Three More Words

by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

  I kept a meticulous diary of the number of bottles, meals, and wet and soiled diapers Dakota had to prove we were doing everything possible to help him gain weight. The doctors ruled out various diseases and syndromes and changed his formula several times. There was no information on what drugs his mother had taken during her pregnancy, and she didn’t visit him. She also didn’t think she had done anything wrong.

  One unintended problem with my pregnancy was that I was losing my lap space, but I still had babies who needed to cuddle closely. Later in my pregnancy, I was told to not lift anything heavier than twenty pounds, so I had to discourage Lance when his little arms went into the “up, up!” position. Dakota was still so light I didn’t hesitate to carry him. Sometimes I’d rest on the couch with him lying across my chest. When he’d fall asleep to the beating of my heart, I felt a wave of maternal satisfaction.

  To our amazement and joy, Sharon’s love cure seemed to be working. After such a long time without any measurable growth, we started to see Dakota gaining strength week by week. Erick—with a lot of help from Lance—coaxed him to giggle. Soon he began to give us shy smiles. The staff at his day care doted on him too. I would have preferred to keep him at home, but Florida’s Rilya Wilson Act requires foster children to be in day care. Named after a child in state custody who disappeared for two years without anyone knowing about it, the law makes sure that teachers or child-care workers see the children during the week, and they must report absences. Much sooner than anyone expected, the tiny tot started to crawl, and to our amazement he stood up and began to walk at only ten months! No sooner had we celebrated this milestone than we were told to pack up his belongings. They were moving him to the foster home where his older brother was living.

  This time I didn’t have so many of the pangs that came with the other children’s farewells or the heartsickness that accompanied Albert’s leaving. I realized that part of the grieving for Albert had been my fears for his safety and knowing he was not going to a good, stable situation. We had really helped Dakota, and he was being reunited with family—so that counted for something.

  In any case, there was little time to worry about Dakota, because the very next day Bruce replaced him.

  “My mommy does pills,” the boy said before he had even crossed our threshold. “And Granny does pills too.”

  “Oh my,” said the transporter who brought him for “just a few days.”

  “He speaks really well for a kid who’s two,” Erick said.

  “He’s four,” the worker said.

  Erick looked at me and we laughed. Once again Jenny had fudged.

  “You know what else?” Bruce said in a cute, raspy voice. “My mommy’s belly-button baby’s gone because she does pills.”

  Had his mother had a miscarriage, or had the state taken the child from the hospital?

  The phone rang. Jenny was breathless. “You have dogs, right?”

  “Yes, three.”

  “Has Bruce arrived?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Has he seen the dogs?”

  “Not yet. He just—”

  Jenny cut me off. “Bruce was mauled by a dog and has a panic attack when he sees one.”

  “Great.” I muted a groan. “What do you expect us to do?”

  “It’s Friday,” Jenny said. “I’ll move him by Monday, okay? You seem to be able to cope with anything.”

  “Look, we don’t want to upset the kid. If he freaks, then you’ll have to find him an emergency placement.”

  “Okay,” she agreed.

  “And one more thing,” I said. “This kid is double the age you claimed. We know you’re under a lot of pressure, but all we ask is that you tell us the truth.”

  Jenny hung up with a barrage of apologies.

  That night, when it was time for Bruce to get into his pajamas, I helped him out of his shirt. He winced. His torso looked like a road map, with lines from beatings and cuts in varied stages of healing.

  “Erick!” I called. I was too shaken to do this alone. “Look here. . . .” There were noticeable teeth marks on the side of his neck and similar ones on the back of his arm, but not everything had been done by an animal, because there were so many old scars. It looked like someone had used a chain with spikes to get the punctures evenly spaced on his back and belly.

  This was the worst case of physical abuse I had ever seen—even counting children I knew when I was in foster care. At The Children’s Home, older kids sometimes one-upped each other with their histories—some of which were probably exaggerated; many, though, were the gruesome truth. The story that had horrified me the most were siblings whose hands had been superglued to the wall in a closet, and they weren’t found for several days.

  When I dried Bruce off, Loki started barking at a squirrel. The little boy stiffened ramrod straight and began to shiver. “Don’t worry, the dogs will be outside, and we won’t let them near you.”

  The weather was mild, and the two largest dogs slept outside on their beds under the covered back porch. I carried Bella, my Chihuahua, up to our bedroom, and she was content to cuddle on my pillow and only go out when Bruce wasn’t around. Because of Bruce’s injuries, his diligent Guardian ad Litem insisted that he get priority for a therapeutic placement—a more highly trained foster home with fewer children and more services. I offered to transport Bruce to the new home the following week.

  “Why don’t you hang around while we settle Bruce in,” Dana, his new foster mother, suggested.

  “All his clothes are clean, except for last night’s laundry.” I showed her the separate plastic bag. “His Pull-Ups were dry this morning.” I reached over and did a high five with Bruce, who returned it shyly.

  Dana lived in an upscale town house that was artistically furnished. She settled Bruce on a beanbag chair and handed him a new stuffed animal. “This is Rusty the rabbit,” she said. “He is very lonely and needs lots of hugs. Let me know if he gets hungry. We have carrots and peanut butter crackers if he is.”

