Broken

by Rosie Lewis

  I smiled. ‘You’re welcome, honey. I’m going to give Bobbi’s money to Daddy for safekeeping. Remind her she can choose something if you visit a shop.’

  The girls woke as Archie pounded up the stairs. I went to climb the stairs, but by the time I’d reached the bottom step they were already halfway down. ‘Meggie wants to come with us to the splash park,’ Bobbi announced, leading Megan down by the hand. ‘I told her she can.’

  Megan grinned and reached out her arms. Bobbi copied her. Bracing myself, I picked both of them up. ‘That’s very sweet of you, Bobbi, but I’m afraid Megan can’t go with you.’ There was a chorus of groans as I carried them, one on each hip, to the sofa. They giggled when I dropped them onto the cushions.

  ‘Daddy won’t mind!’ Bobbi insisted. ‘I’ll call him and ask.’

  I nursed them through the next couple of hours by working my way through the entire contents of the toy cupboard. By ten o’clock I felt as though I never wanted to set eyes on another board game for the rest of my life. ‘Oh, where is he?’ Bobbi groaned, teetering on the edge of a meltdown.

  ‘Can you call him again, Rosie, please?’ Archie asked politely, though there was an edge to his tone, and he was looking at me as if he held me responsible for his dad’s failure to appear.

  ‘I can’t call again, Arch.’ I had already tried Jimmy’s number twice in the last hour. ‘Are you sure he said nine o’clock?’ It was now nearly half past ten.

  ‘No!’ he snapped uncharacteristically. And then, with more patience: ‘I’ve already told you, he said before nine, so we’d have the whole day together.’

  Bobbi threw herself onto her tummy and howled. Beside her, Megan’s lip wobbled. I was just about to go to them when the doorbell rang. Mungo barked and skipped around my feet.

  ‘Hooray!’ Archie cheered. He grabbed the rucksack he had packed and kept at his side since yesterday and ran into the hall. Bobbi stopped mid-sob and leapt to her feet. She joined hands with Megan and the pair of them jumped up and down on the spot, grinning at each other.

  ‘There you are, you see,’ I said at the sound of a man’s voice. As a safeguard against the possibility of abduction by a parent who has managed to discover my address, I don’t usually allow fostered children to open the front door. Since we were expecting Jimmy, however, I was happy to let Archie do the honours today. ‘Daddy must have been caught up in some traffic on the motorway. Now, get your bag, Bobbi, love. You’ll –’

  ‘Rosie?’ Archie said, coming back into the room. His face had paled. ‘There’s a man asking to speak to you.’

  I frowned and walked into the hall. ‘Hello?’ I said to the man in stained blue overalls standing on the doorstep. Mungo scooted to the door. I eased him back with my leg to stop him running out.

  ‘Rosie?’

  ‘Yes, can I help?’

  ‘Sorry, love, I’m just bringing a message from Jimmy. He can’t get here to see the kids today. He’s lost his phone and didn’t have your number. He’s been wracking his brains trying to think how to get in touch with you, like, and I offered to give you a knock and let you know.’ He looked down at his overalls. ‘Breakdown cover, I was out this way this morning.’

  I looked out onto the road, where a large tow truck was parked. ‘Ah, that’s very good of you, thank you.’

  ‘Well, no one wants to see kids let down, do they?’

  I shook my head. ‘Is Jimmy not well?’

  ‘Oh no, he’s alright. It’s Tracy. She’s feeling a bit “delicate”, so she says.’ He hooked the air and gave me a look. ‘Know what I mean? She says she can’t do without him today.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, resisting the urge to join in and complain about Tracy. I gave him a slow eye roll instead. ‘Ah well, I shall have to go and break the news to the children.’

  ‘Poor kids,’ he said, wrinkling his nose at me. ‘I have to say, I don’t know how you people do it. Got a lot of respect for foster carers, I have.’ I thanked him and closed the door. Archie was standing by the sofa and chewing his bottom lip when I turned around. He still had hold of his rucksack but his shoulders were slumped, his expression forlorn.

  ‘You heard the man then, Arch?’ I said softly.

  He nodded. ‘Tracy’s not well so Dad can’t come.’

