Evelyn has been doing this for nearly two decades and she's not sure she's ever done this much of - what even is she doing here - the mental equivalent of writing incredibly detailed log notes??? 

Possibly she's just never had to do it, because there haven't been that many cases that involved all of: being deeply, almost-philosophically confused about a child's backstory and needs; not being mostly focused on surviving the minute-to-minute grind of troubleshooting tantrums through a haze of sleep deprivation, such that she had opportunities to try to drag her brain over thinking about it on purpose, rather than the much more common experience of having her first real break in two weeks and abruptly realizing she's been an idiot the entire time; and wanting to be careful in her log notes in a way that actually ruled out thinking through the confusing parts.

To be clear, there are plenty of social workers she leans toward being careful with, but - maybe she's just gotten lucky, and those didn't coincide with the most challenging cases?

Challenging-to-her cases, that is, because - that's a lot of what's going on here, isn't it. Iomedae is - okay, she is kind of ongoingly in distress - but she's not doing it at Evelyn, not in the kind of way that her fellow foster parents universally agree is difficult and awful. Evelyn meant what she said at the doctor's office yester– god, that was today, what a day - that Iomedae is for the most part polite and helpful and no trouble at all. Even her rants at the system's failings would be endearing in many other circumstances; they were when Emily did them. And reassuring, even, because at least Emily was - what - engaging productively? 

...And it is reassuring, honestly, just - about a different thing, that isn't the thing she's worried about in the first place? 

For fuck's sake, Evelyn's brain. What is she worried about in the first place, then? 

Iomedae is going to be fine. Iomedae is, fundamentally, the sort of person who will find a way to be fine. Presumably she didn't just pop out of the womb like that, her parents and her community must have had a lot to do with it, but...Evelyn doesn't get to be part of that story. 

....Ooof. There is something mildly mortifying about confronting herself - while sitting in the dark watching a stupid soap opera like a teenager after a breakup, though at least she's withheld from eating ice cream out of the carton - with the fact that she, apparently, has quite a lot of...ego? (that's probably the right philosophy or psychology term or whatever subject it was where Jeremy brought the word up) ...around how all of her skills, and all of her (ugh) self-efficacy or whatever, is around being a parent. To kids. And helping them grow up to be the best, strongest, most self-actualized version of themselves they can be, in the circumstances they're in. 

She would be honored and delighted and bursting with pride, if Iomedae had been her foster child, and grown up to be the way she already is now. When Emily went on rants about the failings of the world and the system, Evelyn got to take credit for that.

Iomedae is just...already there...and, right, obviously this is agonizing, Evelyn hates being bad at things and she is bad at the thing Iomedae needs. She would be; she mostly doesn't have any practice at it. 

(She does feel a burst of warmth, amidst the various uncomfortable self-revelations. She's really impressed with Iomedae's parents,  for - parenting an Iomedae - which can't possibly have been easy, especially not in a low-income country with a deeply religious patriarchal culture. ...Actually she's still pretty confused about that. But, either way. Iomedae's parents did a good job and she wishes she could meet them and tell them so.) 

Right. Evelyn has now successfully noticed that half of what's hard here, half of why she feels off-balance and unexpectedly upset in so many conversations, is that she feels like shit about herself because she's trying so hard to be the best foster mom to Iomedae, and on some level resenting that it isn't working, and Iomedae does not, actually, need a mom. 

Evelyn should think more at some point about Alfirin, who she has much less of a read on. Which is...honestly probably strategic on Alfirin's part. And a good idea more often than she'd like to admit, for foster kids who - kind of reasonably - would rather interact with the system less rather than more. At a certain point it doesn't matter how much the goal is to help, or how well-intentioned most of the people working for CPS are.

She....doesn't like thinking about exactly what percentage of the time CPS screws up, does she. Which (ughhhhh this is mortifying) is a whole other part of why talking to Iomedae is so frequently randomly upsetting. Somehow Evelyn is fine with being indignant and furious in any specific case where the system is clearly failing a specific kid, who lives with her, where she can fix it, and it's a whole other thing to look at the whole shape of it - to metaphorically let her eyes slip out of focus, see the forest and not be distracted by the trees - and actually ask herself the question of whether it's good that it exists. She wanted the right answer to be written in stone, didn't she, because it's - her job - more than a job, to her - and obviously she wants it to be true that her work matters and helps people. 

