Which is how Evelyn ends up receiving a phone call about a child who needs to be placed urgently. 

She has all three bedrooms free right now, so it's not a difficult choice, like it might be if she had one or more current foster children who could find it disruptive. What's the situation? 

     It's a very large adoptive-slash-foster family, eleven children. Not strictly from the Reno area, no, she wouldn't have encountered them before, but - well, finding places to put all of them, after the allegations of abuse and Social Services deciding to take all of the children into foster care, is a challenge.

Evelyn is listening, but she wants to make it clear that she does not have eleven bedrooms!

     ...Of course. Evelyn isn't being asked to take a large sibling group placement. Actually, they have exactly one child in mind for her. 

Go on? 

    Annie. Three and a half, and - complicated. She has a medical history and special needs; she was in hospital for most of her infancy and early childhood, after her parents died in a car crash that she somehow survived. (It's definitely been considered whether she had a traumatic brain injury as a days-old infant, that might explain her current symptoms, but - only after the fact, at the time she seemed fine aside from being an especially screamy baby.) Anyway. She's blind. Has a lot of sensory issues, there are expert consultations and discussions of an autism diagnosis, but her speech came early - very early, actually - rather than late, like would usually be expected for autism. She was able to communicate her needs - confusing as they were - quite clearly, according to the most recent documentation from the institution she was in before she went to the foster family. The one that turned out to be abusing her and her many foster and adopted siblings, yeah. They...don't really have any documentation of the nine-month period she spent there before Social Services intervened. 

Evelyn has an enormous number of questions. And concerns. None of which are reasons to not take in this poor, poor child. All of this is spectacularly upsetting, and Evelyn doesn't actually feel all that qualified to care for a young child with possibly-complex medical needs, but - Annie needs somewhere to go. 

She says yes, obviously. There isn't really time for her to redecorate the bedroom - and Annie is blind, right, it's not like she would notice - but she's emotionally as ready as she can possibly be, when the social worker's car arrives in her driveway, and Evelyn goes out to meet them. 

Annie hops out of the car. She seems really good at navigating for being a blind three-year-old, up until she trips on the curb - not like she didn't know it was there, just like she didn't raise her foot far enough - and flops on the grass. She gets up, unperturbed, and declines to take her driver's hand in walking up to Evelyn.

Oh no she is TINY and CUTE, and trying to be independent, and - Evelyn has feelings, that are possibly the 'getting attached' feelings, even though she should really know better given the reasonably-high likelihood that Annie will end up leaving in a month or five. 

Evelyn crouches down so her face is closer to Annie's. "Hi. My name is Evelyn. You're going to live with me for now. - I'm a foster parent, which means my job is to take care of kids who can't live with their parents anymore. Did anyone explain to you why you're coming to live with me?" 

(Early language development, yeah, but Evelyn is maaaaybe finding herself talking to Annie like she would to a child a few years older just because Annie is acting like a child a few years older.)

"Someone noticed the Georges were not particularly nice. You're a different foster parent and they are pretty sure you don't hit people." Her eyes don't focus on Evelyn, but she seems - aware of Evelyn, maybe just because of her voice, and is pointing her face in the right direction, at least.

"I don't! Hitting people is a bad thing to do and they shouldn't have hit you, I'm so sorry."

(Is that how being blind works? Evelyn remembers reading once that a lot of blind people have some vision, like they can see light and shadow, and also that blind people learn to have a better sense for sounds. It's still impressive just because Annie is three. It seems like Annie is impressive for a three-year-old in multiple ways.) 

She stands up most of the way. "Annie, is it okay if I give you my hand to hold so we can walk in? There's a step and I don't want you to fall." 

Annie will hold her hand. She doesn't trip on the stair but does stumble on the walk leading up to it.

Good thing Evelyn was holding her hand, then! (...She is slightly confused about the pattern of tripping versus not but she's mostly not paying much attention to it.) 

"This is my house! I would normally give you a tour but I'm, uh, not sure what would be useful since you can't see. There's an upstairs and a downstairs - we take our shoes off here, and the living room is just around this way and the kitchen is straight ahead... Your bedroom will be upstairs." She put a stairgate up but should definitely make sure to explain it to Annie. "I live here by myself, right now, so it's going to be just you and me. My son Jeremy is grown up and in college but he visits sometimes. ...Are you hungry or thirsty? We can get you a drink or a snack in the kitchen while your social worker tells me a bit more about you." 

"I'm not completely blind but a tour would be a little pointless. I would like some ice water."

Kitchen and ice water, then!

(...Annie continues to be articulate and seem overall like a much older child in her communication, and also - hasn't really given any indication of being "difficult" or "complicated"? Evelyn had been vaguely expecting random screaming and there has been NO screaming, random or not.) 

"I haven't looked after a kid with any kind of blindness before," she says, after guiding Annie to the chair with the booster seat in it and (after a quick explanation) hoisting her up. "It sounds like you can see a little bit - is it just light or dark, or more than that?"

"I am medically very confusing but if you assume I can read and can't see anything that isn't text you will not be far wrong."

She drinks most of the ice water and then puts an ice cube on her head and holds it there.

"Wow! Do you know how to read already?" Evelyn says brightly, because that's the least confusing part of that sentence to respond to.

(That...is not...how being blind works...?) (also why is she putting an ice cube on her head? The house isn't especially warm, Evelyn doesn't think -)

"Yes, I like to read."

"That's great! We have a lot of books here," Evelyn's mouth says. 

(She is confused on several levels but it's mostly not the thing that matters, right now, the thing that matters is making Annie feel comfortable and safe and at home.) 

"- Would you like more ice water? You look like you might be feeling too warm." 

"I'm always feeling too warm. It's one of my medical confusions. I can't just drink ice water literally all the time. I have been told that even water can kill you if you drink too much of it."

Evelyn is not a medical expert but that does sound like the sort of thing that could go badly. 

(What is the social worker up to, is he avoiding talking to her - he seems to be bringing in Annie’s things from the car but he’s really taking his time at it…)

“Is there anything that does help?” she asks Annie. Being too hot all the time sounds awful.

"Air conditioning, ice packs, not trying to sleep with blankets on."

“I won’t make you sleep with blankets if you’d rather not. Our air conditioning is for the whole house, I’m not sure I can make it cold just for your room, but - do you want a bag of frozen peas in a pillowcase?” Evelyn doesn’t really own ice packs.

"If you don't need the peas for anything that would be lovely."

She does not! The bag of peas can maybe be wrapped in paper towel rather than a pillowcase, since the spare linens are upstairs, and then handed to Annie to...do whatever one does with a bag of frozen peas when it's not being applied to a specific sprained joint and is just to cool down. 

"- Will you be all right here for a moment? I need to go speak with your social worker now." Annie's bags deposited, he's now at the front door and making 'come over here' gestures, which presumably means he wants to say something privately. 

"Yes, thank you." She will sip what's left of her water and put the peas on her shoulder pressed up against her neck.

The social worker is called Anthony, apparently, and looks honestly too young to be out of college. He seems very relieved to have a seat in Evelyn's living room and sip his own glass of water. 

"So?" Evelyn says. "Can I get the rundown of the rest of the complex medical needs? ....Also, um. She claims she can read. She's blind." 

    Anthony squirms, looking faintly uncomfortable. "The cause of blindness was never diagnosed. She has some sight, obviously, and there's nothing physically the matter with her eyes, it's - something going on in her brain. Not that she's faking it, obviously, but some sort of neurological problem, her vision isn't wired up right."  

Evelyn squints at him. "Like one of those what's-it-called's that people who've had a stroke get sometimes, where they can't recognize faces or name things even though they can see otherwise? Except everything except writing?" That would be incredibly weird and specific but at least it posits an explanation that sounds physically possible. 

     Shrug. "I don't have her medical chart. There's a lot of it that seems like, well, something going wrong in her brain. It's not just the blindness, either, she's - not deaf, obviously, but it's like she can't make sense of some kinds of sound? Traffic noises, that sort of thing, it's like she just doesn't parse it. And then with some sounds, she - I think the diagnosis was misophonia but it's very specific, it's just music. She can't stand it. Acts like it's agonizing torture. Which, I mean, autistic kids can be like that, right, but it's apparently still - unusually intense." He sifts through notes. "The constant overheating is - I think the consensus is that it's not a medically dangerous kind of overheating, she doesn't collapse with heatstroke or anything, it's - clearly a lot more than just 'psychological' but that's the kind of thing. More like a sensory sensitivity than a metabolic problem or something." 

...Wow the intense music misophonia is genuinely inconvenient. Evelyn winces. "Do, uh, earplugs help with the music issue?" How is she supposed to get through however long of a placement this is without ever listening to music. "- She doesn't seem autistic. She's very polite and social." Honestly, she doesn't seem three. If Social Services didn't have clear documentation of her entire childhood since birth, Evelyn would be wondering if she had some kind of growth condition and had been mis-estimated to be a toddler when really she's ten. 

     Uncomfortable shrug. The social worker would clearly like to be less put on the spot with questions. "Anyway, I know her needs sound complex, but none of her medical diagnoses are even potentially life-threatening. She's not on any medications - I understand they tried some drugs, when she was very small, but nothing seemed to help." 

That is so incredibly beside the point. If anything Evelyn feels more qualified to give a child medications at the right times than to make sure someone with Annie's needs has them accommodated well enough not to be abjectly miserable. 

Sigh. "Any more details on the family situation and the, uh, nature of the abuse? And will she have contact with any of the siblings?" 

     Another shrug. It seems to be Anthony's favorite gesture. "I don't think so. None of them are her natural siblings and she wasn't there long. My understanding is that the children were neglected - not hard to imagine when there were eleven - and they, er, for religious reasons were believers in harsh discipline. We don't have much of a sense of how it will affect her, yet, and she's lucky, many of the children were there much longer." 

Sigh. Personally, Evelyn thinks that 'lucky' is the last word you could reasonably use to describe Annie's short life to date. "I'll be careful about introducing house rules here, and explaining how we handle consequences for breaking them. ...Do you have anything on her interests? Likes and dislikes? Does she eat well?" 

    Anthony shakes his head. "I don't think the George's really believed in letting kids be picky about food. She claims to like reading - not that I have the slightest idea where she learned to read, many of the siblings are educationally behind - and I feel like her dislikes are all the obvious things." 

Mental note, Annie might well have foods she dislikes - it seems like the sort of thing that goes along with the other sensory sensitivities - and also have food insecurity trauma about it. She'll keep an eye out, and try to make sure Annie knows that things are different here. Not that she can eat candy all day or anything, but Evelyn once looked after an autistic boy who only ate light-colored foods and that was fine. 

She fairly quickly concludes that Anthony doesn't have much more to tell her. Fortunately Annie is an early talker and can express her own needs. They finish signing all the paperwork, including approvals for her to take Annie to her own pediatrician and dentist, and she ushers Anthony out and then pads back over to the kitchen to see how Annie is doing with her icepack. 

She has moved it to her lap. She's wearing as little clothing as they'd let her get away with. The ice water is all gone. "I'm sorry about the music problem," she mentions. "Earplugs don't help but if you have it very quiet on headphones that will usually work, especially if I'm in the next room."

"That makes sense. - And you don't need to apologize, it's not your fault and it really sounds much more unpleasant for you than for me."

