Torn: A terrified girl. A shocking secret. A terrible choice.

Maisie’s brow furrowed with concern. ‘D’you know what, Rosie? I’m an advocate of child-led caring. Children should be able to be free to express themselves and show us what they want,’ she said. ‘Do you see where I’m coming from?’

‘Erm,’ I said, suddenly convinced that Maisie was a social worker I would need to tread carefully around. ‘Y-es, I believe in doing my best for children as well, absolutely, of course I do. But,’ I paused again, searching for a polite but firm response, ‘I don’t think that necessarily means always giving them what they want.’

Maisie wrinkled her nose in a look of distaste, as if I’d waved a soiled nappy in front of her. I worried then about just how far Maisie’s commitment to ‘child-led caring’ might go.

Chapter Three (#u52406829-edbd-548c-b3fb-bca8b82c2d57)

Back in the living room, Jamie and Reece were clutching their tummies, each convulsed in a fit of giggles.

‘What’s so funny?’ I asked, pleased to see that Reece was looking more relaxed.

Jamie, still snorting, opened his mouth to speak but Taylor, who was seated back at the computer, beat him to it. ‘He,’ she waved a thumb in my son’s direction, ‘reckons that that woman stinks. Reece seems to think he’s hilarious. It’s literally pathetic.’

I glanced between the three of them, wondering where to start. Jamie held his breath, eyeing me sheepishly. ‘I – I didn’t say she stinks, Mummy,’ he said, throwing Taylor a resentful look. She jutted her chin in sneering satisfaction. ‘I said she’s a bit smelly.’

Reece cupped a giggle in his hand.

‘Jamie, how many times have I asked you not to make personal comments unless you have something nice to say?’ I said chidingly. I had noticed that Maisie smelt mildly of cigarettes, and Jamie, being asthmatic, was probably more sensitive to it than the rest of us. He did have a tendency to blurt out whatever thoughts were running through his mind but what he said usually had some basis to it: there was certainly no malice in him. I was just glad he had waited until after she left to mention it.

He bobbed his head then looked up at me earnestly. ‘About seventeen?’

I sighed. Taylor, who was lifting the mouse and banging it down on the desk instead of clicking it, snorted. The site she had visited was unrecognisable to me but a stream of conversation was juddering up the screen. ‘I’d be grateful if you wouldn’t tell tales, Taylor. And is that a chatroom you’re in?’

She tossed her head to the side so that her long, poker-straight fringe flew out in an arc and over one shoulder. Her hands then flattened it against her ears, something I had noticed her doing several times since her arrival. ‘Fuck off. I wasn’t telling tales, he really said it. And it’s not no chatroom, der brain, it’s Myspace.’

Emily, who had been watching us silently from the corner of the room, gasped at Taylor’s attitude. Jamie goggled, staring at me to gauge my reaction. I restrained myself, forcing a mild response. It wasn’t unusual for children with no experience of a loving home and its usual boundaries to swear and, though often it was an unconscious habit, sometimes they did it for shock value. ‘Um, I think now may be the perfect time to run through some of our house rules,’ I said calmly as I crossed the room to open a side cabinet drawer.

Whenever a new child came to stay with us, one of my priorities was to make them feel safe and at ease. Being presented with a set of house rules wasn’t the warmest way to welcome someone into our home and so usually I introduced them gradually, reserving the first day for showing them where everything was and finding out what foods they liked. In Taylor’s case, I got the feeling it was a case of the sooner the better; she needed to know what was expected of her.

Every household has its own set of basic rules and some children, if they’ve been moved around in the care system, genuinely find it difficult to keep track of what they can and can’t do. It was a simple list –

No hitting

No swearing

No shouting

No going into other people’s bedrooms

Everyone makes their own bed each morning

– and one intended to let everyone know where they stood; that was the theory at least.

‘Well, I ain’t making my own bed for a start,’ Taylor mumbled after disdainfully chucking her copy on the floor.

‘I want all of us to feel safe in this house,’ I said after a moment, ignoring Taylor’s heckling and directing my words at everyone. ‘And to feel safe we must follow the rules. That means everyone, including me. Do you all understand?’

Emily, Jamie and Reece nodded in unison. Taylor swung her foot and wittered on under her breath.

‘Taylor? You OK with that?’

‘Meh,’ she said, shrugging. ‘What y’gonna do?’

I stared at her, my hackles rising. It was nearing 6 o’clock and the prospect of moving several heavy pieces of furniture around was pressing on my thoughts. With a lethal combination of tiredness and hunger beginning to set in as well, I thought it would be wisest to ignore her.

Dinner was thrown together in a hurry – pasta with cheese sauce and garlic bread – one of the few meals that had featured on both Taylor and Reece’s lists of favourite foods. Emily and Jamie, who had already eaten with their dad, sat with us at the table while we ate, sipping at mugs of warm milk. It was nice that they wanted to be part of things and I was pleased to see that Taylor and Reece were tucking into their food. Some children lose their appetite after the trauma of separation from their parents but the siblings were scoffing their dinner hungrily, licking stray flakes of parsley from their fingers after each bite of garlic bread. ‘Can I have some more, Rosie?’ Reece asked thickly, before he’d swallowed his last mouthful. Almost upsetting his beaker of water as he cluttered his knife and fork to the table, he still seemed ill at ease, but it was reassuring to know that at least he had some warm food inside him.

‘Yes, of course you can.’ A bowl of leftovers sat on a hessian mat in the middle of the table, a long silver serving spoon resting on the rim. ‘Help yourself, love,’ I said, lowering my own fork and edging the bowl towards him with my fingertips. He raised his eyebrows, surprised it seemed, to be given such a responsibility. I started eating again, nodding encouragingly as he loaded the spoon with pasta and plopped a large dollop onto his plate. He looked up at me and beamed.

