Please Don’t Take My Baby. Cathy Glass

Have a good evening.’

      Jill said goodbye to Rachel and stayed in the sitting room with Jade and Tyler, while I went down the hall to see Rachel out. At the door Rachel said quietly: ‘Meryl – the teacher at Jade’s school – was planning on visiting you tonight, but I’ve told her to wait until Jade has settled in.’

      ‘Thank you,’ I said.

      ‘I’m sure she just wants to be helpful but if it gets too much let me know. It could be unsettling for Jade if she keeps popping in.’

      I thanked Rachel again, said goodbye and returned to the sitting room. Jade and Tyler were once more sitting side by side on the sofa, now listening to Jill, who was telling Jade that I was a very experienced foster carer and a nice person who would look after her very well.

      ‘Thank you, Jill,’ I said with a small embarrassed laugh.

      ‘Well, it’s true,’ she said. ‘Now, if there’s nothing you need I’ll leave you good people to have your dinner.’ Then to Jade and Tyler: ‘Nice to meet you both. See you again soon.’ As my support social worker Jill would visit me regularly to make sure Jade’s needs were being met and I had everything I needed to look after her properly.

      I saw Jill to the front door. ‘I’ll phone tomorrow to see how things are going,’ she said. ‘You may have to be firm when it comes to Tyler going. He’s looking very settled and remember he’s used to staying with Jade. Eight o’clock and he says goodbye.’

      ‘All right, I will,’ I said. Jill had a lot of experience working with teenagers and I appreciated her advice.

      Having seen Jill out I returned to the sitting room. It was nearly seven o’clock and we needed to eat. ‘Are you both OK?’ I asked Jade and Tyler. ‘I’ll see where Adrian and Paula are and then I’ll make dinner. It won’t take long.’

      Jade didn’t say anything but Tyler nodded. I smiled positively and, leaving the sitting room, I went upstairs.

      I appreciated Adrian and Paula might feel a bit awkward fostering a teenager, and might do so for a few days, but hiding in their bedrooms wouldn’t help; they needed to come down and be sociable. I too felt a little awkward and clearly Jade and Tyler were struggling too. I found Paula in Adrian’s bedroom, where they were both playing with the robotic crab he’d had for Christmas.

      ‘I’m starving, Mum,’ Adrian said as soon as I walked in. ‘When will dinner be ready?’

      ‘Ten minutes,’ I said. ‘And while I make dinner I want you two to go downstairs and talk to Jade and Tyler. We can’t just leave them sitting there by themselves.’

      ‘Do we have to?’ Paula sighed.

      ‘Yes. It’s polite. If you feel awkward – in your own home – imagine how Jade must be feeling.’

      ‘Is that boy staying?’ Adrian asked.

      ‘Tyler. Yes, just for dinner and then he’ll be going home.’

      ‘When?’ Adrian asked, tersely.

      ‘At eight o’clock.’

      ‘I’ll be in bed then,’ Paula moaned.

      ‘Exactly, so you can come down now and talk to them. They don’t bite.’

      Adrian and Paula made no move to do as I asked. ‘Now, please,’ I said more firmly.

      Paula pulled a face but they both stood. Then, without their usual enthusiasm for spending time with new children, they followed me downstairs and into the sitting room. ‘Adrian and Paula have come to join you,’ I said brightly as we went in.

      Tyler and Jade looked at them blankly and Adrian and Paula looked back equally blankly. Usually when we fostered younger children Adrian and Paula suggested games or activities to ‘break the ice’ and make the children feel welcome, but I realized that they now felt a bit intimated and shy.

      ‘Perhaps you’d all like a game of Sunken Treasure?’ I suggested. ‘It’s a game for all ages.’

      ‘What’s Sunken Treasure?’ Tyler asked, reasonably enthusiastically.

      Seeing Tyler’s interest Adrian said: ‘I’ll get it from the cupboard.’

      ‘Thank you,’ I said.

      Adrian went to the cupboard in the conservatory containing toys and games and returned with the large boxed game, which he set on the coffee table in front of Jade and Tyler.

      ‘Cor, that looks good,’ Tyler said, taking off the lid and peering in. ‘We ain’t got nothing like that at my house.’

      Encouraged by Tyler’s enthusiasm and easy manner, Adrian and Paula pulled up a stool each as Tyler began removing the contents from the box: the board on which the game was played, showing brightly coloured underwater scenes in 3-D, a dice, shaker, various galleon boats and little treasure chests containing gold, sliver and pearls.

      Jade shuffled to the edge of the sofa so that she too could see.

      ‘How do you play?’ Tyler asked.

      ‘You all choose a galleon,’ I said, picking up one of the little boats. ‘Then you take turns to shake the dice and move the galleon around the board, like this. If it stops over the treasure chest, the chest rises from the bottom of the ocean and attaches itself to your boat.’

      ‘Wow! How does it do that?’ Tyler asked, the little boy in him surfacing.

      ‘There’s a small magnet at the base of the boat,’ I said, turning over one of the boats to show him. ‘And another magnet in the treasure chest.’ I opened one of the chests and pointed it out. ‘Magnets attract.’

      ‘That’s cool,’ Tyler said, impressed.

      ‘The person who has the most treasure wins,’ I said. ‘But you have to watch out for the killer sharks and giant octopus; they eat you and your treasure.’ I pointed to the little models of open-mouthed sharks with rows of vicious teeth and giant octopuses with long, thick tentacles. ‘Adrian will explain the rules while I make dinner.’

      Feeling the ice had been broken, I left the four of them grouped around the game while I went into the kitchen to cook the spaghetti and heat the bolognese sauce. Toscha, our cat, miaowed; her dinner was late too and I fed her before turning my attention to ours.

      My first impression of Jade and Tyler was that, while pleasant, they were young and immature and would struggle to cope with a baby. I didn’t know what involvement Tyler intended to have with his child but realistically – given that he was sixteen and still at school – he wouldn’t be able to offer much in the way of support. Whether or not Jade could cope alone with a baby remained to be seen and that wasn’t really any concern of mine. My role was to see Jade through the next month, after which she would go to a mother-and-baby placement.

      I thought it wouldn’t be long before Adrian and Paula felt more at ease around Jade (and Tyler) and vice versa. Excited voices soon rose from the sitting room as sunken treasure was found and then lost, which seemed to confirm my optimism for them all getting along. But as I lowered the spaghetti into the pan of boiling water, Tyler’s voice rose above the others: ‘Fuck no! It fell off. That’s not fucking fair!’

Chapter Four

       First Evening

      Leaving the spaghetti boiling in the pan, I left the kitchen and met Paula who was coming out of the sitting room and on her way to me.

      ‘Mum, that big boy swore,’ she whispered, clearly worried.

      ‘I know, I heard,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll deal with it.’

      While swearing might