When Nothing Else Matters

The phone rang shrill and high pitched as it forced my ear drums and my eyelids into subservience before my brain could start functioning. I blinked several times in an effort to wake myself up as my body pulled itself upright and I tried to understand what was going on. I reached for my mobile, the only light in the room, buzzing and singing, with the words ‘Private number’ blinding me as I swiped the answer button.

“Hello, Morgan speaking,” I said, with the phone in my left hand at the side of my face, while my right hand wiped sleep from my eyes. Words started coming through the phone at me, rather than to me, or at least, that’s what it felt like in my sleepy state. What time is it?

“Sorry, can you say that again, I didn’t quite catch it all,” I requested, as my brain started ticking over all the things it needed to start telling my body to do, such as listen, and comprehend, at the same time. I still hadn’t even figured out who was on the phone.

“Morgan, it’s Lisa, I’m just at Liverpool hospital with a child I’ve removed from her home an hour ago, she’s an emergency child, there’s trauma, she has a minor head wound, I know you don’t have any temp places at the moment, are you able to take her in? Maybe 36 hours or so.” The fast voice conveyed emergence, in a way that would frighten most foster carers, but I’d received phone calls like this from Lisa before, this was just an ordinary conversation between us.

My brain had started moving at a regular speed, and my feet were finding slippers at the side of the bed, my eyes were starting to see through the darkness of my room. My thoughts started shifting into that mother hen/protector role as I started the mental to do list of all the things to prepare.

“Uh, yup, the room’s ready, how long will you be, how long do I have to get ready? How old is she, what else can you tell me?”

Lisa started rattling off the details; Emme is a five year old Australian girl, with no siblings, and she had just been removed from her home after a neighbour called the police saying he’d heard screams coming from Emme’s house. Police arrived quickly to find Emme’s mother killed in the kitchen, and no sign of her father, or any other adults in the house. After searching through the house, police had found Emme hiding under her mother’s bed, humming a song to herself with her eyes closed. My God, this poor child, what a horrendous thing to live through. I started turning on lights and walking through the house, my slippers protecting my feet from the wood floors, and my dressing gown protecting my body from the chill in the air.

“She hasn’t opened up to any of us yet, and I know you’ve got a good track record with kids with trauma, the doc’s here in emergency are just finishing up with her, and I should be at your place, like within the hour I think.”

I was heading into the spare room that I kept at the ready for the emergency placements, and I started pulling out things for a five year old girl: “Yup that’s fine I should be ready by then, text me when you are on the way with her, let me know if you think she needs something to eat, I’ve got some left over lasagne.”

“You’ve always been so good at this Morgs, you're a champion, ill speak to you soon.” A small and sad smile flashed across my lips; it was always nice to hear the compliment that she was good at this, but it meant that another child needed to be rescued from a horrific circumstance.

Rummaging through the cupboard, I pulled out some size 5’s, 6’s and 7’s in pyjamas, socks, underwears and singlets. The next container, I grabbed a fresh toothbrush, tooth paste, shampoo and conditioner and soap and popped them into a little basket. All of these things I placed on the end of the single bed in the room, already made in light green sheets. The lamp was on, casting a soft yellow hue across the room, the carpet was vacuumed, making the room feel clean and pretty, and toys on the bed looked inviting for a young child to snuggle up to.

I glanced at my phone, discovering it was thirteen minutes passed 3am. Yup, definitely not going back to sleep this morning, I thought grimly, as I headed towards the kitchen. I continued flicking on lights throughout the house, knowing how nervous a child would be to come to a fresh home that was shaded in darkness in the middle of the night. I was grateful my own kids had moved out now, as much as they had enjoyed the fulfilling nature of foster care during their own childhood, at least I could accept children in the middle of the night without feeling guilty that I was disrupting my own kids’ lives.

In the kitchen, I turned on the light and the jug, and started preparing coffee making equipment for myself. I pulled out some items for a hot chocolate for little Emme if that might help her, as well as double checking the fridge for whatever I could offer her. Yes, there was some lasagne, and some chocolate cake too. A slice of chocolate cake might help a little girl out tonight. It was a grim thought, that some chocolate cake might help her after possibly having seen her mother killed, but at the age of 5, it might actually take her mind off it for a few moments.

