by Angela Hart
‘No, honestly. I can only stay a couple of minutes.’
I told her she was welcome to invite her mum in but she said Colette was happy to wait in the car.
Grace was wearing a large shapeless anorak, saggy jogging bottoms and old trainers. I’m afraid I was shocked and saddened by her appearance. You didn’t need to be a serial weightwatcher like me to recognise that Grace was dangerously overweight, and she looked scruffy and dishevelled.
‘I can’t tell you how good it is to see you,’ Jonathan said. ‘What a terrific surprise!’
‘I wasn’t sure what you’d say, if you’d even be here or if you wouldn’t want to see me . . .’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘We’re so pleased to see you, sweetheart. Come into the kitchen for a minute, it’s nice and warm in there.’
‘Thanks, Angela.’ Unexpectedly, before taking another step, Grace leaned towards me and gave me a gentle little hug. I felt an overpowering surge of compassion for her and experienced the same emotions I’d felt so many years earlier, the first time she arrived at our door, forlorn and insecure after spending years of her childhood in different foster homes, and in disarray. Then and now, I wanted to love her, care for her, protect her and tell her everything would be OK. She was safe. We would offer her support and help her in any way we could.
You couldn’t fail to see that Grace’s size made it difficult for her to walk and sit with ease. As she wedged herself self-consciously into one of our kitchen chairs my heart went out to her. What on earth had happened these past few years?
Under the kitchen spotlights I could see that Grace’s once spectacular mop of strawberry blonde curls had become a frizzy, matted thatch of hair that was a hotchpotch of artificial colours. Two crops of angry spots sat like parenthesis around her mouth. Grace had been overweight the last time we saw her as a teenager, and her hair and skin had not looked good, but she appeared so much worse now. It was heartbreaking.
‘What’s new then?’ Jonathan asked chirpily. ‘Tell us your news, Grace.’
‘Oh, you know, there’s been a lot going on. Look, the reason I came is that I wanted to say sorry for, you know, disappearing like I did. I feel so bad about it. I’ve wanted to say this for years. And I realised we were driving past the town. I . . . I . . . I’m just so sorry.’
‘Grace, sweetheart, you’re here now,’ I said. ‘Thank you for coming, you didn’t have to.’
‘Don’t be so nice! You’re too nice! You were always too nice, both of you. I owe you an explanation.’
The sound of a horn beeping made us all jump.
‘Look, I’ll have to go but I do want to explain it all, if you’ll let me?’
‘Of course,’ Jonathan and I said at the same time.
‘You two haven’t changed a bit,’ Grace smiled. ‘Look, I’m so sorry it’s taken me this long. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Things aren’t great. Can I come and see you again?’
‘Grace, of course you can. You’re welcome here any time.’
She looked visibly relieved and let out a sigh.
‘Thank you. Are you still fostering?’
Bang of cue, Finn bellowed down the stairs.
‘Jonathan, Jonathan, where are you? My arm’s aching.’
‘Oh no! I’ve left the poor little fella propping up the Christmas tree!’ Jonathan stepped through the kitchen door and called up, ‘Sorry Finn, won’t be a minute! Swap arms and you’ll get matching muscles!’
Grace laughed. ‘What about next week? I could come back on my own. I’d like that.’
We picked a morning when she could come for a coffee, and we swapped mobile numbers.
There was another beep-beep which seemed to put Grace’s nerves on edge. Her face reddened and she immediately began to push herself up out of the chair.
‘Thank you,’ she huffed, lumbering towards the door. ‘I wasn’t sure . . . thank you for being so nice.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I expect it wasn’t at all easy for you to do this.’
‘No, but you’ve made it easy. I should have known you would. I should have done it sooner.’
I have to be honest, I was worried sick about what Grace was going to tell us about her life and what had happened in her ‘missing’ five years.
