"Aww, thanks Jeremy." She's happy to hear about Ethan's or anyone else's families while they eat.

Sure! They can all (except for Miranda, who doesn't want to talk about it, and Jeremy, whose family is right here) have a "let's talk about our families" session.

Ethan's mother is a trauma surgeon at the local hospital, apparently the only woman on that particular medical team. His father is an accountant, also working at the hospital. They clearly have high academic expectations of him. He's not sure if he wants to be a doctor but there's a certain expectation of it, since he's especially strong on chem and bio. Maybe he'll be the research kind of doctor? He's heard an uncomfortable amount about hospitals and he doesn't think he has the stomach for it, and (implicitly) doing some kind of medicine - or being a scientist, but he thinks it's pretty hard to get tenure as a bio prof - at least won't mean stomaching his mother's disappointment. 

Paul's parents run a reasonably successful flower shop with a side delivery business; they live upstairs over it. His mother does some clerical work on the side. They're considering expanding into greeting cards, which his mother thinks is a Promising Business Decision because probably people who are ordering flowers delivered to someone would also like a card with a custom message written in it. His family sounds reasonably well off, and he would be the first in his family to attend university - his mother has a two-year community college diploma in interior design, his father never finished an overly-optimistic program in architecture - but they're eager to pay his tuition to whatever quality of school he can get into. 

Tyler's mother is a single parent, who works as a receptionist in a legal office. His father is apparently in New York, acting in Broadway, "though he doesn't, like, get the really cool gigs." Tyler sees him on holidays sometimes and they exchange emails. He clearly wants to follow in his dad's footsteps, and it comes across just as clearly that his mother doesn't really approve; as a compromise, he's going to do an undergraduate degree in "whatever I can get into, really, but I'm applying for theatre arts and musical arts at a lot of places." 

Humans! With backstories and plans and lives! The sensation of being part of society feels really good. She says encouraging friendly things about everyone's decisions and adds that she might want to be a scientist too someday. "But of course it's too early to commit to one plan for sure yet."

And then they can study some more! 

...It's getting kind of close to Miranda's bedtime, though. Does she want to hang out with the boys until 7:45 and then go up, or have some computer time? 

She'll hang out. She's having fun and learning math and is happy with this. (She still hasn't acquired the ability to fall asleep before 9PM or so, but that's earlier than 9:30 so she's holding out hope she can early-shift a little farther if she gives it a few more weeks.)

She has not mentioned this fact to Evelyn, who is aware that some children need less sleep than others and would consider a later bedtime if Miranda continues to wake up at a reasonable time for future school days and not seem tired. The boys downstairs keep studying, but after Evelyn's reminder they're trying to keep the volume down. 

Hello, nebulous sense that the preceding social event featured her doing something terribly wrong. You're probably a brain glitch. Shut up and let her sleep.

After the usual wait: Zzzzzz.

In the morning Jeremy is, as usual, nearly late out the door (when Evelyn isn't driving him, he takes the public bus, and the nearest stop is a fifteen-minute walk or 6-8 minute run away. He usually has to run for at least some of it.) Miranda can have a couple of hours to read her books and go on Wikipedia, and then it's time for the doctor's appointment. 

Evelyn loves her current pediatrician. It's a bit of a longer drive, he's on nearly the opposite end of the city, but she finds it very important to have a doctor who can be patient and kind with kids and put them at ease. It does also mean that his clinic runs chronically behind, meaning that Evelyn has to be careful about appointment-scheduling when she has more than one kid and has to pick one up from school at a fixed time, though in a pinch she can message the groupchat for her foster carer friendgroup and usually find someone to rescue her. The waiting room has actually-very-nice toys and children's books and some National Geographics as well as the usual fashion and gardening and interior-design magazines (WHY are interior-design magazines such a feature of waiting rooms). She tells Miranda to bring a book just in case. 

Dr Beringer is only running fifteen minutes behind today, and not all of that time is wasted, Evelyn spends it filling out the intake questionnaire with Miranda's details and Evelyn's contact info. Dr Beringer is capable of picking up on cues and quickly notices that Miranda is not a child who needs, or particularly appreciates, silly games with stethoscopes. He will instead seriously tell her anatomy and physiology facts and point to relevant wall posters while he examines her and declares her to be in perfect health. 