Maybe Evelyn will have to invest in fancier earbuds. Jeremy has his Apple ones and raves about them; Evelyn's cheap earbuds (about one and a half steps up in quality from the kind they hand out for free on airplanes) are totally fine for podcasts but really not the same as her nice stereo system. Hopefully at some point they'll figure out a routine that involves Annie sometimes being out of the house. 

...And it seems like she probably heard the entire conversation, which was not Evelyn's plan but is...probably fine? She doesn't think she said anything she categorically wouldn't feel comfortable saying in front of a not quite four-year-old? 

"Anthony hasn't known you long and wasn't able to tell me very much about your likes and dislikes," she says, sitting down. "Other than the obvious ones, of course. Do you have favorite games or activities? A favorite food?" 

"Most food is fine. I like macaroni and cheese, and chicken fingers. I haven't tried a lot of games. I had play-doh one time and that was pretty good."

That is one of the most tragic sentences Evelyn has ever heard out of a child's mouth. "We have fish fingers in the freezer! I can make them for dinner tonight if you like. And you'll learn lots of new games and activities here. I suppose we'll have to explore and see what kinds of games and crafts work for you with the amount of vision you have, but I'm sure you'll find things you like. If Play-doh was fun, we have modeling clay you can bake in the oven to make it harden into a little sculpture. Does that sound like something you would enjoy trying?" 

"What would we do with the little sculpture?"

"Whatever you like! Put it in your bedroom, or give it to someone as a present, or make a toy you can play with later. My son Jeremy made a tiny flowerpot out of modeling clay once and we put a plant in it." 

"Oh, that sounds nice. I'd like to make flowerpots and stuff."

"I think maybe actual pottery clay is better for flowerpots, especially if you want to make normal sized ones and not tiny ones, modeling clay is pretty expensive and it can come out brittle. I don't have clay but my friend Anita does pottery at a studio, I could ask about bringing you along?" This child deserves to have ACTIVITIES and OUTINGS and Evelyn is very determined to make it work. "...I guess I need to ask if the studio plays music." 

"A pottery studio sounds great if, yeah, there's no music and nobody will sing or hum."

"Oh dear, does someone absentmindly humming things count? I guess I'd been hoping it took, you know, some level of musical talent before it counted. I think I don't always notice if I'm humming but please tell me if I ever do and it counts." 

"You will notice because I will scream."

"Fair enough!" Which does sound like a rather effective way to train herself to stop humming, though of course she'll try very hard to get it right without any causing Annie to experience agonizing suffering. "I'm sure we'll figure it out." 

She thinks for a moment. "And what about things you dislike? Other than the obvious ones, I mean. Are there activities you know you don't want to do here? Or foods you really can't stomach? I usually tell children who stay with me that they can choose one kind of food as their least favorite and I will never expect them to eat it. ...One kind of food isn't a hard rule, it's mostly to avoid the problem where some kids will decide they find all foods intolerable except for biscuits. And if you dislike something but only ever had it cooked one way, I think it's good to be willing to try a different way - like how when I was small I hated brussel sprouts, but it turns out most vegetables are worse boiled, and brussel sprouts fried in butter are much better." 

"I'm not picky about food really. I guess you might make something I hate but I don't know what it is yet. I'm used to research hospital food from when they were trying to figure out what-all's wrong with me, and the things the Georges made which was mostly sandwiches and beans and salad."

"Very good! I love beans but so many children don't. In fact, beans in salad is a favorite of mine." 

And she'll ask Annie some other general questions about her routines. Does she have a usual bedtime? Does she like to wash up in the morning or evening, and does she usually have help in the bath? (Evelyn would generally ask an older child if they prefer the bath or shower, but kids under four need to be supervised in the bathroom anyway and she's never met one who specifically wanted to shower.) In Evelyn's household they usually bathe in the evening, because it's relaxing before bed and also the mornings are more rushed, but Annie isn't old enough to be in school yet so their daytime is less constrained. 

"The Georges were putting me to bed at seven-thirty and getting me up at six and I don't have much of an internal clock because I can't see the sunlight. Usually they'd have Marisol wash my hair but I don't think I actually need help. It was before bedtime."

Evelyn nods. "That seems sensible, though I'm inclined not to wake you at a particular time, I think most children your age usually need a bit more sleep than that. I do need to supervise you in the bath, for safety, but it's up to you whether you would rather wash your own hair." 

Evelyn pauses. Chooses her words carefully. "Marisol is your foster sister, right? ...Anthony said there were no plans for sibling context, and - there's no pressure, it's completely up to you - but it's not all or nothing, either, if you did want to see Marisol sometimes and not the others, we can try to make that work. I'm not sure where exactly she would have been fostered, I know your siblings were mostly split up because there are so many of you." 

"Marisol was fine and if she wants to see me I don't mind but I am not attached to her."

Nod. "That's all right, then." What else should be covered in the Routine Logistics conversation? "...I haven't had a chance to look at your belongings, yet, but do you like the clothes and toys you have? I have plenty of spares too, and also a clothing allowance for you, so we can go shopping soon." It's been so long since she's gotten to dress a TINY and CUTE three-year-old, though she has to remember that Annie can't tolerate warm clothes and that rules out a lot of princess dresses. And maybe she doesn't even like princess dresses - well, probably she has no opinion on them because she can't see the design and has also presumably never meaningfully watched a Disney movie. 

"- Oh, speaking of a thought I just had, for activities. I'm not sure if you have a swimsuit, but I have a paddling pool in the backyard, and that might be a good way for you to feel cooler at least for a bit?" It's pleasant but not hot outside, definitely not the kind of scorching summer day that tiny Jeremy needed to have any kind of interest in a hose-filled paddling pool, but it's not like Annie will get hypothermia, even if her overheating thing is entirely a sensory miswiring and unrelated to her actual body temperature. 

"I don't care what I wear as long as it doesn't make me any warmer than I have to be or make me trip more than I already do, I can't see it. Cooling off in a pool in the yard sounds really nice but I don't have a swimsuit right now. I just have a stuffed rhinoceros and clothes and a couple of books."

Nod. "Well, it's just our backyard, I suppose there's no rule that you have to be in a proper swimsuit and not shorts and a T-shirt. We should unpack your things, first, and maybe there's not much point in a proper house tour but I should walk you around the places you do need to know about, bathroom and bedroom and so on, so you know how to navigate your way around." Since it seems like however Annie's blindness affects her, it does let her walk around and avoid obstacles and such. Maybe Evelyn should try to find some books at the library about different kinds of visual impairment, presumably Annie's doesn't match an existing diagnosis or that would be in her chart, she had all those tests - though they were all when she was so young, early language development or not she must not have been very well able to describe what she was experiencing... 

She frowns. "Did they ever have a stairgate at home?" Sheeeee sort of doubts it on grounds of Neglectful Parenting even if it would have been a good idea, and three-and-a-half is old enough that she would usually skip it, but Annie is blind - well, partially-sighted, that's a term right? - and Evelyn has already observed that she has a tendency to trip, even if it's not at the times she would expect - maybe it makes sense, if she has just enough visual acuity to be aware of larger obstacles like curbs, but not cracks in sidewalks? "Your bedroom and the bathroom are at the top of the stairs. I don't know if your old house had stairs. I won't use it if you can show me that you can walk around in the hallway safely and you'd rather not have it, but I want you to be safe." 

"It had stairs and a gate on them, there was one kid younger than me and he needed one. - I don't especially, I trip a lot but I can be extra careful around stairs."

"Okay. I trust you." Kids need to feel trusted, in Evelyn's experience, and the toddler-preschool age cohort in particular is a period when kids crave independence, and so she always tries to start out giving a new child the benefit of the doubt as long as it's not actually dangerous. Also she's 90% sure Annie is right and will be fine. But only 90%. "- If it's okay with you, I'd like to use the stairgate for the first night? We can take it down after we're both sure that you'll be all right." 

"I guess, if I can open it. I might wake up in the middle of the night and want to go get the bag of peas to help me get back to sleep."

Aaaaaaaaaaah that gives Evelyn a very nervous feeling! "Did you do that at home? I'm a bit worried that even if you're okay on stairs during the day, at night it's dark and you're sleepy. ...I do think the stairgate makes it safer, I can show you how to open it and you'll be able to go down the stairs on purpose, but you won't trip and take a tumble by accident. I can get it out now and we can try it?" 

"I did not do that at the Georges', because if I got out of bed at the Georges' they would hit me."

"...I'm so sorry. That should never have happened to you." Evelyn has a feeling she's going to be repeating that line kind of a lot. It feels important, to reinforce that how the George's treated Annie wasn't normal or acceptable, but she's also not going to dwell on it. "I'll go collect the stairgate from the basement. ...You can come," not look, not see, "with me if you want, though the basement is off-limits if you're not with a grownup. Or you're welcome to wait for me here. It's pretty boring, it's unfinished and I just store things there." 

"Why is it off-limits if I'm not with a grownup?"

"That's a good question! The rule is for all the children who stay here, not just you. It's because the basement isn't one of the parts of the house that I've made sure is safe for children. It has exposed insulation and electrical wiring, and there are also just a lot of things you could trip over, and there's no reason you should ever need to go down there by yourself." 

"Okay."

Evelyn will start heading basement-ward, slowly in case Annie does seem to want to come. 

No, she'll skip it. She's going to drift over toward the nearest concentration of books.

Evelyn has a lot of books! Almost an entire wall of the living room slash lounge area is wall-mounted bookshelves. The lower shelves that are within Annie's reach are the ones set up with children's books, varying from baby board books to Dr Seuss and other classic picture books to chapter books. The Baby-Sitter's Club series is at eye level; Goosebumps and Nancy Drew are just above Annie's head. 

Annie takes a Goosebumps and curls up with it on the couch.

Evelyn sees her there when she comes back up from the basement carrying the stairgate, and she smiles fondly. Aww. ...That's a surprisingly advanced book for a not even four-year-old, let alone a visually impaired one, and Evelyn wonders if Annie can really read it. She leaves her on the sofa while she goes to install the stairgate, which goes pretty quickly, she's uninstalled and reinstalled it a dozen times at this point. Once it's done, she goes down to see if Annie is ready to come up with her and get a little tour of her bedroom and bathroom. 

Sure, Annie will tuck the book under her arm and come up.

She can have the pink room, not that she'll notice its pinkness. It has a single bed, a chest of drawers, a toybox, and a bookshelf. The books are mostly ones aimed at younger children but there's space free for library books. 

The bathroom is right next to her bedroom, and spacious, with both a tub and a shower. The stairgate has a latch which is fiddly but doesn't require more strength than Annie has. 

Annie fiddles the latch open with no apparent difficulty. Hops onto the bed to test its bounce.

The mattress is reasonably soft but not the bounciest in the world, it doesn't have a boxspring underneath. There's space under the bedframe to store a box or suitcase. 

Evelyn hovers and watches but doesn't interrupt to tell Annie to be careful; if Annie does fall off the bed, she's close enough to dive in and catch her. 

Annie does not at this time fall off the bed. She lies down on it and resumes reading her book.

Awwww. So far she seems like such a sweet kid. "Are you all right here for a bit?" Evelyn asks her. "I can carry your bags up for you and then make some lunch for us." 

