“What about overnights?”
“Let’s see if grandma can cover them, just long enough for you to get the help you need.”
“I feel like all I’m doing with this counseling is going backwards.”
“I know you do. We’re all trying to gauge where you are, what exactly is going on with you, and what will work for you. What you have to keep in mind is that you were already spiraling before you sought help. Step one is to stop the spiral, before you climb back to center.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know…”
“I know the logistics may be hard to arrange. But how much longer do you think you’ve got, before you finally snap? Before you hurt the mail carrier? Before you strike one of your children? Let me tell you a little something about hitting one of your children, after you’ve spent your childhood being beaten, it’ll either be your breaking point or your rock bottom. If it’s your rock bottom, you’ll cure yourself of ever wanting to hit one of them again. If it’s your breaking point, then you’ll do nothing but beat on all of them until they either run or beat you back.”
Tears gathered, shaking his head. “I can’t let it get that bad.”
“Please let me help you stop the spiraling. Please, let’s sign you into an in-patient facility. My singular goal with you is to make sure the cycle of violence in your family ends with you.”
He closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay.”
Chapter Four
And the Hits Just Keep on Coming
“I have an update for you, regarding your children,” the in-home psychiatrist said to Roger, two months into treatment.
“Okay.”
“Your mother-in-law had a stroke last night.”
Roger sat up in his chair. “How bad is she?”
“She didn’t survive.”
Roger found himself blinking at the matter-of-fact way the guy had just sat there and said it. He wanted to wrap his hands around the guy’s neck for being so calm. “Where are my kids?”
“They’ve been placed in emergency custody of the state.”
“What? No! I do not want them in the system. The foster care system is broken, and you know it!”
“You indicated on your paperwork that there wasn’t anyone else who could care for them.”
Roger ground his teeth together. “You have no soul.”
“You do understand that I had no control over any of it, do you not? I didn’t give her the stroke, I didn’t make her the only one who could help you out, and it wasn’t my decision to place them into the system.”
“No, but your delivery of the news has zero sympathy embedded within it. Now, I’d like to sign myself out. I have to get my kids out of this situation. I need to get them home.”
“Home to a father who wants to hurt them?”
“I don’t want to hurt them, that’s why I’m here.”
“Exactly.”
“What?”
“You’re here because you fear hurting them, because when you’re around them, you have an urge to hurt them.”
Roger glared at him.
“You can’t fear doing something that you don’t already have the urge to do, not from what you’ve been describing.”
“I want them out of the system!”
“If you sign yourself out before completing treatment, you’re going to have a hard time getting any of them back.”
Roger’s hands went to his temples as he leaned over, elbows on his knees. “I thought coming here was supposed to stop the spiral.”
“It takes time.”
“You’ve had time.”
“I can put in a request to switch psychiatrists.”
“Do it.”
“It won’t make your treatment go any faster.”
“Yeah, but it’s easier than trying to listen to someone whose face I want to smash in.”
“Violence will only serve to slow you down.”
“You’re still breathing, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s how you know I haven’t been violent.”
Roger left his session and went to the inpatient gym. He went to the staff member in charge of the room. “I need to hit something. I mean, I need to beat on something until I bleed.”
The staff member wasn’t even phased. “Okay. Wait here.” His eyes scanned the punching bags and settled on the patient that had been there the longest.
Roger went and gloved up while the staff member went over and told the other patient that his time was up.
The other patient turned and sought out with his eyes who was taking the bag away from him.
Roger dipped his head at him.
The other patient nodded, took off the gloves, and hit the treadmill.
The staff member waved Roger over.
Roger stepped up to the bag and hit it.
“You good?” the staff member asked.
Roger hit again, harder this time, before he nodded to the guy.
The staff member stepped away and left him be.
Roger looked at the bag and pictured each of his kids in turn, and imagined what they must be going through. He pictured Dr. Lorraine, who talked him into coming here, and beat on the bag. He pictured his mother-in-law’s face who died, and beat on the bag. He pictured officers and a social worker who deemed it fitting to place his kids in the system, and beat on the bag. He pictured his father’s face, who taught him to take his stress out on other people, and beat the bag some more. He pictured his own face and thought about the complete failure he’d been lately, and beat on the bag. Then he pictured that damned driver getting behind the wheel on the night that took his wife away forever, and lost his ever-loving mind to the idea of pummeling that bag until he had no fight left in him.
Six months. That’s how long it took him to get to the point where faculty members felt comfortable releasing him from the facility.
He’d put in a lot of work learning to sort his feelings and reacting appropriately to them. He’d done all the lessons, jumped through all the hoops, now he was ready to return home.
He’d worked to put his life back together, and when he finally sat down with both his therapist, and the social worker, they told him he couldn’t have his kids back.
