The mac and cheese isn't doing her any temperature favors but it's not piping hot by the time she eats it; it's not even objectively hotter than she is. "If the librarian would help me with that, sure."

"I think that's most of what a librarian's job is! And our local library is very child-friendly, there's a nice play area and beanbags you can flop on to read. We can go tomorrow, if you like." For today she would rather keep Annie at home and get a better sense of her mobility and how well she navigates new spaces. 

"Tomorrow's good for me if it is for you. I do not have many demands on my time."

When the macaroni on her plate is gone she leaves her dishes there because she can't quite reach the counter and heads back to the bookshelf to see if Goosebumps is as good as it gets around here.

In addition to Nancy Drew and The Baby-Sitter Club, nearly the entire Animorphs series is also available, but it's on a shelf too high to reach. Evelyn also has all the Tamora Pierce books, and all the Narnia books, and some other children's fantasy. Higher shelves have adult romance and mysteries and nonfiction, though they've been carefully curated not to have anything that would be excessively inappropriate for, say, a ten-year-old. Evelyn keeps her embarrassing smutty romances in her BEDROOM. 

She'll take Tamora Pierce. For many reasons the depicted redheaded woman with a sword on the cover is lost on her. She starts with Circle of Magic.

...Well, it can't be less appropriate for a three-year-old than Watership Down. Annie is clearly a very unusual three-year-old. 

"I haven't read that one in a long time but my last foster child loved it," Evelyn says brightly. "Maybe you can tell me about how you're liking it over dinner." And she picks her own book to reread and sits down companionably next to Annie. At some point she's going to want to encourage a non-reading activity but it can wait. 

"What usually gets foster children moved on from your house?" Annie asks, flipping her way through the front matter.

"That's a very good question! There are a lot of different reasons. Sometimes children will move back to live with their parents, if their parents were just - having a hard time - and are able to look after them once they're better. Or sometimes they go to live with a relative. I don't think either of those are likely to happen for you, since the George's weren't your natural parents and I'm sure Social Services looked very hard for a relative to take you before placing you with them. Children also age out - when my son Jeremy was little, I mostly fostered teenagers, it's easier to - not accidentally make things unfair - if your own biological children and the foster children aren't the same age range. They mostly left at sixteen or seventeen to go into transitional living arrangements before getting their own places, but my foster daughter Lina - this was fifteen years ago, when Jeremy was small - came to stay with me at fourteen and lived with me until she was almost twenty."

She pauses, checks if Annie's attention is wandering. Nope. What a focused three-year-old.

"After that I mostly started doing transition placements - that's where the plan isn't necessarily for a child to stay with me long term, but since I have more experience, I'll often take in children who were - very badly hurt - and are struggling in some way, and once they're doing better then we can talk with them about what kind of forever family they want. For younger children like you, Social Services usually wants to place them long term with young couples, since - well, if you were to stay with me until you're eighteen, I would be sixty-five by then - and it might be nice for you to have a daddy as well as a mummy. But I think - because you have confusing medical things going on, and because the George's hit you and it's very normal for children to start having a lot of feelings about that kind of thing once they're away and safe - your social worker thought it would be a good idea for you to come to me first, so we can figure out better what you need to be healthy and happy, and if we find a forever family for you we can make sure they're prepared." 

"How old do you have to be to get into a transitional living arrangement?"

"Sixteen, usually, and then Social Services will help find you an apartment when you're eighteen. That's not going to be for a long time, sweetie, you don't need to worry about it yet." 

"Being three is extremely tedious and I may as well spend it planning."

I do not have many demands on my time, she said earlier, and Evelyn found it slightly odd but had been parsing it as a turn of phrase she must have picked up from an adult in her life. She's...less sure of that now. 

"You're very precocious for a three-year-old," she agrees. "I can imagine you might end up skipping a lot of grades in school and doing college early, if you wanted. ...I'm not actually sure how the Social Services would handle that, it hasn't come up before, but I think if you went to college when you were fourteen, you could live in a dorm and stuff." 

"College early sounds nice. Are there tests I could be taking?"