The dentist the next day is a more brusque; Evelyn had to settle for the clinic that reliably has same-week openings rather than filtering on provider. (If she expects a child to be difficult about it, she calls ahead and asks to schedule specifically with the one (1) dental hygienist who is reliably lovely.) Miranda is not difficult about it. Miranda's teeth are in perfect condition and both she and Evelyn receive gushing praise on her tooth care. She gets a large glittery tooth sticker. 

Evelyn writes log notes to Barb every night. A couple more study nights happen at their house, this time with vegan pizza (it's pretty terrible compared to Miranda's nonspecific expectations-not-tied-to-memories) and vegan ""nuggets"" included. Jeremy takes his final high school exams and is a ball of nerves about his results. 

And then Evelyn gets a call from Social Services.

She had put down that she didn't want to foster children in the 5-8 age bracket until the autumn term when her current foster child is in school, but how about a teenager? Teagan is thirteen, turning fourteen in August; she'll be going into ninth grade in the fall. She's been in care for eighteen months and hasn't settled, but kids always settle with Evelyn. How does that sound? 

Sheeeee would like some more information. And a pre-placement meeting. But more information first. She wants to run it by the family. 

Teagan's current carers would really like her moved ASAP. Tomorrow, ideally. They have another sibling placement with them and are struggling to cope with all three now that school is out. 

Evelyn probably knows them, it's a small fostering community in Reno. The Abbotts, Susan and David. Teagan has been with them for two and a half months. 

The girl has been in care for a year and a half. How many placements has she had? Hopefully this was unusually short... 

(Also, Evelyn does indeed know the Abbotts. And the siblings staying with them, Todd and Sammy, respectively twelve and nine. They're both shy quiet boys, and the Abbotts are very experienced with teens, and - Evelyn can think of some ways a placement could break down that don't involve Teagan being...challenging...but it's not a good sign.) 

Evelyn will be her sixth placement. 

...They really can't scrape together a pre-placement meeting by tomorrow, half the social work office is out on holiday this week. How about instead, the two families meet at a park. Evelyn's kids can meet Teagan face to face, Evelyn can ask the Abbotts some questions about Teagan's routine, and Teagan's social worker will be there. If it goes well, Teagan could come over that evening? 

(Five placements in eighteen months. That's...less than four months spent in the same place, on average. The poor girl. And she's got to be running low on options, teenagers are hard to place to begin with. Evelyn very badly wants to offer her a landing pad, and...Miranda still has to come first.) 

Evelyn can't make a decision on the spot. She wants more information - why was Teagan taken into care? What was her background before that? What exactly went wrong in her previous foster homes? And then she'll need to hang up and discuss it with her family. But she promises to call back within the hour with a decision. 

Great! 

Teagan's birth family came to the attention of Social Services in September of 2008, when they moved to Reno and 12-year-old Teagan started seventh grade at a new school. Her teachers said she was a bright girl, who was polite to her teachers and did well on in-class work, but she made no friends, never handed in any homework, repeatedly "lost" textbooks, was constantly late, often unwashed, and had a tendency to fall asleep in class. She never had a packed lunch or lunch money, and three weeks into the term a yard monitor caught her negotiating with an eighth-grade boy to kiss him in exchange for two dollars to buy something at the cafeteria. 

They don't have a lot of history before that, but it sounds like she's moved around a lot. They do know that she was being monitored by Social Services from birth, but that was over in Oregon, and - well, sometimes a family drops off the radar when they move, and communication between different state departments is still spotty even with more digitalized records. What they do know is that Teagan's mother Meg was a teen mom, the daughter of a drug addict who was herself in the care system, she spent her primary school years in a kinship placement with an aunt. Meg herself isn't known to be a drug user, but she never graduated high school, may or may not have a mild developmental delay, and has - well, 'questionable taste in men' is putting it lightly. It sounds like in recent years, Teagan was the one looking after her more than vice versa. 