"Yeah, I probably won't finish the book and go down for another one before lunch."

Evelyn nods before remembering that Annie can't see it. "Sounds good. I'll be downstairs, then, call me if you need anything." 

She brings up Annie's bags first. There isn't a huge amount, but the clothes packed from her home with the George's are at least in wearable condition. 

It's a lot of hand-me-downs, but Mrs. George liked repairing clothes and Annie was by far the least likely to object to patched hand-me-downs of anyone in the house. She's got homemade-cutoff jean shorts and little T-shirts with rainbows and JESUS LOVES YOU on them and a pink church dress repaired with slightly darker pink patches.

Evelyn is still definitely planning to take Annie shopping to get new clothes, but this is much better than what some of her past placements have arrived with and it'll do fine for a few days until Annie is more settled in and a trip to Walmart will be less overwhelming for her. 

She goes downstairs and looks through the fridge and freezer for lunch ideas. ...She can do macaroni and cheese, that's fine. She keeps an ear out for the sound of Annie getting up and walking around. 

Nope, lounging and reading her book.

She goes up 45 minutes to collect Annie. "Lunch is ready. I made mac & cheese, since you said you like that as well." 

"Thank you." She has two more pages to go in the book and sees no reason, since she is not using her eyes to navigate, that she should not read them on the way down the stairs.

Evelyn is not massively a fan of that, however Annie is navigating. "Annie, can you please concentrate on where you're putting your feet, or hold my hand on the way down? I don't want you to trip." 

Yeah, Evelyn can have her hand, reasonable.

She is SMALL and CUTE and Evelyn is already attached. "That's very good. You're enjoying Goosebumps? That's a pretty difficult book for someone your age, I'm impressed." 

Annie seems to find that a mildly annoying compliment. "It's okay."

Annie does not have much of a poker face and Evelyn is paying a lot of attention. It's pretty fair on her part to find that annoying, she might have gotten it a lot. "Do you have a favorite book series? We can go to the library tomorrow and pick out things you like." 

She serves mac & cheese on a plastic children's plate. "Ice water to drink?" 

"I like Watership Down, it's one of the books I have in my bag somewhere. I don't know if it's a series. Yes please." She will blow on her mac and cheese a lot and drink plenty of ice water and make her way through the plate of pasta in a businesslike fashion.

"...Wow. I like Watership Down too but it's a very serious book." She read it to Jeremy when he was eight and it gave him nightmares even then. "I don't think it's part of a series, but we could ask the librarian for other books like it?" 

Hmmm anything served cold would definitely have its upsides for Annie. What are cold foods that kids like. She could do a pasta salad? Potato salad? 

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."

"That can mean a lot of things! I wonder if you'd like classics - books written a long time ago, they're often considered to be better written than a lot of the kids' books published now." And even the ones not specifically aimed at children are (she thinks) less likely to have age-inappropriate levels of onscreen violence and sex. 

"Yes, I think I would probably like the classics. Also I bet the library has them."

"They would! And I bet the librarian would be delighted, I think librarians tend to be the sort of person who loves classic literature and is sad it's not more popular. We can go tomorrow. - I would also like to take you shopping tomorrow for some new clothes. We can get you a swimsuit, too." 

"That seems reasonable."

Hmm what sort of selection does she have for classic children's literature. "Have you read Anne of Green Gables? Or The Secret Garden?" Evelyn also owns Little Women but she is less sure that it's appropriate even for a very precocious three-year-old. 

"I haven't! What are those about?"

"Oh, hmm. The Secret Garden is about a girl whose parents died of a disease in India, and she's sent to England to live with her wealthy uncle, who lives on an estate - sort of a mansion, but out in the countryside, not in a city - and there's a secret walled garden, and she meets her...cousin, nephew, I can't remember for sure...who's disabled and can't walk. Anne of Green Gables is about a young orphan girl - not as young as you, she's at least ten - who goes to live with a new family on a farm. I think you'd like Anne of Green Gables, Anne is very likable - the main character in The Secret Garden isn't at first, she's very rude and has to learn how to be nicer. ...Oh, that reminds me, you might like Annie as well - it's a musical but there's a book version of it - she's also an orphan, but she gets adopted by a rich businessman who wants a child." What is it with books about red-haired orphan girls anyway. "And she has the same name as you do, of course."

And of course now this is reminding her of all the books she read as a child. "Oh, and you might like Heidi, it's - also about an orphan, actually, I'm not even trying to think of books about orphans on purpose, there are just a lot of them for some reason - she lives in the Alps with her grandfather, and then ends up being hired as a servant for a wealthy girl who - also can't walk, for some reason that seems to be a theme." 

"Oh, I'd been starting to think maybe you were specifically collecting orphan books because of who is usually in your house. They all sound neat though!"

"They probably are coming to mind because other children have liked them over the years, but - no, I was mostly trying to remember what I liked best when I was little, which apparently was books about orphans– oh! Black Beauty is totally not about orphans! It's about a horse. It's - a little bit upsetting - but I don't think it's inappropriate for you to read, I just remember it made me very sad when I was six. ...The Little Princess is back to being about an orphan, it's a girl whose father is a rich businessman in India and sends her to boarding school in England, but when he dies the headmistress treats her very badly. - There's a different book called The Little Prince but it's not about an orphan, it's - I have no idea how to explain what it's about, actually, I think I mostly didn't get it when I was little. It's definitely a classic, though." 

"Do you have all these here?"

"I do! A couple of them are even the same copies from when I was little. ...Not sure if I have Black Beauty, I might not anymore, but the others yeah. Want to pick one out to read before we get you ready for bed?" 

She nods and picks out Heidi.

Evelyn clears up after dinner and then joins Annie to read more of her own book in friendly silence until 7 pm, when she starts nudging Annie bedtimeward. "You can read a little more in bed if you're quick about your bath and doing your teeth. How are you liking it - more your sort of thing?" 

"Yeah, I like this one. It makes bread and cheese sound much more exciting than I have observed them to be."

She wants the bath water tap-cold.

She can have cold bathwater. It's not like it's colder than a dip in a lake, which many three-year-olds wouldn't like but isn't dangerous or anything. Evelyn will supervise, and she'd like Annie to hold her hand for balance while climbing in, but she'll let Annie undress herself and wash her own hair unless she asks for specific help. 

"Huh! I don't remember anything specific about bread and cheese, but it's been a while. Do you like the main character?" 

Annie does not desire any specific help, she just wants to float in the cool water and take a leisurely wash. "She's not especially interesting but I like her window into an interesting kind of life."

Leisurely wash will mean less time for reading in bed before lights out, but Evelyn is certainly enjoying Annie's company. Also that's a very impressive level of sophistication for a child Annie's age, but Evelyn is going to continue to not emphasize that. 

"That makes sense. I like books like that, I think, where it feels like - I don't know, like the main character is just a vehicle for the reader to wander around the world. What do you find interesting about the kind of life she has?" 

"Well, there's the bread and cheese, right, and basically the whole thing sounds very boring and impoverished, except she's having a great time, which makes her seem kind of dull as a person but also makes her life seem really vibrant."

She is having a literary analysis conversation with a three-year-old and this is surreal but also INCREDIBLY ADORABLE. 

"Huh. That's an interesting way of putting it. I do think she has less - tendency to be the one making things happen in her life? - then some other characters. The character in Annie is definitely not dull. I think Sara Crewe in The Little Princess might be more like that, she sort of - has things happen to her rather than steering? ...I should stop dropping hints about other books and let you tell me your take on it once you've read them." 

"I don't mind that the character isn't exciting by herself, that's not the only way for a book to be good."

"Yeah, no, I agree. Heidi feels pretty different from a lot of modern kids' books, there's a plot and stuff but it's not - trying to be dramatic and suspenseful? It feels a bit like a documentary to me." She smiles at Annie. "I like talking about books with you. You're - a thoughtful reader." 

Once Annie is done bathing, she should dry off and at least put on clean underwear, though if she'd prefer not to sleep in any more clothes than that, Evelyn is fine with it, though if she gets another child in the house then Annie will definitely have to wear at least some form of clothes outside her bedroom. 

(It's actually pretty common for toddlers to go through a period of being very finicky about wearing clothes and Evelyn has, over the years, learned to pick her battles. And Annie has an actual medical reason for it.) 

Annie is willing to wear underwear to bed without a fuss. She splays out on the sheet and reads a little bit till official household bedtime.

Evelyn wants her lights out at 7:45. She asks if Annie would like a goodnight kiss or hug, but doesn't particularly expect a yes. 

Annie kind of shrugs.

"No is a fine answer. I'm not going to pressure you, I know we've barely met. Goodnight, love." She ducks out. 

But she will call her 'love'! Annie isn't complaining, just thinks that's weird.

She goes to sleep.

Evelyn would acknowledge if this were pointed out to her that this might seem weird to someone who didn't grow up on a local English dialect where cashiers at the supermarket and the owner of the local corner shop would call you 'love.' She is mostly not even consciously aware of this aspect of her vocabulary.

She doesn't have a huge amount to add to her log notes, though she updates to say that Annie's self-care skills are indeed good - very good for a child her age - and she didn't at this moment have any suspicious bruises that wouldn't be explained by being a child who trips frequently. She ate well at dinner and continues to be quite self-sufficient and a pleasure to look after. She likes classic children's literature.

(Evelyn doesn't put this in the official log notes, but she wonders if Annie knows how to write, and if so whether she would like the idea of writing stories of her own. She seems to have the imagination for it, and it might be a good way of - expanding her world a little bit, giving her more activities that aren't limited by being three and visually impaired. Maybe writing is harder with her blindness, but there's got to be an accommodation they can figure out.) 

She spends a while googling for more classic children's literature and makes a list of books she doesn't currently own but that the library might have. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, though she should ask the librarian if that's age-appropriate, she hasn't read it. Charlotte's Web. Evelyn loved that as a kid and isn't actually sure why she doesn't have it, maybe the copy from their childhood collection went to her sister instead. The Phantom Tollbooth. Peter Pan. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Google also pulls up Beverly Cleary and Judy Bloom and Roald Dahl and the Boxcar Children series, which Evelyn hadn't really thought of as "classic" children's lit per se, and she isn't sure if Annie would like them as much. 

She goes to bed at 11. And sets an alarm at 6 in case that's Annie's natural wakeup time, though unlike the George's she's not going to shake her out of bed if she isn't awake yet. 

Annie may or may not have been awake before the alarm started chirping but she is AWAKE AND SCREAMING NOW.

Aaaaah???!!!

Wait are you kidding is that music, wow - okay focus alarm OFF - and scramble up to grab her dressing gown and go check on Annie - this disability is SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE than Evelyn thought, she - okay she didn't in fact consider whether the alarm was a problem but she would super not have called it music, it's just one of those cheap digital alarm clocks that has a couple different alarm sounds and Evelyn likes the one that repeats a couple of different beeps in a pattern rather than just being "beep beep beep" on a single tone. Aaaaah. Do car alarms count as music because they have more than one 'note'? Maybe "beep beep beep" on a single tone ALSO counts as music because you could technically have a very boring song that was the same note over and over? Aaaaughhhh. 

Is Annie still screaming by the time she reaches her room? 

Nope, she's in the fetal position on the floor, catching her breath.