  From the living room came a loud howl. Next thing I knew, Bobbi was hurtling up the hall towards me. I crouched down and she launched herself into my arms, her body trembling as she sobbed into my neck.

  I stroked her back and gave Archie a sympathetic glance over her shoulder. He met my gaze and gave a little shrug, lowering his rucksack gently to the floor. ‘I know how disappointed you must be,’ I said. I stroked Bobbi’s hair, admonishing myself for adding to their excitement by showing them the videos of the splash park online. I had been fostering long enough to know that there was every chance that the children would be let down by their father. I had allowed Jimmy’s kindly roadside assistance to cloud my judgement, as well as his warmth towards the children. His affection had seemed so genuine that it was difficult to imagine him letting them down. Then again, I had known others capable of putting on an impressive act, managing to fool everyone into thinking they were loving parents.

  I once looked after a nine-year-old girl, Phoebe, whose parents were well educated, well heeled and well spoken. Effectively blinded by her family’s eloquence and their ability to ‘talk the talk’, Phoebe came close to returning to their care. It was only once she found the courage to disclose to me that her father had sexually abused her in the presence of her mother that the depth of her parents’ deception was discovered.

  ‘Tell you what, how about we all go to the splash park together this afternoon?’ I said as Bobbi’s sobs began to subside. ‘I’ll ask Emily and Jamie if they want to come and we could order a takeaway pizza for this evening as well.’

  ‘That would be good, thanks, Rosie,’ Archie said, giving me a brave smile. His tone was sombre though and his face was red from hairline to neck. There was also a shut-down, lifeless quality to his eyes that filled me with unease.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Archie looked a fright the next morning; his eyes puffy, cheeks flushed. In manic tidying mode from the minute he came downstairs, he began piling up the breakfast bowls and sweeping the spoons away before any of us had even eaten. ‘Archie, love,’ I said, laughing, ‘give us a chance. I’ve only just put those there.’

  He grinned and set them out again, but there was a distant quality to his smile. Physically, he was with us, but it seemed that his mind was somewhere else. Hearing about the children’s disappointment, Emily and Jamie had agreed to come with us to the splash park the previous day. Archie had been cheered by the news and seemed to enjoy charging down the slides after Jamie, but even that failed to erase the dull sadness in his eyes. I got the sense that he was struggling to contain himself as he walked around the table. He straightened the placemats and centralised the bowls with the studied caution of someone who was about ready to explode.

  It was Sunday 15 February and though the children had only been living with us for just over six weeks, I felt I already had Bobbi sussed. Her favourite game was animal hospital, although as a rule of thumb, any game that incorporated bandages and plasters tickled her interest, as well as those Megan closely guarded as her own. She loved painting and colouring but refused to have anything to do with mouldable dough, which she described as ‘disgusting’. I was also getting to know some of her triggers. I could tell when she was tired – her manic spins fading to drunken, endearing lollops – and when she was upping the ante for no other reason than because she needed a hug.

  Archie, though, was still a mystery. I knew the image he liked to project well enough, and conversing with him was easy, but part of him was still more or less closed off. ‘Who’s going to be there today, Rosie?’ he asked as he rearranged the cutlery so that it was perpendicular to the mats.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d asked and I could hear the relucta
nce in his voice. My friend Naomi had called the previous night and tearfully invited us to meet her at a stately home owned by the National Trust. I had first met Naomi on an Understanding Attachment course a year earlier, soon after she had adopted a sibling group of three. Overwhelmed and exhausted by the sudden change in her life, she had opened up to me over lunch one day and told me all about her struggles to build a family – her miscarriages and failed attempts at IVF.

  When she and her husband had finally decided to adopt, social workers told her that they needed to mourn the losses they’d experienced before they could progress to being assessed, and it was another two years before they were finally matched with the siblings. The couple fell in love with the children on sight but the eldest child, who had been four at the time of placement, struggled to accept the loss of his old family and the imposition of a new one.

  Aiden, now five, still insisted on using wet wipes whenever Naomi touched him, a daily rejection that broke her heart, and seemed intent on doing all he could to disrupt the growing bond between his new parents and younger siblings. Naomi and her husband understood that his behaviour was rooted in fear, but sometimes it was difficult for them not to take it personally.