I woke very early on the morning she was due to come for coffee. My mind was darting everywhere and I got up at six o’clock and made a cup of tea because I couldn’t get back to sleep. It seemed like a very long time until eleven o’clock, when Grace pulled up outside.
I think Jonathan was as anxious as I was, but he tried not to show it.
‘Looks like she’s got a decent little car,’ he said optimistically, looking out the window. ‘Good for her!’
We both greeted Grace at the door and welcomed her into the kitchen, where I had a pot of coffee already made.
‘I see you’re as organised as ever,’ she smiled.
Jonathan attempted to make a joke about me being a ‘micro manager’ and ‘wearing the trousers’ but it didn’t really break the ice. Grace looked self-conscious and nervous.
‘I knew we’d see you again,’ I said. ‘We’ve both always said it, haven’t we?’
Jonathan nodded. ‘Definitely. Never had any doubt.’
‘And you’re really not angry with me?’
‘Not one bit,’ we said in unison.
Grace finally cracked a smile. ‘It’s so good to see you two still singing from the same hymn sheet,’ she said.
I poured the coffee and Grace took a slow sip before saying, ‘A lot’s gone on, a lot I’m not proud of.’
‘You can tell us anything,’ I reassured.
‘I’m not sure where to start, but I do want to tell you what’s happened. I owe it to you.’
‘You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to,’ I said. ‘And there is no rush either. We’re just so pleased to see you.’
There was a long pause and eventually Jonathan filled the silence by asking after her mum and her sister Lily.
‘Mum hasn’t changed. Lily’s got three kids now. She suffers from depression, she doesn’t cope well with stuff. She’s on her own, and it’s not easy for her.’
Grace stared into her coffee cup and let out a long sigh.
‘You must have been tearing your hair out when I jacked in my apprenticeship.’ We both stayed silent, showing her she had our attention and were not judging her. ‘It was such a dumb move,’ she added.
Grace started biting her nails and looked extremely uncomfortable. We told her again to take her time and said she didn’t have to tell us everything all at once.
Eventually, over the course of about an hour, Grace offloaded about how her life had spiralled downwards after she moved in with her mum. It was a shocking and very upsetting story, and I had to work very hard not to break down and cry.
Grace had been unemployed for a long time, which made her depressed. She became a heavy smoker and drinker and she got into a lot of debt. Without criticising her mum, Grace explained that Colette had encouraged her to apply for loans and credit cards to help keep them afloat.
‘I thought I’d be able to pay everything off when I got a job, but nobody would give me a job, so I borrowed more and got more depressed and started drinking and smoking more. Mum was smoking and drinking a lot too, it was what we did. I started comfort eating. God, you must think I’m such a loser. You must wonder why you bothered doing everything you did for me . . .’
‘Stop right there,’ Jonathan said. ‘We think nothing of the sort. If there’s one thing we’ve learned as foster carers, it’s that people aren’t bad, well, not unless you’re talking serial killers . . .’ He said this in a theatrical voice and Grace laughed, as he had intended. ‘Seriously,’ he went on. ‘You’re not a bad person, Grace. Bad stuff has happened to you, that’s all. It’s not your fault.’
‘Jonathan is right, and you can change things now. I can see you’re ready to, and you want to. We can help you, in any way
we can.’
Grace began to quietly cry. ‘You’re saints, both of you.’
‘No, we’re not. We love you to bits, Grace. We want the best for you, just as we did when you were a child. I can’t tell you how pleased we are that you’ve got back in touch.’
She suddenly looked at her watch and abruptly said she had to go. ‘Sorry to rush off. Thanks for the coffee, and everything.’
‘OK, Grace. You are very welcome here any time. I admire your courage in telling us about what’s gone on. Please phone us whenever you like, or call in. We’re here for you. We’ll give you as much support as we can, and don’t you dare leave it another five years!’
