Medical Kidnap Files 1-6, page 136
“It was when you were in foster care?” he guessed.
“Yeah… that’s when I started. And I was using when they brought me home.” Kiara rubbed her forehead. Her head was throbbing. She hadn’t had anything to eat or drink and her body and the baby probably needed it. She hadn’t had enough sleep. All of the crying and tears left her feeling rotten. “It was… things were pretty bad. I went through a program. A couple of different ones. I wanted to get off. But I was so mad. And…” Kiara closed her eyes, unable to look at Carmel’s face. “I had to leave so I wouldn’t hurt anyone. But I’m clean. I was clean before Malachi was ever born.”
Jamal nodded. “I know you are.”
It was such a relief to hear him say so, Kiara’s eyes filled with tears again. She pressed her face against his shoulder.
“I wouldn’t hurt Mal. I never did. No matter what happened, no matter how mad or frustrated I got, I never hurt him.”
“But Poppy thinks you did.”
It was so incongruous to hear him calling her social worker by her first name. Kiara supposed that they were all adults; it was perfectly appropriate. But Poppy Lewis had been an authority figure in Kiara’s life for so long that she couldn’t see her as a person, with a first name and a history and humanlike qualities. In her mind, Poppy Lewis would always be one of the monsters who had tortured Kiara.
And who was still determined to hurt her and take everything away from her.
“It’s her fault that I was addicted in the first place,” Kiara told Jamal. “She’s the one who put me in homes that hurt me. I begged her to take me out and she wouldn’t. The doctors prescribed me painkillers because of how they hurt me. When they broke bones. Foster families were the ones who gave me alcohol to control me and keep me quiet. I begged her.”
There was a sob from across the room. Kiara flashed a glance at her mother. She had been trying not to look at her and Carmel. They knew too much. They knew too much of the sordid history. She just wanted to tell Jamal about it. Her rock. He was the one who could carry her through it.
Her mom was crying. Trying not to let the tears escape her eyes and run down her cheeks, but visibly sobbing and shaking.
And it made Kiara furious. She remembered how her mother had cried when she told Kiara she had to leave again. She remembered how foster mothers had cried when they claimed not to know why Kiara was behaving the way she was or making such wild accusations.
Tears were lies.
They didn’t love her, those women who cried and pretended to care about her. They would all hurt her and throw her out like a piece of trash.
“Shut up!” she told her mother. “Just shut up. You weren’t there.”
She swallowed hard, trying to keep the fury from bursting out of her like fireworks.
“You should have been there for me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Adela put Malachi in the baby seat and made sure he was secure. As she moved around the kitchen, getting breakfast ready for everyone, she dropped a handful of Cheerios on the table in front of Malachi and kept an eye on him to see how much he would eat. He played with them a little before putting one in his mouth, and he ate a few of them, but seemed more interested in everything that was going on around him than the food. Finn and Saul circled the rooms like airplanes waiting for landing instructions from the tower. Harold tried to help with the preparations, but mostly got in the way worse than the kids. And he let Goldie out from the garage to greet her family and have her breakfast. Adela had scanned the living room carpet for any stray chocolates that had escaped from the boys or long ribbons that the dog might be tempted to eat, but which could get all wrapped around in his intestines and cause a blockage or strangulation. She got out his bowl and fed him at the back door.
When she looked back at Malachi, she saw that he was watching Goldie intently, his eyes wide. Even the antics of the boys didn’t distract him.
“Do you like doggies?” Adela asked him in a higher-pitched baby voice. “Do you have a doggie at your house?”
His lips parted, and he watched Goldie with wide eyes. She would have to be sure to introduce them to each other later.
“I have muffins for breakfast, and oranges, and even some cranberry juice,” she announced to the family. “Who wants what?”
“I want Cheerios,” Finn said, looking at the cereal in front of Malachi.
“There are muffins.” Adela picked up one of the lovely, bakery-fresh blueberry muffins to show him. She could smell the sweet vanilla that made her mouth water. “It’s like having cake for breakfast.”
“I want Cheerios,” Finn repeated.
Adela rolled her eyes and sighed. She got him a cereal bowl and spoon.
“How about you, Saul?”
“Can I have Shreddies?”
Adela raised her brows at Harold. She had tried to make the day special by getting them muffins for breakfast, and the children were all going to have cold cereal instead. “Okay. Shreddies for Saul. Harold? Cereal or muffins?”
“I’m going to have a muffin.”
The boys both looked at Harold, and Adela waited to see if they would change their minds. They both loved to do things the same way as Harold, their role model. But neither seemed inclined to change their orders to a muffin.
Eventually, Adela sat down at the table, at the end just around from Malachi, with her own muffin. “Hello, Malachi. Are you enjoying your Cheerios?”
He slapped his hand against the table a few times and looked down at the pieces of cereal. Then he looked around at the other children and watched Finn stirring his cereal around in the milk. When Finn started to spoon Cheerios into his mouth, Malachi picked up a few of his Cheerios. Having an older sibling to mimic was great, when it worked. Adela enjoyed a few bites of her muffin, then broke a piece off and placed it in front of Malachi. She didn’t encourage him to eat it, but just left it there for him to consider. After a few minutes, Malachi picked it up and squashed it in his hand. He mushed it up before he could manage to get it into his mouth, but he did suck crumbs off of his fist afterward, so Adela counted it as a win.
