When You Were Mine

“I’ll do it,” he said, and I blinked, not knowing what he was talking about.

“Do what?”

“The foster care thing. I’ll do it.” He shook his head, as if that were an end to the subject. “We have to go on some course?”

“Yes, for ten weeks. Three hours on Wednesday evenings.” I said it like a warning, because I knew it was a big time commitment for him, with his often demanding hours of work, and I was hesitant to get carried away. His about-face was so sudden, I wasn’t sure I should believe it yet.

“Okay,” Nick said, and I goggled a bit, not expecting this immediate capitulation, and yet cautiously delighted by it.

“Are you sure? Because last night—”

“I’ll do it, Ally. I said I’ll do it.” There was a slight rise to his voice that signaled irritation, and he raked a hand through his hair, agitated. I wanted to press him, or maybe comfort him, but I didn’t do either. “I’ll do it,” he said again, and then he went back up to his office, leaving me staring.

We should have talked about it more, of course, worked through the reasons why we had decided to go ahead with not just the training, but the fostering itself, but in the moment it felt like enough that we’d both said yes. Besides, the state of Connecticut was desperate for foster carers.

We started the course in the middle of June, a group of nine of us in a stale-smelling room at the community center in Elmwood, listening night after night, week after week, to a comfortable but straight-talking social worker, Monica, telling us how unbearably tough it was all going to be. Every week, I wondered why she was trying to scare us off so much; by the end of the course there were only five of us left. Nick and I didn’t talk much about what we learned in those three hours; afterwards we sometimes went out for a drink, both of us a little shell-shocked by some of the case studies we’d been told, sipping our Pinot Grigio with vacant looks, occasionally offering a vague comment about something Monica had said.

“Do all foster kids have issues around food?”

“You can’t even give them time-outs…”

Once, I broached the subject of Nick’s childhood. “Do you think all of this affects you more,” I asked cautiously, “because of your childhood?”

He’d given me a look of blank incomprehension. “My childhood?”

“I just mean… you know… because it was so tough.”

Nick drew back as if I’d said something offensive. Perhaps I had. “Ally, my childhood was nothing like what we’ve been hearing about. Nothing.” There was such a vehement note in his voice that I felt I had to drop it.

And now I’m here, standing in the same place as I was all those months ago, on the phone with Monica, who is telling me she has a placement for us. This is really happening.

“A boy, aged seven, who is from West Hartford, as well. I don’t know much more about the situation, only that this is his first placement and that it’s likely to be short-term with reunification with his mother the most likely and desired outcome, hopefully within months or even weeks.”

“Okay…” My mind is spinning. Somehow, even after ten weeks of preparing for this moment, I don’t feel ready. We are going to have a child in our home. A stranger. “When would this begin?”

“As soon as possible. I can drop him off this afternoon, ideally.”

“This afternoon…” So soon? I swallow the words down, because they don’t feel fair to say. But I have to pick Josh up in twenty minutes, and I haven’t gone grocery shopping in several days, and the guest bedroom isn’t actually made up for a child yet because none of it had ever felt truly real. Now it does.

“Is that a problem for you?” Monica speaks matter-of-factly, but I sense a faint coolness in her tone, as if she is expecting me to say it is, and I imagine how many times she’s had to deal with disappointment and endless excuses. Sorry, we’re not in a good place right now… maybe next time… we’re really more interested in children under the age of one, but not crack babies.

I heard it all during the course, and I don’t want to be one of those people, who only wants something easy.

“No, it’s not a problem,” I say, my voice just a tiny bit wooden. “Of course not.” Yet I really should talk to Nick, and Josh too. He’d been nonplussed about the whole thing when we told him we were going on the course, but we get little more than grunts out of him these days, anyway, so I’m not sure what reaction was reasonable to expect.

“Perhaps you should talk to Nick?” Monica suggests patiently, echoing my thoughts. “We need both foster parents to be on board with a potential placement before we proceed.”

“Oh, yes, of—of course.”

“Why don’t you call me back after you’ve spoken to him? Preferably in the next hour?”

“Yes, will do.”

Monica ends the call, and I stare into space for a moment, my mind racing with things I need to do. Clean sheets on the guest bedroom. Empty the dresser drawers of Nick’s summer clothes. Grocery shop, because I don’t think I have anything in the fridge for dinner.

But first I call Nick, who is at the office today.

“Already?” He sounds as surprised as I was. “It’s only been a couple of weeks…”