Well, if she's not screaming then Evelyn isn't going to barge into her room uninvited. She knocks.

"I'm really, really sorry. May I come in?" 

"Mm-hm."

Evelyn slips in and sits down on the floor, not that close to Annie. Waits a few seconds until Annie's breath seems more caught. 

"I wasn't thinking and I'm so sorry. Though if that counted as music - it was just my alarm, and it's the beepy kind not the kind that plays the radio - I think I might not be thinking of all the other things that would count. Let me know when you're feeling a bit better and maybe we should try to make a list?" 

"It's over when it's over." She sits up. "There's a lot of music in the world."

"...Yeah." Evelyn will grit her teeth and only ever listen to music on headphones, but - god, it's going to be awful if she ends up having a second child here. Things that play music: probably 100% of kids' TV shows, educational games, nearly all toys that make noise at all. "It must make it pretty hard to go places that aren't home?" Grocery stores play music. People drive around in their cars blasting the stereo. This particular part of Annie's disabilities seems like it's going to be way more restrictive on her life than the visual impairment. 

"I wouldn't put it that way because I am three and a half years old and can easily be taken places whenever convenient for others by physical force."

Wow.

"I realize that physically speaking I could pick you up and haul you to the grocery store and wheel you around in the shopping cart while the grocery store plays elevator music and you scream in agony the entire time, but I'm not going to. - I can't promise I would never, if there were an emergency, but not just as a matter of course, and I'm so sorry that your previous family thought it was - fine, to do that to you. If I have to go shopping I'll ask my grownup son Jeremy to babysit you here, he's police-checked so he can help me out with that. I just -" Sigh. "I want you to have the usual fun childhood experiences and activities, you know? And I might be able to find a playgroup or a swimming pool that doesn't play music - or get a doctor's note and convince them to switch it off while you're there - but I really can't guarantee getting you there without driving past someone playing their car stereo." 

"Yeah. I think that when I am a grownup I should probably live somewhere rural."

...Nod. 

"It doesn't necessarily have to wait until you're an adult. I mean, I obviously can't move, but - there are probably potential adoptive or foster families who live rurally. Not as many, and I would want there to be a lot of screening, to make sure it's a family who would treat you well and support your education, but - it's an option I could push for, if you decide that it's what you want." 

"They could also just ignore me. I think I would do very well being ignored as long as there was food in the fridge and I could get to the library."

This child has concerningly low standards, oof. 

"I think ideally children need more than that. And it's probably pretty inconvenient to get to a good library if you live out in the country, so I think your parents would need to be prioritizing it. I suppose you could do all right if you had an Amazon Kindle and internet connection, as long as they were willing to pay for books for you." 

"Yeah, that would work fine. I'm not sure I need the same things as normal children."

"Why do you think you don't need the same things as normal children? - I mean, I know you haven't really had the things that most children have, and you're - used to what you know - but I don't think that means it wouldn't be better for you to have a loving family and a happy childhood." 

"I am introverted, precociously mature, self-motivated, and inconvenient to have around."

"- I know it probably feels that way, but - Annie, I think you're lovely to have around. You're clever and curious and have interesting thoughts about books, and in a lot of ways you're very easy to take care of, because you're so mature and self-motivated and you can tell me what you need and what you enjoy." And she's tiny and cute but Evelyn isn't going to say that, it's not like Annie is doing it on purpose and if anything it's probably frustrating to her to look three. "Besides, even kids who are actually inconvenient to have around - and I look after a lot of kids more inconvenient than you, trust me - still deserve a home and a family, and - I'm in this job because I want them to have that." 

"I don't mean I'm effortful, if I were I wouldn't do so well if ignored. I just mean you can't have music on and can't take me practically anywhere."

"- The music is an adjustment, but mostly because I clearly keep missing things that count– speaking of that I should unplug the doorbell, it's about as music-y as the alarm was. It's not going to ruin my life to use headphones, and if anything it's good for me to read more instead of watching TV. And it's - not really inconvenient for me that I can't take you with me on errands, if Jeremy can't watch you then I'll ask one of my foster parent friends to come over. I mostly think it's inconvenient for you." 

"Isn't having to negotiate childcare logistics inconvenient for you? - I'm not being neurotic about how burdensome I am, I'm just observing that, objectively, I am not convenient."

"- Maybe a little, but - that's like saying that doing laundry for children is inconvenient, or cleaning up their messes, or driving them to school, or taking them to doctor's appointments. If I minded things like that I wouldn't have picked a job that involved looking after children. I like looking after children. It does mean I have to reorganize my life around it a bit, but - in exchange I get to have a kid around! And I think the least we can aim for is that whoever you end up living with until you're grown up, they think having a clever interesting little girl like you in their life is more than worth some inconvenience." 

"I think anyone who would be willing to take me and good at it unlike the Georges would probably also be a good home for somebody else in my place, and those are scarce. But probably there is not actually such good central allocation of foster parents that can find ones who are benignly neglectful and assign me those, I suppose."

"...Yeah, that's not so much a thing."

There's definitely the stereotype of foster parents mostly in it for the money, and probably some truth to it, but Evelyn hasn't actually met anyone like that; it's not like it's even that much money, given how much work it is. And Annie wouldn't do well in the stereotypical foster-family-in-it-for-the-money household; they're usually the ones who take as many children as possible, often preferring more independent teenagers, and getting a houseful of teenagers not to play music sounds like a losing battle. There are children's group homes, but less of them in recent years, and it's not actually cheaper for the state to have Annie in a more institutional setting.

"I do think there are parents who would be far better suited to you than to another child," she adds. "Say, someone quiet and bookish who hates noise and mess, who likes to stay at home most of the time and isn't a fan of music anyway. Maybe an older couple, who don't have the energy for a boisterous kid anymore."

Which is normally discouraged for someone Annie's age, but if they were sixty and it good health, they wouldn't be likely to die before Annie was grown up. And if they adopted her, they would have a very mature and responsible teen who could help around the house. Surely that's something that could work out? ...Evelyn is now picturing a retired English literature professor or novelist, which is definitely getting ahead of herself. 

"Or deaf people, I could live with deaf people and they wouldn't miss the music."

"You could! - I guess I don't know if your visual impairment would mean you can't learn sign language, it's a pretty confusing visual impairment, but you could at least write notes back and forth, or use signs with words on them. And there's got to be at least one deaf couple in the state who enjoy staying in and reading books and would love to adopt a little girl."

Whether she can get Social Services on board with the plan 'look for the perfect deaf couple' is another question, but it's early days, she's just trying to get a sense of the possibilities. 

"- Speaking of that, do you know how to write? I know you can read but I wasn't sure if anyone had taught you writing, or if it's harder for you with the visual impairment." 

"I do know how to write. - do they have to be in the state? I might want to live in Alaska."

"- Hee. That makes sense. I don't think it has to be in state, though it'd mean trying to coordinate with another department, Social Services is run on the state level. It would take longer, but I think it's likely to take a long time anyway to find you the perfect adoptive family or long-term foster placement." 

They've been sitting on the floor of Annie's bedroom for...kind of a while...and should probably meander down and get breakfast. Annie can stay in just her underwear if she prefers, since there aren't other children in the house right now. 

Annie actually pulls on a rainbow T-shirt but does not bother with pants before following Evelyn down.

What does Annie like for breakfast? Evelyn has bread to toast (white or brown), and cornflakes and Cheerios and granola and muesli and yogurt and fruit. She can do oatmeal or scrambled eggs but probably Annie prefers non-cooked foods when possible? 

Yogurt and fruit is good! With granola in it maybe.

That's a very reasonable breakfast! Evelyn has muesli and yogurt and coffee. Annie can have milk or juice to go with her breakfast if she wants, or just ice water. 

"I was wondering if you had ever tried writing stories?" she says as they eat. "I think you would be good at it, and it's something you can do to - have more interesting things in your life - that doesn't require going anywhere." 

"I would like some notebooks to write in. I don't know if I'd like writing stories specifically."

Nod. "Of course you can have notebooks, and write whatever you like in them. I have a stash of school notebooks, and if you want a nice bound notebook for a diary or something, I can pick something up when I next go shopping." 

She looks thoughtful. "Did you still want to make a library trip today? It's probably a good time to go, it's a school day so it won't be very busy, and we don't have to drive downtown so probably we won't encounter any car stereos. I should call the library first and make sure they don't play music or can turn it off, though." 

"Aren't libraries supposed to be quiet? I'm up for risking the trip if the library itself will be safe."

"Libraries don't want you talking, but I've - I'm the kind of person who tunes out Muzak and I'm not entirely sure the library doesn't quietly play it in the background. I'll call them. ...Uh, not an issue now unless they have hold music, but do phone ringtones do the thing for you? Should I change mine to the old-fashioned telephone sound or keep it on vibrate?" 

"Please."

Evelyn does that, and then - if Annie is okay staying put in the living room - she might go outside in the backyard to make the call, juuuuust in case the library has hold music and it's loud enough to hit Annie even not on speakerphone. (She's not sure she's ever actually had to call the library before, they have a perfectly functional website with the hours and special kids' events listed.) 

...They totally do have hold music. Is being in the backyard, with Annie on the other side of a closed sliding door and also all the way across the house, and Evelyn being not-on-speakerphone good enough? If Annie starts screaming she'll...hang up immediately and see if her earbuds work for phone calls as well as listening to podcasts, maybe. 

Annie does not scream about this.

Oh good. That's - better than it could be - Annie is trustworthy to not injure herself if left briefly in the living room, and it's not ideal fostering practice but guess what is also not ideal fostering practice, is torturing your foster child with misophonia. 

She's back a couple of minutes later, after ninety seconds of hold music and a fifteen-second conversation. "The library doesn't play music except sometimes when there's a special event, but there isn't one today. Want to go now? - you'll have to put pants on." 

"I'll put pants on." She goes upstairs and comes down in her little cutoff jean shorts.

They can head out in Evelyn's car, then. (She puts on a sweater before they leave and then blasts the air conditioning, though it's only a ten-minute drive.) 

They don't pass any cars with thumping stereos. They do pass a few houses where the people inside are playing music at moderate volume on home stereo systems, or listening to TV with a musical soundtrack. The car windows are shut and the aircon is kind of loud; it's not something that Evelyn would notice at all, if she were driving alone, but she's unusually on alert and will also definitely notice if Annie starts screaming in agony. 

Annie twitches a couple times but does not scream.

And then they're safely pulling into the library parking lot. It's not a big library - or a big parking lot - and it's currently empty aside from what's presumably the librarian's car. 

"Huh," she says as she parks. "Do you get the music thing at - not full force - if you can barely hear it? I - there was a couple times I thought I maybe heard a TV soundtrack or something, we drove past before I was sure, and I sort of saw you flinch?" 

"Yeah, if it's faint enough it only hurts a little."

"That's - better than the alternative, I guess. I know you said earplugs don't help, but does there being other noise nearby to drown it out help? Or if it depends on how much you're paying attention to it, maybe playing audiobooks in the car would help? Even the good talk radio stations usually have some music but I think audiobooks should be safe." 

"Other noise drowning it out might help, I'm not sure. Maybe I should play nature sounds really loud all the time or something. How much attention I'm paying doesn't matter at all. I was asleep when your alarm went off."