She assigned Harold to watch Malachi for a while as she prepared the Christmas dinner. She wasn’t sure yet how mobile he was or what he would or wouldn’t get into. He seemed to be quite entertained by watching the other children. Had there been other children in his bio home? Poppy hadn’t mentioned any, but it was still a possibility. DCFS had to be concerned about confidentiality and anything they said that might be repeated to someone else. Adela and other experienced foster families knew better than to talk about their children’s previous placements, but word did leak out occasionally.
Adela had prepped as much as she could ahead of time, not wanting to spend hours on end in the kitchen on Christmas Day. Moms didn’t really get holidays, she knew, so she had to carve out what time she could to relax and do the things she wanted to spend time on. She heard Finn and Saul start scrapping and, looking at her watch, decided it was nap time. They had gotten up much earlier than usual and had taken longer to get to sleep the night before, with the excitement of Christmas and anticipated presents.
“Okay, everybody to bed,” Adela clapped her hands and announced, leaving the kitchen for a moment. “Boys, you each got a new book today, right?”
“Dela, Saul said that I—”
“Hush. Listen to me, Finn. You got a new book?”
“No.” Finn pushed around his pile of Christmas presents. “I didn’t get a new book.”
“Yes, you did. Under that box?” Adela pointed.
Finn pushed the box away, sniffling, and found the new reader under it. “Is this mine?”
“Yes, that’s for you. I want you to go lie down in your bed and read through it, okay?”
“I’m not tired. I don’t want a nap.”
“You don’t have to go to sleep. But you have to lie down and read your book.”
“Don’t want to,” Finn whined.
“Go on. Saul, did you find your book?”
Saul held up a science book that she’d had to special order for him.
“Good. You do the same. Go lie down and read it.”
“It’s too long to read it all today,” Saul pointed out.
“I know it is. You don’t have to read the whole thing. But you do have to read for…” she looked at her watch, “half an hour. Okay?”
“Thirty minutes?”
“Thirty minutes,” Adela confirmed.
Saul pressed the buttons on the side of his watch, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth as he concentrated.
“Don’t start your timer until you’re in your bed.”
“Okay.”
He went off without whining, and Adela heard the sound of creaking bedsprings.
“Good. That’s that. How about the little one?” Adela leaned over to look at Malachi, cuddled in Harold’s lap.
“He’s already out like a light. Whined and complained a little, but I just held him and he dropped off pretty quickly.”
“Great! See if you can put him down in the playpen, and then you can have a nap too.”
“I don’t want a nap,” Harold whined, in imitation of Finn.
“Too bad. You were on shift all night; you need some sleep.”
He smiled and got slowly to his feet, holding Malachi carefully so as not to wake him up. “You’re the only one who doesn’t have to have a nap?”
“I’ll have one this afternoon after we eat and clean up. I’ll be ready for one by then!” She covered a yawn.
“You look like you’re ready for one now. Why don’t you leave the food to cook and have a nap with me?”
“Not the way it works. I have things in here that need my attention. It will only be an hour, and then we can eat.”
“Then I’d better get a little shut-eye now.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Of course, the boys fell asleep with their books, and soon the house was quiet, with Adela being the only one awake and working. She put some Christmas music on the stereo and listened to it while she cooked. She was looking forward to her own nap in the afternoon, but she was used to motoring through her fatigue, so it wasn’t a big deal. Maybe she would get a good nap in and maybe she wouldn’t. It would depend mainly on how the boys were for Harold.
Goldie whined around Adela’s feet, looking for some attention. Or for some of the turkey he could smell cooking in the oven. She scratched his ears and talked to him while she cooked.
Eventually, everything was ready, and she had to awaken her sleeping beauties to enjoy the Christmas feast. She didn’t make a big spread any time but Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Even then, if she had sick kids on those days, the family could make do with soup and sandwiches, reheated casserole, or whatever else she could pull together in a few minutes between comforting children.
She awoke Harold first and put him in charge of getting the boys moving, washed up, and to the table. Then she returned to the kitchen and started to put the serving dishes on the table. She stopped to admire the table. There wasn’t any good china, of course. That would be stupid with such young children, especially those with ADHD or behavioral problems. But even with their regular plastic plates and everyday flatware, it looked pretty nice.
“I wasn’t sleeping,” Saul was protesting as Harold herded him toward the table. Adela grinned when she saw the creases on his face from whatever he had fallen asleep on. Face down on his book, probably.
“I wasn’t ready to get up,” Finn was whining at the same time. And he was probably right. But when dinner was ready, it was ready. She wasn’t going to let the turkey get dried out sitting in the oven for half the day.
“You can go finish your nap after dinner. Or maybe put on a movie and snuggle under a blanket when you watch it.”
“Can I use my sleeping bag?” Finn demanded. “Can I camp out to watch the movie?”
“Yes.”
“What movie will it be?”