“We’re not saying never,” Dr. Lorraine told him.
“Then what are you saying?” he asked.
“Let’s take this slowly. One step at a time, so that there are no slips or missteps.”
“I don’t understand. When I went in, it was with the understanding that someone would watch my kids until I got out, then I would be Daddy to them again. That was the deal.”
“Mr. Hayes,” the social worker said, “that might have been the case when you were handling the children’s care privately, but the state is now involved. Given the nature of concerns regarding the status of your mental health, the length of time you required to recover, and the fact that you were doing very little to care for them yourself and that you mother-in-law is no longer here to help you, the state needs to be convinced that placing your children back in your care is actually putting them in a better situation.”
“A better situation than what? In your situation, they aren’t even together. They don’t even have each other, at this point.”
“Be that as it may, the state is not prepared to return your children just yet.”
“You mean you don’t want to return them.”
Dr. Lorraine leaned forward, “This is not a personal attack against you,” she told him. “There is a protocol that must be followed. I understand your frustration, and in your shoes, I’d have been yelling by now. The fact that you are still sitting there, calmly, shows just how much progress you’ve made. Now, like I said, let’s deal with this one step at a time.”
It took everything in him not to grip the arms of the chair, in an effort to not wring one of their necks. “And what is the first step?”
“Supervised visitation, once a week.”
“Once a
week,” he repeated.
“I know you’d prefer to see them every day. But it can be a lot for the foster parents to all get a schedule like that arranged. Once a week is the preference of everyone else involved.”
“Even the kids?”
“The kids have mixed emotions after all they’ve been through. Once a week to begin reintroduction is where we start,” the social worker said.
“One kid at a time, or all five at the same time?”
“We’ll do our best to arrange them at the same time, unless you think that will be too overwhelming for you.”
“No. I want them to be able to spend time with each other, as well.”
“I’ll do what I can to arrange it. The visits will take place at our facility. There will be plenty of things around the room for you to do with them. You can talk to one or two at a time while the others catch up with each other, or do a big group activity. You can put on a video for them, or make some simple snacks with them. Think about how you want to use your time.”
He nodded.
The therapist leaned forward. “And, you’ll have to be sensitive to where they are in all this. Where does each one of them want to start? How do they feel about the prospect of moving back in with you? You may have more relationship repair work to do with some than with others. Some may run back to you with open arms, excited and crying tears of joy, others may shy away from you altogether. You have to prepare yourself for that.”
“The twins may not even recognize me,” he whispered.
The therapist gave a gentle smile. “It’s only been six months. You may be surprised at what they remember.”
Chapter Five
Supervised Visitation
You know how there’s that saying, Life sucks and then you die?
Yeah, I know why that’s a thing.
Less than a year ago, I had an amazing life. At least, in as far as I could tell.
I had two parents, married and in love with each other. Siblings I got along with and loved. One house, no one had to go back and forth between houses like so many friends and their siblings have to do. I had more clothes in my closet than I needed. Food in my belly that I liked and snacks at night that I loved. My room was bigger than any of my friends’ rooms. Vacations with airplane rides, sleepovers at friends’ houses, and a neighborhood where I never saw any cop cars enter because they didn’t need to.
It was a world where I was loved beyond measure, and my dad used to smile.
That world is gone now.
All the foster parents brought us into the room at least ten minutes before Dad came in. They wanted to make sure the five of us had a chance to see each other without the stress of Dad being there. I immediately started hugging on each of them.
I was the oldest, by a good bit. And it wasn’t lost on me that if the courts never let us live with our Dad again, I was probably going to be the only one who remembered what living with him was like, before. My Dad had been awesome. Hugs and kisses, spending time together, conversations, stealing time and snacks with him. If the courts didn’t stop being so mean about keeping us all apart, the other four would only ever remember what he was like, after.
Wasn’t it bad enough they were hardly going to remember Mom, if at all?
They weren’t going to remember what it was like to live with the five of us altogether, either.
And that’s why this part of my life just plain sucks.
The five of us were jabbering away with each other, when some man cleared his throat real loud. We turned to look at him.
“I understand that this is the first time you’ll each be seeing your father since he went away for treatment.”
“Is he all better now?” Charlotte asked.
The man smiled. “We think so. But he’s just gotten back to the house, and is still adjusting to living without all the constant help. So now is the time we wait and watch, just to make sure he really is all right.”
“How are you going to watch him, if he’s at home?”
“He has appointments with doctors every week, to check up on him and make sure he’s doing okay.”
“Does he still yell?” Sophie asked.
“That’s one of the things we want to make sure he doesn’t do. It’s why we bring all of you here, to see if he can talk and play with all of you, and not lose his temper.”
