The Perfect Child(21)

I squeezed his hand. “There’s probably a lot going on inside her that we don’t even know about.”

“It’s just that I can usually calm her down. What’s going to happen if I can’t calm her down?” Worry flooded his face.

“Thankfully, we don’t have to do this alone.” Janie went to so many different therapies each day I didn’t know how she had time for anything else. Each of them had given us a detailed summary of her care. “Rhonda told me she’s going to give us a bunch of sensory toys that she uses with kids who’ve been severely abused. She says they work great at helping them learn to self-soothe. She’s got stacks of other resources for us too. All kinds of different therapeutic games and books.” Rhonda was the chief psychologist at the hospital, and she worked with Janie for two hours every day.

“Do you really think they’ll help?”

“Absolutely,” I said, trying to be strong for him despite the fear gnawing in my gut.





CASE #5243

INTERVIEW:

PIPER GOLDSTEIN

The sun hit my eyes, making me squint, but I didn’t care. It felt good to be outside, even if it was only going to be for five minutes. For a second, I wished I smoked. At least then I would have had a valid reason for asking them to let me step outside for a minute. Instead, I’d just looked shady when I’d asked if I could get some air. They’d looked at me suspiciously, but it wasn’t like they could say no.

“Let’s make it quick, though, so we can finish this thing up,” Ron had said, as if we were almost finished. I hoped we were, but I doubted it. We hadn’t even gotten to any of the hard stuff yet. They’d spent way too much time on the Bauers’ first home visit.

Hannah had called me afterward, worried and frazzled, wondering if they’d gotten in over their heads. I hadn’t told the officers that, but they hadn’t asked the question either. Besides, I knew what they’d think if I told them, and it wasn’t even like that. She had just been concerned. She was always so much more practical about Janie than Christopher.

“Is there anything we can do to make things better for her?” she had asked that day.

“Just keep doing what you’re doing, but honestly, it’s going to take a long time for the psychological and emotional healing to happen. That part isn’t going to start until she’s settled in a more permanent home. Even if she’s not consciously aware of it, at some level, she still doesn’t feel safe. No kid feels safe when they don’t have a home.”

“How are the prospects looking?”

“There are a lot of people who want her.” I had rubbed my forehead just thinking about the hundreds of pages of paperwork I had to go through. “But it’s a good problem to have.”

“Still no luck tracking down any of her family members?”

“Nothing worth reporting,” I had said.

It wasn’t exactly a lie—telling her about visiting Becky’s mother in jail would have served no purpose except to upset her more, and nothing good had come out of our visit anyway.

We started with family members whenever we needed a permanent placement for a child, and Becky’s mother, Sue Watson, was the only relative we’d found. She had a criminal record spanning the last two decades and was in Fodge County Jail awaiting her trial after pleading not guilty to her third DUI charge and reckless driving. I’d gone to see her last week.



Sue was so obese her folds had slid over the aluminum chair, since her fat was the loose kind. She had worn the characteristic orange jumper. Usually women swam in them, but hers had hugged her body tightly. Her hair had been a frizzy mess, long and bushy, like it’d been years since a brush had passed through it. She had wrapped her arms around her wide chest and glared at me. “Who are you?” Her teeth were as rotten as Janie’s had been.

“I’m Piper Goldstein. We spoke on the phone? I’m the social worker who’s been assigned to your granddaughter, Janie’s, case?”

“What’s Janie need a social worker for?” she’d asked, eyeing the other visitors in the packed room like they might be able to hear, but there hadn’t been any reason to worry; visiting hours were short, and nobody cared about any other visit but their own.

“The courts assign a social worker when a child is in need of protective care,” I’d explained like I’d done the first time we’d spoken on the phone.

“What’s that got to do with me?”

I’d hated to even bring it up, but I hadn’t had a choice. The state insisted we pursue family care if at all possible. Sometimes it worked, but more often than not, it didn’t. Dysfunctional parenting usually spanned generations, and most of the time, the family member didn’t do any better than the parents. In Janie’s case, I’d known she wouldn’t stand a chance with any of her extended family because Sue had been arrested more times than Becky.

“We’re trying to determine the best placement for Janie and thought you might be able to help us find the information we need to do that.”

She’d leaned forward on the table. “What kind of information you looking for?”

“Anything you might be able to tell us about Becky and Janie.”

She’d snorted. “I haven’t seen that child in years.”