Dani's Story: A Journey From Neglect to Love (12 page)

Bernie and I had the master bedroom, and Willie had the other bedroom upstairs. Obviously, with as much supervision as Danielle needed—we had been told she did not sleep through the night—she could not be downstairs by herself. We couldn’t move downstairs and leave the two kids upstairs by themselves. I wasn’t sure how Willie would feel about moving downstairs.

We sat down with him and explained the situation. He was anxious, but he knew it was the only way it could work. It was Willie who came up with the idea of walkie-talkies, and I told him if it would make him feel better, I could dig out the baby monitors I had used for him and his older brothers.

I was so grateful to him for being so sweet about it. Bernie said he would paint the room whatever color Willie wanted, and I tried to convince Willie how much fun it would be to redecorate. The next morning, we went to Lowe’s first to buy paint and then to Wal-Mart for the walkie-talkies and the new sheets and spreads for the twin beds in that room. I thought I could shop for things for Danielle’s room while Willie was at school.

On our way to the checkout line, we passed a big display for Valentine candy, and I told Bernie to go on ahead with Willie so that I could pick up some things for him and Danielle. This would be her first Valentine’s Day holiday, and I wanted it to be memorable.

At home, Bernie and Willie got to work painting the downstairs bedroom. I sat on the floor in Willie’s bedroom and thought, “If I were an eight-year-old girl, what would I want my room to look like?” I had hands-on experience only with boys, and I didn’t know any eight-year-old girls, other than the ones in Willie’s class at school and church. They were either whispering secrets or squealing at an ear-shattering pitch, and they all smelled fruity-sweet. They looked very high maintenance and a little bit scary to me.

Bernie came into the room with his phone up to his ear and an anxious look on his face. I could hear only one side of the conversation. “Why?” “Can they do that?” “Why are they waiting until now?” “What can we do?” “When will we find out?” “I understand.” “No, we know you’re doing everything you can.” “All right, thanks. Call us when you know something. Bye, Garet.”

Garet? That wasn’t good. I thought he had been talking to a contractor about a job. If it was Garet, it had to be about Danielle. Bernie was clearly upset, not mad-upset but sad-upset. “Garet said there were some problems, and it might take longer than we wanted for Danielle to come for a visit.” Trying not to shoot the messenger, I asked as calmly as I could what kind of problems.

Immediately after Michelle Crockett’s parental rights had been terminated in September 2006, she was appointed an appellate counsel for the purpose of filing an appeal. Nothing happened for a long while, but right around the time we made our first visit to the school to meet Danielle, the appellant requested and received an extension of time for sixty days.

Although it didn’t make sense to us—little about this case made sense to us—it had been suggested that visits be put on hold until more was known about the appeal. I couldn’t believe that Michelle Crockett was given the right to appeal, and I didn’t understand why she wanted to. She had treated Danielle worse than a yard dog when she had the child. Why would she want Danielle back?

On top of that, the foster mother where Danielle was currently living was not being very cooperative in making arrangements for a weekend visit.

The bottom line was, Garet would keep pushing for it, but she couldn’t say when we might get to have Danielle for an in-home visit. Garet had assured Bernie that she knew in her heart that Danielle belonged with us, that we were meant to have Danielle, and that she would do everything in her power to make it happen. Unfortunately, she could not assure us that this was just a legal technicality and would definitely be resolved in Danielle’s favor.

But we knew how much Garet loved Danielle and that this case was personal for her. Garet had told us that right from the start, even before we came into the picture, she’d had a good feeling that Danielle would find a family. When we were so persistent that day at GameWorks, Garet had wondered whether we were that family. When she saw how Danielle reacted to Bernie in the classroom, she knew that we were. She believed this was meant to be, that we were the ones.

I told Bernie that everything that had happened so far had led us to Danielle, and surely the next step would be to bring her home. It might take longer than we would like, we may have to overcome obstacles, but I didn’t believe that God would knock on our door and lead us down this path if we weren’t meant to be together. We could not get discouraged, and we had to have faith.

