When You Were Mine: An utterly heartbreaking page-turner Read online

  When Nick had proposed to me in New York City, spring of our senior year, he decided it was time for me to meet his mom. That one visit had been deeply uncomfortable for both of us—a snapshot into Nick’s childhood that made me pity him, and of course he hated that.

  Nick’s mother Arlene had been living in a squalid little apartment in Albany that reeked of cigarette smoke and despair. She’d had a smoker’s voice, low and throaty, and the hacking cough to go along with it. She’d wished us well, but we might have been acquaintances whose names she’d forgotten for all the interest and care she’d shown. She’d kept the TV on the entire time we were there, on an ear-splitting episode of Cops.

  Afterwards, we drove back to Ithaca in near-silence, Nick’s hands clenched on the wheel, his expression grim. I hadn’t known what to say, so I said nothing, and after an hour or two, he simply stated, “I had to do that. We won’t see her again.”

  “Ever?” I couldn’t help but be startled, despite how difficult the visit had been. “Nick, she’s your mother—”

  “No,” he said flatly. “She isn’t. Hasn’t been for a long time.” I knew he’d been living with his best friend Steve and his family since he was sixteen; Steve was the best man at our wedding. But I didn’t know what had precipitated that move, and I never asked. And we never saw Arlene again. She called around the time of our wedding, tearful and tipsy, and I sent her a Christmas card every year out of duty, without telling Nick. She died of lung cancer when Emma was six months old, and in the years since then Nick has never talked about her willingly.

  There, standing in our lovely kitchen, watching Nick making light of something so serious, I wondered if he was doing it because the whole concept of foster care reminded him of his own troubled childhood.

  I knew I wouldn’t ask, at least not right then. Every marriage has a few no-go areas, and Nick’s upbringing was definitely one of ours. We talked about it so rarely, and it felt so impossibly distant, that I often forgot about it all and just thought of him as the man he was now, confident, genial, successful.

  “Please do look it up,” I said, and he dropped the light tone to give me a warm, serious look.

  “I will.”

  And he did. The next afternoon, he came down from his office over the garage—as a financial analyst for one of the large insurance companies in Hartford, he was able to work from home once or twice a week—while I was just finishing my own work as part-time bookkeeper for a couple of local independent boutiques. His expression was so serious and troubled, I thought something terrible must have happened.

  “What—”

  “I’ll do it,” he said, and I blinked, not knowing what he was talking about.

  “Do what?”

  “The foster care thing. I’ll do it.” He shook his head, as if that were an end to the subject. “We have to go on some course?”

  “Yes, for ten weeks. Three hours on Wednesday evenings.” I said it like a warning, because I knew it was a big time commitment for him, with his often demanding hours of work, and I was hesitant to get carried away. His about-face was so sudden, I wasn’t sure I should believe it yet.

  “Okay,” Nick said, and I goggled a bit, not expecting this immediate capitulation, and yet cautiously delighted by it.

  “Are you sure? Because last night—”

  “I’ll do it, Ally. I said I’ll do it.” There was a slight rise to his voice that signaled irritation, and he raked a hand through his hair, agitated. I wanted to press him, or maybe comfort him, but I didn’t do either. “I’ll do it,” he said again, and then he went back up to his office, leaving me staring.

  We should have talked about it more, of course, worked through the reasons why we had decided to go ahead with not just the training, but the fostering itself, but in the moment it felt like enough that we’d both said yes. Besides, the state of Connecticut was desperate for foster carers.

  We started the course in the middle of June, a group of nine of us in a stale-smelling room at the community center in Elmwood, listening night after night, week after week, to a comfortable but straight-talking social worker, Monica, telling us how unbearably tough it was all going to be. Every week, I wondered why she was trying to scare us off so much; by the end of the course there were only five of us left. Nick and I didn’t talk much about what we learned in those three hours; afterwards we sometimes went out for a drink, both of us a little shell-shocked by some of the case studies we’d been told, sipping our Pinot Grigio with vacant looks, occasionally offering a vague comment about something Monica had said.