‘I promise I won’t,’ she said, but after she left we really weren’t sure when we’d hear from her again. As it turned out, we need not have worried one bit. Grace phoned the next day, and the next. Gradually, she started to ask our advice about this and that, and we did our best to steer her towards her GP, the job centre, and various other support systems we thought could help her.
Over the next few months barely a day went by when Grace didn’t phone us, even if just to touch base and say a brief hello. In one call, she told us she’d realised she’d hit rock bottom when she started talking to us. She said hearing herself describe her life had been an eye-opener and, from that point on, she had been trying very hard to make positive changes.
Her GP was excellent and helped her cut down on her smoking and drinking, as well as giving her good advice on her diet and general health. The changes didn’t happen overnight of course, but Grace started to make good progress. She told us that one thing that motivated her was the fact she wanted to show Jonathan and me what she could do.
‘You told me the world was my oyster and I believed you, but I stopped believing that after I moved out,’ she said. ‘That was such a big mistake.’
A breakthrough came when Grace managed to get herself a job in a department store. It seemed to give her the boost she needed to keep up the hard work. She told us she was planning on paying off her debts before saving for her own car (it turned out the nice little car she had arrived in when she came to visit belonged to a friend) and she said the job was keeping her focused on improving her health and wellbeing.
After another few months, Grace told us she’d met a man called Steve, at her local slimming club.
‘I’d like you to meet him.’
‘We’d love to.’
‘Good. I want him to meet all my family.’
We were very pleased about this and it was also very touching to be described as Grace’s ‘family’.
We invited her and Steve over one Saturday afternoon. Even though we’d spoken on the phone almost every day, by now it had been about eight months since we’d actually seen Grace in person. She was bathed in August sunshine when I saw her standing on our doorstep, and I felt a wave of positivity wash over me. Grace had lost weight and looked so much healthier than she had done the last time she visited. I was also a member of a slimming club and I knew how hard she must have worked and was so proud of her. Steve, who was well over six-foot tall, looked thrilled to bits to have Grace on his arm. He had a friendly, open face and was a very polite and gentle person.
We sat in the garden and chatted for hours, reminiscing about how Grace used to bounce on her pogo stick, climb trees and play Swingball.
‘I had the happiest years of my life here,’ she announced. Jonathan and I looked at one another and smiled. It was a very gratifying moment.
Grace confided in me that it was only when she met Steve that she’d started to realise just what a negative influence her mother was on her life. She said that for years she attempted to give Colette the benefit of the doubt, desperately hoping to have the relationship with her mum she had always longed for, but she could now see she had been chasing something that was never going to exist in the way she had dreamed it would. ‘It’s taken me a long time, but I’m finally accepting that my mum is the way she is, and she’s never going to change. I’ll never get any answers from her, because she doesn’t think she owes me any answers. I get it now. Steve’s helped me to see things how they are.’
I had a very good feeling about Steve, and it was a huge relief to see how much Grace’s life had improved in such a relatively short space of time.
The next time we saw them, a month or so later, they came over for Sunday lunch. Steve told us that he had wondered how Grace had turned into such a lovely, kind and well-rounded person, given how difficult her childhood had been. ‘Now I’ve met you and Jonathan, I understand,’ he said. It was a wonderful and humbling compliment to us, but what was most important to us was that Grace had found a partner who adored her, and clearly brought out the best in her.
‘She’s found her knight in shining armour,’ Jonathan said that night.
‘I think she has, but you know what the best thing is? She’s made this happen herself. She’s chosen her life and she’s living the life she wants. Steve has helped her, but Grace is the one who has done the bravest thing. She’s taken control, dumped her baggage and moved on.’
‘I thought she did that a long time ago,’ Jonathan said. I realised he was trying to stay deadpan and not laugh.
‘What? Oh! Very funny. You’re talking about her throwing her suitcase in the bin shelter all those years ago, aren’t you? Dumping her baggage, ha ha, very funny!’
We laughed and laughed, much more from relief than because of Jonathan’s little joke, I hasten to add!
