in an appearance but, of course, everyone was much too old to care about that. It was a gift for me, however. A big one. It meant the day I’d earmarked for a long list of wrapping and prepping was at least free for me to focus on our tiny visitor.
‘Okay, okay,’ Tyler said, picking up his last half-slice of toast. ‘But you know, Mum, I am old enough to know this stuff, you know.’
‘So you are,’ I said. ‘And ugly enough, too,’ I teased. ‘Seriously, I know that. Not just right now, though, eh, Ty? We barely know anything ourselves.’
Which seemed to satisfy him. And would give me time to decide on the edited version. You were never old enough – or ugly enough – to need to know this particular kind of ugliness.
Once Mike and Tyler had left, I kept popping upstairs and listening stealthily at the bedroom door. I could see only the shape of Darby’s lower half from my vantage point, and didn’t want to disturb her because I was keen that she wake up naturally. Which she did eventually, having slept a solid thirteen hours.
While I was waiting I used the time productively, going through the piles of children’s clothes I kept in the wardrobe in the other spare bedroom – the one I didn’t use for foster kids on account of the wardrobe being the kind that, in a happy kid, would conjure dreams of trips through a forest of coats to Narnia and, in an unhappy one, just your bog standard nightmares. It was a family heirloom, however, so there was no question of getting rid of it, and it did sterling service as a repository for all my fostering essentials – clothing and bedding, plus all kinds of toys and games that I’d picked up from various charity shops down the years.
I pulled out a selection of items to which clung familiar memories – of Olivia, one of the siblings who’d been in such similar straits. I wondered how she was now and tried to calculate her precise age. Tried to picture the beautiful young woman she’d soon become. Physically perfect, yes, but how badly scarred? Would she ever be able to form normal relationships? I tried to console myself that her youth when she’d been abused was always on her side. More so, I remembered grimly, than her elder brother, Ashton. What scars – and proclivities – would he carry through his adult life? The saying the abused often becomes the abuser came to mind, and I shook it away as I shook out the little outfits.
I didn’t want to think such things. There was no benefit in doing so. What I had to do with Darby was live entirely in the moment. Take care of her needs to the best of my ability, and leave the professionals to chew over The Bigger Picture.
I picked up my selection and made my way back across the landing, and seeing the shape in the bed had moved, pushed the door gently open with the pile of clothes in my arms.
Darby was sitting up in bed, knees to chest, the butterfly duvet cover pulled up to her chin, and she visibly flinched when she saw me.
She’d been crying again, and continued to as I put the clothing down on the chest of drawers and went to her.
‘I want my mummy,’ she sobbed. ‘I want to go home to my mummy and daddy.’
I sat on the edge of the bed and stretched out a hand to comfort her. She pulled her hand away. ‘Darby, I’m sorry, baby, but, like I said last night, you need to stay with me and Mike for a little while. Do you remember?’
‘But I want to go home!’ she sobbed. ‘Why can’t I go home?’
‘Because you can’t, sweetie, not right now. And I’m very, very sorry. I know how scared you must be. And how strange this will all seem. But nothing bad is going to happen here, I promise you. Come on, sweetie,’ I said, taking hold of her hand more firmly. ‘Let’s go downstairs to watch some cartoons and have some breakfast. How about that? I have banana or chocolate milk. Do you like either of those?’
She didn’t answer the question, but at least she didn’t try to fight me as I gently pulled the duvet back so she could get out of bed.
Her T-shirt had ridden up and I noticed that her tiny, elasticated-waist jeans had left a deep red weal around her waist. I really needed to get her into the bath as soon as I could and into some fresh clothes. But not until I’d fed her. She’d eaten hardly anything the previous evening, and I knew a full belly would be at least a little of the battle won.
And she clearly was hungry, especially when I told her she could have anything she wanted. ‘Well, as long as it’s not toenails of toast,’ I had quipped, ‘because I’m all out of those,’ which at least elicited a wan smile.
So, chocolate milk and jam sandwiches it was – apparently her favourite – and while she got stuck in I chattered on about