  I immediately liked her approach. “So you are technically a therapeutic foster home?” I asked. “Bruce . . . well, you’ll see that he’s been severely harmed . . . but his behavior has been very compliant. He was with us less than a week, so we were still getting to know each other, but many of our so-called ‘traditional’ placements were much needier.”

  “The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” she said, pouring iced tea. “Let’s face it, almost every single foster kid has been shocked—if only because they have been removed from their family. They all need therapeutic treatment.”

  “What are the differences between therapeutic and regular foster care?”

  “Well, the board rate is higher and you get fewer kids. Our agency is smaller and much more supportive. The kids get a lot more services and help too.” She gave me a warm smile.

  “Rusty wants potty,” Bruce said.

  “Good bunny rabbit,” Dana said. “Will you help me take him there?”

  I knew this was my exit line. “Bye, Rusty. Bye, Bruce,” I said as Bruce went off with Dana and didn’t look back.

  On the way home, I considered the possibility of being a therapeutic foster home. Erick and I wanted the best services for the children in our care, yet we often felt as though our recommendations were ignored. I was confident we could care for a child like Bruce if we had an agency that helped us rather than blamed us every time something went wrong.

  12.

  that’s the ticket

  Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

  —F. Scott Fitzgerald

  “If you’re transferring your license to the therapeutic agency, we’ll have to move Lance.” The agency placement supervisor told me this as if I were a disagreeable teen having my privileges revoked.

  “But he’s going to his aunt in less than a month!”

  “In the meantime, he’ll have to live with one of our agency’s families.”

  “This baby has lived with us for most of h
is life. He doesn’t know any other family.”

  “You made your choice. We can’t mingle our children with those in the therapeutic program,” she said in a chilling voice.

  “We don’t have to accept a therapeutic placement until he leaves.”

  “We aren’t willing to pay the higher board rate.”

  “We don’t care about the subsidy.” I paused. “We want what’s best for him.”

  “You don’t understand how complex this is. We’ll call you when we have a family willing to take Lance for the interim,” she said, and hung up.

  I phoned Maya, the head of the therapeutic agency. Instead of a parade of new agency workers and placement specialists, we would only be dealing with her, Bonnie, the therapist, and Sheila, the targeted case manager who would integrate all the services each child needed.

  “There’s no reason to move your little guy,” Maya said after I explained all the supervisor’s arguments. “We won’t give you one of our children until he leaves. The idea that he would be in danger is ridiculous.”

  “I feel like they’re trying to punish us for some reason, but he’s the one who will suffer.”

  “They don’t like to lose what was theirs,” Maya explained.

  “Then maybe they should have been more encouraging. They pushed a reunification and gave a child back to an unsafe, unfit parent. They’ve pressured us to take children who were not suited for our profile, and they didn’t even pay attention to the fact that we had dogs when they placed a child with us who had just been attacked by one. When we speak up for the kids in staffings or court, we’re either ignored or asked to sit down. We are tired of being the bad guys when all we’re trying to do is help these kids,” I grumbled. “But the point is, what can we do about Lance?”

  “Let me see if I can work something out between the agencies,” Maya said.

  I felt like we were going through a divorce and the child was suffering for the decisions of the adults. There was no way I could explain it to Lance—or even his aunt, who tried to get permission to move him a few weeks earlier.

  Two days later Jenny called. This time she didn’t sound like we had won a free vacation. “Just letting you know that a transporter will be coming for the child today between four and five.”

  “Today! He’s at school till five, and he’s not packed. Besides, I thought the agencies were still working on another plan.”

  “Sorry, that’s not what I was told.”

  “Where’s he going?”

  “To the Gordon-Becker foster home.” She paused to see if I would react.

  “Oh, Margot and Carlotta! They’re great. I spoke at one of their training sessions. Give me their number and I can transport him for a smoother transition.”

  When I phoned, Margot answered. “I remember you,” she said, “but I didn’t realize you were the one who had Lance.”

  I tried to explain why Lance was being moved without bashing the agency, which would be unprofessional. “Can you maintain Skype contact with the aunt?”

  “Of course we can. My wife is in IT.”

  “I’m glad he’ll have two moms for a while,” I said. “He’s my cuddle buddy.”

  I typed up Lance’s schedule and packed his favorite toys, his clothes, some organic snacks, and his sippy cups.

  Erick and I brought him to their home. “Bye-bye!” Lance chirped, and blew kisses, probably expecting us to return shortly.

  We smiled and waved and clapped, determined to give him a happy send-off. But when our car was out of sight, I slumped into my seat and sobbed.

  That evening Beth, my best foster-mother friend, called to console me. “Do you need any clothes for your little Frankie?” I asked. We had a huge stack that Lance had outgrown.

  “How did you guess?” Beth said. “He’s turned into the cutest little butterball.”

  “Great!” I said. “I’ll bring them over tomorrow.”

  I was driving to her house when she called, crying so hard that I could barely understand her. “Don’t bother coming. Frankie’s gone.”