"Maybe! You would normally be too young to start school but you're clearly," bored stiff, "understimulated. I can talk to your social worker about having you seen by an educational psychologist, who can figure out what academic level you're at and what kind of teaching you need." 

"Thank you."

"It might not be for a while, they have long wait times for appointments." Setting accurate expectations for children is important at all times and seems maybe especially important here, most three-year-olds don't have a lot of time sense but Annie will absolutely notice if Evelyn tells her 'soon' and it ends up being two months. "In the meantime, I can try to give you lots of things to do at home - and activities in other places - so you aren't too bored. Okay?" 

"Thank you."

More friendly side-by-side reading now? They can also get out the modeling clay, if Annie wants to try that, or she could build something out of Legos (normally Duplo would be more appropriate for a child her age but Annie has good fine motor skills...didn't Evelyn read somewhere once that people blind from birth can develop extraordinarily good other senses, hmm...), or they could go play in the backyard? 

More reading sounds best to Annie. She doesn't like going out in the sun and does not have a good idea for a clay project yet.

Evelyn's instincts are that a three-year-old can't be left unsupervised in a room for more than thirty seconds - in the past she's had five-year-olds she sufficiently didn't trust alone that going to the bathroom was fraught - but Evelyn is pretty sure her instincts are just wrong about Annie. 

"I'll just be in the study around this corner. I'm doing some private work, so please don't come in, but you can call out if you need anything," she tells her, and then goes to her computer and gets a head start on log notes. 

Annie is a lovely little girl who doesn't let her disabilities get in her way. She is precocious and comes across as very self-sufficient for a child her age. I haven't observed any concerning behaviors.

In terms of disclosures, she speaks openly about having been punished physically by her former foster parents, though she doesn't seem distressed when she brings it up. She mentioned having little access to toys, and her clothing is clearly secondhand and well-worn, but in wearable condition. Her hygiene seems fine and I haven't seen any visible bruises, though I haven't yet seen her undressed. So far she has only mentioned one of her foster siblings, Marisol. She seemed open to the idea of contact but not especially attached, I think it would be worth considering if Marisol is asking after her but not otherwise. 

I'm curious about the details of her medical diagnoses, though so far her symptoms are perfectly manageable at home. She clearly has some vision, but I was very surprised that she can read. Her reading is advanced for her age. I would like to have her assessed by an educational psychologist if possible, I realize this is early for it but I think she would benefit from more stimulation and challenge, she expressed to be that being three is "tedious." If we do decide to place her in a mainstream or special school, I would appreciate having a doctor's note about the aversion to music. 

Is there anything else? It's definitely too early to be asking about the long-term plan for Annie. Her behavior may have been exemplary so far – not just relative to expectations for an abused three-year-old, but even compared to the average eight-year-old Evelyn has looked after – but it could still be the honeymoon period. 

Still, she's slightly irritated that Annie's "medical diagnoses" clearly meant she wasn't seriously considered for adoption rather than long-term fostering. She's such a sweetie, and it would definitely take a special couple to care for her, but - well, labeling her as a disabled child really isn't doing her any favors. It's something that would have scared off a lot of young couples, not just because of the current challenges but because of what the label implies about her future and potential. Which is, in Evelyn's opinion, totally inaccurate. She's always felt a bit icky about how children in the adoption pipeline are, well, marketed – but if she were writing the blurb, it would only mention the blindness as an afterthought, and would be full of adjectives like precocious, inquisitive, resilient, eager to learn...

At 5 pm she puts fish fingers in the oven and looks up a recipe for pasta-and-bean salad. 

Annie is not only trustworthy to go to the bathroom alone but also capable of finishing her second and third book without requiring anything of Evelyn.

That's so much reading! Evelyn bites back the urge to praise Annie gushingly on how it's so impressive, and tries not to make a big deal about it, but she does pleasantly ask Annie over dinner how she's liking the books and who her favorite characters were. 

"I think I might have different taste in books than you but it's nice to have things to read that aren't the Bible. I didn't tell the Georges I could read."

Nod. "That seems very understandable. What kind of books do you think you'd enjoy more?" Evelyn can bring up age-appropriateness if and only if her requests are actually problematic. Kids never like being reminded that they're too little for something. 

"Uh, ones that... are... good."