  I think being out of the house alleviated some of the pressure on the family, and Naomi often asked us to meet up, whatever the weather.

  I had shown Archie, Bobbi and Megan pictures of the maze and natural play area we were planning to visit and they had all been excited, but as soon as I mentioned that we were meeting others there, Archie’s face fell. He tried his hardest to project a confident image to the world but his fingers trembled at the prospect of being introduced to new people and I suspected that, on the inside, he was spinning as rapidly as his sister.

  ‘Only my friend Naomi and her children,’ I said lightly. ‘Don’t worry, honey, I’ll make sure you have fun.’

  ‘I’m not worried,’ he said in an equally light, if slightly strained tone. He nudged a stray chair in line with the table and moved one of the bowls an inch to the right.

  It was unseasonably mild for February and when we arrived it was so sunny that we left our coats in the car. Naomi was waiting for us near the gatekeeper’s house at the entrance to the grounds, her children running around on the neatly manicured grass nearby.

  Toby, Aiden’s four-year-old brother, ran through the gates as soon as he saw us. I leaned down to talk to him. ‘Hello, Toby, how are you?’

  He turned his wide blue eyes up to look at me. ‘Aiden says she not our real mummy,’ he blurted out loudly, pointing at Naomi with the unapologetic, unflinching honesty that only young children are capable of.

  ‘That’s cos she’s not,’ Aiden said when he caught up with his brother. He was a thin boy with short brown hair, pale skin and downturned, slightly sunken eyes.

  ‘She looks real enough to me,’ I said lightly, glancing at Naomi. She was walking towards us with a slow, defeated air.

  Toby looked thoughtful. ‘Aiden says the other mummy is our real mummy, not this one, cos we didn’t grow in her tummy. We grew in old mummy’s tummy but Mummy says we’re not allowed to see old mummy any more cos she’s dangerous.’

  ‘I didn’t say that!’ Naomi said defensively. She strode over, knelt down in front of Toby and held one of his hands. She reached out her other hand towards Aiden but he screwed his face up in disgust and looked away. Naomi turned back to Toby, her expression tense. ‘I said that Tummy Mummy can’t keep you safe, honey. I didn’t say she was dangerous.’

  Toby frowned, looking uncertain. Beside me, Archie and Bobbi were both paying close attention to the conversation. A strange expression flitted across Archie’s face, one I couldn’t quite decipher. A few feet away, Aiden was staring at his adoptive mother with a look of longing that tugged at my heart.

  I crouched next to Naomi and pulled Megan onto my knee. ‘Do you know what, Toby? Megan didn’t grow in my tummy either. She grew in my heart, just like her brother and sister. And look,’ I jabbed a forefinger first into my chest and then into Megan’s. ‘I’m real, she’s real. And Mummy is real too.’ Megan giggled. I tried to be as open as possible about her adoption, using the word lightly in everyday conversation so that the news that we weren’t biologically related wouldn’t come as a shock one day. I think its meaning was slowly beginning to sink in.

  Toby grinned and smiled at Naomi. She gave him a hug and the tension in his face melted away. I eased Megan off my lap and was about to stand up when Archie leaned down, his face level with Toby’s. ‘Just because you grow in someone’s tummy don’t mean they love you better than someone else,’ he said. His voice was laced with bitterness, but he was trying to make the little boy feel better. ‘I grew in my mum’s tummy, but Rosie’s the one that cares about me.’

  Naomi and I exchanged glances. It was a telling comment, one I wanted to record accurately once I got home. I smiled at Archie sadly, feeling ever so slightly choked.

  ‘It tears me apart,’ Naomi said later, as we sat side by side on a wooden bench near the exit of the maze. I pulled a flask out of my bag and poured us both a cup of tea, listening to the shouts and giggles from the children as they chased each other around on the other side of the tall hedge. ‘I just don’t know what I have to do to get through to him. I love him so much, but he doesn’t even want to be in the same room as me.’ She threw her eyes skyward. ‘That’s probably why I lost all those babies. Him up there knew I’d be a rubbish mum.’ Naomi was a long-time member of the Salvation Army who had managed to cling onto her faith despite all she’d been through. Her lips trembled as she took a shaky sip of tea.