"Right. I wasn't sure how much the aircon noise was helping make it harder to hear - it definitely made it harder for me to hear. Maybe we can - experiment, at home, when it's easy to make it stop right away if you scream? You don't have to, I'm not going to push you to do something that hurts, but it might make it easier to go to places like the library - there's a bigger library on the other side of town, too, but that definitely involves going past more places and cars that play music." 

"Experimenting sounds good. Maybe if other noise drowning it out helps I can wear the headphones all the time. My ears would get so hot though."

"...Yeah, they probably don't make cooling headphones. I was sort of wondering if they make cooling blankets or something - like, the opposite of an electric blanket? I was thinking I'd look it up online." 

And they can head into the library! It's not a spectacularly impressive library, but it does have a kids' play area, and a children-and-teens section which is mostly things like Captain Underpants, Harry Potter and other kids' fantasy series, and teen romance novels, but probably has some children's lit. They can go ask the librarian if Annie wants, or just browse? 

Annie looks happy to browse. She pushes a stepstool along so she can look at higher shelves. Grabs the first Harry Potter and also looks for, yes, classics.

She can find classics! At a glance, in terms of longer chapter books the library has Black Beauty, and also has The Phantom Tollbooth and Alice in Wonderland and The Wind in the WIllows and The Wizard of Oz plus sequels. There are also a lot of classic picture books like Winnie the Pooh that are significantly below her reading level. 

She is going to skip anything that relies heavily on illustrations because she is in fact completely and utterly blind unless specifically text is in front of her face, not that she can explain this to anyone really. She will grab Black Beauty and Phantom Tollbooth and Alice in Wonderland and Wind in the Willows and Wizard of Oz and Neverending Story and Number The Stars and A Little Princess and The Book of the Dun Cow.

That looks like an excellent selection of books! They can hang around here to read them if Annie wants, but being in a public place does risk someone coming in who has a musical ringtone on their phone or something, or hums. They could also check the books out - and tell the librarian they'll be back for more soon and it would be neat to have recommendations for similar sorts of children's literature - and then head straight home? 

Annie wants to check them all out and go home.

They can do that. (Evelyn did some browsing of her own and has a political memoir and a couple of murder mysteries. Annie does not have to directly observe her lowbrow taste in trashy romance novels.) 

It's still pretty early for lunch by the time they get back. Evelyn shows Annie the cupboard where the school supplies are, including notebooks and pens and pencils and erasers. "Let me know if you have more specific requests." 

"I think this is good." She grabs pens and a few spiral notebooks and goes over to the kitchen table to do some writing.

If Evelyn looks over her shoulder she will see that Annie is not writing in English, but in some sort of made-up alphabet.

That's clever and not incredibly uncommon in a certain kind of kid (the creative introverted bookish kind) though three is still surprising. Evelyn doesn't comment about it, and doesn't try to look over Annie's shoulder, Annie can decide what she wants to show her. 

She makes potato salad with corn and peas and chopped boiled eggs in a mayo sauce for lunch. 

"This is tasty!" Annie reports.

"Oh good! I'm a fan of potato salad, and it's good served cold. I might try a cold tuna pasta salad tomorrow?" 

"I bet that will be good too."

More reading in the afternoon? Another activity? Splashing in the wading pool outside? Evelyn still needs to get Annie a swimsuit but she is, at this point, inclined to measure Annie and leave her with a babysitter to go shopping on her behalf, Annie probably doesn't care much what color her clothes are and Walmart definitely plays elevator music in the background.  

(Evelyn is also going to call the pottery studio to ask about background music and whether they would be willing to have an unusually precocious three-year-old - with some disabilities, but they don't affect her that much except for her intense misophonia with music - work there. The person she spoke to needs to talk to the studio owner and manager before she can get back with an answer.) 

Maybe Annie can be half in half out of the pool and have the library book safely away from the water, so as to cool off while also reading.

...Evelyn would not normally allow books near water period, let alone with a three-year-old, but she is TRUSTING Annie to be very very careful. (Also it's not like it's a huge deal if she has to replace a paperback library book, it can't be more than $20.)

She will hang out in the backyard in a deck chair (and a sweater, it's not spectacularly warm out) and read her murder mystery. When Annie seems to be at a good pausing point in her reading, she gets them both lemonade and asks Annie how she's liking her new book. Which one did she pick to read first? 

Black Beauty, which she likes very much. Ginger is a fun character.

Evelyn will try to gentle elicit a few more book opinions and then they can go back to friendly reading, until 4:30 pm at which point they should head in (Evelyn is getting pretty cold by now) and pick something to make for dinner. Annie can't technically have a "look" in the chest freezer for inspiration but she can probably read some labels, and Evelyn can tell her what the unlabeled food options are? 

Annie is quite willing to poke things, too, and finds frozen pierogies. "What are pierogies?"

"Ooh, good idea! I forgot I had those." A previous child liked them but since then they just haven't been in Evelyn's mental rotation. "They're a sort of dumpling that people in Poland eat, but now you can get them here too. These ones are stuffed with a sort of creamy cheese filling with potato and onion. You can boil them or fry them. I usually boil them because you can get away with doing it from frozen." 

"They sound tasty!"

Then pierogis for dinner it is! Evelyn makes a coleslaw to go with them. After that there's a bit more time for reading, and then upstairs for bath and teethbrushing and (if Annie manages to take less than 20 minutes in the bathtub) a few more minutes of reading before bed. 

Annie likes being in the cool water and will have plenty of time to read tomorrow.

Then Annie can have a nice long bath, and by the time she's dried off and in underwear, it's pretty much time for lights out. Evelyn will offer a goodnight kiss again in the most lowkey way she can manage. (She's definitely expecting a no but she still remembers the time a child – who had never said yes to a goodnight hug or kiss, and Evelyn assumed the offer was unwelcome – asked her, plaintively, why she didn't like him anymore, and then it took several minutes to unravel that it was because she had stopped offering.) 

Once Annie is in bed, she makes herself tea and types up some log notes, mainly focusing on Annie's music-triggering misophonia and her discoveries about how extensive it is. She mentions Annie's offhand comment on the George's ("I wouldn't put it that way because I am three and a half years old and can easily be taken places whenever convenient for others by physical force") which in context definitely comes across as some level of abusive, even though anyone who's ever looked after a three-year-old has probably at one point or another resorted to scooping them up and taking them somewhere against their vehement protests. She mentions Annie's enjoyment of classic children's literature, and their conversation about Annie's future and how she might like to live somewhere rural and/or with deaf parents, if a potential long-term foster family or even adoptive family came up meeting those criteria. 

She spends a while looking for e-readers that come with waterproof cases, but the only one she can find with a made-to-fit waterproof case is the Kindle, which is out of her price range to buy for a specific child.  

...She sends some emails, to her police-checked neighbor and some foster parent friends, putting out feelers about childcare. The longer-term issue here is that Evelyn is going to be very picky about additional placements while Annie is here, but she can't actually cover her day to day expenses if she's only being paid for a single placement. The obvious solution, in her mind, is to talk up how Annie is lovely company as long as her (admittedly somewhat complex) needs are met, and arrange to cover some mornings and afternoons so she can give some foster trainings, which her agency is pretty much always asking her for. 

- oh, that's an idea. Miss Dolores Enderbridge (very emphatic about the 'Miss', despite being eighty-seven years old, because she was NEVER MARRIED) lives two blocks down and used to teach English at an exclusive girls' boarding school. She loves children, and used to volunteer at after-school reading programs even in her retirement, but though she's ablebodied enough at home, she can no longer drive and doesn't get out much anymore. Evelyn has never heard music on at her place and isn't sure she even owns a stereo; she certainly doesn't have a television. What she does have is one of the most impressive home libraries that Evelyn has ever seen, packed with obscure literature - heavy on children's literature, given her teaching background - from the first half of the 20th century or older. She's very proud of how she's held onto copies of hundreds of books that aren't in print anymore. She's probably even police-checked, given that she used to volunteer in schools. 

Evelyn can't send her an email - she doesn't have a computer - or even give her a spur-of-the-moment phone call, Dolores is notorious for never answering her landline unless she's expecting a call (because it's "always salespeople, what's the world coming to"). Also she had really better run it by Annie's social worker first, but Anthony seems like the laid-back, uninvolved type and she expects he'll sign off on anything that checks the boxes and doesn't cost his department any money. 

In the morning she runs it by Annie over breakfast. "I know a lady called Miss Enderbridge who lives a few streets down. She's retired now, but she used to teach literature classes to little girls and she has practically a whole library in her house, and she's read all of them. I was wondering if you might want to go over and visit sometimes? If you get along, she would probably love to have you over for a morning or afternoon sometimes, and then I could go shopping and do errands without it being any inconvenience at all." 

"Oh, that sounds like a very good solution."

Smile. "I would need to check with your social worker before I can leave you there by yourself - though I shouldn't think there'll be a problem, she used to run a little after-school reading program at the primary school so she must be police-checked, which is what Social Service would need to know. We could walk over now and say hi if you want, though?" Pause. "- Or we could bake her something first, if that sounds fun? I always try to bring her something when I visit." 

"I don't know very much about how to bake but that sounds nice!"

"I can show you what to do! Why don't we do date squares, I know Dolores - that's her first name - loves those. Maybe you can help bring me things from the cupboard, since you're so good at reading labels, and do some of the mixing? And we need to cook the dates and sugar on the stove and stir the whole time, I trust you to do that if you feel comfortable with it?" 

"I think I can do that. Though possibly not if I will have to climb on anything taller than a chair to get ingredients."

"You won't! Most of the ingredients I need are in the bottom cupboard, I'll get the ones that are up high. And I'll go bring the stepstool up from the basement, it's safer for standing on than a chair." 

The date square recipe - Evelyn has it typed up and printed out in a binder of favorite recipes, most of which she's modified over the years - wants pastry flour and rolled oats and brown sugar for the crust, all of which are on one of the lowest two shelves of the pantry cabinets beside the fridge and reachable by Annie without needing the stepstool. It also wants butter, which is in the fridge door, and salt and baking soda, which are in the upper cabinet beside the stove, and which Evelyn gets out. She does the measuring herself - the labels on the plastic measuring cups are long worn away - and then sets Annie up on the stepstool with a big mixing spoon and tells her to blend the dry ingredients together with the softened butter in a big mixing bowl until it's crumbly with no lumps - or until Evelyn tells her it looks good, since it might be hard to gauge the remaining lumpiness just by feel. 

Annie fetches ingredients and when they are all fetched she can stand on the stepstool and stir.

After it's stirred, they can butter a pan and then scoop half of the crumb mix into it and press it down evenly to make a base crust. Evelyn leaves Annie at this task - it seems pretty doable by feel - while she digs out the bag of pitted dates (it's from the bulk section of Whole Foods and not labeled) and starts a saucepan simmering with water and sugar. Once it's hot she adds the dates, flicks the oven on to preheat so it'll be ready for them once the filling is poured, and helps Annie relocate the stepstool over to the stove, where she can in front of the saucepan with a heatproof silicone spatula and stir it to keep the mix from burning. Evelyn supervises her closely, of course, but it's good for kids to participate. 

Honestly it kind of seems like she could have made these herself if she'd been able to fetch the stepstool on her own.