...Great. Okay. Evelyn has now spent several minutes admitting to her various inadequacies, and should now stop navelgazing and think about people who aren't herself. Like Iomedae. 

Iomedae isn't a kid. 

It's not actually an Iomedae-specific thing to hate having it rubbed in your face that the entire world around you, including and especially the person with the most power and control over your day to day life, sees you as a kid - as someone too young to know what they want, too immature to make good choices about their future, someone who needs an adult to guide and steer and manipulate them into the right decisions. Evelyn does have a lot of practice at not making it constantly obvious that she thinks of kids that way, even when it's just straightforwardly true that she doesn't think they have that maturity. It's condescending, and nobody likes feeling condescended to. 

But she thinks it's a different element of it that bothers Iomedae? It's not - or at least not just - the feeling condescended to. It's also not the same as the indignance that teenagers who grew up neglected and unsupervised tend to have about perfectly normal rules and boundaries; Iomedae actually seems fine, in general, with doing things Evelyn's way because this is Evelyn's house, even when she doesn't understand or agree with the justification. (She definitely manages to make Evelyn feel silently judged for being a bizarre crazy rich American, but that's a side point.) 

Evelyn has a feeling that Iomedae would accept almost any amount of condescension and disrespect - would walk into it willingly, she wouldn't like it but would do her best to grin and bear it anyway - if she had looked over her options and decided it was the fastest path to rescue everyone from Hell. 

What does Iomedae need to thrive?

'Someone to walk at her side and help her fight Hell' is the inane obvious thing, but - Iomedae would do it anyway. Iomedae would have the priorities she has whether or not anyone agreed with her about it. She doesn't need the people around her to believe in her potential; the important part here isn't that Iomedae believes she can do anything she can set her mind to, or that she's an exceptional person who can expect to succeed where everyone else would and has failed. The important part is that Hell exists and Iomedae thinks it shouldn't, and who could possibly disagree with her on that? 

A thriving Iomedae is one who can make progress toward that goal.

Which also feels inane and obvious, in a sense, because all children have a deep emotional need to be accomplishing things, making progress, building the self-efficacy that they're going to need very badly in their adult lives. Foster children need it even more than that, because you generally don't end up in foster care at all without having one or more of the disadvantages in life that mean society is rigged against your success. 

...Iomedae hates it with a burning passion when adults around her are making decisions about her future based on trying to meet her emotional needs. And Evelyn, apparently, is a bumbling idiot who's been staring in polite befuddlement at the obvious truth right in front of her nose, which is that Iomedae knows perfectly well what she wants to accomplish with her life, and can see perfectly well that a nice momly figure like Evelyn, trying to keep her safe and healthy and give her a lovely childhood, is in her way.

Evelyn can't give Iomedae what she needs.

Probably no one can, not even God. No one except for Iomedae herself. (Another piece of trite wisdom that's true of literally all children, and yet somehow feels new and profound applied to Iomedae.) But - it's worse than that, because what Iomedae needs, and what the system around Evelyn demands of her, are in direct conflict, and Evelyn cannot, actually, just get out Iomedae's way. Not yet. Not for three years. 

She can probably still do a lot better than she has been. 

The thing Iomedae needs is...resources she can use freely, the way she wants to, toward her actual priorities and not the priorities of an imaginary girl Evelyn made up in her head.

Also, maybe even more importantly, she needs to have the slightest idea how America works. America is a resource. A messy, complicated one that's hard to wield in a directed way, and right now Iomedae is missing way too much context to actually leverage the wealth and knowledge and human capital of America toward fixing Hell. 

Evelyn probably can help with that education, if she can manage to actually convey to Iomedae that she's on Iomedae's side here. Probably her goal here should be that in three years - or maybe sooner, if there's literally any way to wrangle for Iomedae to be declared a legal adult younger than eighteen - Iomedae is, actually, ready to launch herself out into the world and make things happen. 

And Evelyn can, in the meantime, give Iomedae every single bit of wiggle room she can eke out of a faceless system that cares about the welfare of children in the abstract, but isn't the kind of entity that can care about her. ...Again, assuming she can convince Iomedae to trust her on it, but - the part where Iomedae doesn't trust Evelyn or feel safe with Evelyn is not actually the main problem here. The problem is that Iomedae isn't allowed to make decisions, and obviously she considers it an unacceptable atrocity on the part of the US government to force her to put her life on hold for three years, because that's three years longer before she can fix Hell. 