“A Christmas movie would be nice. I’m sure there are a lot of them on today. We’ll look after dinner and see, okay?”
He climbed up onto his chair and sat there rubbing his eyes and he looked over all of the different dishes. “What’s that?”
“That’s sweet potato.”
“It looks like carrots. It’s orange.”
“Yes.”
“What’s that?”
“Turkey dressing.”
He looked at her, frowning. “Turkey… clothes?”
“No.” Adela laughed at his consternation. “It’s called stuffing or dressing. It’s a sort of bread that’s really good to eat with turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy.”
“I don’t like that.”
“You know the rule.”
He nodded immediately. “Put a little bit on my plate.”
“That’s right.”
He continued to look at the variety of food. “Can I have Cheerios?”
“No. Not for dinner. We have special Christmas food today. You can try some of whatever looks good. And if you put everything on your plate, you can have dessert too.”
Finn apparently thought that this was acceptable. Adela looked at Saul. “Are you going to remember to put some of everything on your plate too?”
Saul’s head was cocked slightly. He realized she was talking to him. “What’s that song? Harold angels?” He looked at Harold. “Are you an angel?”
“No,” Harold chuckled. “It’s Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and it’s about… the angels who announced Jesus’s birth to the shepherds.”
“Harold Angels? Were they all named Harold?”
“No. Herald means… that they were announcing something. It’s different.”
“Oh.” Saul shifted his attention to the food. “I like mashed potatoes with gravy.”
“Yes, you do,” Adela confirmed. Saul liked foods that were bland and had an even texture. He would happily eat a whole plateful of mashed potatoes with gravy. “Remember to put the other foods on your plate too. And you might like to taste the sweet potato.” She pointed it out to him. “It’s like mashed potato, only sweeter and orange.”
Saul nodded and knelt up on his chair. Because the dishes were hot from the oven, Adela and Harold helped to dish up the food for the children. Adela included little bits of everything in a bowl for Malachi too, either mashed or cut into small enough pieces to be safe for him. Exposure was the first, most crucial step in introducing new foods. Getting a child accustomed to the sights and smells of new foods. He would eventually explore them on his own, touching, tasting, and maybe eating them. Curiosity was a much better motivator than threats or force. He was more likely to accept a new offering if he initiated putting it into his mouth on his own than at anyone else’s direction.
Malachi watched everyone else with bright, intelligent eyes. He hadn’t had much to say yet, but Adela knew that he could say a few words and understood more than he could say. He seemed alert to most of what went on around him. When everyone was dished up and began eating, he looked at the food in his own bowl. Adela didn’t know if he used a spoon on his own yet, but she put a small plastic spoon into his hand anyway. He was old enough to begin learning to use it. Malachi hit the spoon on the table a few times, then put it into his mouth and sucked and chewed on it.
“What other Christmas songs do you like?” Adela asked, following up on the previous discussion of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
Finn and Saul immediately launched into a discussion of the merits of Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and a few songs with words that were somewhat different from the lyrics Adela had learned that they had heard from other children at school. She stretched her legs and rubbed the small of her back, enjoying the happy chatter as much as the meal she had worked so hard to produce. Before the children were halfway finished their meals, Harold was dishing himself up a second helping. He smiled at her.
“This is fantastic, honey. You’ve outdone yourself!”
“Thank you.” Adela looked at Malachi’s bowl to see how he was coming along. He had definitely dipped his spoon into the bowl and stirred things around, but she couldn’t tell how much he’d actually gotten inside of him. “Do you want some help there, bud?” She picked up a second spoon and filled it with pureed sweet potatoes. “Open wide!”
Malachi opened his mouth and accepted the spoonful without dribbling too much of it out again. Encouraged, Adela tried a couple more bites, but by the fourth, he was turning his face away and shaking his head.
“How about something else?” Adela suggested. She tried some potatoes and gravy, but he wouldn’t open his mouth for it. “Maybe a roll?” She spread a little butter on a couple of pieces of bread torn from her roll and put them on the table in front of Malachi. She then ignored him, continuing the dinner conversation and eating her own food. At least one of the pieces ended up in Malachi’s mouth. She wasn’t sure where the other went, whether he had eaten it or dropped it to be rescued by Goldie, but they were both gone.
Although he’d already had a morning nap, Malachi was visibly drooping by the end of the dinner, rubbing his eyes and sobbing on and off. It would probably take some time for them to learn his usual sleep schedule. Things might have been too erratic at his last home to have settled into a schedule. Children with disrupted circadian rhythms could show a lot of other issues, everything from slow growth and not having an appetite to behavioral problems and exacerbation of learning disabilities. Adela picked Malachi up from his baby seat and cuddled him close to her.
“Ready for some more sleep, Malachi? Or do you want to play for a while?”
“I’ll play with him!” Finn offered.
“Let’s see what he feels like doing. Why don’t you get Harold to help you to put on a movie, and we can put out a few little toys for Malachi and see whether he feels like staying up and playing or going to sleep.”
Finn ran to Harold to grab his hand and pull him toward the media center. They found a Christmas cartoon to watch and picked out a few brightly colored blocks and other toys appropriate for young children and put them out to see what Malachi was interested in.
