John smiled at me. ‘I’m serious, Casey. This is a complicated placement. With a great deal of potential for getting even more complicated, as I’m sure you realise all too well. Look, you know why I’m putting this to you. It’s because I think the two of you could handle it. Of course I do. But I still have to talk it through with Emma’s social worker anyway. Plus the baby’s – he’ll obviously be allocated his own social worker, if he hasn’t been already. Which’ll give you two time to discuss it –’ he pushed the buff folder across the table to us. ‘To read up properly, to consider the implications and think it through before committing. A new baby affects everything, as you both know all too well. Means changing plans, not booking holidays, having your whole routine thrown into disarray …’
‘Well,’ said Mike, his positive tone of voice making my heart leap. ‘It certainly does sound like something we should consider. But as you say,’ he said, looking pointedly at me, ‘we do need to weigh it up properly. Can you give us a day or so?’
John nodded as he rose from the table. ‘Absolutely. As I say, I have to talk things through with the social workers anyway. And no doubt you’ll want to have a chat with the rest of the clan, too.’
Which we would. The clan in question mainly being our daughter Riley and her partner David. If we were talking baby stuff, I doubted we’d be able to keep Riley away. She loved babies as much as I did, loved to immerse herself in children generally, and was also keen to help out whenever she could when we were fostering, because she and David had just finished the training to become foster carers themselves. We’d obviously also need to speak to our son Kieron. Though he no longer lived at home – he shared a flat with his long-term girlfriend Lauren – we never did anything that would impact on any member of the family without consulting them first. It wouldn’t have been fair. Because John was right, having a new baby in the mix would change everything. Which would obviously affect everyone else.
But I was champing at the bit. And it must have been obvious because as soon as we’d waved John off Mike held his hand out. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘hand it over.’
He was talking about the file, which I’d picked up from the dining table as we’d shown John out.
‘What?’ I said, all innocent, seeing the firm set of his jaw line. I obediently gave him the file.
‘You know very well what,’ he answered, taking it. ‘So how about you go and make more coffee while I dive in to this. I want a good read of what’s in here before you dive on in at me. I have a feeling I’m going to need to be very clued up and alert before we have this next conversation.’
I laughed as I trotted off back into the kitchen. That husband of mine knows me so well.
I yawned and stretched. It was one of those dark autumn mornings when the fact that you didn’t need to get up and go anywhere made the duvet seem almost hypnotic. Just so soft and so cosy … just fifteen minutes more, perhaps. I’d been having a particularly nice dream, after all. A bit bonkers, admittedly, but that was par for the course with me. My head was always so full of different people and their problems in the daytime, and then they all got scrambled up when my head hit the pillow and came back in different guises in my slumbers. This one was obviously related to the news John had brought to us, as it was chock full of babies: happy, smiley, sweet-smelling babies, which … Yikes! The fifteen minutes had obviously turned into a whole hour. And then some. When I next checked the bedside clock it was nine forty-five!
There are days when it’s okay to oversleep, and days when it isn’t, and today was very much the latter, being the day we were going to have our second meeting about taking on Emma and her baby. I threw the covers off, knowing I’d better get my skates on and shower. Today was important, so both house and I had to look our best. I smiled to myself as I turned on the water; it was ironic that almost my last thought before falling asleep the previous evening was that I’d better make the most of any lie-ins I had left to me. With a three-week-old baby in the house they’d soon be in very short supply.
But I was getting ahead of myself. We hadn’t actually agreed to that yet. Mike and I had discussed Emma at length on the Monday evening, after which he’d agreed I could call John and say yes only to taking the next step. ‘No promises, though, Casey,’ he’d warned, and I knew he’d meant it. ‘We need to know exactly what’s expected of us and we have to feel happy. Me in particular –’ He’d fixed his eyes on me, to press the point home. ‘I haven’t forgotten the Sophia experience, not one bit.’
‘Oh, don’t be dramatic,’ I rushed to answer, keen to keep him positive. ‘We’ve had other foster kids since Sophia and they’ve been challenging as well, love …’
‘Not teenage girls, Casey,’ he shot back at me. ‘With all their teenage girl behaviours. You might have forgotten all about that, but I certainly haven’t.’
He was right to point it out, because of course I wanted to hurry past that. Sophia had been a teenage girl we’d fostered a few years back, and she had certainly been an eye opener. It had been only our second placement and I suppose we were still a bit inexperienced; certainly in regard to children as psychologically complex as she had been. She had been full-on, promiscuous, full of the usual teenage angst and lots more besides, and had come to us with only one mode of operation: flirt with the male of the species at all times. Not that it was her fault; she had become the way she had due to her terrible circumstances, and had learned flirting with men at her mother’s knee, practically – as a good method of getting her way.
Until she came to us, that is, and in Mike found an immovable object that would remain so however hard she tried to be an unstoppable force. We came through it, thank goodness, and so were able to help her all the better for having been through so much with her. But when you’re a middle-aged foster dad and have a fourteen-year-old foster daughter running around in her underwear, determined to create an impact, it’s not a very nice place to be. It was equally distressing – if not more so – for our son Kieron, then just coming up to twenty-two, because she created some uncomfortable waves between him and his then brand-new girlfriend, Lauren.
We’d all learned to love Sophia, once we’d got past all that, but Mike had every right to make me sit down and think about things before plunging in with both feet again without thinking, like I usually did.
And I did think – we’d also run it by the children the previous evening, because their input was as important as our own. Riley, predictably, was as excited as I was. ‘Oh, Mum, a baby? Oh, that will be such a lovely change for you.’
I grinned. ‘Um, yes, it will,’ I agreed, ‘but not just a baby. This one does come with a teenaged mum attached, don’t forget.’
‘Yes, I know that, Mum,’ she said. ‘But you’ll be fine. Teenagers to you are like toddlers are to me – easy peasy.’
I raised my eyebrows. Oh, really? I thought. She must have a short memory. Or just that selective amnesia that parents need to have, if every child in the world isn’t to be an ‘only’. Bless them, I loved them, but my grandsons had not been ‘easy peasy’ at all; they had been as demanding as any other little boys I ever knew, made worse by the fact that they were so close in age.
Still, I was flattered that Riley assumed teenagers were ‘easy peasy’ for me to handle, even if that wasn’t strictly the case either. I did have some considerable experience of them to draw on, it had to be said, having spent many years handling them in large numbers in a behavioural unit in a high school, but dealing with kids in a school setting and having them in your home were two completely different things, as our experience of fostering so far had shown us.
But I was pleased Riley was happy for me, and felt so positive about it. It was generally Riley who sided with Mike in all situations where jumping in with