A Last Kiss for Mummy: A teenage mum, a tiny infant, a desperate decision. Casey Watson
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was early the following week, I’d come to see a pattern had emerged. I wasn’t privy to what had happened before she’d come to us, obviously, but I could see Hannah’s visits really loomed in Emma’s mind.
I didn’t try to draw her out on the subject – I’d simply watch and see how things developed – but what was clear was that, like a nervous beginner anticipating their next driving lesson, Emma’s mood grew increasingly anxious and raddled as the time of the next visit came around.
That the visits were necessary was not in dispute. As Roman’s social worker, Hannah’s responsibility was towards him. Where it was Maggie’s job to oversee Emma’s personal welfare, Hannah had no such professional remit. It was her job to look out for the interests of Emma’s child, and if that meant parting him from his mother, then so be it. So I was well aware that a tough assessment was vital for the baby’s welfare – I just hated seeing how much that stressed and upset Emma, who, knowing she’d be on show and scrutinised, presumably, would become negative and fatalistic and all fingers and thumbs. It almost felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy – a bit like being so nervous about your driving test that you shake so much you can barely drive. Except the stakes were way higher than being stuck with getting the bus. It was a cycle I was determined to break.
‘Oh, Casey,’ Emma wailed as the appointed hour grew nearer, ‘can you help me find some clothes for him? I can’t find anything decent to put him in!’
‘Calm down,’ I said. ‘There’s plenty of clean babygros in the airing cupboard. Just put him in one of those. He’ll be fine.’
She wasn’t to be mollified. ‘Oh, I wish he’d been a girl. Girls are easy. You can put them in frilly stuff and make them look all pretty. Boys’ clothes are shit. He always looks a mess.’
If it weren’t for the need to give her a stern look about the swearing, I would have laughed out loud at this. It was just such a crazy thing to get in such a flap about. How things must have changed. But perhaps they hadn’t – perhaps teen mums just cared because they were teens. And given the time teenage girls often spent caring about clothes shopping, perhaps it was just an extension of that.
‘Emma, calm down,’ I said again. ‘Roman always looks beautiful. And you know, Hannah doesn’t care a bit what he’s dressed in. All that concerns her is that he’s clean and he’s healthy.’
I fished out a babygro and commanded her to put him in it. I was feeling guilty for having done too much that morning already – I’d given him his bath when he’d woken up, so she could get an extra hour’s sleep. It had been such a little thing to do, but even so I knew I shouldn’t have done it; particularly when she’d barely even noticed that I had done it – just whined about having had to get up for his night feeds and how unlucky she was to have a baby that still needed them, as if she didn’t already have no luck at all.
She was still not dressed now, in fact, and Hannah would be arriving in half an hour. So, having delivered yet another lecture, about how all babies needed night feeds at this age – not to mention for some time to come – I suggested that now Roman was attired in his babygro she get on and make herself respectable too.
‘Humph!’ she huffed, tugging the belt of her dressing gown tighter round her. ‘She can just take me as she finds me. She isn’t my social worker, is she? I’m not doing anything till I’ve had something to eat.’
I went to make her breakfast almost on autopilot, really. After all, that was what I did – I looked after children. But even as I popped the slices of bread in the toaster, and reached for the hot chocolate, it occurred to me that, actually, I shouldn’t be doing this. Emma didn’t just have to prove to Hannah that she could look after Roman, she had to prove she could do so while still taking care of herself. After all, she was right – she wasn’t one of the lucky ones, was she? If she’d been my child, I’d be there for her, helping her through the hard bit. If this had been Riley, that would have been exactly what I’d have done. Thank God it hadn’t been, but saying it had, I’d be there for her, making her breakfast, supporting her, helping her through.
But that wasn’t the case. Emma had no such support to rely on when she left me. She’d be on her own and, as such, she had to learn to survive.
I sighed heavily, as the reality of what was to come started sinking in. It was such a dilemma; I wanted to help her, but there was a clock ticking, loudly. In order to keep Roman, she had to prove she could survive without help. She was being monitored and it was my job to collude with those doing that monitoring, which meant that if things went wrong – if the decision was reached that she couldn’t be trusted to look after Roman – I would be a part of that decision-making process; a decision to part him from his mother. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so torn about a placement, or so emotionally on edge about what was the right thing to do.
I finished making the breakfast and took it in to her anyway. By now Roman had been relocated to his Moses basket – a surprise gift Mike had brought home a couple of evenings before. ‘Save him having to be up in his cot upstairs all the time for his naps,’ he’d explained. And I understood perfectly. Out of sight out of mind was the last thing that was required.
‘Come on, Emma,’ I said once she’d finished the first slice. ‘Come on, get a move on!’ She was flicking through the channels now, inertia kicking in. ‘Get upstairs, get yourself showered, and get dressed, quick smart. You might not care what Hannah thinks, but I do. You need to show her that you can set a good example to your child, and lounging about watching TV in your PJs isn’t one, in my book. Come on, take the rest of your toast up and get organised.’
She huffed again, and I was reminded that in the normal course of things she’d be in school, probably huffing about having to sit through double maths instead. ‘A good example?’ she spluttered. ‘He’s not even two months old! It’s not like he’s going to start copying me, is it? Christ!’
She stomped off then, slamming the door behind her for good measure, which made me flinch, expecting Roman to wake with a start and begin wailing, but he was obviously used to noise. He barely stirred.
Emma was still upstairs when Hannah arrived on the doorstep fifteen minutes later, looking a picture of smiling efficiency.
‘Morning, Casey,’ she said cheerfully as I ushered her over the threshold. ‘Goodness, it’s warm in here after the nip in the air out there. Had to ramp the heating up for our little man, I suppose?’
She shrugged her parka off as she went in, and cast around, looking for him.
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Not ideal for a woman at my time of life, it must be said, but needs must, eh? Cup of coffee?’
‘That would be lovely. Ah! There you are – look at you, all snug in your lovely basket!’ She plucked Roman from his bed and turned back to me in one smooth movement. ‘And where’s our little madam today?’ she asked.
It was nothing personal, but I didn’t really like the way she called Emma ‘our little madam’. It was the sort of term a mother might use affectionately for her own teenager, and, though it wasn’t for me to say, in this context it just felt slightly inappropriate – as if she was already encouraging her to play that kind of role, despite Emma being a mother herself. It also riled me that Hannah was only young too and, though she was possibly the best social worker since the invention of sliced bread, had no personal experience of being a mum herself. (I’d checked.) Which didn’t mean she couldn’t do a brilliant job for Roman – some of the best midwives out there were childless, after all – but did mean it sat uneasily with me that she should slightly patronise Emma in that way. So I lied. I just didn’t want to give her further fuel to think of Emma like that.
‘She’s upstairs sorting out the baby’s laundry, I think,’ I mumbled. ‘I’ll pop the kettle on then I’ll nip up and tell her you’re here.’
‘Excellent,’ said Hannah. ‘Now, little fellow,’ she said, turning back to Roman, ‘how are you?’
Once I’d chivvied Emma down (having first, of