I was busy thinking how this was what she most needed, her rude behaviour reined in a bit, just like I’d always made a point of doing with my own kids, when I realised she was about to burst into tears. It was incredible. One minute so cheeky, the next looking so wretched. Was this why everyone pussyfooted around her? Because you simply couldn’t discipline her for fear of her cracking up? I sighed inwardly. That wasn’t useful at all. If so, how could anyone help her?
I stopped scowling and instead scooped her into my arms.
‘I’m so sorry, Casey,’ she sobbed. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. Thanks for my pyjamas.’
‘It’s okay, love,’ I soothed.
‘I’m just missing Jean so much. It’s hard …’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know. Now then, you probably need to stock up on toiletries, don’t you? Shall we do some proper girlie shopping now, eh?’
I glanced at Riley as I said this, noting her sceptical expression. But I made a sign to let her know that I didn’t want her to say anything, even though I knew exactly what she meant. Early days, I thought. Only early days yet.
And the next hour passed agreeably enough. Though we were soon to see yet another sea change.
‘How about we have lunch in that new organic café?’ I suggested. I’d clocked it before Christmas and they’d seemed particularly baby-friendly.
‘I’d promised to go and meet David,’ Riley began. David ran his own business – he was a professional plasterer – and at the moment was working close by. ‘But I guess I could tell him to come and meet us here instead, couldn’t I?’
Sophia’s ears pricked up. ‘David?’ she said. ‘Isn’t that your boyfriend? What’s he like?’
Very much to Sophia’s liking, seemed to be the answer, because lunch soon became excruciating. If she’d seemed a bit over-enthused with her endocrinologist, now Sophia was utterly rapt. She hung on David’s every word, kept flicking her mane of curls all over and giggled excitedly at pretty much everything he said. If it hadn’t been so uncomfortable, it would have actually been comical, for she sat, chin on fist, gazing at him adoringly.
Riley, however, wasn’t too amused. ‘Elbows,’ she chided. ‘This is a restaurant, Sophia.’ Which not only earned her a withering look, but also a giggle at David and a roll of her eyes. ‘Ooh, er! Is she always so fussy?’ Sophia purred.
Now I was getting really uncomfortable. ‘Tell you what,’ I suggested to Riley, ignoring Sophia’s comment. ‘Why don’t you walk David back, and we’ll head to the market with Levi?’ I had a few bits to buy, and she could easily catch us up. And it might stop her bursting a blood vessel.
But as soon as we were alone with the baby, Sophia turned to me, oblivious. ‘Oh, Casey, he’s well fit,’ she said, stopping me in my tracks. ‘How old did you say he was?’
‘I didn’t,’ I pointed out. ‘But way too old for you, young lady. And also taken,’ I added pointedly.
She giggled again, then, but was happy to push Levi to the market. She chatted animatedly to me as she did so, as well, even though one of her comments was that pushing a baby was great because it always made you such a ‘man magnet’.
I made light of it, but by now I was having serious concerns. She was attracting male attention not because she was a young girl pushing a pram. She was attracting it by the way she was wiggling as she did so. This girl had been sexualised – and to a increasingly worrying degree. Which rang alarm bells. What had happened to her that we hadn’t been told about?
We’d been told to expect it at some point, of course, but when the letter arrived that Friday from social services it was to inform us that Sophia’s next visit to her mum would be taking place just a week on Sunday.
My musings about why Sophia behaved around men the way she did were now nudged out of pole position by my worrying about that. I didn’t know why, quite – I’d dealt with plenty of bad things in my time – but I was filled with this sense of foreboding. The tone of the letter didn’t help, either, making it clear that the whole thing would be emotionally exhausting for her, and that we’d have to be extra vigilant about her taking her medication, as her stress levels would be particularly high. We might even, the letter warned, have to make her take more hydrocortisone, as the stress might deplete her reserves. Finally, it advised that the visit might be upsetting for us to witness; in short, the letter seemed to say, brace yourselves.
The timing, I thought, was very poor as well. We’d already been told that these visits were infrequent, so why arrange one in the midst of so much upset in her life? She’d have barely been with us a fortnight! I gathered up the rest of the post and went into the kitchen. I could hear Sophia coming down, accompanied by Bob. She’d definitely made a friend in our little mutt, at least. Which was pleasing; pets were so good at soothing troubled souls. And so uncomplicated with it. Just what she needed.
‘All right, love?’ I asked her as they both came into the kitchen. I was pleased to see she was wearing her new pyjamas and dressing gown.
‘Yeah, fine,’ she said, smiling. ‘And it’s a lovely day, isn’t it?’
‘Nice to see some sun,’ I agreed. ‘Even if it’s perishing out there. Let me just let Bob out then I’ll make you some breakfast.’
‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘Out through the conservatory, is it? I can stay and keep an eye on him too.’
‘Don’t forget your tablets.’
‘I won’t!’ she responded brightly.
‘Then I’ll make us both a nice fry-up, shall I? I’ve got bacon, I’ve got mushrooms, I’ve got eggs …’
‘That would be lovely,’ she said, grabbing her meds from the fridge. ‘But no mushrooms for me, thanks. Mushrooms are yuk!’
Well, well, I thought cheerfully, as she followed Bob into the conservatory. Was I at last seeing a glimpse of the girl behind the mask? The girl she might once have been?
And could be again, I hoped, if she got the right kind of help and support. Poor, poor kid. None of us could make things right for her – not where her mum was concerned, anyway. But at least we could all go some way towards making her life more manageable; give her some tools with which to better deal with her demons. But thinking of her mum reminded me I now had to puncture her seemingly happy bubble. But not yet. I would choose my moment. Do it later.
The ‘later’ turned out to be lunchtime, because the morning had continued in much the same cheerful vein, and I figured she was in a good frame of mind. She’d played in the garden with Bob for ages, even though it was perishing, and once I’d done all my housework and told her I’d make something she particularly liked for lunch she seemed genuinely chuffed at my suggestion.
Which wasn’t out of the blue; I wasn’t a mind reader. With our first foster child, Justin, having such issues around food, and because our kind of fostering was geared to particularly damaged children, minimising any anxieties that didn’t need to be there was a really big help. And with issues around food being quite common in kids who’d been in the care system (unsurprisingly, given how insecure they tended to be, not to mention having to compete with older and bigger kids in children’s homes and so on) Mike and I had devised a questionnaire. It was something kids who came to us could fill in before they moved in, and gave them a chance to list all the things that mattered to them. Foods were the major part, but we also included things like favourite colours, favourite TV shows, any hobbies that mattered to them and so on. It all helped to make the transition process just that little bit less stressful, and, in Sophia’s case, I knew she liked cheese and beans on toast.
‘Ooh, lovely!’ she said, seeing it, as she joined me at the table. ‘You’ve