She's very helpful! It's not safe for her to be using the stove by herself at her age, but Evelyn is happy to keep the stepstool in the kitchen and they can learn more recipes together. 

Evelyn does the actual pouring of the filling onto the base - the saucepan is heavy for Annie as well as hot - and then they can both scoop up handfuls of crust mix and sprinkle it around on top, by which time the oven is ready. It'll want to bake for 25 minutes and cool for another half-hour or so, and then they can cut it up into squares and put half in a tin to bring over for Miss Enderbridge. In the meantime, more reading? 

Sounds good to her.

Evelyn sets the built-in oven timer without thinking, and then remembers that the alarm tone it places is a tune and hurriedly cancels it, and sets the built-in microwave timer instead because 'a single long beep' really shouldn't count as music. 

She'll join Annie for some friendly co-reading while she waits for the timer, and again after the timer goes and she takes the pan out to cool. She's certainly catching up on her reading list at an unprecedented rate, though there are enough books on her 'to read maybe someday' list that she's not worried about running out anytime very soon. 

Once the date slab is sliced into date squares and transferred half to a Tupperware for their house and half to a nice tin from Evelyn's stash (she keeps the tins for fancy chocolate or biscuit assortments, which are a pretty common gift concept), they can don shoes (and more clothes, for Annie) and walk over, if Annie is up for that. 

She is!

It's a nice day outside, sunny but breezy and not too hot. Evelyn swings her handbag over her shoulder and holds the still-slightly-warm tin of date squares in one arm while gripping Annie's hand with the other; it's not a long walk, but there's a lot of uneven sidewalk that presents a tripping hazard. 

...She manages to bite her tongue before she starts cheerfully humming but it's a close thing. Maybe she will chatter about the neighborhood just to keep her mouth busy. 

Annie has no strong opinion on this behavior. She kind of objects to the handholding, it's already hot enough, but doesn't struggle.

If she objects out loud then Evelyn will let her walk without handholding and go even more slowly, and potentially resume handholding if she does in fact trip. 

Nah, she does in fact trip a lot and it's a reasonable precaution. Look, there she goes, saved by Evelyn's momming.

Then they'll reach Miss Enderbridge's house without incident. 

It's one half of a semi-detached unit, with a smaller footprint than Evelyn's house and no garage. It's not as well maintained as her place - the siding is dingy and sunbleached, the roof missing shingles, not that this will presumably be apparent to Annie. The small porch is immaculate, though, with a rocking chair tucked under the overhanging roof. There are planters of flowers on either side of the narrow cobbled walkway up to her door. 

Evelyn leads Annie up the walkway and the steps of the porch - lots of tripping hazards here, the cobbles are uneven and one of the porch steps is at a slant - and knocks using the old-fashioned brass knocker. Dolores does not believe in doorbells and never had hers connected. 

"Coming!" a creaky voice calls, muffled through the door, and there are brisk footsteps in the hall. Thirty seconds later, a woman opens the door. 

Miss Dolores Enderbridge - not that this will be apparent to Annie - is slender and straight-backed with perfect posture, not at all stooped with age despite her deeply wrinkled face and snow-white puff of hair. She's wearing glasses on a chain, a high-necked long-sleeved silk blouse, and a calf-length dark skirt. 

"Evelyn! Lovely of you to visit! And you've got a new little girl with you, I see? Please do come in." 

Evelyn smiles at her, helping Annie step over the slightly raised lip of the doorway. "We come bearing gifts! Well, date squares, but they're fresh this morning. And this is Annie. She's - actually, I'm going to let Annie introduce herself." 

"You just told her my name was Annie, what did you have in mind for me to do myself?"

"- I mean, you don't have to, but I'm sure Miss Enderbridge would like to hear a bit about you and what sorts of things you enjoy." 

"I like to read. I am mostly blind but I can read. Also I experience agonizing pain whenever I am near music so I'm not very good to have along on errands and Evelyn needs to be able to leave me places sometimes."

"Oh dear! That sounds even more inconvenient than rheumatism. You needn't worry, I don't have music around here. Never much liked it." A slightly conspiratorial smile. "It's a distraction from reading books, is all it is. Did Evelyn tell you how many books I own?" 

Evelyn chuckles. "'Lots', I said. I don't have a copy of the Miss Enderbridge Catalogue." 

Miss Enderbridge smiles. "Three thousand, two hundred and seventy-two. Though some of the old textbooks are boxed up in the attic, poor things, nobody wants an out-of-date chemistry primer. Novels, though, those never go out of date." Miss Enderbridge smiles slyly at Annie. "I might even consider showing you around, dear. I take bribes in baked goods." 

"We made you date squares."

"Delightful! I'll put on some tea and then we can have a nice little wander." 

"- A cold drink for Annie would be better," Evelyn says quickly. "She - gets hot very easily. It's a medical condition." 

"Oh, well, we really must have tea with date squares but I supposed iced tea wouldn't be too improper." She squints at Annie over her glasses. "You're a funny little one, aren't you. Too hot to drink tea, can't stand music, and you're blind but you can read?" She doesn't seem to expect an answer, just leads them out of the tiny shoe-room and down the very narrow hallway to the parlor and kitchen. 

It turns out that the reason the hallway is so narrow is that both walls are lined with bookshelves the whole way along. In fact, just about every wall in Miss Enderbridge's house has been enbookshelved, with the exception of the one where the stove and sink are. Most of the books look very old, but well taken care of. There are a truly unreasonable number of Penguin Classics dating back to the 1950s and earlier. 

"The children's books are upstairs," Miss Enderbridge tells Annie in a stage whisper, "but I don't mind if you have a poke around. Just don't let your stuffy foster mum catch you reading anything naughty." 

Evelyn HEARD THAT but she doesn't say anything, just brings the tin of date squares to the small mahogany dining table in the parlor while Miss Enderbridge gets out some nice bone china plates from the glass-fronted cabinet. 

"How am I supposed to know if they're naughty before I read them to check?"

"Well, dear, if there's not a picture of a scandalously-dressed lady on the front, it can't be too bad." Miss Enderbridge winks. "Don't worry, I'm only teasing. I don't keep the saucy books where just anyone might snatch them."

She marches over to the kitchen - it really is a marching sort of walk - and fills a black steel kettle with water at the tap before putting it on the stove. (Miss Enderbridge does not believe in electric kettles.) 

Evelyn's eternal question is whether Miss Enderbridge was always like this, including with her girls at the exclusive upper-crust boarding school where she taught for most of her life, or if she just spent long enough having to be prim and proper that she accumulated an enormous backlog of...well, this.

As usual, she doesn't say anything, just sits down in one of the hard-backed polished wood chairs and watches Annie with a smile. 

Annie is browsing titles.

She's currently perusing the 1920s Penguin Classics section, where offerings will include:

- The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

- The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

- Ulysses by James Joyce

- Cane by Jean Toomer

- The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

- The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

- Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

- The Trial by Franz Kafka

- The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes

- All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

- Passing by Nella Larsen

(There are, in Miss Enderbridge's head alone, gaps where Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence and Cheri by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette would go, if they didn't qualify as naughty books even by Miss Enderbridge's standards.) 

Ooooh.

She pulls the Kafka.

Evelyn is not herself particularly a literature person and does not exactly have fond memories of Kafka. (Jeremy had to write an essay about Symbolism(TM) in Kafka's The Metamorphosis for 11th grade English and complained bitterly about it for weeks.) 

She frowns at Miss Enderbridge. "Are you sure that book is appropriate? She's three." 

"She's a wise old soul trapped in a little body, is what she is." Miss Enderbridge cups a hand around her mouth. "Annie, dear, that book has a nasty magistrate in it. And you should skip some pages!" She names them, voice still raised, then whispers to Evelyn, "someone gets flogged and someone else gets seduced. It's not too bad, really."

The kettle boils. Miss Enderbridge measures some tea leaves into the teapot and fills it. 

The thing is, this probably will be a very good influence for Annie overall. Evelyn bites her tongue. 

Annie repeats back the page numbers dutifully. She likes Miss Enderbridge a lot. And also Kafka, apparently.

Miss Enderbridge makes a cup of "iced" tea by pouring some steeped hot tea into a cup and adding half a dozen ice cubes and some lemon juice. She sets it on the table on a crocheted placemat, then gets out bone-china cups and saucers and pours regular tea for herself and Evelyn. 

"I own nearly everything Kafka wrote!" she tells Annie. "Even some incomplete works. I'll take bribes in little book reports once we're out of date squares. Come along, dear, have some iced tea with us." She gives Evelyn a look over her glasses. "I don't mind if you read at the table." 

Annie will sit at the table with her date square and her iced tea and her book! "Are they all the same translator? I don't know how much that's making a difference."

"I would have to look it up in the covers! I know that one was translated by a Scottish couple, the Muirs, and they did some of the others, but maybe not all. There were quite a lot." 

Reading at the table together and occasionally commenting aloud on one's book is a very civilized way to spend a morning together, in Miss Enderbridge's opinion! Miss Enderbridge gets out her own book. She's rereading The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, from the 1940s block of Penguin Classics. 

....Okay, Evelyn is going to feel like some kind of boor if she sits here on her phone. She goes to the shelf and picks out an Agatha Christie, which feels like a safe bet. 

Giggle.

Reading!

Miss Enderbridge occasionally giggles to herself over her book. She delicately and politely eats her way through five date squares, washing down each one with a fresh cup of tea. (She reboils the kettle twice; it's a little teapot, spread between three people.) 

Evelyn couldn't eat that many baked goods without regretting it, or at least without the bathroom scale making her regret it later. She's never sure if Miss Enderbridge is so thin because she secretly does yoga all day and has a metabolism like a furnace, or because she doesn't actually eat much when no one is bringing her food. Having more reason to visit is probably a good thing. 

She thinks a two-hour visit is reasonable, and after that they should make their way home, though she checks first with Miss Enderbridge if her police check is still valid, which Miss Enderbridge confirms it is, it lasts five years and she's only been retired for three. She promises to ask Annie's social worker about having Annie over here sometimes. It seems very good for her to spend some time with a fellow book-lover. (Not that Evelyn thinks of herself as disliking books, but she's definitely feeling outclassed here.) 

Miss Enderbridge points out that she rightly owes Annie another four books, for the date squares. Does Annie want to pick some out? If she liked Penguin Classics and wants to branch out to some other authors, she can scope out the rows from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s as well. Or Miss Enderbridge could just recommend her some more Kafka. 

She waggles her finger, teasingly. "Though they'd better come back here in perfect condition! No dog-earing my books, they're precious. Take a bookmark if you need one." 

"I wouldn't dog-ear your books! I might drop them, I'm very clumsy..."

"Oh dear. Why don't I find you a little book bag, to keep them safe and cozy? I'm sure I have one around here somewhere..." 

She does. It looks handmade; it has a velvet-lined interior with sleeves to hold half a dozen paperback-sized books, and an exterior embroidered with seed beads in the pattern of an ocean wave. The shoulder strap is way too long for Annie, but has a buckle to adjust it; shortened as far as it goes, the bookpouch still hangs down against her thigh. 

Annie can't appreciate its handmade beauty, though she can pet the beads and the velvet while she's bagging the books.