  “What!” Beth was even more sensitive than I was when it came to these children, because she hadn’t been hardened by so many disappointments. She had a master’s degree in child development, had married her college sweetheart, and had grown up surrounded by a loving family. “I’m still coming over.”

  “Day care called and said a worker took Frankie to a new placement,” Beth said when I arrived.

  “Without any warning to you?” Beth nodded. “Maybe he was kidnapped by a family member?”

  “N-no,” she stuttered. “I called the caseworker. She knew about it and acted like this was normal.”

  “What about all the clothes and toys you bought him?”

  “They took our backpack—Brian’s, actually—and whatever he had at day care. I d-don’t understand why.”

  “This is so wrong,” I said. “They are desperate to recruit foster parents, but then they pull stunts like this.”

  “But we brought him home as a preemie from the hospital, and he’s only known us for all this time. He has to be terrified.”

  Supposedly babies are more resilient, but we really don’t know how the separation affects them.

  “I can remember feeling cold and empty and scared when I was moved without being able to say good-bye. Once I was woken in the night and taken on a plane to live with relatives I had never met.”

  “I’d thought the system would have changed since then,” Beth said.

  “Me too,” I said after a long pause. “Obviously it hasn’t. It may even have gotten worse.”

  My latest field placement was with a religious group that assisted pregnant women and also ran an adoption division. I could make my own hours, which allowed me to keep my classroom and speech commitments.

  Mary Lou Krebs, the program’s director, had read my book. “We’re thrilled to have you on board,” she said. “I’ll organize a fund-raiser, and you can be our speaker.”

  “But—” I started to explain how my bookings work, but she continued without pause.

  “The cornerstone of our mission is preventing abortions.” Mrs. Krebs handed me the first of several fetal models. “This is twenty weeks, which should be about your baby’s size, right? Here, hold it. It helps a woman understand that she is carrying a human child.”

  The plastic replica looked like a stillborn. I passed it back as though it was a hot potato.

  “I can see this makes you uncomfortable. You are keeping your baby, right?”

  She didn’t wait for my response, and I resented the implication that at this stage in my pregnancy and life I could consider not having my baby.

  “We have an adoption division and a counseling component for those wishing to parent instead,” she prattled on.

  “We also have a bus that goes to shopping plazas, medical centers, and targeted areas—like across the street from Planned Parenthood—and we encourage women to see their child on ultrasound. It’s a very effective deterrent. Would you like to do some shifts on the bus?”

  I knitted my fingers together across my baby bump and thought about the ultrasound when I had learned whether my baby would be a girl or a boy. We had invited my parents along for the big moment. I can’t say we had a preference, but we all thought I was having a girl. When the technician said, “A boy, definitely a boy” and circled the critical part on her monitor, I had to ask her to check again to be sure.

  Everyone had laughed and cheered, especially since almost all our foster children had been boys and we felt like we understood them and their care well. I did not want that joyful memory to be diluted by seeing women in different circumstances feeling negatively about their pregnancies.

  “I don’t think it would be the best use of my skills. . . .”

  Mary Lou sensed she had touched a nerve. She handed me a piece of paper. “Our rules are very simple, but there can be absolutely no deviation.” Mary Lou’s chipper voice became more grating. “Let me know
if you can follow them.”

  I scanned this list that forbid mentioning any sort of contraception or unapproved referrals. “I think I can comply with this,” I said. I had already worked at a shelter for pregnant teens run by a church, and they also hadn’t let us talk about birth control. I assumed I could bottle my own beliefs and strive to help each client to the best of my ability within their program’s framework.

  Outside Mrs. Krebs’s office, the waiting room was filled with women in various stages of pregnancy. Most had come in from smoking outside. I was warned not to criticize them in any way, because that might scare them off.

  I started by observing my immediate supervisor, Priscilla, doing intakes. That afternoon Priscilla asked a woman how many children she had. “Two,” she replied.

  “How many pregnancies?” Priscilla said as she filled out her sheet.

  “Five or six.”

  “Only two babies!” Priscilla said without hiding the shock in her voice, because she assumed the woman had aborted the rest.

  “Oh no, I got more.”

  Priscilla stopped typing into her computer. “I don’t understand. . . .”

  I cleared my throat, and Priscilla nodded that I could speak. “Are some of your children living with relatives, or could they be in foster care?”

  “Yeah, the state took a bunch. Some are with my mom; the baby’s with me.”

  “So why are you here today?” Priscilla asked, relieved that she wasn’t dealing with her version of a serial killer.

  “I need more diapers and wipes.”

  “We’d be happy to help. Anything else we can do?” Priscilla said with a practiced kindly tone. “Do you need a pregnancy test?”

  “My man—we’re engaged—he’s out of prison in a few months in Georgia. Can you fix me permanent—so we don’t make a baby?”

  “Don’t you want to give him a baby?” Priscilla said to the client. As if reading my mind, she shot me a look that I wasn’t to intervene.

  Afterward, though, I couldn’t understand her flat-out encouragement to bring more babies into this woman’s world of poverty and crime.

  One of the first clients I saw on my own was N’vasha, who was on disability because of psychiatric problems. I asked about her children.