“I’m not sure your relationship with him is helping Beth,” Nick says quietly, and my hackles rise instinctively.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re not her replacement.”
“I’m not trying to be.”
“Sometimes it feels like you are. Or you’re trying to outdo her in some way.”
“What!” I stare at him, full of outrage. “You’ve never said anything like this before.” I can’t believe he’s leveling these accusations at me now. They feel so unfair.
“I suppose I saw it more, while you were gone.”
“How, since I wasn’t here?” I can’t keep the acid from my tone, or from feeling that Nick is playing this card because he thinks it might guilt me into giving Dylan up. “Maybe we should include Beth more,” I say a bit recklessly. Nick doesn’t respond. “Invite her to things. Have her over. She has two visitations a week now, and you’re right, the goal is to be supportive of her. So we should be doing that, not just passing him along.”
Nick stays silent. I know that was not what he was hoping to achieve with his remarks, and I’m not sure I want to spend that much more time with Beth, but it makes sense. I can’t take her place. The court hearing is in six weeks.
“What about Emma? And Josh, for that matter?” he asks finally as he switches out the light.
“Why shouldn’t it be good for them too? They might stop dwelling on their own problems so much.”
“We don’t even know what their problems are.”
And at the moment neither child seems likely to tell us.
I sigh heavily in the darkness, the oppressive reality settling on my chest like a thousand-pound weight. Even though I’m exhausted, sleep feels impossible.
“Do you think Emma will be okay tonight, on her own?” I ask, my voice small and disembodied in the darkness.
“You said the assessment came back saying there wasn’t a risk.”
“Yes, but it’s just an assessment. And Emma’s clever enough to know how to answer those things, I’m sure.”
Nick is silent for a moment as we lie on our backs, staring at the ceiling. “Do you think she still wants to kill herself?” he asks, and he sounds so sad, I have an urge to comfort him, along with everyone else. Why are we all hurting so much? Why is our world so broken, when we’ve been so blessed?
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” I consider my answer, as if testing its weight, and then decide it will hold. “She seems more tired than sad now.”
“Still.”
“Do you want me to sleep in her room with her?”
“No. She wouldn’t like that.” He sighs. “Tomorrow we’ll all talk.”
He says it like a promise, but I already worry it’s one we won’t be able to keep.
25
BETH
I am furious as I walk away from the Fieldings’ house—furious that their lives are such a mess, and furious that I have to leave my son with them. I am full of righteous intentions to call Susan and rat them out, but I don’t even reach for my phone before I know I won’t do that. I can’t.
Because one thing I know after rattling around in the social care system for the last six weeks is that kids don’t just get magicked back to their mothers. If Susan decides the Fieldings can’t take care of Dylan, she’ll just shunt him to somebody else. At least now I know where he is, and I believe he’s safe, no matter what problems the family is facing. He’s also only a ten-minute walk from my apartment. Who knows how far away the next foster family might be?
But I’m still frustrated and angry, and I can’t keep from feeling that something is inherently wrong with the way things are, with the whole world, that Ally Fielding’s daughter can try to kill herself and DCF doesn’t get involved, but my son has a tantrum in CVS and my whole world falls apart.
Still, there’s nothing I can do about any of it, and being angry doesn’t help. I have six more weeks before the court hearing, or around that. The date hasn’t been set yet, but Susan said it would be in the next few weeks. And meanwhile I need to keep doing everything right, no matter who else does wrong. I can’t let my focus slip.
And lots of things are going right, or nearly—the Triple P course isn’t terrible, now that we’ve moved onto potential challenges. This week’s class is on setting boundaries, something I realize I