Broken: Part 3 of 3: A traumatised girl. Her troubled brother. Their shocking secret.
Nine-year-old Archie and his five-year-old sister, Bobbi, are taken into emergency police protective custody after an incident of domestic violence at their family home.Rosie collects the children from their out-of-hours foster carer on New Year’s Day and instantly recognises Archie from a domestic violence workshop she helped with. Rosie remembers that when asked what he enjoyed most about the course, Archie said: ‘the biscuits’.Social workers are concerned that Archie and Bobbi have been neglected. As Rosie gets to know the children, she begins to suspect that something far more disturbing lies in their past.Archie, jovial and polite, bats away Rosie’s attempts to talk to him about anything serious with witty one-liners and sophisticated distractions. Bobbi reacts violently, lashing out and throwing herself around. Rosie has never seen a child as young a Bobbi behaving so viciously, but it is Archie she is most concerned about as the weeks go by.After a worrying incident at school, Archie tearfully discloses the truth – a shocking secret that has left him and his sister traumatised. Horrified at what she learns, Rosie is determined to help the young siblings find a forever-home that will provide them with the love and care they deserve.
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Certain details in this story, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.
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First published by HarperElement 2017
FIRST EDITION
© Rosie Lewis 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers
Cover photograph (posed by model) © Images by Tracy/Alamy Stock Photo
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Rosie Lewis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780008242800
Ebook Edition © December 2017 ISBN: 9780008242855
Version: 2017-11-14
Contents
Helpless (e-short)
Trapped
A Small Boy’s Cry (e-short)
Two More Sleeps (e-short)
Betrayed
Unexpected (e-short)
Torn
Taken
Archie looked a fright the next morning; his eyes puffy, cheeks flushed. In manic tidying mode from the minute he came downstairs, he began piling up the breakfast bowls and sweeping the spoons away before any of us had even eaten. ‘Archie, love,’ I said, laughing, ‘give us a chance. I’ve only just put those there.’
He grinned and set them out again, but there was a distant quality to his smile. Physically, he was with us, but it seemed that his mind was somewhere else. Hearing about the children’s disappointment, Emily and Jamie had agreed to come with us to the splash park the previous day. Archie had been cheered by the news and seemed to enjoy charging down the slides after Jamie, but even that failed to erase the dull sadness in his eyes. I got the sense that he was struggling to contain himself as he walked around the table. He straightened the placemats and centralised the bowls with the studied caution of someone who was about ready to explode.
It was Sunday 15 February and though the children had only been living with us for just over six weeks, I felt I already had Bobbi sussed. Her favourite game was animal hospital, although as a rule of thumb, any game that incorporated bandages and plasters tickled her interest, as well as those Megan closely guarded as her own. She loved painting and colouring but refused to have anything to do with mouldable dough, which she described as ‘disgusting’. I was also getting to know some of her triggers. I could tell when she was tired – her manic spins fading to drunken, endearing lollops – and when she was upping the ante for no other reason than because she needed a hug.
Archie, though, was still a mystery. I knew the image he liked to project well enough, and conversing with him was easy, but part of him was still more or less closed off. ‘Who’s going to be there today, Rosie?’ he asked as he rearranged the cutlery so that it was perpendicular to the mats.
It wasn’t the first time he’d asked and I could hear the reluctance in his voice. My friend Naomi had called the previous night and tearfully invited us to meet her at a stately home owned by the National Trust. I had first met Naomi on an Understanding Attachment course a year earlier, soon after she had adopted a sibling group of three. Overwhelmed and exhausted by the sudden change in her life, she had opened up to me over lunch one day and told me all about her struggles to build a family – her miscarriages and failed attempts at IVF.
When she and her husband had finally decided to adopt, social workers told her that they needed to mourn the losses they’d experienced before they could progress to being assessed, and it was another two years before they were finally matched with the siblings. The couple fell in love with the children on sight but the eldest child, who had been four at the time of placement, struggled to accept the loss of his old family and the imposition of a new one.
Aiden, now five, still insisted on using wet wipes whenever Naomi touched him, a daily rejection that broke her heart, and seemed intent on doing all he could to disrupt the growing bond between his new parents and younger siblings. Naomi and her husband understood that his behaviour was rooted in fear, but sometimes it was difficult for them not to take it personally.
