Angels in Our Hearts: A moving collection of true fostering stories

I quietly back away and suck a lungful of fresh air from the hall; his room was redolent with the same musky smell I noticed on him last night. Before I reach the stairs there’s a loud wail. Back in his room I find him sitting bolt upright in the bed, staring around in shock. He looks terrified.

‘It’s all right, sweetie. You’re in Rosie’s house.’

I crouch down beside his bed and stroke the back of his head. In daylight I can see that his eyes, though red-rimmed and fearful, are a beautiful blue-grey. He really is a gorgeous child.

‘You’re going to be staying with me for a little while. Do you remember me tucking you in last night?’

He gives a slight nod, hesitantly trusting.

‘Where’s Mummy?’ he asks, his voice quavering.

‘Mummy isn’t feeling well at the moment but you’ll see her soon, don’t you worry.’

I expect more tears but he surprises me by throwing the duvet back and shuffling his bottom to the edge of the mattress.

‘Me need breakfast.’

‘Oh, yes, OK, sweetie, but first you need a bath.’ He really does smell awful.

As I help him out of his pyjamas I have to suppress a gasp. Charlie’s covered in a series of sores, all the way down his back, arms and legs. I hope I’m wrong but the small red bumps look to me like bed-bug bites. My heart sinks. If any have travelled with him in the creases of his rucksack or on his pyjamas, I’ll be lucky not to have my own infestation soon.

He continues to plead for food as I lift him into the tub so I hurry things along, giving the hair at the nape of his neck a quick wash, careful not to dislodge the bandage. Not wasting time with soap, I use the shampoo suds to clean the rest of him.

As I wrap him in a towel, trying not to rub the sores, I hear movement in the corridor. Charlie’s widened eyes tell me he’s noticed, too.

‘It’s all right, honey. That’s the other children getting up. We’ll just brush your teeth, and then we’ll go and meet them, shall we?’

His chest puffs out and his big eyes blink, tears brimming. Reaching into the cupboard for a new, toddler-sized toothbrush I tell him, ‘They’re lovely children. They’ll be very pleased you’re here.’

Charlie stares at the toothbrush in amazement. Every time I put it in his mouth he pulls away and grabs my hand, twisting and turning the alien object so he can examine it from every angle. When I finally get a good look at his teeth I realise that he’s probably never owned his own toothbrush or even used one before; they’re all chipped and grey, his gums so inflamed that after just a few seconds of brushing his saliva is streaked with blood. When he swills water and spits into the sink I break into song to distract him. ‘The wheels on the bus go round and round …’ He’s already upset. I don’t want the gory contents spinning down the plughole to completely freak him out.

Charlie frowns, watching me with suspicion. ‘That stick maked blood come,’ he says accusingly, pointing at the toothbrush.

‘Never mind, you’re fine,’ I say, steering him briskly away and stowing the toothbrush in a holder of its own. Without knowing Charlie’s full history, I have to bear in mind that he could be incubating a blood-borne infection like hepatitis or even HIV. He follows me out of the bathroom, Harold clutched tightly in his hand.

‘Aw, look at him. He’s so cute!’ my daughter Emily exclaims, her brother Jamie already on his knees, pulling faces and trying to elicit a laugh. Phoebe, a nine-year-old girl who has lived with us for eight months, stands behind them, staring at the new arrival with concern. Suspecting she’s worried that he might usurp her position I slip my arm around her, squeezing her shoulder.

‘Charlie, here’s Phoebe, and this is Jamie and Emily. I’m sure they’d love to be friends with you, wouldn’t you, guys?’

‘Yes, course. You’ll love it here, Charlie,’ Jamie tells him in a soothing tone.

Emily nods and pats him on the arm. Phoebe copies Emily by nodding but she still looks dubious. Charlie stares at everyone, visibly shrinking away. Instinctively, Emily knows how to put him at ease. She reaches for Harold, balances the soft toy on her head, and sneezes loudly. Harold rolls off and lands in Charlie’s lap. I was worried the sudden noise might startle him but his face breaks into a large grin, and then quickly grows serious again.

‘Me need break-f-a-s-t,’ he reminds me, his voice rising with anxiety.

It’s not unusual for children in care to have food issues. Many come from an environment where regular meals are unheard of and they survive by grazing on what they can find lurking at the back of a cupboard, although when Phoebe first arrived it was the opposite problem: she ate nothing but a few spoonfuls of porridge.

