Five Winters(48)

I shuddered.

“Someone walk over your grave?” whispered Tina, but I just smiled.

“Okay,” said Clare. “In the first part of tonight’s session, you found out all about the adoption process. In this second part, we’re going to look at some case studies as a first step towards familiarising you with the types of children waiting to be adopted. So if you can work with the couple nearest to you? There should be two groups of four and one group of three. We’ll hand out the case studies for you to read, and then one of us will join you to help you discuss it.”

People shuffled about, moving chairs into semicircles, exchanging pleasantries as they waited for the social workers to hand out the case studies. And then it went quiet as heads bowed and everyone began to read.

Our case study was about a two-year-old boy with alcohol-dependent parents. His half sister lived with him, and his grandfather tried to see him as much as possible but had health issues that often made that difficult.

I was soon totally absorbed, the little boy gaining my sympathy and empathy even before I’d reached the part about the domestic abuse and his mother ending up in hospital. How his half sister’s father took her away to live with him, leaving the little boy alone.

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” said Tina when I let out a sound of distress.

But I just nodded, reading on about how the little boy had spent some time in foster care before being returned to his mother when she split up with his father.

“Don’t tell me they got back together,” said Tina, and sure enough, in the next paragraph, I discovered it was true.

The little boy’s parents had recontinued their destructive relationship. Then, one night, the boy was injured during a fight. A neighbour rang the police, and the boy was placed in emergency foster care, only to be moved to another foster family a week later. Not surprisingly, with all the upheaval and all he had witnessed, the little boy was withdrawn and unresponsive at first.

“Poor little mite,” said Tina.

“Don’t worry,” said Karl, who’d read on. “He came round after a bit. It says he got fond of them.”

I was already reading about the monthly contact the boy had with his mother and sister—when his mum turned up, which she didn’t always do. How both these contacts stopped when he was adopted. The case study finished by saying the boy had now reached many of his developmental targets and, despite being a handful at times, was happy in his new home, generally responding to clear, firm boundaries.

“Ah, he came good in the end,” Tina said with satisfaction.

Clare, the social worker, had joined us while we were reading. “What do you think the issues were for this little boy?” she asked now. “The things that might have affected what the adopters had to deal with?”

“Well, he can’t have known whether he was coming or going, can he?” said Tina. “It’s awful how some people can stay in situations that are harmful to their children.”

“Did the brother and sister really have to be separated?” I asked. “And the grandfather—couldn’t he keep seeing him? It seems very harsh for them all to be separated like that.”

“None of these situations are straightforward,” said Clare. “There are always difficult decisions to be made where adoption is concerned. I’m not personally familiar with this case, so I can’t give you any more details. But it’s possible that making a complete break in this way was felt to be the best way for both children to settle into their new families. And I’m sure that annual letterbox contact will have been in place.”

“It’s being cruel to be kind,” said Karl.

“I’m sure social services would never knowingly be cruel, Karl,” said Tina.

Clare said something in response. I don’t know what. I’d pretty much tuned them out by then. I couldn’t stop imagining the boy and his sister hiding somewhere together to try to escape the shouting, maybe seeing the father hit the mother. Hugging each other for comfort. How it must have been for the little boy after his sister had gone and he was all on his own. The bewilderment of suddenly being uprooted from everything familiar.

In a way it reminded me of myself, after I’d moved to Ely, having been used to the bustle of cosmopolitan London. Which was ridiculous, of course. Me relocating to Cambridgeshire was nothing like a child being removed from his family.

“What’s going on in your mind, Beth?” Clare asked.

I blinked when she spoke, so caught up in my thoughts I had to wipe my eyes on the back of my hand. “I was just imagining all that little boy must have gone through. Thinking how it must have stopped him trusting people.”

“Yes, indeed,” Clare said. “And that lack of trust has a knock-on effect on a child’s behaviour and development.”

“Trust can grow back, though, can’t it?” asked Tina.

“Sometimes, yes,” said Clare, but she said it in a way that made me supply the rest of the sentence: But sometimes it doesn’t.

And then I thought of myself at nine years old, both of my parents suddenly gone. What would have happened to me if Aunt Tilda, Sylvia, and Richard hadn’t been around? Would my story have ended up as a case study for potential adopters?





17


On the Saturday after the session, I went to Enfield to help Sylvia do some jobs in the garden. Richard had always done the majority of the gardening, but occasionally he and Sylvia did it together. Now it was all left to Sylvia. Mark had suggested she employ a gardener, but Sylvia didn’t want to, and I didn’t blame her. A stranger being there would have emphasised Richard’s absence. Besides, I was more than happy to help out. Working on the borders Richard had dug and fertilised so carefully was like paying tribute to him. And anyway, it was good to see Sylvia.