What Katy Did

Katy arrived on my doorstep drenched from a summer shower with a single plastic bag full of her belongings. Her social worker, Siobhán, smoked under a chic umbrella, dark sunglasses over red lipstick. I offered Katy a towel, while Siobhán stubbed out her cigarette in my trinket dish and tossed her sopping umbrella over a houseplant. 

It didn’t take long to give the house tour of my ramshackle home. The two trailed along behind me, Siobhán inspecting, Katy drifting, as aimless as a ghost. I opened Katy’s room and stepped aside. I had stripped the walls bare, a canvas for her to fill. 

Drop your bag in Katy, Siobhán said briskly. It's dripping everywhere.

Katy shook her head, gripping the bag more tightly, the damp tendrils of hair sticking to her round, impassive face. 

I opened the door to Livvy’s room. Livvy raised her head, a small sallow figure on the bed, waved at Katy and gave her her best smile. Surrounded by her medical equipment, her wheelchair by the bed, her breathing apparatus humming quietly, she looked much younger than ten. Katy’s cheek muscles twitched. 

This is my daughter, Olivia. We all call her Livvy. There’s only three years between you, I said. 

But why does she look like that?, whispered Katy to Siobhán, who shooed her along the hall towards the sitting room. I gave Livvy a thumbs up, which she returned. 

Katy slumped on the chair, pulling at her long sleeves, misshapen from too many turns in the wash, while Siobhán ticked all her boxes and left. I tried to make small talk, but Katy’s only reply was to ask for a lock for her dresser drawer and shut herself in her room. In the evening, my best friend and next door neighbour, Anita, arrived with homemade tiramisu. We drank tea in the conservatory as the sun dipped low in the sky.

 I’m proud of you, Em, she said. I know it can’t be easy. 

It’s not. But it’s time. Livvy misses having the girls around.

Ever since my husband left me and took my oldest girls with him to America, I had fostered children. Mostly little boys, because it hurt too much to have older girls in the house, reminding me of the milestones I was missing. He didn’t take Livvy. He didn’t want her. An inconvenience, he used to hiss at me, making me feel small and stupid for prioritising her health. Telling me it was all in my head, there was nothing wrong with Livvy except that she was coddled. Routine tests, hours spent in hospital waiting rooms, doctors telling me that Livvy was a normal little girl. But the evidence spoke for itself. Livvy was never able to run fast with her sisters, or go to school five days a week. She slept a lot, caught every chill and fever.

Since Livvy was born, I had felt like I was on a treadmill, dashing between her doctor’s appointments and my work as a carer. I felt like I was always helping people, clearing up after them. It would be nice to have an older girl to talk to. A companion, for Livvy and me. 

***

Though I cooked her favourite foods, bought her favourite movies, took her on outings, Katy spent the first week accepting everything with mute skepticism, as if she was waiting for me to snatch it back. Withdrawn around adults, she and Livvy bonded more quickly than I could have expected. She braided Livvy’s wispy brown hair, admired her collection of Sylvanian families and read her stories. Behind a half open door, I listened to Katy telling her the story of Peter Pan. She would pause the flow of the story at intervals, interjecting her own analysis. She described how the lost boys flew away from bad parents and lived happily in Neverland. How adults didn’t deserve their children, but still the children went home. How Peter was the only one with any sense, staying away from adults forever.

As the weeks progressed, Katy began hovering in the rooms I was in, watching me. Unfazed, I chatted to her, told her about my day at work, passed her a knife so that she could chop carrots for the stew. She divulged next to nothing about herself, though I had seen parts of her file. Her father was in prison, her mother sold her body to pay for drugs. She was in a residential home before she came here, who described her as quiet, neat, well mannered. She let me natter away to her without responding for the first week, and then her own questions burst out, sporadic at first, and then rhythmic, like she was interviewing me, about my job, my friends, my family. She was especially interested in the photographs of my two oldest girls.

Don't you ever see them, if they’re so far away?

Not as often as I’d like.

Why? Why don’t you try more?

She was accusing me, almost. I told her that they knew they were welcome to come home at any time, but they were happier with their dad.

Why? What did you do wrong?

Nothing. That’s the way it is sometimes. 

You shouldn’t have children if you aren’t there for them. 

I didn’t respond. She wasn’t saying anything that I hadn’t already said to myself a thousand times, and experience warned me to ignore the comment and change the subject.

Do you have any siblings Katy?

I used to have a little sister. But she died. 

I’m sorry. 

Don’t be. She died because my mother didn’t look after her properly. 

That’s- but I caught myself. Like a faltering trapeze artist regaining her balance, I called Livvy in for dinner and handed Katy the cutlery to set the table. She did it slowly, methodically, her eyes flicking up and down to glance at me past the stringy tendrils of her hair.

But despite her initial apprehension, as we got to know her, Katy warmed to us. One evening as we were watching TV, she fell asleep on Livvy’s lap. Though I got up to move her, Livvy waved me away. She played with her hair, exposing Katy’s red cheeks and face soft with sleep. I felt safe watching the two of them.

