Free Wednesday's Child by Shane Dunphy Page B

see you tomorrow morning and we’ll discuss how to proceed from here. It strikes me that you may need some more therapy to help you deal with the addiction, but that isn’t my decision to make.’
     
    ‘Oh, it’s not, eh?’
     
    ‘No. I will have a social worker accompanying me to discuss those issues with you. As I said, my role is to be here for the children.’
     
    ‘We don’t need you!’ Cordelia spat at me then with such vehemence I almost stepped back. ‘We’re doing fine. Daddy just needs to get better, that’s all. I can help him. We can fix this together, as a family.’
     
    Max smiled in a tired kind of way and stroked his daughter’s hair gently, hushing her as she disintegrated into tears again, less controlled this time.
     
    ‘There are things that are too big for anyone to do on their own, Cordelia,’ I said. ‘Your dad needs some help from people who are trained to give it to him. You’ve done your best, but you’re a child. You shouldn’t have to cope with all this on your own. You need someone to help you, to mind you. That’s what I’m here for, until your dad is in better shape.I know you love him, and I can see that he loves you, but, as you said, he’s not well right now.’
     
    Max continued to hush the crying girl. Victor stood by the wall, apparently examining the pattern on the wallpaper, blocking out the horrors that were enfolding about him. Ibar was still nowhere to be seen. I doubted that he knew what was going on – but he knew something was up. Betty led Victor back into the hallway, suggesting that he gather some things for an overnight stay, and went to look for the younger boy. I wandered back out into the yard and watched the sun begin to sink below the hills across the road from the cottage.
     
    We left them in the care of a woman named Dympna Dunleavey. She was not what I expected. I had foreseen a frumpy, spinsterish woman with blue-rinse hair. Dympna was probably thirty-two with short, dark brown hair and a pretty, friendly face. I felt at ease leaving the children with her; she seemed a warm, gentle person. Cordelia seemed, to my relief, to be fond of her, hugging her tightly as soon as we arrived. Ibar went to her for a brief cuddle and then disappeared into the house, first giving me a look that I could not read.
     
    Dympna made us coffee and when the children had gone to their respective rooms she talked a little about Max, and how he was doing.
     
    ‘I’ve been waiting for this to happen,’ she said. ‘He’s been going down now for weeks. I don’t think he was ever sober at all, to tell the truth. He was seenin the pub a week after he came back from drying out.’
     
    ‘Why didn’t anyone tell us?’ Betty asked, incredulous.
     
    ‘Sure weren’t the social workers already working with him? You couldn’t be called in when you were already there!’
     
    I winced, knowing how those words would hurt Betty.
     
    ‘Dympna, if this … er … placement … needs to be for more than one night, would you be agreeable? We will, of course, organise the full maintenance allowance for you immediately.’ Foster parents receive a small payment for each child they care for, which, while better than nothing, is really just a token. No one gets into fostering for the money.
     
    ‘Well, I can take the kids for a few weeks if it’s really necessary, but I wouldn’t really like to have them for much longer than that. I have other commitments.’
     
    ‘Of course. We appreciate your being able to help us at all.’
     
    I thought that we could get Max cleaned up within a few weeks and that we would not need a foster placement for any longer than that. Once again, I was allowing optimism to get in the way of reality. Little did I know it, but this case would test me and my personal resources in ways I could never have imagined. As I sat and drank coffee and the night slowly fell upon us, I thought that we had staved offdisaster for the McCoys. For this