Social Services tried for home support first, because while there clearly wasn't enough money and Teagan's home life was chaotic, there wasn't (yet) any suspicion of abuse. A community support worker made some home visits to their one-bedroom apartment, and noted that Meg was rarely home in the evenings and the fridge was often nearly bare, but Teagan always had an explanation – her mom worked evenings as a janitor but they'd had takeout earlier, they were about to go shopping once her mom's paycheck came in, she was behind on laundry because the building's machines were broken, etc etc etc.

Her school attendance and timeliness improved a little, and despite the fact that a gym teacher reported seeing bruises on Teagan's arms in November, with dozens of more pressing cases the matter was left alone until Christmas Eve. Which is when Teagan called the police, almost hysterical, to say that her mother's boyfriend (who had apparently been living there since early October, entirely unbeknownst to Social Services) had locked her in the bathroom and was hurting Meg. By the time the police arrived, the fight was over and Meg, now fawning over her partner, insisted that nothing had happened and Teagan must have "gotten mixed up." Which left them with insufficient grounds to press charges against the boyfriend, but - given earlier concerns - more than sufficient grounds to take Teagan into care. The initial hope was that if Meg left her partner, they could put in place some support and return Teagan home, but that...didn't happen...and Teagan said some things to her first carers that drastically increased their concerns about Meg's parenting skills and ability to provide her daughter with a safe home. (The social worker calling Evelyn does not have any further details.) 

After being taken into care, Teagan's behavior actually deteriorated. She started skipping school entirely, instead spending the day with a particular rough crowd of mostly-much-older teens. She swore at her foster carers, refused to clean her room, cut up her foster mother's favorite blouse, shoplifted, snuck out at night, got into a public fight in a mall with another girl that resulted in police being called, stole money from her carers, stole jewelry and probably sold it, was caught coming home drunk, was caught half-clothed making out in a car with a 21-year-old "boyfriend", was caught red-handed by a corner store proprietor shoplifting condoms, showed up in class high, tried to offer her foster father a blowjob in exchange for getting to stay out past 11... The list goes on. 

She's good with little kids, though. Her behavior was actually best at her first carers, who had a four-year-old; there, she had to move on not because of a placement breakdown, but because the couple had a relative in another state who was diagnosed with cancer and made the decision to move closer to support her, and Social Services thought it was best for Teagan to stay at the school she knew rather than having to cope with yet another move. (Reading between the lines, Teagan was NOT HAPPY about this.) 

Teagan does not at present have any contact with her birth mother, who did end up breaking up with her abusive partner but only to move in with a known drug dealer, and then fell off the radar again nine months ago and is almost certainly in another city now. 

...Oof. 

It wouldn't normally be a difficult decision. Teagan is a child who must feel rejected by the entire world, right now, a child who's never had a stable safe haven, and every act of teenage defiance is her making clear to the world how hurt and angry she is and how little she wants anyone's help, and who can blame her, it must seem to her like the meddling hand of Social Services came into her life far too late and in the worst possible way. Evelyn wants to give her a home. 

There is, however, Miranda to think of, and she's not actually sure if it makes it better or worse that Miranda is not at all a usual six-year-old. 

Well, the obvious way to approach it is to go ask. Jeremy isn't home, inconveniently, but she'll give him a quick call, and he almost never objects to a new foster placement. 

She finds Miranda at the computer on Wikipedia. "Hey. I need to talk to you about something." ...That probably sounds so ominous. "About maybe having a second foster child come stay with us. But it's your home too, so you get a say. Come to the kitchen?" 

"Okay." Miranda follows Evelyn into the kitchen, thinking that she would rather share a house with a velociraptor than try to stop Evelyn from showing another child the same kindness she's showing her.

...Okay. Evelyn can do this. She knows the script she would use for an actual six-year-old, and the script she would use for an actual fourteen-year-old, and Miranda is neither of those but she can improvise. 

"Her name is Teagan and she's about to turn fourteen and start high school. She had to come into foster care a year and a half ago because her mother wasn't taking good care of her - wasn't making sure she had enough to eat or help with her homework - and she was living with a partner who - wasn't very nice to her. It sounds like before that, they moved around a lot and Teagan had to go to lots of different schools, and she's had to move around a lot since then too. She's - very hurt and angry, and was behaving very badly, shouting nasty words and sneaking out at night and stealing their things, and the other foster carers she was staying with were finding it too difficult to have her living with them. ...I think she won't be mean to you, but you might have to watch her being not very nice to me." 

