give you time to go home, collect the children, and take them there.’
‘Yes,’ I said as I wrote: 4 p.m., Family Centre.
‘After today we can probably make contact earlier when the Family Centre is less busy, but I’ll let you know. Cathy, can you tell us how Molly and Kit are settling in, please?’
I looked at the parents. It was heart-breaking to see their anguish. Aneta was wiping away fresh tears. How parents cope with losing their children I’ll never know. Whatever had happened, they didn’t set out to lose their children.
‘Molly and Kit are lovely children,’ I began. ‘They are a credit to you. They’re obviously missing you, but they’re eating well and –’
‘What have you given them to eat?’ Aneta interrupted anxiously.
I thought back. ‘For dinner last night we had cottage pie,’ I said. ‘For breakfast they had hot oat cereal, which Molly chose, and then some yoghurt. For lunch today they had a cheese sandwich and some fruit.’
Filip nodded, but Aneta was looking even more worried and I wondered if there was something wrong in what I’d said. ‘Will the person looking after them now give them anything to eat?’ she asked, so I guessed Tess or Preeta had told them of the child-minding arrangements.
‘Possibly a drink and a biscuit,’ I replied. ‘Why? Is there a problem?’
‘You have to be very careful what you give them to eat and drink,’ Aneta said intensely. ‘My children have a lot of allergies and can easily fall sick.’
‘Can you tell me what the allergies are?’ I asked, my pen ready. ‘So I know which foods to avoid. I understood they didn’t have any allergies.’ Preeta was ready to write too.
‘Lots of things make them sick,’ Aneta said defensively. ‘I can’t tell you them all, and they change. I’m always at the doctor’s or hospital with my children. Not even the doctors can find out what’s wrong with them.’
‘I see,’ I said. Of course, Tess had told me the doctor’s view was that they didn’t have any allergies. ‘Can you narrow down the allergy to a group of foods? For example, is it dairy produce?’
‘Can you narrow it down at all?’ Tess asked, and I thought she looked sceptical.
Aneta shook her head. ‘No, and it’s not always food,’ she said vehemently. ‘Sometimes it can be the stuff I wash clothes in, or they brush past something or it’s in the air. You mustn’t use bubble bath.’
‘No, I don’t anyway. Young skin is delicate so I keep bathing simple – just a bit of baby shampoo for their hair.’
‘That can cause an allergic reaction too,’ she said with anxious satisfaction. I noticed she was becoming more agitated as she spoke, while Filip sat with his eyes down, concentrating on the table, apparently completely out of his depth.
‘How do these allergic reactions manifest themselves?’ Preeta asked. I’d written allergies on my notepad ready to list them, but so far I’d just put bubble bath, which I didn’t use anyway.
‘My children get a temperature and start vomiting,’ Aneta said animatedly. ‘I have to get an emergency appointment at the doctor’s or call an ambulance. But it stops as suddenly as it starts.’
‘Do they have a rash?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes, but usually they vomit.’ Her face crumpled and her tears fell again. ‘You should never have taken my children away,’ she said to Tess. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m innocent. I love my children and they need me. I’m the only one who can look after them.’
Filip placed a reassuring hand on his wife’s arm but didn’t look at her or speak. I thought he was barely coping too.
‘I love my children,’ Aneta wept. ‘I’m a good mother. My only crime was to take them to the doctor’s if they were ill, or if they fell and hurt themselves. They bruise easily. I’m being punished for looking after them properly. It’s not right.’ So upset and sincere, it again flashed across my mind that I hoped the social services had got it right in bringing the children into care.
‘So to be clear,’ Tess said. ‘There is nothing specific you can tell Cathy about which foods trigger an allergic reaction in either of your children?’
‘No,’ Aneta said, wiping her eyes.
‘Have you ever kept a food diary?’ Tess asked. ‘It’s often recommended by doctors as a way of finding out what a child is allergic to. You keep a record of what they have eaten and any symptoms they have experienced.’
‘No,’ Aneta said, ‘because it’s not just food. It’s lots of things, not even the doctors know.’
‘Cathy,’ Tess said, turning to me, ‘can you start a food diary, please? Note everything the children eat and drink, and obviously seek medical help if necessary.’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said, and wrote food diary on my notepad. ‘I assume a peanut allergy has been ruled out?’ I asked. ‘The children have never suffered from anaphylactic shock and have auto-injectors?’ I thought something as serious as this would have been mentioned by now, but the children had been placed with me so quickly I decided it was best to ask.
‘No, they don’t,’ Aneta said.
There was a short silence and I wondered if Tess was expecting me to continue talking about how the children had settled in, but instead she said, ‘Cathy, is there anything else you want to ask Aneta and Filip that would help in the care of the children? I’m mindful of the time.’
‘Knowing the children’s routine would be useful,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep to it as much as possible. Also, I’m assuming there is a follow-up appointment at the fracture clinic?’
‘It’s on Monday morning,’ Aneta said, wiping her eyes. ‘I’ve got an appointment card at home, and a fact sheet about the care of the plaster cast the nurse gave to me.’
‘Could you bring them to contact today, please?’ I asked.
‘I’ll bring the sheet, but you won’t need the appointment card. I’ll take Kit to the hospital,’ Aneta said. ‘They know me there.’
I left it to Tess to explain. ‘While the children are in care, Cathy will take them to any medical appointments.’
‘But I want to go!’ Aneta exclaimed.
‘That wouldn’t be appropriate,’ Tess said gently but firmly. ‘You’ll be seeing the children regularly at the Family Centre. It would be confusing and upsetting for them if you just appeared.’
‘But they’re my children. It’s not right. You won’t even tell me where they are staying. I should be with them when they’re ill.’ Aneta was crying again and I felt so sorry for her. Of course a mother would want to be with her children when they were poorly, but Molly and Kit were in care because of possible abuse, so she couldn’t be alone with them at all. Contact at the Family Centre would be supervised.
‘I’ll
