When You Were Mine

“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.”