 We settled into the summer routine, taking Livvy to swim classes, book club at the library, practicing gentle exercise in the park. I pushed Livvy’s wheelchair as Livvy herself wandered on foot down the grassy slopes.

Be careful! Don’t go too far! I called, but Livvy didn’t turn around.

Katy walked in front of me, watching Livvy too. Her lank hair fell over her face, and, next to strangers in the park, I noticed how tall she was for thirteen.

I found an empty bench and perched on it, always keeping Livvy in my line of sight. Katy sat next to me.

You love Livvy, she said. A statement of fact, not a question.

Of course.

But why don’t you trust her? 

What?

You don’t think she can manage. You’re not letting her try.

She has no filter, I told myself. Don’t rise to it.

Katy, I know it may seem otherwise, but Livvy’s not well. She needs help. She needs me.

Are you sure it’s not the other way around?

Before I could answer, Katy bounced up and ran to Livvy, linking arms with her, causing her to stumble. I was on my feet instantly, ready to spring, but they were whispering, laughing together. I lowered myself to the bench and watched them.

***

One month in, a flustered Siobhán turned up on my doorstep.

Emma, I need to speak to you about Katy’s placement here. It’s come to our attention that there have been complaints against Katy by other children. Manipulation. Bullying. 

But she’s wonderful with Livvy.

Because it was true, the statement left me before I could catch it, examine it. Katy had withdrawn completely from me, but her and Livvy had become inseparable. As a consequence, Livvy was more insolent, almost rude to me. She refused to sleep with her breathing machine and snapped when I encouraged her to let me push her in her chair. She looked to Katy for a reaction, and she always got one. 

Mmm. The thing is, that we don’t feel it’s in either of their best interests to keep her here.

The door creaked slightly and Katy’s eyes appeared in the doorway.

Katy. Come in please, Siobhán called. 

Katy sat stiff and unemotional as Siobhán explained that things weren’t working, that they were going to look for a new home for her, that she would be moving out. Her eyes bored into me, waiting for me to protest. I didn’t say anything. Katy excused herself to step outside for some air. Siobhán told me she would be back later in the afternoon to take Katy back to the residential home. 

It’s for the best, Emma.

Ten minutes after Siobhán left, Anita was hammering on my door, yelling about a fire in her back garden. Our combined efforts soon stamped it out. 

What were you doing out here?

Nothing Em, that’s the thing. I was in the kitchen and suddenly there was all this smoke…

Our eyes met. With a tremor in my voice, I suggested tea at mine. 

I called out to them, but neither Katy nor Livvy responded. Katy’s door was ajar; I pushed it open. Her belongings were packed into a carrier bag, but she was gone. Livvy, I said, camly at first, but I repeated her name as I searched each room, tore things apart, until my voice was shrill. Anita’s mouth popped open into a round O.

She’s taken her?

Call the Gardaí, I gasped, my stomach heaving. The room shifted and my body met the floor, my face scrunched up against the carpet. Livvy, my poor Livvy, so tiny, so frail.

Anita passed me the phone and I sobbed to the dispatcher that my daughter had been kidnapped by my foster child. When I hung up, I bolted to my car and sped down the street, rolled down my window and bellowed their names. I drove my car on the path, leapt out with the engine still running, ran through the shopping centre past bewildered strangers, yelling with the demented will of a mother. My phone buzzed; I ripped it from my pocket and sank to the ground, the words of the Garda reverberating through my body. She was safe. 

Katy was spotted on the main street, shoplifting Skittles and cans of Coke from Spar. She had copped quickly that she was being surveilled and nipped down an alley, pulling Livvy, mouth stoppered by sweets, by the hand. She had forced Livvy into a wheelie bin and shut the lid. When the Gardaí caught up with her, she had denied knowing where Livvy was and insisted she had run away by herself. But Livvy had heaved herself out of the bin, into the arms of a Garda who whisked her away. When they went through Katy’s backpack, they found a steak knife, tape and bin bags. At the station, Livvy ran into my arms more quickly than I had ever seen her move in my life. Muffled against my shoulder, she whispered over and over that she was sorry. 

During her interrogation, Katy seized up and refused to speak, but she had a diary that spoke for itself, left in the house, packed in the carrier bag she hadn’t the time to take or the strength to haul around on her mission. They told me later she had written pages and pages about me, how I didn’t deserve my daughter, how Livvy would be better off not being in a world where she had such a useless mother as me. How I didn’t defend her when Siobhán told tales. That I needed to be punished. 

We never saw Katy again. 

***

Things changed after that. It was the last time I ever let a stranger into my home. The last time I trusted a stranger around my daughter. They opened an inquiry into the death of Katy's sister. The last I heard, she was in juvenile detention. 

But despite everything, Katy was right about Livvy. I imagine constantly what Livvy must have felt inside that wheelie bin, and how she somehow found the strength, after years of me telling her she was too weak, too fragile, to burst free. I’m still struggling to accept that it took a stranger stealing my daughter to see what was in front of me all along. But each day, it gets a little easier. Each day, I remind myself that I don’t want to become a stranger to my daughter too.