A Daughter's Trust

“I’m not willing to take that risk. Carrie might be one in a hundred to you, Ms. Bookman, but she’s the only child of my dead sister. She’s all the family I have left. And I, apparently, am all the family she has as well—discounting a junkie who’s already had two chances at motherhood and failed. I can’t just stand back and let the system take its course.”

“Did Christy know she had a brother?”

“No. My mother never told her. Just like she didn’t tell me about Christy.”

Carrie’s feet jabbed Sue’s stomach. The infant was going to be wanting her lunch soon. And before that, to get down and move around. The little girl was busy developing. She had places to explore, things to learn. Muscles to strengthen.

“Before finding out about Christy, how long had it been since you’d been in contact with your mother?”

“Years.”

“Your choice or hers?”

“Mine.”

“And yet you want me to believe family means so much to you?”

“My mother…I’d like a chance to discuss this with you. Please.”

Carrie grabbed for her ponytail. Missed. Tried again. Rick Kraynick followed the action with his eyes. And grinned. Sue’s insides quivered. Pulling the ponytail over her opposite shoulder, Sue reminded herself that she was a foster mother not only because she loved what she did, but because she was truly good at it.

For most people, loving from afar was difficult, especially loving babies. Many foster mothers of infants burned out quickly or petitioned to adopt their charges. Giving them up was too hard.

But Sue could do it. Loving from afar was what she did. The only way she could love.

The system needed her.

And she needed it.

“I don’t see any point in further discussion,” she finally told the man waiting in front of her. And plenty of reason not to further their acquaintance if every expression that crossed his face seemed to be permanently implanted in her memory banks. “There’s nothing I can do with any knowledge you give me, except to keep sending you to social services.”

“And there’s no legal reason why you can’t just listen,” he persisted. “You’re allowed to have guests in your home. I’d like to come in as your guest. I won’t touch the baby. I’ll be here only to speak with you.”

“On her behalf.”

“As one person involved in the foster system to another who grew up in the system. Period. Just talk. Can you give me that much?”

Leaning back, the baby in her arms put her hands on each side of Sue’s chin, her big round eyes focusing somewhere around Sue’s mouth. As though she could understand that the answer was important. Sue didn’t want to help Rick, but he was asking her for something she wanted as well. Information about Carrie. And for Carrie’s sake, she really wanted to know what he had to say.

“I don’t feel good about this.”

The man was entirely too…everything.

“But you’ll listen?”

“You have twenty minutes.”

Stepping back, Sue knew she was making a mistake.

“MY MOTHER IS A DANGEROUS woman.” Rick came right to the point as soon as he sat down on one end of the couch in Sue Bookman’s home. Pulling a blanket from the changing table shelf, Sue laid Carrie on the floor several feet from two other babies—both sleeping—and then joined her there. Setting herself up as a human barrier between him and his niece.

Carrie’s temporary mother was a definite distraction, he’d give her that. The woman wore baby barf as easily as other women wore silk scarves. That alone impressed him.

“How is she dangerous?” Sue looked him straight in the eye.

“She’s intelligent, keeps herself attractive, and, most dangerous of all, she knows how to pretend that she cares.”

“I’m not getting the danger element.”