  “Do all foster kids have issues around food?”

  “You can’t even give them time-outs…”

  Once, I broached the subject of Nick’s childhood. “Do you think all of this affects you more,” I asked cautiously, “because of your childhood?”

  He’d given me a look of blank incomprehension. “My childhood?”

  “I just mean… you know… because it was so tough.”

  Nick drew back as if I’d said something offensive. Perhaps I had. “Ally, my childhood was nothing like what we’ve been hearing about. Nothing.” There was such a vehement note in his voice that I felt I had to drop it.

  And now I’m here, standing in the same place as I was all those months ago, on the phone with Monica, who is telling me she has a placement for us. This is really happening.

  “A boy, aged seven, who is from West Hartford, as well. I don’t know much more about the situation, only that this is his first placement and that it’s likely to be short-term with reunification with his mother the most likely and desired outcome, hopefully within months or even weeks.”

  “Okay…” My mind is spinning. Somehow, even after ten weeks of preparing for this moment, I don’t feel ready. We are going to have a child in our home. A stranger. “When would this begin?”

  “As soon as possible. I can drop him off this afternoon, ideally.”

  “This afternoon…” So soon? I swallow the words down, because they don’t feel fair to say. But I have to pick Josh up in twenty minutes, and I haven’t gone grocery shopping in several days, and the guest bedroom isn’t actually made up for a child yet because none of it had ever felt truly real. Now it does.

  “Is that a problem for you?” Monica speaks matter-of-factly, but I sense a faint coolness in her tone, as if she is expecting me to say it is, and I imagine how many times she’s had to deal with disappointment and endless excuses. Sorry, we’re not in a good place right now… maybe next time… we’re really more interested in children under the age of one, but not crack babies.

  I heard it all during the course, and I don’t want to be one of those people, who only wants something easy.

  “No, it’s not a problem,” I say, my voice just a tiny bit wooden. “Of course not.” Yet I really should talk to Nick, and Josh too. He’d been nonplussed about the whole thing when we told him we were going on the course, but we get little more than grunts out of him these days, anyway, so I’m not sure what reaction was reasonable to expect.

  “Perhaps you should talk to Nick?” Monica suggests patiently, echoing my thoughts. “We need both foster parents to be on board with a potential placement before we proceed.”

  “Oh, yes, of—of course.”

  “Why don’t you call me back after you’ve spoken to him? Preferably in the next hour?”

  “Yes, will do.”

  Monica ends the call, and I stare into space for a moment, my mind racing with things I need to do. Clean sheets on the guest bedroom. Empty the dresser drawers of Nick’s summer clothes. Grocery shop, because I don’t think I have anything in the fridge for dinner.

  But first I call Nick, who is at the office today.

  “Already?” He sounds as surprised as I was. “It’s only been a couple of weeks…”

  “I know, and I don’t think it will be for that long. This is his first placement and Monica said it will be short-term.”

  Nick is silent, so I can hear h
im breathing over the phone. I wait, not sure what I want him to say. Now that the moment has arrived, I feel apprehensive. Unprepared.

  “What do you think?” I ask, because I realize I want him to make the decision.

  Another beat passes before Nick replies. “I say we do it,” he states firmly. “This is what we did the course for, isn’t it? So we could actually be foster parents. There’s no real reason to turn down our very first placement.”

  “No, there isn’t,” I agree. Some part of me still feels reluctant, or maybe just nervous.

  “So you’ll call Monica back?”

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  “I’ll try to come home from work early.”

  “Josh needs to be picked up—”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Nick is springing into action, but I feel strangely numb. “Okay,” I say. “Then I can whip around Whole Foods before Monica brings him here.” I realize I don’t even know this child’s name. “We’re doing this,” I say, and Nick sounds almost cheerful as he answers.

