Chapter 6 - The Temporary Home
Lena was not placed with me.
That should be obvious.
Apparently it was not obvious to half the strangers who later heard the story.
I was a man from a coffee shop.
Being decent for fifteen minutes does not qualify someone to raise a child.
Child protective services first used an emergency foster placement while relatives were evaluated.
Within nine days, Lena moved to her maternal grandmother, Diane Morris, outside Helena.
Diane was sixty-eight.
Retired elementary-school librarian.
Widowed.
She had stayed involved after Amy’s death but had a difficult relationship with Carol.
Why had she not become guardian originally?
At the time, Diane had been caring for her own husband through Parkinson’s disease.
She told the court:
“I couldn’t take a grieving seven-year-old and pretend love solved capacity.”
That sentence impressed everyone.
By the time Lena needed another home, Diane’s husband had died and her circumstances had changed.
Home study.
Background checks.
Medical review.
No instant handoff.
Then Lena moved in.
Carol fought it.
Of course she did.
She genuinely believed Diane was taking the child she had sacrificed her life to raise.
In court she said:
“You get to arrive after I did the hard years.”
Diane answered:
“I know.”
Not sarcastic.
That unsettled Carol more than anger.
Diane acknowledged what Carol had done.
Night terrors.
Funerals.
School conferences.
The crash.
Hospital months.
Prosthetic fittings.
Carol had done hard things.
That still did not give her the right to lie about the crash or control Lena through fear.
Two truths.
The court temporarily suspended Carol’s guardianship authority pending investigation.
She received no unsupervised contact.
Not forever.
Not immediately permanent.
Lena started therapy.
One of the first things she told her therapist was:
“If Aunt Carol goes to jail, who pays her house?”
There it was.
Nine years old.
Still accounting for the adult.
Children who are made to feel expensive often become excellent financial planners for everyone except themselves.
Diane began correcting that.
“You are not the household budget.”
Again.
May you like
“You are not the household budget.”
Months before Lena believed it.