Evelyn is also pretty sure she's still missing a lot of context and miscommunicating a lot of things and misunderstanding what Iomedae is trying to tell her, because there's both a language barrier and a culture gap. Obviously Evelyn is curious and wants to understand Iomedae better, but this is not actually a game where the win condition involves getting to turn over the secret card with all the Iomedae facts. Evelyn doesn't think she's missing that much relevant to what Iomedae needs, because Iomedae is actually a very uncomplicated person, and Evelyn doesn't need to perfectly understand her in order to make good decisions on her behalf, because actually she should just...probably not be making decisions on Iomedae's behalf. She should be telling her what the constraints are, what laws she has to follow, how much space she has to work with, and then she should be getting out of Iomedae's way. 

It feels like a much bigger piece of the problem that Iomedae doesn't understand Evelyn. Not understanding what Evelyn wants from her must be frustrating and terrifying, when she knows that pretty much all the resources she could lean on are gated on 'Evelyn approves and thinks you're making healthy decisions', and Iomedae probably doesn't know how much Evelyn's expectations around what counts as a good decision are compatible with accomplishing anything. 

This whole series of intense revelations do not actually add up to an idea of what she should say to Iomedae, and it's probably still going to be a confusing and upsetting conversation because Iomedae is coming from such a different place and every conversation they've ever had was full of concerning misunderstandings. But...probably having the exact right script here isn't the important part, that's just - going back to relating to Iomedae like a toy with some hidden buttons that when pressed will give Evelyn what she wants. 

Evelyn sits in the dark with the TV going, and waits for Iomedae and Alfirin to be finished showering. 

Showering doesn't actually take very long, especially since America being a ridiculous place she and Alfirin have separate washrooms. Iomedae changes into new clothes and detangles her hair with her fingers and brings the old clothes downstairs to put in the laundering machine.

Alfirin is achey and tired but she doesn't take too long in the rain closet, because the rain closet is still a very weird way to get clean and all the temperatures are strange or uncomfortable. She puts on new clothes and is downstairs not much slower than Iomedae.

Evelyn gets up, takes a deep breath, and goes over. 

She doesn't smile; this is a serious conversation. She just sits down. 

"We should talk about the money for krav maga - honestly, I think we should probably just look at my finances together, in a sense it's your money and I think you have the right to know how I would usually spend it and decide if you have different priorities - but there are a couple of things I want to say first." 

She's mostly looking at Iomedae now. "It took me a long time to get this through my thick skull, but - you're not a child, are you? The law thinks you are, and that adds some frustrating restrictions - on me, not just you - but I'm not the law, and I have eyes, and when I actually bother to use them it's pretty obvious you don't want or need a mom. You need a...local guide to America, I guess is how I could put it. I want you to be happy, and I don't think you can possibly be if we're making you put your life on hold for three years and telling you it's for your own good, and I want you to trust me but from your point of view I'm just an obstacle between you and everything you care about accomplishing with your life. I'm going to try to stop that, okay? I'm not actually sure I know how to be anything other than a mom, I'm sort of specialized, but...I'm going to try."

- that is not how Iomedae expected this evening to go! She was expecting to try to explain very carefully and diplomatically why she is confused about financial decisions made about her. She blinks, a bit stupidly. 

- why is this the conversation that prompted Evelyn to believe her about not being a child? And if Evelyn doesn't believe her about being a holy warrior why does she think that she's not a child. A fifteen year old girl in fact would be, ordinarily.

- none of those are good responses. Evelyn is - being kind and careful and generous and she is correct, she is describing Iomedae much more carefully and closely than she was before, and it would be - an important kind of failure, to respond to that with confusion, to fail to notice it or notice the ways in which it would have been difficult -

" - yes, ma'am. I - thank you. I think you are right that I need a - person explain America, and that I will not be happy if I have to put life on hold three years, though I do not think it very important if I am happy.