‘Taylor, would you like some more?’ I asked, breaking off a piece of garlic bread for myself. She had taken umbrage at not being allowed a fizzy drink with her meal, something her mum always gave her. The resultant scowl was still in place.

Rolling her lips in on themselves, as if she’d just applied a layer of lipstick, she hitched one shoulder up to her ear. ‘Meh, tastes like crap if I’m honest.’

Emily’s mug froze an inch from her mouth, her eyes darting to meet mine.

‘I’d rather you just said you didn’t like it, Taylor,’ I told her, my voice off-key. Sudden tiredness had drained my desire to remind her of the house rules or embark on a lecture.

She looked at me and shrugged. ‘Actually, Reece, stick some more on there then,’ she said to her brother, holding her knife and fork to one side to accommodate. ‘May as well ’ave some while you’re at it.’

Hastily swallowing my mouthful, I said, ‘No, Taylor, no more, not if you don’t like it. If you’re still hungry after you’ve finished what’s on your plate you can have a piece of fruit instead.’

Livid, she coloured at once, her cheeks flame red. Her eyes flitted around the room as if trying to conjure a retort but it seemed she couldn’t think of one. She stabbed a piece of pasta with her fork instead, snapping at it with fury as she thrust it into her mouth. For the next few minutes I listened in silence as Emily and Jamie told me about their day, aware that Reece hadn’t taken his eyes off me since I’d spoken to his sister. With his head angled slightly to the side, it was as if he was analysing me, trying to gauge my mood. I wasn’t sure why – my tone with Taylor had been firm but not fierce. Every so often I threw a smile his way, trying to reassure him that all was well. He reciprocated with an instinctive smile but each time my gaze wandered he grew serious again, the inspection continuing.

When Emily and Jamie mentioned their meal I was tempted to ask them what they thought of Debbie – it was the first time they’d been introduced to her – but I quickly decided it wasn’t fair to quiz them, and certainly not in front of Taylor and Reece. I gave myself an imaginary pat on the back for my maturity and my earlier composure. Sometimes I didn’t feel all that mature; actually, there were still times when I marvelled that they let me foster at all.

‘Who was that man what brought you home?’ Reece asked Jamie, his mouth full of garlic bread.

‘My dad,’ Jamie told him. ‘He took us out for pizza.’

‘Where’d he go then? Has he gone back to work?’

Jamie’s gaze dropped to his lap and my stomach lurched. Of the pair of them, Jamie seemed to be the one who missed his father the most. A few weeks earlier, after visiting a friend who lived with his parents in a beautiful house by the river, Jamie had arrived home full of excitement. ‘Mum!’ he’d said in urgent, excited tones. ‘I’ve got a great idea. If you and Dad make up, we can all live together in a house like Max.’ The expression of hope shining bright in his eyes almost broke my heart.

After an uncomfortable pause I said: ‘Emily and Jamie’s dad lives in a flat not far from here. You’ll meet him soon I expect.’

‘Why don’t he live here then?’ Taylor demanded in an interrogative tone, fixing Emily and Jamie with a stony glare.

I paused, mid-chew. Emily and Jamie, frozen, looked at me in mute appeal. ‘I’d rather not discuss it with you, Taylor,’ I said, lowering my cutlery to the table and wiping my hands on a piece of kitchen towel. It was a struggle to maintain the mild air that I had instinctively adopted since her arrival.

Silence hung in the air like thick fog, the children glancing uneasily between each other. Taylor, her flush deepening, turned her eyes on me and tilted her head. ‘Is it because you’re a shit cook?’ she asked, delivering the question with a few innocent blinks.

The rain was still hammering down late into the evening, when all the furniture had been moved and everyone was settled in bed. After locking up I padded through to the dining room, where my mattress sagged against the wall looking every bit as weary as I felt. The base of my bed lay in two halves against the fireplace, duvet and pillows in a heap on the table in the middle of the room.

With a hyperactive edge that gave me the jitters, Reece had shadowed me while I lifted and carried, moving obstacles out of my way whenever I drew near. He had tried his best to help, bless him, and though I found his over-eagerness to please a little disconcerting, there was something sweetly old-fashioned about him that I couldn’t help but find endearing. But it was as he was getting ready for bed that my heart really went out to him. Bobbing around on his heels, his eyes screwed up into small balls, he had seemed so nervous that my own stomach churned in sympathy. At first I thought his anguish must be homesickness, but then after several circuits of his room he blurted out: ‘Have you got any nappies, Rosie? I might wet the bed.’ His relief was palpable when I took him to the airing cupboard and showed him my stock of nappies in various sizes. ‘Phew, I was that worried, Rosie, I thought I was going to have a heart attack,’ he had said, hand clamped to his chest. With his bygone clichés and earnest expressions, it was almost as if he’d strolled out from the pages of a children’s storybook.

Taylor’s persona, on the other hand, was less Pollyanna, more Stephen King’s Carrie. She was only a child but there was something about her that made me feel uneasy. I wasn’t sure it was all down to her brittle manner either. Sinking down on one of the hard-backed dining chairs with a sigh, I watched as heavy droplets of rain swam down the misty glass, reflecting gloomily on the way I had handled Taylor’s earlier comment. Caught off-guard by the spitefulness of her question and, though it pains me to admit it, irrationally hurt, I had lost my patience and dragged her plate away, telling her to leave the table immediately.

When I attended the initial foster-carer training course three years earlier, not a single social worker had mentioned that foster carers need to develop a really thick skin. Caught between abusive parents, stressed-out children and occasionally insensitive social workers, the role was not ideal for shrinking violets or anyone with even the mildest inferiority complex. I had a feeling that living with Taylor would challenge my own tendency to avoid confrontation; it was going to be a case of sink or swim.