Charlie’s mother being a drug user, it figures that food would probably appear low on her list of necessary weekly purchases.

‘Yes, me too, Mum. What’s for breakfast?’ Jamie asks.

I should have told Charlie not to worry; Jamie would never allow me to forget a mealtime. My son is going through a growth spurt and food is an obsession second only to cricket.

‘Come on, then. Let’s go and make some pancakes.’

I reach out to Charlie and he stands up, slipping his small hand into mine. Jamie, Emily and Phoebe charge downstairs, the sudden withdrawal of attention pricking Charlie’s interest. When we get downstairs he follows them with his eyes, watching their every move as I whip up the pancake mixture. At the table he wolfs down his food, all the while studying them closely. Whenever they look at him he quickly turns away.

We spend the whole day at home, giving Charlie time to get used to his immediate surroundings before exposing him to the world outside. Emily and Jamie revel in having a little one to play with again, enthusiastically pulling toys from the cupboard and parading them in front of him. He comes to life and for the most part he seems to enjoy their company, but he’s easily distracted, spinning around at the slightest background noise. I suspect that he’s watching out for danger, which speaks volumes in terms of his past experiences.

Throughout the day Charlie tumbles casually onto my lap for regular hugs, pushing himself against my back as if he’ll only achieve the reassurance he craves by tucking himself beneath my skin. I have to acclimatise myself to being pawed all day – Emily and Jamie drape an arm around me occasionally or slouch next to me on the sofa, but I’m redundant as far as earthy demands for close contact go. I’d almost forgotten how exhausting it is to be needed so intensely; by teatime I’m craving the solace of my duvet, counting the hours until I can retreat to my bedroom alone.

On Sunday morning I set my alarm early again, wanting to be nearby when Charlie wakes up. Yawning, I peer around his bedroom door and suddenly all trace of tiredness evaporates, my eyes widening in terror. He’s gone. Stumbling into his room, I tear back the duvet and rummage around the empty sheet, as if doing so might conjure his reappearance.

My rational head tells me not to panic – all the exterior doors are locked so he can’t have gone far. But then the news story of the incident where a toddler climbed into a washing machine during a game of hide and seek, closing the door on himself, flashes into my mind. A search party found the two-year-old suffocated.

With a montage of disastrous scenarios unspooling before my eyes I shriek out his name, tearing back downstairs to check the washing machine, tumble dryer, even the fridge.

‘What’s going on, Mum?’ Emily, Jamie and Phoebe charge bleary-eyed into the kitchen. ‘What’s wrong?’

Squinting, I notice another pair of bare feet behind Phoebe’s. I let out a long breath.

‘Charlie, where were you, honey?’

I kneel in front of him and stroke his long hair back from his forehead, unconsciously performing a quick health check.

Charlie points innocently at Phoebe, whose smile is rapidly evaporating.

‘He was in my room. We were only playing,’ she says, simultaneously defensive and hurt.

‘You mustn’t play together in the bedrooms, you know that.’

Phoebe looks suddenly crestfallen and I realise that, still recovering from the shock of seeing his bed empty, my tone must have been sharp. Until recently, Phoebe had no idea how to play with other children. It’s lovely that she’s chosen to share her toys with Charlie of her own accord.

‘It’s all right, honey. I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I should have reminded you of the rules. I think it’s very kind of you to be so welcoming to Charlie. How about we bring some of your toys down to show him?’

‘Yay!’ Phoebe cheers, and runs back to her room.

Charlie claps his hands and scrambles onto the sofa, all trace of yesterday’s shyness gone. The resilience of children never fails to surprise me.

‘Me be good boy,’ he announces, bouncing up and down on the cushions in spite of his injured head.

I’m about to tell him that the sofa is for sitting on when Phoebe arrives back in the living room, armed with piles of toys. Charlie’s eyes light up and he throws himself down on the sofa on his tummy, then rolls to the floor.

‘Be careful of your head, Charlie,’ I say, cringing, but his kamikaze antics don’t seem to have caused him any pain.

Emily and Jamie, well past playing with toys at their age, join in eagerly now they have a young housemate to entertain. I go off to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, the sound of their loud laughter bringing a smile to my face.

Sometimes, when we welcome a child into our family, relationships are thrown out of kilter. It can take a while to establish a new fulcrum, but with younger ones it’s much easier to rearrange ourselves around them, perhaps because it feels more natural for older ones to make way for the new.