Hailey’s chin puckered.
“I’ve always wanted kids some day.” Jan told the child something she’d never said out loud before. “But ever since college, I’ve worked so much I’ve lost touch with all my friends. And I never met a man I felt safe enough with to marry—you know one I believed would love me forever and ever.”
She grinned at Hailey, and felt a little better when the child smiled back.
“I was beginning to think I’d never have my family,” she continued, her voice lower as she opened her heart to this precocious and oh-so-strong child. “I don’t know why, but I never even thought about adoption—maybe because I always thought marriage would come before the kids.”
Hailey nodded, her gaze serious and on target, as if she could fully understand the complexity of the adult emotions Jan was laying before her.
Jan reached out a hand, covering Hailey’s. “Until I met you,” she continued. “Then, I could think of nothing else.”
Hailey stared at her.
And then, pulling her hand away, she stiffened. “They aren’t going to let you.”
Because she was single? She’d already crossed that hurdle, received the legal go-ahead. “Why do you say that?”
“You put away the bad people.”
Jan blinked. “Yeah. So?”
“I am the bad people.”
“Hailey Ann Miller! You are not bad!” Jan lowered her voice. “Don’t say such things.”
“Why not?” the child asked, her eyes wide and clear. “It’s true.”
“It is not true.”
“You put me away.”
Oh, God.
After all this time, all the times I prepared for this, why did it have to happen now?
“The court took you from a place that wasn’t good for you,” Jan finally said. A place worse than hell for a vulnerable little girl. Jan lost her appetite, just thinking about what she’d found at the duplex rented by Hailey’s mother. Dirty walls, rotten floors—a hole the size of a basketball in front of the only toilet, open to the foundation and dirt beneath. Mold everywhere. And a constant stream of horny men who paid Hailey’s mother, a prostitute, a pittance for the use of a body that had once been beautiful but was now weathered and ragged.
“You took me because I stole too many times and got arrested and brought to court to be punished.”
“You stole cold medicine because you were too young to buy it, and you had to help someone who’d taken care of you,” Jan said decisively. “Mrs. Butter-worth loved you. No matter how old or tired or sick she was, she took you into her side of the duplex whenever your mom was out too late or had…visitors.”
In spite of state-ordered counseling and Jan’s personal attempts to gain the girl’s total confidence, no one knew if Hailey fully comprehended what her mother was—what she’d done with the various men who’d come and gone from their home. A medical exam had shown that the child had not been molested, but no one knew what she’d witnessed during the first seven years of her life.
“Till I got taken away.” Hailey took a small bite and chewed slowly, no pleasure evident. When she’d finished, she put down her fork and looked up at Jan, her eyes glistening. “I am bad,” she said with quiet conviction. “It wasn’t just that once. I stole before, too, when Mrs. Butterworth’s checks didn’t come, but I wasn’t that good at it and I kept getting caught. And I took candy, once, just for me. It’s just that the last time they already told me no more or else, and I did anyway, and it was medicine, and now I’m taken away because I’m a troublemaker.”
“You were caught, and yes, there was some punishment because stealing is against the law…” Although, in Hailey’s case, Jan had recommended the punishment, probation, only as a scare tactic—and a safeguard, a way to keep close tabs on the little girl. It was highly unusual for an eight-year-old to be on probation.
Hailey was nodding, pushing a piece of French toast that was swimming in her syrup.
“But, Hailey, you weren’t taken away because of that. You were put in a different home because after the court found out the kind of conditions you were living in, they had to provide a better place for you, a safer place, where there were people who would shop and cook for you and not leave you alone at night. The other times, they’d called your mother and she’d cleaned up enough to satisfy the authorities when they brought you home. But the last time, they didn’t call and just went to your house. It was obvious, then, that your mother couldn’t care for you as the law requires. And the judge couldn’t leave you there, honey, especially after Mrs. Butterworth died.”
Hailey had been pretty resigned about leaving her mother. And hadn’t asked about the woman since. On the other side, Karen Miller hadn’t responded to a single one of the state’s attempts at reconciliation or visitation, and had, in fact, allowed severance proceedings to go forward without any objection whatsoever.
Jan got up from the table and switched sides, sliding in beside the little girl.
“You did some things you shouldn’t have done, Hailey, but more important than what you do is why you do it. You don’t do things to be mean or selfish. You don’t lash out in anger or turn away when you think someone needs your help. That’s what a troublemaker does. You’re kind of like Mrs. Butterworth. You want to take care of things, even when you really can’t. She should have moved to a nursing home where the government could have taken care of her, but she didn’t want to leave you. And you took things that weren’t yours because you weren’t old enough to go to work to earn the money she needed. That means you have a good heart. Not a bad one.”
“You really think so?” The little girl’s eyes were so big and blue they seemed almost jewel-like.
“I know so.”
Hailey ate a couple of hearty bites. And then, shoulders drooping, she laid her fork in the middle of her plate, the handle sinking into the syrup.
“I’m on probation,” she said. “Derek says only bad kids are on probation and they don’t ever get out of foster care.”
Maybe the sentence had been a little harsh, but even in the beginning Jan had seen the potential in Hailey and also the determination, and she couldn’t think of another way to get the point across that continued stealing was unacceptable. Telling her it was wrong hadn’t worked, because in her mind her reasons had always been right and stronger. Telling her no hadn’t stopped her. Threats hadn’t stopped her. Eventually the habit would have ruined her life.
“Derek’s pretty smart, but he’s just a kid, too, and he doesn’t know everything yet,” Jan said, careful not to malign the boy. For now, Hailey was part of the Lincoln family, and her need for stability, a sense of belonging, were the most important factors in the child’s life. The October 23rd court adoption date felt far too distant.
Jan sat back, thoughts of her own inadequacies stealing some of her confidence. She suffered so severely from nightmares—and from a consequent lack of self-trust—that she’d slowly shut herself off from all relationships that weren’t work related. And now she was bringing a child into her life—a full-time resident, who would want friends to spend the night.
She could do it. She knew she could. But it wasn’t going to be easy.
Would Hailey suffer while Jan worked things out?
And even after the court made Hailey her legal