  “Yes, we are.”

  3

  BETH

  So they take Dylan away from me. Susan, with her sympathetic smile, gently suggests that I need a break, just as I said a year earlier. She makes it sound like she is giving me a Snickers or booking me a spa day, not taking away my only child.

  I sit in that stuffy little room, with Dylan warm and heavy on my lap, and stare at her in disbelief.

  “I never meant it like that.” My voice is shaking.

  Susan is placid, her hands folded on the table in front of her, her smile so very sympathetic, and yet I hear a matter-of-fact flintiness in her tone that fills me with a surreal terror. This can’t be happening. All I did was shout and grab his wrist. I love him!

  “I’m recommending this course of action for your benefit as much as Dylan’s,” Susan says. “You need support, Beth. Support you’re not able to access while you remain Dylan’s primary caregiver.”

  “I’m his mother.” My voice trembles.

  Susan nods in agreement, still unruffled. “We want you to be the best mother you can be to Dylan, and we also need to make sure Dylan is safe and well, with his needs attended to—”

  “Of course he’s safe and well!” He is asleep on my lap.

  Susan cocks her head as she gives me one of her sorrowful smiles. “You know this isn’t the first call to the Department of Children and Families that has been made on Dylan’s behalf.”

  “Yes, the other one was made by Dylan’s father,” I practically spit. Indignation feels like a stronger response than cringing fear. “Against my wishes. He’s not even in the picture anymore, as you already know, so—”

  “And another by the elementary school, where Dylan should currently be attending.”

  “I’m allowed to homeschool.”

  “Yes, you are.” Susan lets out a little sigh before resuming. “Over the course of my association with you and Dylan,” she says, choosing each word with irritating care, “I’ve spoken to various people, and they have registered some concerns.”

  “People? What people?” This is the first I’ve heard of any such people and their concerns, and I quiver with anger and outrage—as well as fear. Who could possibly know about my life? Who is ratting on me? “My neighbors, I suppose,” I state flatly, because who else could it be? It’s not like I have friends.

  “I’m not at liberty to disclose who has made the complaints, but I have heard about some incidents of shouting.”

  “I’m not allowed to shout?” I demand, although perhaps I should have denied the shouting altogether. It’s not as if I shout that often, and every parent loses her temper once in a while. “You do realize one of my neighbors has Alzheimer’s and the other one drinks his body weight in beer on a daily basis? These are your witnesses to my so-called shouting?” Each word quivers with emotion, but at least I got it all out with some semblance of calm.

  “We’re building a whole picture here, Beth,” Susan says in a soothing voice I decide I hate. She holds her hands palm-up as if I’m aggressive and need to be placated. She’s also using her “patient” voice, and saying my name too much. I’m sure someone teaches all that as part of how to be a social worker, and I loathe every bit of it. “A whole picture of you and Dylan, and your life together. And I’m afraid that the picture I’m seeing raises some definite concerns about his well-being.”

  I thrust my chin out, determined to be defiant, even though I know that attitude doesn’t work. It will only hurt me, make Susan judge me even more, tick some box on her form. Mother displayed worrying signs of aggression. “Like what?”

  “Like the fact that you have not taken Dylan to any of his medical appointments or psychological assessments in the last eighteen months.”

  “I took him to the pediatrician, and he said he was fine.”

  “Yes, that was one opinion.”

  “And that’s not enough? How many doctors do I have to take him to before you’re satisfied?”

  Susan ignores my question. “It has become clear to me,” she says in that same, calm voice, “after speaking with both you and Dylan, and observing your life together, that you love each other very much.”

  “Yet you want to take him away from me.” I speak bitterly, trying to keep the tears from springing to my eyes. I don’t want to cry. I can’t be that weak. My arms tighten around my son.

