The Little Princess. Casey Watson

      

Copyright

      This is a work of non-fiction based on the author’s experiences. In order to protect privacy, names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed or reconstructed.

      HarperElement

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published by HarperElement 2016

      FIRST EDITION

      © Casey Watson 2016

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

      Cover photograph © Vanessa Skotnitsky/Arcangel Images (posed by model)

      A catalogue record of this book is

      available from the British Library

      Casey Watson asserts the moral right to

      be identified as the author of this work

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

      Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at

       www.harpercollins.co.uk/green

      Ebook Edition © August 2016 ISBN: 9780008142711

      Version: 2016-08-05

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Epilogue

       Exclusive sneak peek: Runaway Girl

       Moving Memoirs eNewsletter

       About the Publisher

Chapter 1

      It was the Sunday before Christmas. Almost my favourite time of year. Actually, in some ways my most favourite time of year, because it was the date of our annual family pre-Christmas dinner – or my practice run, as my son Kieron had always called it. Which was just like the main one, only in lots of ways nicer, as it involved all the fun without any of the stress, plus the anticipation of Christmas proper still to come.

      Well, to my mind, at any rate. I should have known better than to mention it to my ever-loving husband Mike. ‘More like a prelude to a nightmare,’ he quipped, ‘with this gaggle of little monsters around. Look at them. If this level of mania is anything to go by, heaven help us when we get to the actual day!’

      I knew, what with the house full of grandkids and mayhem, that he was probably only half-joking. He had a point, too. I winced as I watched Marley Mae, who was deep in the realm of the terrible twos now, almost collide with the Christmas tree. And for the umpteenth time today, while the film I’d put on (in the vain hope of keeping Riley’s three occupied) blared to itself in the corner. Much as I loved Arnie Schwarzenegger – the film was Jingle All the Way – I could barely hear myself think.

      ‘Shut up, you old Grinch,’ I told Mike. ‘You know you love it really. And how can you say such a thing? Bless them,’ I added, scooping Marley Mae into my arms. ‘You’re not a monster. You’re our little princess, aren’t you?’

      It was a phrase that would very soon come to haunt me.

      We’d had the luxury (in a manner of speaking, since it had been a pretty hectic time) of taking a few months off from fostering. After seeing our last foster child, Flip, off to her forever home the previous spring, we’d decided to take a bit of a break. With our Kieron and his partner Lauren having given us our fourth grandchild, Dee Dee, we’d taken the decision to devote some time to just being there for them. With Kieron’s Asperger’s (which is a mild form of autism), we’d been all too aware that they could really use the extra support. So, apart from Tyler, our permanent foster child, and very much now part of the family, we’d only accepted a couple of short-term emergency placements. We’d had a singular lad called Connor, veteran of the care system, for a brief but intense period, and a misunderstood five-year-old called Paulie, who’d been rejected by his mother and stepfather, and who was now settled with a long-term foster family.

      Both had proved to us – if proof were needed – that you couldn’t fix everything for every child; sometimes you could only help smooth the transition from one kind of life to the next. Life was different for us too now – keeping Tyler had changed everything. With the fostering we did at present, we had to keep his needs always in mind.

      It had been a happy time. And at the centre of it was the joy of being grandparents. That and the gratitude – Mike and I counted our blessings daily. And not least because Dee Dee had proved to be an amazingly easy baby – and Kieron and Lauren, despite the usual wobbles, very natural parents. I could still find myself welling up whenever I thought about it; just how lucky we’d all been that our anxious, fretful son had met, in Lauren, such a perfect and loving soulmate.

      Today, then, was all about the simple joys of family, and as I beavered away in the kitchen,