Monday morning, after Bernie went to work and Willie got on the school bus, I drove straight to Wal-Mart. For the first time in my mothering career, I steered my cart to the girls’ department—an alien world of pink, glitter, hair ribbons, and sweet, fruity smells.

Chapter 14

Hello Kitty

When Bernie wants something, he will be your worst nightmare until he gets it. Poor Garet, I’m surprised she didn’t have his number blocked on her phone. He must have called a couple of times a week to see if there was any progress toward the home visit, but her hands were tied and she felt as helpless as we did.

Dealing with the DCF was like driving your car into a brick wall, backing up, and driving into it again, over and over. It’s no wonder there are so many children waiting to be adopted and so many children who eventually age out of the foster-care system without ever finding a family. We appreciate the DCF’s diligence in making sure that children are placed in safe and loving homes and that the best matches are made, but we also understand why good and qualified people eventually give up.

We were frustrated, Garet was frustrated, and in the middle was a little girl lost in limbo. We had told her on our last visit that the next time we saw her, we would be taking her home with us to visit, and then we didn’t even show up for a couple of months.

I have read that dogs have no concept of time—that their people can be gone for ten minutes or ten days or ten weeks and it is all the same to them. Danielle probably didn’t know the difference between ten days and ten weeks. She just knew that the people who told her they would come back and take her to the beach had not kept their word. It was heartbreaking that we couldn’t even send her a message.

One thing we were required to do as part of the adoption process was make a scrapbook of photos of our family, home, animals, and interests to give to the social worker to show to the child prior to the first meeting. It was intended to introduce the child to the family before an actual face-to-face meeting. I made a scrapbook that showed several views of our house, front and back; a very handsome picture of Willie and Bernie wearing matching dress shirts on their way to church one morning; the big dog Spice and me in our backyard; the pool and the hot tub; two of our three little dogs on the stairs to the deck; the dock and the canal; our church; Willie’s school; and Willie playing on the beach.

Standard operating procedure was always a little different with Danielle, and there was no point in showing her the scrapbook before she met us. She would not have understood what she was seeing. But we brought the album with us on our first visit and left it with Garet. Maybe she had been showing it to Danielle while we were separated from her. Or maybe, given all of the brick walls we encountered during the last couple of months, Garet thought it best not to get Danielle’s hopes up.

In our eternal optimism—or stupendous naivety—we had proceeded with the plan to flip bedrooms. We didn’t want to allow the possibility to come into our heads that the adoption would never happen. We knew the call telling us that a visit had been approved could come out of the blue, and that is exactly what happened. Garet called Bernie the last week of March and told him that Danielle would have a week off the next week for spring break and that Garet was allowed to send her home with us for three days. Could we do that? Bernie was at work and told me later that he was afraid that if he asked for five minutes to get me on the phone to discuss it, they would change their minds, so he just blurted out, “Yes!” Then he waited until he got home to tell me, because he said he wanted to see my face when I got the news. It was his face—with a grin from ear to ear—that gave it away the second he walked in the door. “Did Garet call?” “Yes!” “When do we get her?” “Friday!” “Friday? Friday two days from now Friday or Friday next week Friday?” “Friday two days from now!”

It was Wednesday evening, which gave me one day to shop for groceries and a big supply of pull-up diapers.

Danielle’s room had been ready for weeks. Bernie, Willie, and I decorated it together, our idea of what a little girl’s room should look like, which was a lot of pink. I bought a bright pink Hello Kitty comforter, Hello Kitty pillows, and Hello Kitty sheets for the trundle bed she was inheriting from Willie. Hello Kitty looked so happy that I couldn’t help but smile every time I saw that funny little face. I put framed prints on the wall and a couple of small rugs on the ceramic tile floor. There were two windows—one looked out to the street in front of the house and framed the top of a palm tree; the other had a bird’s eye view of Bill and Doris’s house and pool on the corner. Currently, there was a six-foot-tall inflated pink Easter bunny holding a giant Easter egg in their front yard. I was a little worried that it might scare Danielle, so I told myself I needed to remember to keep that shade drawn. We didn’t know yet what her sleeping habits were, so I also hung some curtains to block more of the bright Florida sun.