It's so soft and pettable inside! It will keep her books so cozy, once she selects them. (Miss Enderbridge does not seem to be in any hurry whatsoever or inclined to rush Annie in picking out books. It's important to get it right!) 

She wants Pride and Prejudice, and A Christmas Carol, and the Kafka she isn't finished with yet, and Beowulf, and Around the World in Eighty Days.

Excellent picks! 

Is Pride and Prejudice really appropriate for a three-year-old it was actually a good observation Miss Enderbridge made, one that Evelyn somehow hadn't brought to the forefront despite noticing that Annie was precocious in all sorts of ways. She's still hard to figure out, but - it's not wrong, that in some ways, that Annie feels a bit like an adult - a very confused and inexperienced adult with a limited and not entirely positive set of life experience, of course - and Evelyn doesn't actually expect her to be traumatized by Pride and Prejudice. It's not exactly an offensive book. 

Evelyn does not object to the book selection, and waits patiently while Miss Enderbridge pats the books and tenderly puts them away in their sleeves in the book bag. She's pretty sure Miss Enderbridge is putting on somewhat of an act to amuse Annie, but maybe not that much, she really is attached to her book collection. 

And then they can head out! It's nearly time to get started on lunch. 

"So?" she asks Annie as they walk down the street, Annie's hand in hers. "Think you'd enjoy spending some time there sometimes?" 

"Yeah, I really like her!"

"I hoped you would. And she likes you, I can tell. She doesn't really get enough company, I think, and definitely not enough from people who like books as much as she does." It's pretty hard to like books as much as Miss Enderbridge but Annie might just manage it, if only for lack of other things to do with her life at age three. "What do you think about tuna pasta salad for lunch? It's a cold dish." 

"That sounds good. Though I am not very hungry after the cookies."

"Yeah, me neither. It can be a late lunch once we get hungry again, but we do need to have something with more balanced nutrition. Maybe we can bring Miss Enderbridge a casserole next time we visit. I think she might not be eating enough when she's living alone." 

"Oh no, does she have a hard time cooking?"

"Maybe, though she seems to get around all right in the kitchen. I think she might have trouble with groceries, since she can't drive anymore - this isn't a good neighborhood to live in without a car, it's a bit of a walk to the nearest store. And it's not always very fun to cook just for one person, when you live alone. Maybe she ends up being in the middle of a good book and forgets it's dinnertime, with no one to remind her." 

"Then we should make her casseroles. And maybe ask her for her grocery list."

"I think that would be a lovely thing to do for her. People do try to help her out, but - well, it's easy to lose track, when she never asks you for anything. I think she was probably raised to think that it's rude to call your neighbor and ask them to pick up some groceries for you." 

"Wow. I'm glad I don't think that's rude. It would not work out well for me."

Evelyn smiles at her. "I think it works out badly for most people, really, not just you. Especially kids. You're not the only kid who needs things that aren't what other kids need, or what adults think they should need, and we can't read your mind." 

"Yes, but also, I am not expecting to spontaneously recover from all of my various ailments when I turn eighteen."

"No, I doubt it - though it's not impossible you might grow out of some things. I do hope it'll be - easier, once you have your own space and don't have to ask a grownup you don't even know very well yet for all the things you need. I know you don't like feeling inconvenient, even though I really don't mind." 

"What things do you think I'll grow out of?"

"I don't know specifically, but some of the things might get less intense? Kids tend to be more sensitive to a lot of things - how food tastes, whether clothes are itchy, being hot or cold. Maybe when you're older, the same things will still bother you but a bit less, and you'll be able to figure out all the best ways to get around it so it's not too much inconvenience for you." 

"That does not seem very likely to me but I suppose it might not seem likely even in a case where it was."

"Yeah. I think it can be hard to imagine things being different when you've only ever known them one way. And I don't know that it's the kind of thing you would grow out of, I've never met another kid with the same things." 

And they're home! It's been a while since the iced tea, does Annie want some ice water (more ice than water, to encourage her to drink it over longer) while Evelyn puts salad together for lunch later? 

Ice water basically always goes over well with Annie. Ice water and Kafka.

Evelyn is absolutely going to tease Jeremy about how a three-year-old can read Kafka so how can English class have possibly been that awful.

She makes a tuna pasta salad with cucumber rounds and capers and cherry tomato halves, and puts it in the fridge to chill until they're actually hungry, and then...realizes that she's kind of tired of reading, and definitely reading the kind of material where it's not inappropriate and also agonizingly embarrassing for Annie to see the obviously-a-bodice-ripper-romance cover art. 

She checks on Annie. "I'm going to go, er, watch something on the computer with headphones." A cheesy soap opera. This is apparently what she needs right now to unwind. "You definitely shouldn't hear music if there is any, if you're in the lounge, but if you do I'm sure I'll hear that and I'll stop right away. Otherwise I'll be done in about an hour and we can eat, okay?" 

"Okay!"

Soap opera here we coooooome! (Volume on low even though the headphones should make it not a problem.) Evelyn feels slightly like she's being a bad foster carer, but Annie is fine and probably doesn't even like Evelyn always hovering. 

At 1:00 pm she emerges and they can have cold tuna salad, if Annie's appetite is back. 

Yup, Annie is ready to eat a little pile of tuna salad.

And once they've eaten, Evelyn will clear her throat and bring up that she really thinks Annie ought to do one (1) activity this afternoon that isn't reading.

"Reading is lovely and I'm glad you like it so much - it's like pulling teeth, getting some kids to read anything! - but I also think it's important for children to do things with their hands and things with their bodies. Cooking is a good activity and we did that already, but - how would you feel about trying some crafts? Modeling clay, if you like, or I can show you all the craft supplies I have and you can tell me which ones you think you could do given your visual impairment?" 

"I could do some modeling clay, okay."

Then after lunch Evelyn will dig out the big plastic storage box of Fimo modeling clay blocks in different colors. She can help keep track of the colors for Annie, though conveniently most of them are still wrapped in their original labeled packaging. 

"I'm going to make something for Miss Enderbridge, I think," she says cheerfully. "Maybe a nice little figurine of a girl on a bench with some books. ...That might be ambitious, but we'll see." 

"Does she have a place to display things like that?" Annie asks, taking some labeled blue and some labeled purple and starting to roll them out flat.

"She has some knickknacks in the kitchen. I suppose you wouldn't have been able to see it. There were some cross-stitched samplers on the walls and some ceramic figurines on the windowsill by the sink. And I know when she was still teaching, she used to have the art that the schoolchildren did on her fridge all the time, but I think she packed it away rather than let it get all faded or dirty." 

Evelyn rolls out some green and uses the palette knife to cut the edges into a square, and gets out one of the other modeling-clay tools, which has a bent end with tines like a fork for making patterns. "- There are tools for imprinting things on the modeling clay," she adds. "The one I'm using makes a pattern like grass, so I'm going to use that before I make the bench to sit on the base." 

"Are any of them sharp?" Annie asks, hovering her hand over them.

"Not sharp-sharp. Some are pointy like forks are pointy, you wouldn't want to run around with them and trip, but they're not sharp enough to cut you if you're just touching them." Evelyn gets out some brown - not the labeled brown, the ball from last time a foster child combined five different colors thoroughly enough that she couldn't re-separate them - and starts rolling out tubes for bench legs. "There are some stencil shapes and some tools with wooden handles like paintbrushes that have different tips. I think most of them should still have labels on the handle but some are worn off, so you can ask me if you need to." 

"I can feel them, I just wanted to make sure I wouldn't cut myself." She picks them up and examines them and chooses one suitable for smoothing out rough surfaces.

Evelyn rolls out and cuts out a brown rectangle and uses the edge of the palette knife to score lines in it to represent wooden slats. Of course, it ends up squashy at the corners when she tries to attach the legs, but that's okay. 

She watches Annie curiously, but doesn't ask what she's making. Annie can tell her if she wants. 

Annie is very carefully slicing up her purple and her blue into stripes and turning them into a coil pot sort of shape. She's very patient with it and fusses over little unevennesses a lot.

Unusual for a three-year-old, but it fits with Annie's personality. Evelyn won't offer to help unless Annie seems frustrated with it (for one thing, Evelyn is less patient than that). She carefully picks out out a lump of white and smaller lumps of pink and yellow, to mix together for a peach-tone for her "little girl". 

"I think I'll try to make a school uniform sort of outfit," she says, mostly to make conversation. "There's a tool that makes tiny little button-shaped indents, so I can give her a school vest with buttons down the front. Most of the schools here don't have uniforms but I think the private school where Miss Enderbridge used to teach would have." 

"Did the uniforms have vests?"

"I don't know for sure if they did! It might not be the exact same uniform. There was a Catholic school in my neighborhood when I was little and they wore black skirts and white blouses with long sleeves and dark blue vests with buttons, so that's what I'm going to try to do. ...With 'try' being the operative word here. My fingers are so big and pudgy compared to yours and I think I might not be as patient." 

"If I'm going to make something at all I'd like it to be a nice thing."

Nod. "I'm sure it's going to be lovely." Having made a nice peach-toned blob and rolled two tubes for legs, Evelyn starts flattening out some black modeling clay for a skirt. 

Annie laboriously crafts a blurry-striped pot suitable for putting on a windowsill full of flowers, with drainage holes, little feet, and a matching drip tray, and then starts supplementing it with delicate little filigree.

Annie is GREAT and Evelyn is so fond of her.

She gets out the checkerbox-pattern tool and carefully patterns the skirt-rectangle before wrapping it around the legs and attaching both to a navy-blue torso chunk, which can acquire button-indentations and little white-sleeve arms tipped with peach blobs for hands and a peach blob for a head. She tries to make black-on-white eyeballs and put them into holes she makes for eye sockets, but they come out way too large for the head in question and looking kind of bulgy and horrifying. Oh well. She goes with indenting the mouth rather than trying to stick red lips on and ending up with something horrifyingly clowny, and then adds a brown cap of carefully-textured "hair" with "braids" hanging from each side, and seats the figure on the bench, squashing the skirt a bit in the process of trying to make sure it's stuck on solidly enough to stay. She cuts out differently-colored tiny rectangles to make a stack of books on the bench beside the girl, and rolls a thin white sheet on top of a thin black sheet to make an open book in her lap with a 'cover', scoring and bending it in the middle. The end result is...definitely not artist-quality, but at least Annie can't see the goggle-eyes. 

Even with all the detail work, she's finished before Annie has all of her filagree arranged to her satisfaction. "That is lovely!" she says as she watches Annie put on the finishing touches. "Did you want to put a little flower in it, once it's baked?" 

"Or herbs or something, since I won't be able to see flowers. It did turn out all right? I was trying pretty hard to keep the purple and blue straight but had to do it by memory."

"It's perfect! You must have a very good memory. I love the little extra decorations, too. And the feet!" 

Evelyn will go preheat the oven to bake their modeling-clay creations. Annie has completed her mandatory Non Reading Activity of the day and can go back to reading now. 

Oh good.

Evelyn makes a hearty chickpea salad in advance of dinnertime, and emails the social worker to confirm that Annie had a delightful time meeting a fellow passionate book-lover (sheeeee does not mention the Kafka, in case Anthony considers it age-inappropriate) and that Miss Enderbridge has a current police check, do they need an actual copy of it from her or can they just check with the school. She tries the pottery studio again, and is told to call back in two days. She rejoins Annie and starts a new Agatha Christie (she does have quite a lot of them in her personal library.) 