Evelyn lets out her breath. "If I tell the social worker I'm willing to think about taking her, we'll have a chance to go meet her tomorrow - she's living with some friends of mine right now, but they have two other boys and they don't think they can cope anymore. But I'm not going to agree to that if you think it would be too hard for you to live with a teenager who behaves badly, even if hopefully she'll start behaving better once she feels comfortable." 

How to phrase this, how to phrase this . . . "It sounds like she really deserves to catch a break. If you don't think I'd actually be in physical danger from her, and from what you've said there's no reason to think I would be, I'm not going to be what stands in the way of her getting that break."

". . . If she starts stealing my stuff or harassing me I'd really like a lock on my bedroom door so I can hide in it. But I'm willing to assume good faith starting out." Benefits of not having a smartphone or a laptop or much in the way of expensive possessions: way harder to fuck with.

Evelyn, too, looks like she's trying to figure out how to phrase something. 

"It's against the fostering regulations to put locks on the bedroom doors. I know you would be responsible with it, but it's the rule. If she harasses you, you should tell me. I have a cabinet in my room that locks and I keep my handbag in there in - situations like this one - or I carry it with me all the time."

She frowns. "...I think I have a nightstand in the basement spares heap with drawers that lock, you could keep anything particularly important in there. And of course if she takes any of your things, tell me, and I'll have a talk with her and make sure she gives it back, or replace it. But I like to give kids the benefit of the doubt at first." 

It's against the law for her to have privacy in her own bedroom. Fuck the government, honestly.

"I'm nervous about the prospect of not having anywhere I can go and be certain I won't be bothered for a while, but I'm willing to cross that bridge if we come to it, it's entirely possible that we won't." Just because someone is desperate enough for money to steal things doesn't mean they'll ignore any given other norm for no reason. "I like to think about the pessimistic scenarios so I know I have a plan, not because I think any given pessimistic scenario is likely."

Sigh. "I know. If firm boundaries and keeping her busy don't work, I can talk to Barb. She's - likely to be understanding, I think, you made a good impression." 

Evelyn pinches her lips together for a moment, clearly trying to think. "The other thing is that Teagan a teenager, and - likes to spend time with even older kids, Jeremy's age or older, so she acts more grown-up than she is. She - may bring up things that aren't very appropriate for a girl your age. If that happens, I want you to tell me, okay? It might be uncomfortable, if it feels like tattling on her, but it's the sort of thing I need to know to take good care of her."  

"I--would like to talk about that in more detail before agreeing to anything. I don't want to put myself in the position of being--an enforcer of your rules, or a spy for you--I know you mean well and I think I understand why you want that, but I'm. Concerned that that will lock my and Teagan's interactions into being more adversarial than they would be otherwise. Also I don't want to participate in the enforcement of rules on someone who didn't consent to them without thinking more deeply about the rules in question. Also I care a lot about being someone who doesn't betray things told to me in confidence and don't want to make any promises that would come into conflict with that. None of this is a flat no, to be clear, I just want to talk it through and see if we can get a solution that satisfies everyone's consciences."

Yeah in hindsight that's exactly what Miranda would say. And - it's definitely making Evelyn feel pretty uncomfortable, but she - probably shouldn't be seeing Miranda as a normal six-year-old, should she. 

"...Hmm. Let me think about what would be reasonable here. - I'll explain it all to Teagan too, obviously, it's only fair that she know where she stands. I - think that if she just wants to talk about her life and what's on her mind, and you're not uncomfortable with the conversation, that's - it's up to you and whether you want to tell me? If she's making you uncomfortable, or if she - says something that makes you think she might be in serious trouble, or even in danger - I do need to know, but - I'm okay with you trying to talk it through with her first and try to persuade her to tell me or at least get her permission, as long as you don't leave it for days or anything. If she's in trouble, I won't be angry and I won't punish her for it - though I might have to take safety precautions that feel like punishment to her, like taking away her computer access if she's using it for something inappropriate. But I'll do my best to help her, and not make her regret me having found out."

A crooked smile. "And you know me better than she will, you might be able to convince her of that."