I sat down at the dining table with my coffee in hand, making some notes in my journal about how the morning had gone so far. It was important as an emergency foster carer to get everything written down while it was still fresh so that you were always covered in the event of a miscommunication. I jotted down the time of the morning, the details that Lisa had given me so far, and my own thoughts and feelings as to what was to come from this new emergency placement. This wasn’t needed for my documentation requirements, but it always made me feel better getting my emotions out of my head in preparation for a placement, since there was no one else at home with me to talk through it all.

By the time I’d finished my notes and my thoughts, I was halfway through the coffee, and it was just a few minutes before 4am. It was at this point that I started to imagine the horror this poor girl had seen tonight, and most likely, for most of her short young life. Kids don’t deserve this stuff; it was a thought that ran through my head far too often. It often led to the following thought How do people live this way? Despite all my training sometimes I still struggled to understand the variance between each and every individual and what they do and don’t do to and for their children. Some kids just have to work harder than others don’t they, I thought sadly.

Buzzzz…. My phone vibrated on the table in front of me; a text from Lisa, they must be close by:

‘Just leaving the hospital now, bout 15 mins away…E not said a word, and she’s clutching her belongings tightly. C U soon. Lis.’

Immediately, my trauma training started flooding my working brain, contemplating selective mutism, to unusual attachment, all the way through to aggression and food refusal. It was always tough supporting a child through trauma, because you never knew what was going to come next and you had to be supportive because the child just is not aware of what’s happening to themselves, both mentally and emotionally.

the sound of a car pulling up the front driveway pierced through the twilight silence and my worries just a few minutes after 4am. I headed out to the front door, opening it to see Lisa looking dishevelled and sleepy, but wired from the work she’d been doing, heading to the back door to open it. Out popped a tiny little Emme, Oh dear, I’ll need to pull out the size 4’s, she’s tiny! I thought, as she gripped the plastic bag in her hands. Emme had dirty blonde hair that fell in a straight cut just below her shoulders, and a bandage covered about a quarter of her face, up on her forehead; evidence that she bore a physical injury from the trauma she had witnessed. Her crystal blue eyes looked like they should have sparkled on a normal day, but the pain she was feeling seemed to have turned them a dusty and cloudy pale blue. She had light coloured skin, that looked as though it would burn in the sun on a winters day, and her tiny frame was dressed in summer pyjamas that were swimming on her, much too inappropriate for a little girl in this cold weather. She had no shoes on her feet, and in her hands she clutched a plastic bag.

I walked towards them both, across the front verandah, as Lisa guided Emme up the stairs towards me; Lisa wasn’t allowed to hold her hand, as she refused to remove either of them from her bag.

“Emme, this is Morgan, this is the lady I told you about, you’re going to stay here with her for the next couple days ok?”

Emme’s eyes showed no interest in me, so I started chatting away to help her feel at home: “Come on Emme, it’s so nice to meet you, let’s get you inside where it’s nice and warm, let’s make a hot chocolate and have something to eat shall we? Do you like lasagne, or should we have a piece of cake each?” I said with a smile, hoping to coax a small smile from her mouth. It worked a little, and the young girl took a few steps forward and into the house.

Once seated at the dining room table, I cut a slice of cake for Emme, made a hot chocolate and placed them in front of her. Lisa sat down next to her at the table with her clipboard and some notes, in anticipation of handing over the holding papers.

“Here, let me grab your things and I’ll pop them over –”

“NOOO!!” Emme screamed, tugging at her bag of belongings, the same bag I had just tried to pick up from her lap to place on the table.

All of Emme’s belongings came tumbling out of the plastic bag as it ripped, a barbie doll, a photo in a frame, some hair clips, a few other knick knacks that a five year old would cherish. Surprisingly though, Emme dove off her chair in search of the item that travelled the furthest, a cardboard box, hastily wrapped in brown butcher’s paper, almost as big as the young girl’s torso. Hysterical shrieks and tears started pouring out form the little child, as she clutched the box to her chest.

“Oh I’m sorry Emme, let me help you –” I tried again, but she cut me off with her screams.

“No!! Get away from us! I don’t want you here, stay away, don’t you hurt us!”

I looked at Lisa with a confused frown, and she looked back at me just as equally confused….Us??