The box of clothes from Del’s sister Bernie arrived the same day as Justin’s first social security payment for the kids, and just like that a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders. The next day the kids marched over to Del’s house wearing their new-to-them clothes, and Del watched over them while Justin borrowed his car and went grocery shopping. Things were going good.
Even Emily the social worker thought so when she came for her visit. She asked about Scarlett’s ear infection, and Justin flushed when he admitted he hadn’t got his car fixed yet and didn’t know when he would, but he’d borrowed his neighbor’s car that night—he made no mention of borrowing the neighbor too—and had permission to do it again when he needed.
“Your neighbor?” Emily asked, raising her brows. “I didn’t know any of them were on good terms with your family.”
“They’re not, mostly,” Justin said, finding himself unashamed to admit that. It’s not like Emily didn’t know the worst things about his family anyway, and she’d never treated him like crap because of it. She’d helped him from the start, even if it was her job to do it. Anyway, now she was sitting at his kitchen table with Scarlett in her lap, smiling down at her like she was actually pleased to see her, so Justin figured Emily wasn’t just turning up here for her paycheck. She really did care about the kids’ welfare. “But Del, he’s only new back in town too, so he’s not so, um…”
“Not so entrenched in his views?” Emily asked with a wry smile that made Justin think she really wanted to say ‘Not so much of an asshole as everyone else?’
“Yeah.” He returned her smile. “Let’s go with that.”
The kids were watching TV in the small living room. The TV was old and crappy and they liked Del’s a lot better, but of course Emily wanted to see the kids in their home conditions, not Del’s home conditions. They were eating carrot sticks and celery sticks with peanut butter. Well, Wyatt was probably eating peanut butter with his fingers, but that was okay too. Del had been teaching Justin a whole lot about quick, cheap, and easy snacks for the kids, and he hoped Emily had noticed they were eating healthy. He didn’t want to get all weird and point it out to her, but yeah, she’d probably noticed. It was her job to notice.
“You look like you’re doing a whole lot better than the first time I met you,” Emily said.
Justin grimaced. “Yeah, I was a total mess. But I think I’m getting the hang of it now.” He chewed his bottom lip for a moment. “You’ve been their social worker for a while, right?”
“About three years.”
“How bad did my mom get?” His heart skipped a beat when he asked the question and his stomach clenched.
Emily’s expression softened into something pitying. “You know what addicts are like, Justin. You always just caught them on a bad day and they’re going to do a lot better tomorrow. Your mother was…not my worst case, by far, but the neglect had gotten to the point where I was in the process of getting a court order to take the kids into care.”
Justin exhaled. “And how am I doing?”
“Better than she was,” Emily said. “The kids are clean and fed. Scarlett’s back in the middle of her healthy weight range, and Harper and Wyatt look like they’re thriving too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Wyatt carrying a toy around before.”
“That came from Del’s place,” Justin said. “Wyatt’s totally obsessed with that doll now. He takes it everywhere with him. Scarlett grabbed it off him last night and he grabbed it back and hit her on the head with it and—” He winced. “That’s probably not the sort of thing I should be telling you.”
“It sounds like pretty normal behavior for a four-year-old,” Emily said. “How did you deal with it?”
“I told him that we don’t hit,” Justin said. “And that if he hit Scarlett again, he wouldn’t get his doll back for a day.”
“Where’d you learn that?”
From Del, in a roundabout way. Last week Justin had gone to Del’s place after work to collect the kids, and found them all cooking dinner. Walking into Del’s house felt like coming home, and he barely knew the guy. It almost took his breath away how fast he was falling. They’d had tuna casserole for dinner that night—one of Del’s kid friendly recipes—and then Del had told him that instead of writing some fancy schmancy cookbook, he was thinking of writing one for people on a budget who had maybe never learned their way around a proper kitchen. After dinner he’d showed Justin a bunch of books he’d gotten from the bookstore in town, and there were even books for the kids there. Beginner books for Harper, picture books for Wyatt, and colorful board books for Scarlett.