  Susan’s expression remains blandly sympathetic as she continues, “Over time, it has also become apparent that Dylan does not have any peers, or friends, or any social interaction outside of the home. He doesn’t speak or interact with anyone but you. That’s not healthy, Beth. It’s not good for Dylan’s social or intellectual development, and, as I’m sure you realize, it will become even more detrimental to his development as he matures.”

  I am silent, because I know it’s true, but what am I supposed to do? And what is so important about peers, anyway? As for friends, I don’t have any, either, and I’m fine. I don’t say any of that, though, because I know it would somehow all count against me.

  I also know that my life—Dylan’s life—isn’t normal. I’m not so far down the wretched rabbit hole of my reality that I don’t realize that, that I don’t think it every single day—while I’m crouching next to Dylan in the supermarket, praying he’ll get up off the floor. When I’m in the library, reading the same book to him, twenty times in a row while the librarian looks on, bemused. When I lie in bed at night, almost afraid to breathe, because I might wake him up.

  Most people don’t live like this, and there’s a reason why. It’s hard. It’s lonely. Sometimes it’s boring, and when it’s not, it’s worse. But it works. What we have works. And I know Susan will never understand or accept that. There’s no point in me even trying to explain it, because if I can’t tick the boxes on whatever sheet she has, I’m a problem that has to be solved, and the only solution she sees is taking Dylan away from me. But she can’t. I can’t let her.

  “Beth, I want you to try not to see me as the enemy,” Susan says gently. “I know it’s hard, but please, please try to understand that what I am recommending now is not just for Dylan’s benefit, but for yours. I want you to be the best mother you can be to Dylan, and I want the two of you to thrive as a family. I am getting involved in a more direct way to help you achieve those goals.”

  I don’t reply, because I am trying not to cry, and the truth is, some desperate part of me wants to believe her. If someone can help me, really help me, give Dylan and me a chance at a more normal, integrated life, then I want that. Who wouldn’t?

  Yet not like this. Never like this.

  “Beth.” Susan reaches over and puts her hand on mine. It is warm and soft, like a grandmother’s hand, not that I’d even know. My grandparents died before I was born. But it’s a human touch and even though my instinct had been to pull away, I realize I appreciate it, especially as I suspect it’s against all those safeguarding rules. “Let me help you,” Susan says
and I stare at her, my eyes swimming with tears, my boy’s head resting against my shoulder. He’s still asleep; he must have been really exhausted, or maybe this situation is so overwhelming for him that his body has simply turned off, shut down. I wrap my arms around him, savoring his warmth, the slightly salty boy smell that is so familiar to me. How on earth could I ever let him go?

  “He’s never been without me,” I say, my voice wobbling all over the place. “How could living with strangers help him? He won’t be able to stand it.” Just saying the words out loud makes my stomach hollow out. Dylan can’t deal with strangers. He’s still terrified of our mailman, and he’s been coming to our apartment every day for four years. Dylan has never been a single day without me. He can’t start now. I won’t let them take him.

  “You’d be surprised,” Susan says gently, “how children adjust.”

  But Dylan won’t adjust. He never adjusts to anything, which is why our life is the way it is. He views just about everything as a threat or a danger. He’s scared of the slide, of hardback books, of broccoli and clothing tags. Each one, unless avoided or carefully managed, can send him spinning into a terrified tantrum.

  But I know Susan won’t believe me if I try to make her understand, just as I know, with a sickening lurch of realization, I have no real choice in this matter, the most important one in my life. That’s been clear from the beginning of this conversation, no matter how Susan tries to couch it in language about supporting me. She’s already decided, and there is nothing I can do.

  “Why aren’t you out catching all the child killers?” I demand in a shaky voice as I yank my hand from under hers. “Or dealing with the pimps and the child prostitutes on the Berlin Turnpike? Aren’t they more pressing cases than my son?”

  Susan says nothing, but something flickers across her face that makes me think she’s heard this a thousand times before. I know I said as much myself, a year ago, but I mean it so much more now, when my life is about to be ripped open, torn apart. Why me, and not them?