reconnected – this time to Mike. I couldn’t wait for him to get home. Our New Year had begun.
Mike was home just in time for us to belt to the local supermarket and stock up with a few supplies before John arrived with our new house guest. On a bit of a New Year health kick, I had little in the way of treats in, and the couple of Christmas biscuits I’d had left in the tin had been hoovered up by Jackson and Riley the day before. It would be a bit of a mad rush, but I was determined to get it done, as I had no idea how things would pan out when Abigail arrived, and wanted to be able to concentrate all my energies on her. On the way I briefed Mike about what I already knew.
‘What a dreadful situation,’ he said as we parked the car. ‘Really makes you count your blessings, doesn’t it?’ I nodded. ‘But, at the same time, it couldn’t be better timing for us, could it? Sounds like she’s going to be the opposite of Spencer, at least, bless him.’
He was certainly right there. Our last foster child, to use the parlance, had run us ragged. So much so that I think we’d both been holding our breath when we’d been given the all clear two weeks back. Up till then we’d been on standby and unable to take another child, just in case his new situation – back with Mum and Auntie, but not Dad – proved to be unworkable for keeps. He had become so dear to us, and I was looking forward to hearing how he was getting on, but there was no doubt a part of me was warming to the idea of having the novelty (which it would be) of a quiet and well-behaved little girl taking his place. A distressed and anxious one, clearly – and no wonder, given her circumstances – but one with a completely different set of challenges to be overcome.
I grabbed a basket and tried to compile a list in my head of the sort of goodies I thought Abigail might like, getting Mike – six foot three to my own five foot nothing – to reach the items I couldn’t. Things didn’t normally involve so much guesswork, of course. The usual procedure, as well as those all-important meetings we weren’t having, involved the child filling in a short questionnaire we’d devised, in which they could tell us about all their likes and dislikes. It was just one of the ways we could help them feel settled at what was inevitably a stressful and unhappy time in their lives. With everything new and different it could be a comfort for a child to have some constants still in place – be it a favourite snack or special meal, or a much-loved TV programme not missed; such details could make all the difference to a child in distress.
With Abigail, however, we were going in blind, so I just used my judgement to throw in what occurred to me, while Mike lugged the increasingly heavy basket. ‘And at least we have some girl’s toys tucked away,’ I said, remembering our last little girl, Olivia, who’d come to us from a home of appalling neglect, and owned nothing bar one filthy, balding doll. I’d had something of a field day down at the charity shops for Olivia, and still had a good supply of soft toys and doll’s clothes, even if at nine Abigail might be too old for the enormous plastic play kitchen which had been my best-ever find to date.
Mike frowned, though. ‘I imagine playing’s going to be the last thing on her mind, love,’ he pointed out. ‘For the moment, at least. Poor kid. She must be reeling.’
He was right, of course. This was a uniquely sad and strange scenario – and for all of us. One step at a time. We quickly paid and hurried home.
We’d just finished putting things away and boiling the kettle when John’s car pulled up outside. I loved that this new house gave me a window onto the world. My kitchen was at the front of the house this time, and as it was where I spent most of my time it enabled me to indulge in my secret desire to be a ‘nosey neighbour’. I also liked the fact that we only had a small front garden. One, better still, that was covered with pebbles, so I wouldn’t have to spend much time on maintenance. The other positive was that just across the small road beyond our garden there was a nice grassy area with a children’s play section. That was enough to quell any guilt I had about my small but beautifully kept courtyard; that and the fact that we had a rather large back garden that I intended to fill with child-friendly play things for both the grandchildren and the children we’d be fostering.
Abigail looked dwarfed as she walked up the path in between John and her social worker. Still in her green-and-black school uniform, she stole a quick glance at me and Mike as we opened the front door. She was a pretty little girl, slim and petite, with her long fair hair held in two bunches which were neatly tied with matching green ribbon.
She also looked terrified. I was used to greeting children in distress, of course. There can be few things more bewildering and disorientating for a child than being made to go and live with complete strangers. But most children who came into foster care did so in carefully managed stages, so that even if the process was, by its nature, a relatively quick one, by the time it came to actually being deposited with their temporary family, the child had at least been there for a visit.
Poor Abby had had no such preparation. In less than a day her whole life had imploded. She’d gone to school this morning fully expecting to go home again and instead, she’d been picked up and told her mother was ill in hospital and that tonight she would have to sleep somewhere else. I was used to dealing with kids from bad family situations, but it still seemed inexplicable to me that this sweet little girl didn’t have a single other place she could go to. When my own two were her age it would have been unthinkable. Riley had her little gang of sleepover mates, most of whose mums were friends of mine too. All would have stepped in during a crisis like this one, just as I’d have stepped in had it been them.
My thoughts also naturally went to my Kieron, and how he would have fared in such a crisis. He was all grown up now – twenty-two – but he had Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild type of autism. He functioned well, had been to college and was doing well in life, but a change – any change – to his routine really stressed him. For someone like him, such a thing would be a major trauma. I’d thanked God many times for my network of friends and family, who knew his needs and idiosyncrasies and so could always help de-stress him. How would I have ever coped without them over the years?
Yet for this poor little girl there was no one. The social worker had already questioned both Abby and her mum about this, thinking, quite rightly, that if no family could be found at short notice, then a sleepover with a close pal would be the very next best thing. But no, it seemed the child didn’t have anywhere else to go. Unbelievable. And what on earth must have been going through her mind, knowing not only that complete strangers were rearranging her whole future, but that she had to go and live with some, too? I could only hope that the enormity of what might happen long term hadn’t yet impinged on her consciousness. As far as I was concerned, the best way to manage her in the short term would be to focus very much on the here and now.
I smiled my broadest smile as she hesitantly stepped into the hallway. Both her hands gripped the straps of the backpack she was carrying, and so tightly that the knuckles were white. I smiled as I recognised the logo on the backpack: ‘Glee’, accompanied by the all-singing, all-dancing cast publicity photo. Straight away I was thinking that if Abby liked all the latest stage-school TV programmes and paraphernalia, she would get along famously with Lauren. Lauren was Kieron’s girlfriend and was at performing arts college, and was used to me roping her in to help out with similarly minded foster children.
I also recognised the primary-school logo on Abby’s sweatshirt. Stanholme Primary, although the furthest away, was one of the better schools in the area, and also a feeder school for the big comprehensive I used to work at, and I’d known a couple of the teachers there. It was good to have a pre-existing connection with the place. It gave me a head start in that direction, at least.
‘Here she is. Here’s Abigail!’ John said, with a slightly forced brightness – he looked as worn out as
