Broken: A traumatised girl. Her troubled brother. Their shocking secret.. Rosie Lewis
groaning noises. ‘Give it a rest, Bobs, you’re doing our heads in!’ Archie shouted from the other side of the room. He was sitting on the floor with a mixed box of Lego and Duplo in front of him. Megan was sitting on the other side of the box, Mungo resting his chin on her leg.
I squirted some washing-up liquid into the sink and turned the hot tap on, vaguely aware though my back was turned of Archie’s approach. ‘Come on, Bobs,’ I heard him say cajolingly. ‘Come and play.’ The yelp came seconds later. I spun around and saw Archie cradling one of his hands in the other, his face contorted with pain. Behind him, Bobbi was looking thoroughly pleased with herself.
‘What happened?’ I looked from one to the other. Across the room, Megan wrapped her arms around Mungo’s neck, looking startled.
‘Nothing. S’okay,’ Archie mumbled, though his cheeks were chalky white.
I strode over and drew his forearm towards me. A row of small, angry looking welts had bubbled up across the back of his hand. ‘Oh goodness, Archie, she bit you! That must really have hurt.’
‘It’s nothing,’ he snapped, snatching his hand away. ‘It’s okay, Rosie, don’t worry,’ he added as he walked back across the room, his polite tone recovered. My gaze fell disapprovingly on Bobbi. She stared up at me, a trace of the gloating smile still on her lips.
‘We don’t bite in this house, Bobbi,’ I said firmly. I pulled out a chair and sat next to her. She sprang frog-like onto the next chair. ‘Did you hear me, Bobbi? We use our mouths for eating food, not biting people. Now, would you like to play Lego with the others? Or you could help me with the washing-up.’
‘But I’m so hungry-y-y-y,’ she moaned, banging her head down on the table again.
I winced. ‘Bobbi, do you know what? I don’t think you are hungry right now. I think you’re worried that you might feel hungry later.’ She stilled and turned her head to the side so that one ear rested on the table, the other pointed upwards. ‘I wonder if that might be because there wasn’t always enough food for you at home,’ I added softly.
She lifted her head and looked at me. I leaned closer, my head level with hers. ‘It’s good to know they’ll always be enough food for you at Rosie’s house, isn’t it?’
She frowned, her fair eyebrows knitting together. After a moment she nodded, her mouth offering the faint glimmer of a smile. I stood up and held out my hand. ‘Great! Now, how about we go and play with that Lego?’
At that moment, Megan charged across the room. ‘Mummy!’ she shouted, breathless with enthusiasm. ‘We need to put our pictures up in our rooms. Can I have some of that sticky stuff?’
Having used the prospect of playing Lego to tempt Bobbi away from the table, I hesitated for a moment. Thankfully, Megan’s excitement seemed to be infectious. ‘Can I as well?’ Bobbi asked, her eyes brightening as she looked at Megan. Mungo wagged his tail excitedly, though I noticed that he was keeping his distance, staying a few feet away. Archie crouched next to him and stroked his head.
‘Of course you can.’ I gave them each some Blu Tack and followed them upstairs. ‘Stay in your own rooms!’ I called out from the bathroom. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’
‘We will, Mummy!’ Megan shouted. I felt a small flip in my chest. It still thrilled me to hear her calling me that.
Worn out from the excitement of the day, Megan was asleep by 7 p.m. From what Joan had said I suspected that bedtime for Archie and Bobbi might not go quite as smoothly. Most people found it difficult to settle in a strange bed, so I anticipated an unsettled evening. What followed, however, took me by complete surprise.
As Archie was quite a bit older than Bobbi, I gave him the option of staying up to read or watching TV. He seemed pleased with the offer and, after showering, went downstairs to watch You’ve Been Framed. The sound of his laughter drifting up the stairs as I ran a bath for Bobbi made me smile, but it had the opposite effect on his sister. ‘Why can’t I watch it?’ she howled, stamping her feet on the tiled floor. Her cheeks were puce, her eyes red and goggling.
‘You know why, Bobbi,’ I said, keeping my voice even. While many of the children I have looked after have been largely ignored by their birth parents, they’ve also rarely been taught what the word ‘no’ means. Kneeling on the bathmat, I leaned over and swished some bubble bath around in the water. ‘I warned you that there’d be no more television today if you bit Archie again.’ I hadn’t seen it happen, but Archie’s yowls had reached me while I washed my hands in the bathroom. He had defended her again, claiming that it hadn’t hurt much, but the welts on his arm where she’d bit him were red and angry looking, and his eyes were glassy with tears. I turned to face her. ‘Besides, he’s much older than you. It’s right that he stays up a little bit longer.’
After only a few hours in her company, I already had a strong suspicion that she wasn’t going to take any sort of discipline lying down. She stamped her foot again. ‘I am going down to watch it!’ she growled, rocketing out to the stairs.
‘Your bath is nearly ready,’ I said, staying where I was. I preferred to avoid chasing her around the house if at all possible. ‘I have some special toys here somewhere. Now, where did I put them?’
I leaned over and opened one of the low cupboards, sensing that she was back, somewhere behind me. I made a thing of rummaging through the bottles of shampoo and tubes of toothpaste. ‘They’re there!’ Bobbi screeched from the doorway. ‘Right there!’
‘Where?’
‘There!’
‘Oh right!’ I pulled them out. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’
She giggled, her eyes settling on the water pistols, ducks and little sail boats in the box I was holding. Relieved, I closed the door behind her.
‘No-o-o-o-o!’ she bellowed, spinning around. ‘I’m going to watch the telly!’
‘I think we have some bubbles here somewhere.’
She let out a growl of fury and banged her fists on the door, pummelling with all her might. Lots of children in the care system struggle with an overwhelming, almost pathological need to be in control. I suddenly thought of Taylor, a ten-year-old girl I had cared for about a decade earlier. The witnessing of severe domestic violence against her mother by her abusive father had left Taylor desperately anxious. She was so badly affected that she wouldn’t even leave school at the end of the afternoon; even when the building was empty and the cleaners had finished doing their rounds. Though frustrated by her behaviour at the time, I came to realise that Taylor was clasping onto the only things in her life that she had any control over, because everything else was falling apart. As the months passed and her trust in me grew, she allowed me to take over the reins and mother her. She’s a grown woman now and sometimes when she writes to me she mentions her ‘sit-ins’. They’re a standing joke between us.
Some people remain convinced that the relatively new diagnoses of pathological demand avoidance (PDA) and oppositional defiance disorder (ODD) are invented labels demanded by ineffectual parents who are simply incapable of providing consistent boundaries. You mean they’re just not doing as they’re told is a common response to any conversation involving PDA and ODD.
When I first started out as a foster carer it was a view I shared as well. Having cared for chronically inflexible children though, I’ve become convinced that trauma, both pre- and post-birth, has a profound impact on the brain. In recent years, scientific evidence involving the use of brain scans has confirmed altered brain functioning in children who have been abused or neglected in early infancy.
‘Hey, come here, sweetie.’ I crawled until I was alongside her then wrapped my arm around her back, holding her close to my side. It was a non-violent resistance (NVR) technique designed to promote a feeling of solidarity rather than confrontation. ‘I know you’re upset about missing out on TV, but if you come and have a bath nicely we can watch some in the morning, okay?’
Naming