Mummy’s Little Helper: The heartrending true story of a young girl secretly caring for her severely disabled mother. Casey Watson
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Contents
To my wonderful and supportive family
I would like to thank all of the team at HarperCollins, the lovely Andrew Lownie, and my friend and mentor, Lynne.
I love my family. I really do. They’re the best in the world in almost every respect. But sometimes they do tend to gang up on me.
‘Mum, that’s bonkers,’ my daughter Riley said, as I brandished the clutch of paint-colour cards I had collected that morning from the local DIY superstore. ‘You said it yourself. Trust me, I remember very clearly. You said, “The upstairs is just fine as it is.”’
‘Perfect,’ my husband Mike chipped in pointedly. I glared at him. ‘Honest!’ he persisted, ignoring it. ‘That’s what you said, love. That the whole house was perfect. Perfect as it was, you said. Remember?’
That was true, certainly. But I chose to pretend I hadn’t heard him. Instead I looked at my Kieron, for support. If I could rely on one person at this point, it would be my son. He wouldn’t let them browbeat me in this scurrilous fashion, surely? But I was sorely mistaken.
‘Come on, you did, Mum,’ he said, his face a picture of innocence, even as he threw me to the lions. ‘And we did do the downstairs …’
‘The whole of the downstairs,’ added Riley. ‘And in a week. Look. I still have the blisters to prove it!’
I fanned my rainbow of blues and pinks and fixed them all with a steely glare. ‘All right then,’ I said. ‘I’ll be the little red hen, then. I shall just have to do it by myself!’
Except I wouldn’t. I knew I’d talk them round eventually.
That had been a week back, and true to my prediction I had managed to persuade Mike of the logic of my plan, and with him on board the kids had caved in and helped too. It had been, I’d decided, an inspired idea. With one bedroom for us, and one earmarked for visitors, we had two bedrooms free for our fostering needs. Two bedrooms, to my mind, meant one blue and one pink. That way, I explained to Mike, we’d be always at the ready, whichever gender John Fulshaw sent us next. John Fulshaw was our fostering-agency link worker, and a dear friend. He’d trained us, and had been by our sides ever since.
‘Save time and money doing it this way in the long run,’ I’d pointed out. And I knew Mike couldn’t argue with that. We’d been fostering for four years now and had no thoughts of stopping, so being prepared for anything – and anyone – made sense. Though back at the start, when we’d taken in our first foster child, Justin, I had, I knew, gone slightly overboard. So much so that, when he left us, and our next child was a girl, it was no small task changing our boy’s room to a girl’s room. I’d gone so mad I’d football themed almost everything in it, right down to the border, the carpet, the clock and the curtains – I’d even painted footballs on the bookcase!
And, as ever, the family rallied round, just as they had this time. It seemed incredible to think we’d been in our new home for barely a month. It was the beginning of February now, and we’d only