We moved a large white cupboard from downstairs up to her room and put the (pink) dress, (pink) sandals, and (pink) hair bows I had gotten for her inside. Willie helped pile the top shelf of a small white wooden bookcase unit with at least two dozen stuffed animals—some from his own collection and others he picked out every time we were in a store. He put the bigger ones on the bed against the Hello Kitty pillows. On the bottom shelf we put children’s picture books, old favorites that Willie had long ago outgrown. “Mom, remember
Brown Bear, Brown Bear
? And
Goodnight Moon
? I can read them to Danielle when she comes!”

Bernie added the finishing touch—-a jumbo-size pink plastic Slinky on her white nightstand. I found myself walking past the room a dozen times a day just to look at it, I was so excited for her to see it.

We decided to take Willie out of school that day so he could go with us to Land O’ Lakes to pick Danielle up. It was nearly a three-hour drive from the school to our house, and she would need some company in the backseat. I sent a note with Willie to the teacher, letting her know he would not be in school the next day.

I asked Bernie for Garet’s number so I could see if there was anything we should do to prepare the house, other than what we had already done. Garet told me she had already spoken to Principal Middleton and Mr. O’Keefe, and they were so glad that the visit was finally taking place. Garet had also spoken to the foster mother to see if she had any suggestions for us in making Danielle as comfortable as possible in our home. Obviously, Danielle had never been on a sleepover before.

What Garet said dumbfounded me. The foster mother recommended that we strip the bedroom where Danielle would be sleeping of everything but the mattress—which should be on the floor—and the bedding. The foster mother said that if there was any other furniture, Danielle would climb on it; that if there were curtains on the windows, she would tear them down; and if there were pictures on the wall, she would pull them off.

I was speechless, mad, and sad at the same time. Finally, Garet said, “Diane, are you there?” I asked her how this was any better than Michelle Crockett’s home. Garet pointed out that this house was clean; that Danielle’s room wasn’t full of trash, bugs, and animal feces; and that she was in school and she was cared for. She wasn’t cared for in the same way we wanted to care for her, but she was not an easy child to place. She was not handicapped in a way that would put her in a medical foster home, but she had so many needs that she couldn’t be placed in a “regular” foster home. The only alternative would have been an institution.

I knew Garet was getting Danielle the best possible care she could, and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I thanked her again for pushing so hard to make this happen and told her we’d see her at the school tomorrow afternoon.

When Bernie came home from work, Willie was doing his homework in the kitchen, and I was sitting on Danielle’s bed with Cece, Bebe, and Inky in my lap, trying not to cry. I told him what the foster home had told Garet about the bedroom and saw a flash of anger cross his face, too. “That’s ridiculous. You made this room for her, and we’re keeping it exactly the way it is. If she takes pictures off the wall or tears the curtains down, we’ll deal with it then. What’s for dinner?”

Before we left the next morning, Willie put some of the stuffed animals and the toys we had gotten Danielle in the backseat. I had a bag packed with pull-up diapers, baby wipes, towels, and Goldfish crackers and a cooler with juice boxes and grapes. I felt like I was packing for a toddler and not an eight-year-old.

Once again, we met Garet in the main office and then went to Mr. O’Keefe’s room to get Danielle. We were all nervous about how she would react. Would she remember us? We walked into the classroom, and although she didn’t run across the room to greet us, she made brief eye contact and gave Willie a little smile. I walked over to her and asked if she wanted me to rock her. We got in the rocker together, and for the first time since we’d met, I was holding her as I would my own baby girl. I whispered, “Rock, rock, rock, Danielle,” in her ear, and very quietly she repeated, “Rah,” to me. Or maybe it was what I wanted to hear so badly that I did.

