There was a short silence after Maggie said this, as perhaps there would be. This wasn’t just a case of us providing a home for a young mother. Our home would be the stage on which both mother and baby’s whole future would be played out. At some point – and it only just hit me at that moment – someone other than me would stand in judgement over Emma and make a decision that would affect their whole lives.
‘Wow,’ I said quietly, as it sank in how much this period mattered. How much my input or otherwise might affect things. ‘Does this happen with all underage mums or just those in care?’
‘In theory, all of them,’ Maggie explained. ‘When a young girl like Emma becomes pregnant, it doesn’t matter what her background is. The midwives are obliged to inform social services. They also have to record how responsible the teen is; whether she attends appointments, takes advice, eats healthily, plans properly for when the child is born … And, because of this, social services are alerted where it appears help may be required – and that’s whether the child’s in care or otherwise.’
I nodded my understanding. ‘So,’ John said, picking up his pen, ‘do we know who the baby’s social worker is?’
Maggie rustled through her paperwork. ‘Hannah Greenwood. She’s visiting three times a week at present, but if Casey and Mike take Emma on we’d probably cut that down to two, then after a while, if things are going okay, one.’
‘And how long is all this for?’ Mike asked.
Maggie shrugged. ‘How long is a piece of string?’ Then she grimaced. ‘Sorry – that’s not very helpful of me, is it? But, in truth, it’s impossible to say. In some cases it’s evident in a matter of a few weeks that the mother’s capable and has a strong attachment to her baby, whereas in others – well, sometimes, it takes longer to tell.’
I looked at Mike. It was really sinking in now that this was a lot to take on. We weren’t just providing a place of safety, a warm and loving home. We would be part of the process. There was also the small matter – no, the huge matter – of our own attachments. It wouldn’t just be Emma who’d be forming a bond with her baby. We would be too. We’d be fools to think otherwise.
And I knew how I was around babies. It would be impossible for me to see this as just a job, and Mike knew that. But at the same time I knew that I wanted to accept this placement, even knowing that the end of it would probably break my heart. ‘What happens at the end?’ I asked Maggie.
She glanced at John before answering. ‘It depends on the outcome, Casey. If all goes well, Emma and Roman will move on to a sort of halfway house; in a unit with maybe one or two other young mums and their babies until she’s legally old enough to live on her own. We’d assist her then, obviously, with getting a place to live. But if things don’t go to plan, then we’ll have to think again, obviously. But let’s not dwell on the bleak side just yet, eh? Hopefully we’ll get a happy ending out of this.’
Happy endings. You didn’t hear of them so often in this game. Sometimes, yes, and we’d had our share of them, even if ‘happy’ was always qualified – those damaged pasts couldn’t just be spirited away that easily. But if we could have a happy ending for this child-mum and her baby, that would be fantastic.
I was still musing on just how fantastic it would be when Mike did something entirely out of character. Coughing slightly, to get my attention, he looked pointedly at me. ‘I think we’re of a mind about this,’ he said. ‘Aren’t we, Casey?’ He then looked at John and Maggie. ‘We’d like to give it a shot,’ he said, before I’d even opened my mouth to answer. ‘That is, if you two think we’re up for it.’
Well, I thought, having to haul my jaw back into position. Now, that was a turn-up for the books.
In the normal course of events before taking on a new foster child, the next few days (following Mike’s jaw-dropping but very pleasing agreement to us having Emma) would involve a meeting between the three of us – us and the child, so that we could see if we all felt we clicked. This was obviously sensible; for all the discussions over coffee and plates of biscuits, meeting the child who was potentially going to share your home and lives for several months was an essential part of the process. Suppose she hated us on sight? Suppose we felt we wouldn’t be able to bond with her? It hadn’t happened yet – well, not from Mike and my point of view, anyway – but that certainly didn’t mean it couldn’t. And better to say no than to get a placement under way and then terminate it. For a younger child, in particular, this could be extremely emotionally challenging. The children we fostered had already known so much rejection that to inflict more, by getting their hopes up and then deciding we didn’t want to have them, would be nothing short of cruel.
But in this case we were happy to go with Maggie’s instinct.
‘She’s so excited,’ she said. ‘I’ve told her all about you and the family, and she really can’t wait to move in.’
I took this with a slight pinch of salt. I didn’t doubt Emma would be happy to get settled somewhere – anywhere – but I didn’t imagine for a moment that ‘excited’ would be her principal emotion. I also wondered if there was pressure being brought to bear on the situation by the mum of the girl she was currently staying with. If so, better she come straight to us than have the upheaval (a new baby is upheaval enough anyway) of having to move somewhere else as a temporary measure.
And, well, a bit of me was pleased to hear she was pleased. We’d be fine together. I didn’t doubt it for a moment.
Over the past few days my house had been a hive of activity, and I had taken no prisoners. It was all hands on deck and, boy, did the family know it. No stone would be left unturned in my quest to seek out dust and destroy.
‘Honestly, Mum,’ Riley had said to me, exasperated, when I dispatched her into town to get a new duvet set, ‘the house is already perfect as it is! You have the beige bedroom all ready and you have the blue bedroom all ready. Which covers both bases. If she has the cot in with her – which she probably will – they can both go in the beige room and, if not, Roman can go in the blue room. Why on earth,’ she asked pointedly, ‘do you need new bedding?’
She was right, of course. She generally was in such matters. It was just my natural urge to do something extra to make them welcome. And it was an urge that had backfired with the last kids we’d fostered. It had seemed such a great idea to decorate one room pink and one room blue (all fostering eventualities catered for – ta-da!) till John Fulshaw gave us two unrelated nine-year-old boys, who could no more have shared a room when they arrived than fly.
Which was also why the pink room was now, in fact, the beige room, because it just so happened that the second boy, Georgie, was autistic, and as soon as he saw the pink room he freaked out (to use the professional term) because pink really, really upset him. So the moral of the story is don’t assume anything. Don’t prejudge what a child might or might not like.
But I never learn, and Riley knew that, and she duly went off to find a cheap and cheerful duvet set, as instructed, if only in the cause of calming me down.
Today, though, I was all of a flap again, as usual going through my lists – I’m at the age when I can’t function without my lists – for the umpteenth time. Riley had come over again, having dropped Levi at school and Jackson at nursery, just to help me finish off and to say hello. As a young mum herself, I knew Riley’s presence would be a positive one for Emma; one that wouldn’t smack so much of being faced with a posse of know-all middle-aged women, but more of introducing a like-minded friend.
‘Right,’ she said, as the time for them to arrive grew ever nearer. ‘Put that list away, and