“Everyone deserves a chance, Rick,” she said, more desperate after meeting Nancy Kraynick to open him to the possibility. If he couldn’t get this point, every one of them could lose. Carrie, Nancy, him. Sue. “I’ve seen and heard of many cases where the birth of a child is the miracle a misguided person needed. Not everyone who does drugs is addicted for life. Not everyone falls back.”
“Got any statistics on that?”
Her heart sank. “No.” But she had a feeling he did.
“Last year’s stats say that only 58.2 to 69.1 percent of clean addicts stay sober.”
He wasn’t simply reacting emotionally and irrationally to his mother’s petition for adoption, based on his own experience. He’d done his homework.
Rick Kraynick was a fair man.
He just wasn’t always right.
“That’s over half, Rick. Which means a good many second chances end happily.”
“Tell that to Jake,” Rick said softly, pinning her with a half-lidded stare. “Tell him that you’re willing to take a 41.9 percent chance that he’ll be beat up again.”
“People aren’t statistics, Rick,” Sue said. “Society tries to make us numbers, to give us numbers, call us by numbers, judge us by numbers, but we’ll never be numbers. Every single one of us is an individual with a unique set of circumstances. And not one of us is the same today as we were ten years ago.” She was afraid she sounded like a psychology textbook. But he had to get this. He just had to. “Those circumstances shape who we are. They change people. And no one’s perfect. Everyone screws up. We’ve got to be able to give second chances. To get them. Or we’re all doomed.”
“We aren’t talking about everyday mistakes, Sue. And you’re kidding yourself if you think Carrie isn’t a case number. Jake is, too. And all the other children that pass through here.”
“Their paperwork is assigned a case number for filing purposes. The children are not numbers. Think about what you’re saying….” She had to keep her voice down, her heart steady, for the sake of her precious little guest. “If we just went by numbers, we lose everything human about us. You’re negating the most important factor here, Rick.”
And not just concerning Carrie, though it did concern her. Greatly.
“What’s that?”
“Heart.” She met his gaze, silently begging him.
So far, Nancy Kraynick—and they both knew that was who they were talking about—had impressed her. Sue had a feeling the grandmother, not yet fifty years old, was never going to forgive herself for the mistakes she’d made in her life.
“Your mother learned hard lessons,” she dared to venture. “And sometimes it’s the hardest lessons that serve us the best.”
“Forgive me if I’m not much interested in my mother’s lessons learned,” Rick said, sitting forward. “Not when my little sister’s no longer on this earth because of her.”
“So the parents are to blame for every kid that commits suicide?”
“You think if Christy had a loving, attentive, sober mother at home she’d have been buying drugs off the streets and been pregnant at age fifteen?”
“It happens.”
He stood. “This is getting us nowhere.”
He was right. It wasn’t. But it felt right having him there. Like he was part of the room. Of the household.
Of her life?
“Just for the record,” he said, slipping back into the shoes he’d kicked off when he sat down, “I think what Jo Fraser did, giving your mother up for adoption, was one of the most incredible, selfless and loving acts I’ve ever heard of. She must have known the life she had to give your mother would have been hard. And it seems to me that she loved her enough to sacrifice herself, her own happiness and needs, to give her daughter the best chance at life.”
“My mother grew up feeling as though she never really belonged. If Jo had kept her, she’d have not only belonged, she’d have probably had a brother who loved her, who was her friend, rather than one who always resented her.”
“Maybe. Or she might have been a teenager buying drugs on the streets.”
“Jo did great by Adam. And by Daniel and Joe, too.”
“But none of them were considered illegitimate. I’m guessing from what you’ve said that their family was thought of with compassion. Respected. They had assistance and support from good families, opportunities at school. Add Jenny to that mix and not only does she become the bastard child, but Jo’s reputation would have been tarnished, the opportunities would have been fewer and the boys would have suffered, too. Their lives might have been completely different.”
“Maybe.” Sue wasn’t going to stand. Wasn’t going to see him out. She didn’t want him to go.