  ‘Oh, Naz, you mustn’t think that, really you mustn’t. You were meant to be mummy to these children, and they were meant to be with you. All of that awful stuff you all went through helped you to find each other.’ I squeezed her arm. ‘You should have more faith in yourself. You’re not doing anything wrong. Aiden is a very frightened little boy. He’s petrified of getting too close in case he loses everything again, you know that. You’ve done the courses, got the T-shirts. But I tell you what. He wants you desperately; I can see it in his eyes.’

  ‘Really?’ She lowered her cup to her knee. ‘I don’t see that. You really think so?’

  I told her about the way Aiden had looked at her earlier. ‘You’re getting closer than you think,’ I said. She gave me a teary nod.

  Not long afterwards, the children came charging out of the maze in a spray of woodchips and soil. ‘Can we see the house now, Mummy?’ Megan asked, giggling as Toby began to chase her around my legs. Megan loved the outdoors but old buildings held a special fascination for her and she’d been asking to look around the house ever since we arrived.

  I glanced at Naomi. ‘I’m up for it if you are,’ she said.

  All of the children surprised us with their enthusiasm, staring around the corniced ceilings and wood-panelled walls with awe. There was a chest of Victorian clothes in one of the bedrooms and they pulled the outfits on with glee, admiring themselves in the ornate free-standing mirror beside a four-poster bed.

  Things only started to go pear-shaped once Bobbi caught sight of the dining room. Before I could catch hold of her hand she ran over to the polished table and tried to clamber onto one of the chairs. ‘Not on there, dear!’ cried one of the volunteers standing nearby.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I told the elderly gentleman as I jogged over to Bobbi and lifted her down. ‘You mustn’t climb on the furniture, Bobbi,’ I said in a hushed voice. ‘It’s very old and precious. We have to take care of it.’

  ‘But I want lunch,’ she insisted, grabbing one of the sparkling silver forks and putting the prongs into her mouth. The volunteer’s eyes widened, his mouth flapping silently up and down.

  ‘No, Bobbi, put it back,’ I said, wrestling the fork away from her. I handed it to the volunteer with profuse apologies. He took it silently, still staring at Bobbi with disbelief. Aiden, Toby and Skye, Naomi’s youngest, lost no time in joining in the fun. D
arting to the other end of the table, they grabbed whatever they could lay their small hands on. Placemats, utensils and serviettes clattered to the floor. The noise drew volunteers from all directions, abject horror on their faces.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, mortified. I slipped my arms around Bobbi’s middle and pulled her away before she could upset anything else, aware that Naomi was now chasing her three children around the room. ‘Come here, pickle,’ I said, catching three-year-old Skye with my free hand. Deciding that divide and conquer was the best way to go I handed her to Archie, who was standing beside Megan at the door, the pair of them watching the carry-on with almost as much horror as the volunteers.

  Naomi emerged from the dining room a minute or so later, two screaming children in tow and a sheen of perspiration on her forehead. Aiden kicked out at the furniture as Naomi pulled him along, nearly toppling a suit of armour as he rattled its arm.

  We whizzed through the rest of the house, Archie calmly bringing up the rear with Skye in his arms and Megan at his side. By the time we reached the long dark passageway leading to the back exit we were practically running. ‘No, Mummy, no!’ Megan cried, when she realised that the heavy oak door in front of us led outside. ‘We didn’t see the kitchen!’

  ‘I don’t think the kitchens are open, darling,’ I lied. Bobbi was making a determined effort to bite my cheek and I had a nasty feeling that that was just the warm-up. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to keep her at bay for much longer.

  Megan stopped. ‘It is, Mummy. We passed it. It’s down some stairs, I saw!’

  ‘Okay, well, let’s get some lunch and maybe we’ll come back later.’

  ‘No!’ Megan roared as Archie ushered her out the door and onto the shingled drive. I lowered Bobbi to her feet and knelt in front of Megan, aware that we were beginning to gain the attention of other visitors.