is hypnotized by her new iPad in the waiting room. If I could tell parents one thing it would be to get rid of those devices, or at least strictly limit them. They’re turning our kids into a generation of addicts.
I’m careful about how I answer, because I do believe something happened to Angel at that foster home. I’m just not sure what. “I know that she believes it,” I say. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think she’s lying.”
“She’s so fragile,” Jen says, a tear escaping and trailing down her face before she can wipe it away. “I just want to help her get whole and look to the future—with us.”
I hand her the tissue box; I go through a case a month.
“We’ll get there,” I promise. “She’s strong.”
Jen and her husband, William, are dream fosters, affluent people who couldn’t have children of their own and looked to the system of abandoned older children rather than to private or overseas adoption for a baby. It’s a hard road they’ve chosen, one that may lead to heartbreak.
“I was in the system,” Jen tells me. “Did I ever mention that?”
“You didn’t,” I say. “But I guess it explains your desire to bring Angel into your home, into your life. Most people wouldn’t have the strength or the patience to manage a troubled girl.”
She nods, dabs at her eyes.
“I bounced from foster to foster,” she says, clutching her leather bag to her middle. You wouldn’t know it to look at her. She looks like a woman who came from privilege, who doesn’t know anything else—fine features, expensively coiffed and dressed. “Finally, I aged out, worked my way through college, where I met William. We built a life, a family, just the two of us. His family have more or less adopted me—I have sisters and cousins, parents. I want to give that to someone else. I was Angel. Inside maybe I still am.”
“She can learn a lot from your strength and resilience,” I say. “Talk to her. Tell her about your experiences, even the painful ones. Sometimes it helps more than anything else to see someone thriving and well on the other side.”
She smiles gratefully.
“You’re a nice man, Dr. Reams,” she says. “Are you married?”
I am taken aback by the question. It’s not about me. It never is. That’s one of the things I like so much about my profession, I can disappear in the helping of others. I am trained to observe my feelings, distance myself from them, to focus on the people in my care. And people in pain, especially children and adolescents, are not prone to worrying about others. I am a sounding board, a strong and comforting voice, a well of advice and instruction. I am not a person with needs and feelings.
“I’m not,” I say, feeling myself flush. There’s some shame to this fact. I have closed myself to that kind of life—the life of husband and father, of lover, even friend. I have given myself over to other things—my work mainly, my darker activities. Plus, there’s my old friend, the one who even now I can feel tugging on my consciousness. He is not comfortable with intimacy; strong emotion makes him harder to ignore and control.
Hank, my mother laments. You’re such a handsome man, financially comfortable, kind. Why can’t you meet someone?
She wants that, for me to love and be loved. I have stopped wanting that for myself.
“I hope this is not inappropriate,” Jen says. “We’re having a party for Angel, kind of a welcome thing where she can meet friends and family. We’d like you to come.”
She slips a card across the small end table between the couch where she sits and the chair that I’m in.
“I’ll try to make it,” I say. “Thank you.”
I look at the invitation, pink and printed. “Join us to welcome Angel into our home and our life.”
“This is a nice thing,” I say. “Important for her.”
“She seems tense about it. She’s worried people won’t like her. I told her that they will, of course. But it’s not really about them and what they think—it’s about her getting to know the people who are going to be a part of her new life.”
I understand Angel’s fear. Those marked by trauma always feel apart.
“Someone who hasn’t had a lot of love or attention might feel uncomfortable with it at first,” I offer. “I think she’ll grow into it.”
I know how Angel feels. Intimacy can be painful, the closeness, the comfort