Please Don’t Take My Baby. Cathy Glass

the kitchen and check if Adrian needed any help with his homework when the phone rang. I returned to the sitting room, picked up the phone, and was relieved to hear Jade’s voice.

      ‘Hi, got your message,’ she said casually. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

      ‘Jade, I’ve been really worried about you,’ I said. ‘I phoned three times. Why didn’t you return my calls?’

      ‘I had me phone off. I’ve only just checked it.’ Which may have been true, although it was a bit of a coincidence that she’d thought to check her phone a minute after I’d left my last message. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

      ‘OK. Where are you, love?’ I asked. ‘It’s dark now and getting late.’

      I heard her sigh. ‘I’m at Ty’s,’ she said, irritated by being questioned.

      ‘How are you getting home?’

      ‘Bus. Same as always.’

      I didn’t like the idea of a young girl riding a bus alone in the dark, but there wasn’t much I could do – I couldn’t collect her in the car, as Paula was asleep – and from what Jade had said she was used to using the buses alone at night. However, following Michael’s advice, I said: ‘Jade, I want you here in half an hour, love. No later. Do you understand? Otherwise I’ll have no choice but to start a missing person.’

      ‘Fine!’ she snapped. And cut the call.

      I replaced the receiver and sat for a moment, feeling a little hurt, but aware I was going to have to become ‘thick-skinned’ and be firm with Jade. Her mother had made the mistake of being a chum to her rather than a parent and I thought Jade now resented me stepping into the role of parent and telling her what to do, even if it was for her own good and ultimately for the good of her baby too.

      Forty minutes later, as I sat in the sitting room with the television on low and when Adrian was in bed, I heard the key go in the front door. Relieved, I went into the hall as Jade let herself in and closed the door behind her.

      ‘I’m pleased you’re back, love,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it cold out?’

      Jade shrugged and was about to go straight up to her room. ‘Jade, before you go to bed can we have a little chat, please?’

      ‘Can’t it wait?’ she sighed, irritated. ‘I’m tired.’

      ‘It will only take five minutes. Have you eaten?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘Let’s go and sit down and have a chat,’ I said, and I went down the hall.

      With another sigh Jade reluctantly followed me into the sitting room and then sat in the chair furthest away from me. I knew I must make sure my approach was not threatening or accusatory. I smiled and in a calm, even voice I explained that I’d been worried about her, not knowing where she was, as I would have been about any young person I was looking after. I said that in future, for her own safety, I needed to know where she was going, how she was getting home and what time she would be back, which seemed reasonable to me.

      ‘I’m not a kid,’ Jade said huffily.

      ‘I know you’re not, love, but at seventeen you’re still a minor and while you’re with me I’m responsible for you. Apart from which I need to know you’re safe or I’ll worry about you. It’s what parents and carers do.’

      ‘Mum didn’t worry,’ she said moodily.

      ‘I’m sure she did,’ I said. ‘In her own way.’ Although of course boundaries are a sign of caring and Jackie had admitted she hadn’t put in place enough boundaries with Jade.

      I looked at Jade, perched on the edge of the chair and eager to be away. I wasn’t convinced she was receptive to what I was saying, so I upped it a little. ‘Jade, when you didn’t come home or return my calls I phoned my fostering agency for some advice. The social worker there said that soon the social services will be starting an assessment of you, to see if you are responsible enough to keep your baby. You need to make sure you behave responsibly or it won’t look good.’