“But, did he find it at the doctor’s?” Sophie asked.
“Find what?”
“His temper.”
The man smiled. “Yes.”
“How did it get there?”
The man fought a chuckle. “Okay, let’s see how I can explain this… He didn’t find his old temper at the doctor’s. They gave him a new one, and sometimes it’s hard to know if it’s fitting quite right. They can be squirmy things, sometimes. So, by easing him back into his life, a little at a time, we can make sure it fits. If it gets loose, well, he can have the fit adjusted at his appointments. And we’ll keep doing this until we know for sure that his temper is right where it needs to be.”
“But what if he loses this one?”
“Then the doctors will get him another one.”
“How many can he have?”
“As many as he needs.”
“Why did his old one fall off and get lost?”
“Because sometimes so many changes in your life, all at once, can make the brain do wonky things, and the temper just gets knocked loose.”
Sophie stared up at him with wide eyes. “Do you think mine is loose?”
The guy squatted down in front of her with a gentle smile. “From all the notes I’ve read about you, yours seems to still fit, just fine,” he told her with a wink.
Charlotte leaned in and whispered with a hand gesture at herself and the rest of us gathered, “What about everyone else?”
The guy had to fight off a chuckle. “The rest of you are just fine, too.”
Dad came in moments later, with a stack of gifts. I saw him try to smile as he moved to a table near the corner of the room and put the presents down.
I immediately went over to him for a hug.
Daddy turned to me with a smile on his whole face as he leaned down to hug me back. When we pulled away from each other, he looked down at the rest of his kids with an expected smile on his face.
None of the others moved toward him.
He let out a sigh. “Hi, guys.”
Silence.
Dad cleared his throat. “I know it’s been a long time, and I’ve missed you all so much. I’m really, really sorry that it’s taking me so long to get better. I really didn’t know it was going to take me this long. I want you all to know that I’m working as hard as I can to do everything the doctors are telling me to do, so we can all go home.”
“Do you think this one fits?” Sophie asked him.
He gave her a confused look.
The other guy cleared his throat and Daddy looked at him. “You lost your temper, and the doctors gave you a new one, and everyone is trying to make sure it fits nice and snug, before they all go back home.”
Daddy nodded at him with a smile. “That’s a good way to explain it, thank you.”
The guy nodded, sat down, and started taking notes.
Daddy turned back to Sophie, “You know, kiddo, I really do think this one fits. I know I feel a whole lot better with it on.”
“Good,” Sophie said with a smile.
“What’re the presents for?” Charlotte asked.
“Oh, yes, those,” Daddy said, pretending he’d forgotten all about them. “Well, it seems to me that I’ve missed everyone’s birthday while I was away, trying to find a temper to fit me. So, I thought I could give you all a present now. I know it doesn’t make up for missing your birthdays, but I really couldn’t help that.”
“Who opens first?” Charlotte asked.
“Penny gets the first one,” Daddy said.
“Because she’s biggest?”
“Because hers was a special birthday,” he sa
id.
I beamed.
He turned and picked up the box on top, before turning back to me. “I know how much you were looking forward to turning double-digits. I’m so sorry I missed it. I hope your foster family made it special.”
“They did,” I said with a nod. “But not as special as you and Mom would have made it.”
“I know, baby.” He handed me the present, and I opened it up, revealing a cell phone. I looked up at him in confusion.
“I know that Mom and I said you each had to be twelve before you got a phone. But I talked it over with your social worker, who spoke to all your foster parents and got them all to agree with me, with rules.” He turned and picked up the stack of the other three boxes, handing them out. “Connor and Chloe have to share. That’s one of the rules.”
The kids all opened their boxes, all of them finding cell phones.
“I know you guys don’t really know how to work the phone part, but your foster parents can help you.”
“Is this so we can call you?” I asked.
Dad grimaced. “No, I wish it worked like that, but for now, no.”
“Then why?”
He squatted down and waited for all of us to give him our attention. “These are so you guys can all call each other. Now, I made sure each one has some games on it that I thought you’d each like, and some apps I thought you three older girls could use for school. You can’t just go calling everybody with these. There’s a program on them that only lets you call each other. And I put all your phone numbers on there already. Penny, yours is the only one that allows you to call other people. I found your little phone book and already put in your friends’ numbers, so you can call them and keep in contact with them.”
“Thank you,” I squealed and gave him another hug.
“How’re you doing this week, Penny?” Dad asked on another one of our visits.
Today, he was pulling each of us aside, talking to us one-on-one, trying to get to know the little ones all over again.
“I’m good.”
“Are your foster parents treating you well?” he asked in a serious voice.
“Do you remember my friend, Sadie?”
We're All Broken Page 3