We got instructions from Garet on Danielle’s medication and some insight into her sleeping habits. We knew she was on medication—her tongue kind of hung out the side of her mouth, and she drooled, so much so that the front of her shirt was always wet. I assumed that this was from the drugs. She was on antipsychotic medication and was getting the maximum adult dosage twice a day. I wondered whether it was because she was even more hyper when she was not on drugs, or if the drugs just made caring for her easier for the foster parents. Mr. O’Keefe told us the medication made Danielle very dry-mouthed and thirsty, so she drank lots of water. Which meant she went through lots of diapers.

Garet told us the foster mother said that Danielle had terrible sleep patterns, that she slept only a couple of hours at a time at most and she became violent. Violent with whom or what? She was by herself in a stripped-down room with nothing but a mattress and sheets. We also learned that her bedroom door—kept closed when she was in there—was equipped with an alarm so that the foster parents would know if she got up to wander through the house in the middle of the night.

Garet handed us Danielle’s backpack, which the foster mother had packed with clothes. I put a fresh diaper on her, and we were ready to go. Mr. O’Keefe, Ms. Perez, and Garet were lined up in the hall, looking like parents watching their child go off to college. Smiling, waving, they tried to look brave as their eyes filled with tears. “‘Bye, Danielle, have fun! Happy Easter!” Danielle looked back briefly, then came willingly with us to the main office to sign her out and to the car, where Willie and the stuffed animals lured her into the backseat. Bernie buckled her up, and we were off. I felt as free and giddy as a teenager on a road trip with Daddy’s car and credit card.

We had no idea how Danielle would do on a long ride. Willie was a good car rider, content to read books, fiddle with his Etch-a-Sketch or work puzzles. We didn’t have a DVD player for movies in the car. I believe children need breaks from screen time, and there was plenty to see out the window. If Willie ever got really bored, I got out one of the car games books we always traveled with and opened it to a random page, and we all played together.

Danielle had gathered several of the stuffed animals into her arms and seemed happy looking out the window. I could see Bernie watching her and Willie in the rearview mirror, and I poked him in the side. “Keep your eyes on the road, Bernie!” He smiled. I smiled. It was the perfect Florida spring day, Easter was coming, and I felt as if we were part of a heaven-sent rebirth. We were so happy to have Danielle with us, just the four of us, away from everyone else.

Garet had told us Danielle loved McDonald’s French fries, so we pulled off the interstate in Venice, which is about midway home. Helping Danielle out of the backseat, I saw that she had peed right through her diaper, her jeans, the towel I had put down, and the seat itself. Willie looked embarrassed, Bernie baffled, Danielle clueless, and I was perplexed. Should I change her in the car? It was awfully public in that busy parking lot. On the other hand, it didn’t seem right to walk her though McDonald’s with soaking-wet pants. I asked Bernie to get me some shorts from her bag of clothes in the trunk. He handed me a pair that was obviously too big, which I pointed out to him impatiently. He showed me the bag. “There’s not much there, and all of what’s there is the same.” I pulled out some more shorts and a couple of tops. Everything was big, pulled in with safety pins. I guessed that they were hand-me-downs—maybe from another child who had lived in the house, but certainly not bought to fit Danielle. I was irritated, not just by the scant amount of clothes, but by the safety pins. Danielle wouldn’t even be able to tell anyone if they came apart and were sticking her. I took the shorts that looked closest to her size, tied a sweatshirt of mine around her waist, grabbed the bag of pull-ups and wipes, and we walked into McDonald’s, Bernie and William to order, Danielle and I to the rest room to change my sixty-pound baby.

Bernie chose a table inside toward the back, where he and Willie spread out the burgers and the fries. Danielle hadn’t even sat down when she started shoving fries into her mouth until she couldn’t chew, swallow, or close her mouth because the ends of fries were sticking out. Garet was right. Danielle sure loved her French fries. The three of us couldn’t help but laugh, although the people staring at us from the surrounding tables didn’t seem to get the joke. Bernie pulled fries gently out of her mouth until she had an amount she could chew and swallow, then handed the rest of them to her one at a time. She was ignoring her burger, so Willie pushed it close to her hands, picked his up, said, “Look, Danielle, this is how you do it,” and took a bite. “Mmmm. It’s really good.” He got up to get ketchup for his fries, a tactical mistake.