At dinnertime they can have salad. Evelyn feels like she wants to ask Annie...something...but she isn't sure what, so she just makes conversation about how she had forgotten how much she liked Agatha Christie's mysteries, and asks Annie how she's enjoying her own book picks. 

"The Trial ends very abruptly! I skipped the pages Miss Enderbridge told me to but it did make the book make somewhat less sense. I think probably it would be all right for my well being to read about people being seduced and flogged but I have no way to convince you of this."

Oh dear did Annie overhear that. "Maybe," Evelyn allows noncommittally. "I know grownups have a lot of opinions about what is or isn't good for children your age and it's probably annoying sometimes. ...You could write a little book report about it, I bet it would make Miss Enderbridge's day and get you ahead on, er, book bribes." Evelyn is sliiiiightly uncomfortable about the concept of bribes being introduced to a child Annie's age but it's sort of too late to complain. 

"My handwriting isn't very good yet because my hands are so small."

"Maybe you need a special pencil, that's the right size for your hands. Or you could learn to type, though I guess the normal keyboard is going to be way too big for your hands as well. There might be keyboards the right size for kids but I bet they would be more expensive." 

"I'm practicing writing, and my hands will get stronger, but maybe if Miss Enderbridge wants a book report I should deliver it orally."

"She would probably really like that as well! I haven't heard back from your social worker yet, but hopefully by tomorrow he'll get back to me and say it's okay for me to drop you off with Miss Enderbridge for a morning or afternoon. Maybe we should make a casserole tonight, so it's ready to take over and bake? We've got some time before it's your bedtime." 

"Sure. What kind of casserole?"

"I'm not sure! Hmm. Miss Enderbridge always puts potatoes on her shopping list, and frozen peas, so she must like them. And we should do something with meat, I know she isn't vegetarian but meat is expensive and she looks like she isn't eating enough protein. Older people need to eat enough protein to keep their muscles strong so they don't fall and hurt themselves, just like little kids need to eat lots of protein to grow. And she lived in England when she was a kid, so probably she likes British recipes? I have a recipe for potato onion casserole that has peas and ground beef, we could make that for her, and boil the potatoes first so it just needs to be heated up and not cooked all the way through. Maybe you can stir the ground beef when it's cooking for me." 

"Sure, I can do that."

Evelyn will cut the onions, since presumably being blind does not render Annie immune to onion fumes (and also Annie should especially not be cutting anything with a knife, though she will have to learn eventually so she can cook on her own when she's grown up. Evelyn wonders vaguely if blind people have special tools for that sort of thing or if they just do it by feel.) 

While the halved baby potatoes sit in a pot of simmering water at the back of the stove to cook until nice and tender, they'll want to brown the diced onions in a pan with some olive oil, with the stove hood fan on high so the fumes won't bother Annie while she stirs, and then add a pound of ground beef and stir until that's cooked and crumbly, and then mix in a packet of onion soup mix and a cup of half-and-half cream. The recipe wants 'cream of onion soup' from a can but Evelyn doesn't have any; she thinks maybe it's more popular in England.

Then they'll mix in the peas and potatoes, and turn off the heat and pour the entire mix into a greased casserole dish, and boom, ready to bake! It only took like twenty minutes. 

Annie helps efficiently with all the parts of the process Evelyn invites her to involve herself in.

Evelyn sprinkles some Costco parmesan from a big canister onto the top - the recipe doesn't call for it but parmesan goes well on every casserole she's ever had - and then fridges it with saran wrap over the top. "There we go! It'll go nice and solid in the fridge overnight and we'll be able to carry it over to her house no problem whenever we visit." 

And it's, yet again, time for the usual bath-and-bedtime routine. Probably Annie should not risk Miss Enderbridge's books anywhere near the bathtub, just in case, but she's welcome to continue with a book from Evelyn's home collection. 

Yeah, all right, the Tamora Pierce was decent and she'll pick up another of those.

The next morning, there still isn't an email from Anthony, but Evelyn is starting to run low enough on fresh vegetables that she could really use a shopping run. She leaves a text and voicemail on Anthony's mobile, and by midmorning receives a somewhat hassled-sounding call where he confirms that it's fine by Social Services for Annie to stay for a few hours with someone police-checked and experienced with young children. He doesn't get around to asking for written proof, so Evelyn decides they can go ahead. She lets Annie know that they can call on Miss Enderbridge for lunch, if that sounds good to her? And bring the casserole, of course; they'll go over a little bit before lunchtime to avoid interrupting her in the middle of making something for herself. 

Sounds good to Annie! She can return The Trial.

They'll walk over at 11:30, then, Evelyn holding the plastic-wrap-topped casserole dish in one hand and Annie's hand in the other. Maybe Annie should bring her bookbag, it has room for more books if she ends up bringing some home. 

Miss Enderbridge, like before, answers the door immediately with a bright smile. "Come in! I made a whole jug of iced tea for you this time, Annie, it's been in the fridge all night. What did you think of the Kafka?" 

"It ended very abruptly and it made less sense with the scenes I skipped missing from the sequence of events but I liked it a lot, it was very good at evoking a certain powerlessness."

She is three and she uses phrases like 'a certain powerlessness'! How is she like this! 

"Miss Enderbridge," she says, "we made a casserole last night, and thought we'd bring it over for lunch. It's cooked, just needs to be warmed up. And I have permission from Annie's social worker for you to watch her for a few hours while I run some errands. Why don't I pop this in the oven for you, and we'll eat lunch together and then I'll slip out?" 

Miss Enderbridge nods distractedly, muttering something about how the dial on the left is 'a bit fussy' and the gas starter is out so you need to go in with the barbecue lighter. Mostly she wants to talk to Annie about Kafka.

"Right, yes. It was published after his death and it probably wasn't finished. We're not even sure if all the chapters are in the right order! He had a habit of not finishing stories. Maybe he couldn't think of a good ending." 

"It was abrupt but I'm not sure it was actually bad as an ending! A summary execution after all that rigmarole seems almost appropriate."

THIS TINY CHILD TALKS LIKE AN ENGLISH PROFESSOR.

Miss Enderbridge laughs. "I certainly couldn't think of a more appropriate ending myself. That's what Kafka is really good at, capturing the - arbitrariness, the capriciousness, the futility of bureaucratic systems. ...My students used to hate it. I remember one girl saying, all right so he's brilliant at capturing ennui, but why would I want to read about that? But I like it, it's a whole experience. Most kids these days just want excitement and adventure, but wouldn't you think that would get samey after a while?" 

"Maybe more people would appreciate Kafka capturing arbitrariness and capriciousness of bureaucratic systems if they read the book while they were three year olds in foster care."

You know, valid, but also ouch. 

Miss Enderbridge looks delighted. "You tell it like it is, Annie!" 

This is clearly going to be an excellent and positive relationship in Annie's life and also what is she, the foster mother in question, even supposed to say to that. 'I try not to be arbitrary and capricious'? That's not really the point, is it. 

"No offense," Annie does add in Evelyn's general direction after a moment. "It's not you as a person. Honestly it's barely even foster care. It's childhood. I feel very done with it."

Miss Enderbridge snickers. "Being a child is terrible," she says to Annie in a conspiratorial voice. "The only upside is having more time to read when you don't have a job, and being retired is much better. Nobody trying to get all up in your business. Except by bringing you casserole, apparently, and I don't mind that." 

The oven is finally preheating! Wow, Miss Enderbridge's oven is terrible. Evelyn is definitely considering 'getting all up in her business' to have someone in to fix it, no wonder she doesn't cook much. 

The iced tea is easily findable in the fridge, along with...not very much else, there's a carton of eggs and a carton of milk that expired two days ago and some condiments (lemon juice, mustard, jam, butter and cream cheese) and an elderly bunch of celery, and that's about it. Evelyn pours a tall glass of iced tea and lemon-juices it, finds some ice cubes in a tray in the freezer to chill it even more, and brings it over to the table for Annie. She also fills the kettle and puts it on, since Miss Enderbridge is apparently too occupied in Kafka literary analysis to even remember to make tea. 

"Why don't I pick up some groceries for you as well, when I do errands later?" she suggests. "It's only fair, since you're looking after Annie so I can do my shopping." 

"You really don't have to." 

"I'd like to, though. Bread and bologna sausage and baby potatoes and frozen peas are the usuals, right? And how about mayo, you can't have a bologna sandwich without mayo." 

"Yes, all right, if you insist." But Kafka though. 

Kafka!!

And eventually casserole! It comes out pretty good, even with the janky oven. 

Miss Enderbridge goes back for seconds and thirds, eating just as politely and delicately as before and patting her mouth with a napkin between bites, a book open beside her. 

Evelyn steps on a desire to helpfully do the dishes; there's no sign Miss Enderbridge even has trouble with dishes; her appliances may be questionable, and she doesn't even own a microwave, but her kitchen is spotless.

She does have a sneaky peek in the cupboards and recycling, looking for empty or nearly-empty food packaging. Miss Enderbridge seems to eat canned tuna and bran cereal and instant oatmeal and canned cream of celery and mushroom soups. Great, she'll stock up on those too. 

"Have a nice time," she tells Annie. "I'll be back in a few hours." 

Does Annie want to browse, or be recommended more books? 

Annie is going to browse. Picks up the Tale of Genji but puts it down after a few pages. Ooh, Gilgamesh.

That one is very good! Miss Enderbridge isn't going to spoil it for her but will sneak looks of grinning anticipation at her while she rereads her own copy of Wuthering Heights. She kind of has a hankering to reread Tess of the d'Urbervilles but that one is, in fact, arguably naughty, or at least about the concept of naughtiness, so she doesn't. 

"It must be so odd to be created specifically to be with someone else," muses Annie distantly after she's a ways into Gilgamesh.

"Hmm? ...I suppose it really would be. Might be nice to have a soulmate, if they were actually lovely and right for you." Snort. "On the other hand, then you'd be stuck with them. No escaping it. I always liked being unattached." 

"Well, obviously the worst thing would be having a soulmate and not having them around, wouldn't it?"

Miss Enderbridge looks very thoughtful. "It doesn't seem like it would be very nice, no. Especially not if the character in the book lost them in a very tragic way. ...In some books about soulmates, the character knows they have a soulmate somewhere out there even before they've met them. That's what I think would be really odd, I can't imagine what it would be like. To know there's someone, but not who they are..." 

Nod nod nod nod.

Annie seems interested in this. "Did you read a good book about soulmates, dear?" 

She shakes her head. "Um, my parents died when I was only a couple days old. And I grew up mostly in hospitals, they were trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and - I talked really really early, when I was only about four or five months old. And one of the first things I said was that I was missing somebody. They said probably my parents. I think it might have been more likely I got attached to somebody who was taking care of me for longer, after that point, a nurse or something? But either way I didn't actually know."

"...You are a funny one, aren't you." Miss Enderbridge shakes her head. "I think sometimes our brains are very clever things, and they remember things we don't even realize we know. Maybe it was a nurse – or maybe you really do have a soulmate you haven't met yet! Wouldn't that be something." 

"It really would. What are the books about soulmates? Do you have them?"