Grace had been on an incredibly difficult journey throughout her life. We didn’t know what the future held for her, but at long last we felt confident she would have a good, fulfilling life, and that she would look forward, undefined by her past, and make the most of every minute. That is what we wish for every child we foster.
Epilogue
Steve proposed to Grace on her twenty-fifth birthday, and of course we were absolutely delighted. They were such a good match, and Grace was happier than I’d ever known her. By now she’d had a promotion at work, her debts had long since been cleared, her weight was under control and she lived a healthy lifestyle. Shortly after they got engaged, Grace asked if they could call in, as they had something they wanted to talk about.
‘I wonder if they’re thinking about the flowers,’ I said. They wanted a church wedding and Jonathan and I decided that we would offer to supply whatever they needed from the shop, as a gift from us.
In fact, Grace had a far more important question to ask.
‘Will you give me away?’ she asked Jonathan.
It’s not often I’ve seen my husband dumbstruck, but he really was speechless for a moment before he stuttered, ‘It will be an honour.’ His voice was breaking with emotion, and I had to bite my lip to stop myself blubbing!
During that same visit Grace mentioned her life story books. She said she was sorry she had dumped them, as she would have liked to show them to Steve.
‘Dumped them?’ Jonathan said. ‘You might have dumped them on us, but we didn’t throw them away. Hang on.’
He went up into the loft and reappeared five minutes later, the full set of books in his hands. Grace was completely overwhelmed. It was a delight to see her showing them to Steve and reliving some of the happy memories we’d made together.
Grace had moved into a flat with Steve that was closer to us than her previous home had been. She began to call in regularly, often when Jonathan was in the shop and the two of us could have a chinwag over a cuppa. Other times we met in the out-of-town retail park and did a bit of shopping together, or had a bite to eat. Helping her choose her wedding dress was a treat I thoroughly enjoyed.
Every once in a while our conversations took an upsetting turn, but I understood this was necessary for Grace. She was on the cusp of an important new phase in her life and was clearly at a point where she wanted to make sense of the past. She needed to talk about her childhood and the years she spent growing up with us, and she often struck up a conversation about th
e past when I was least expecting it. I never minded. These chats sometimes helped me too, because along the way I found answers to questions I’d had hanging in my head for years.
For instance, one day Grace wanted to talk about her dad. She said that in nearly all her memories of being with her father she saw herself as a frightened, hungry little girl. She recalled that he used to hit her and Lily with a wooden ruler, which broke my heart. When he died, nobody told Grace what happened, and she found out about his accidental drug overdose by chance when she eventually overheard a conversation in the family home. She said that for many years she never spoke about it to anyone.
Grace said she remembered the string of foster placements she had before living with us as if they were one big, unhappy memory.
‘I couldn’t tell you how many placements I had, in what order or who my carers were. I tried to describe that part of my life to a friend recently and it was impossible. It was just a very unhappy time. All I wanted to do was go home, and I couldn’t understand why Lily was allowed to be there and I wasn’t. I still don’t, not really, but it’s water under the bridge now as far as I’m concerned.’
One afternoon we were drinking coffee in the kitchen when a ‘sounds of the nineties’ show came on the radio. Listening to Take That and the Spice Girls triggered childhood memories for Grace, and she started to talk about Lee, and the fact he used to take her clothes. I must admit I was nervous about what she was about to say as I’d always wondered if he had abused her in some way. In fact, to my relief, Grace was very kind about her stepbrother. She said she had not seen him for many years but that she forgave him everything when she learned what he had gone through. Lee had some deep-rooted psychological issues, she said. She didn’t share what these were, but she made it clear he had problems that stemmed from early childhood experiences, growing up in a dysfunctional environment. ‘I wish I hadn’t called him names. I wish I’d known more about him, and what made him act the way he did.’ I was pleased by her outlook. She had always looked for the best in people, and it was heartening to see that this quality had endured.