I do not think you are - just in the way of doing things with life. America making me a slave is that but you are trying to not hurt us, and there is time to learn English and save money, I am glad of that. I am - confused about the money. And I am scared of learning - things people learn by doing over and over - that are not good for a free person, and I am scared of God leave because I do not live as holy warrior. But I know that you are trying to make things not as bad, and I am very grateful."

Evelyn nods. "I don't want any of that to happen." She's still, uh, pretty confused about the entire holy warrior thing, but she doesn't need to understand everything in order to get that it's important to Iomedae, any more than she needs to understand what on earth anyone else sees in football, or death metal, to be supportive of a kid who enjoys either.

Sigh. "I'm trying very hard not to hurt either of you. Really, I think trying not to hurt kids is the bare minimum bar a foster parent should meet. I think I can do better than I have been at - not being in your way - if I'm not secretly trying to insist that you have a few more years of childhood because I think I know better than you do what's good for you. I think childhood is supposed to be about - having time and space to learn things and form good habits that will help you accomplish things as an adult - and I do think we can make the best of that. And I think it's good that you have someone to speak on your behalf and make the case for what resources you need, because you don't know how to talk to social workers or doctors so it goes the way you want it to go, and it would be doing you an enormous disservice if the system ends up labeling you as as having anger management issues. But I'm not going to also insist on - doing good parenting at you - the point of that is for you to be okay and get everything you need to succeed later, it's not for me to feel good about myself." 

"I am scared of - not good habits - because -

- so, the way a free person live, they make money because the work the other person want more than he want the money. And if they are not stupid they save as much as they can so they do not starve if they can not work, and they buy things that last a long time and that they know is a good price and that they really need, if they have enough to not go too hungry having spended. 

The way a slave live is, they sometimes get nice things because they made happy a free person. And they should be grateful, and be someone free people happy to give things. And I am worried that is not good habits."

Evelyn takes a deep breath. This feels very fraught to respond to, because you just don't tell a kid that their worries and fears are wrong, and Iomedae is noticing some elements of the situation that are genuinely bad for her, but...actually Evelyn suspects that some of the strength of her feelings is built up on a tower of misunderstandings? Or maybe that she has more or less accurate expectations about what an undocumented minor in foster care will or won't be able to do, and the oddness here is in what she thinks that means... 

And Evelyn is starting to wonder if she's been glossing over a deep misinterpretation of what foster care is for, out of trying to empathize and not wanting to invalidate Iomedae's feelings. Of course, she's still not actually sure that she's put her finger on what the misinterpretation is. But - Iomedae doesn't talk about being a "slave" in the teenage-indignance way that Teagan talked about being in child prison. It seems pretty plausible that Iomedae - who is after all from a very different place from America, one that was probably worse in a lot of ways - came away with a pretty inaccurate sense of what her actual rights and freedoms are. 

Ugh. 

She takes a deep breath. "Iomedae, I think you're - not wrong to notice that being a child in America is very limiting, especially for the things that matter to you. And - I imagine it's pretty confusing, too, because - even in America people thought about children pretty differently a hundred years ago, and I think the place and culture you grew up in is...more different than America a hundred years ago. I think we try harder to protect children - and the government considers it its business to protect children when their parents aren't doing a good job of it - and a lot of what's frustrating to you is that you don't want or need to be protected, and so it just feels like - rules for no reason, and the government having all sorts of opinions about things you wouldn't expect to be the government's business?"

Sigh. "I won't claim the government and the laws are doing a perfect job here, but - basically no one would use the English word 'slave' literally to talk about your situation? You're not a slave according to American laws. America just thinks you're a child, and that's - also pretty bad for the things you want - but I think the difference is important? America thinks that children have a lot of - rights, I guess - just, more focus on the right to be safe and protected and provided for. So you get things like, it's illegal for parents to hurt their children - or even just not to feed their children - and the government will stop them if it finds out, and take the children and give them to foster parents who will treat them the way America thinks children deserve to be treated. I could go to jail for hitting you. I know you think a lot of this is - bizarre crazy rich American stuff - but I don't think it's the same thing as 'America thinks all children are slaves.'" 

"If you sayed I disobeyed you, the nurses - what they do."

"Uh, send you to therapy and anger management classes? And the point isn't that you have to do everything I say all the time? It's fine if you're like 'actually I would rather not do the dishes right now, I'm busy.' The point is that, uh, being in control of your emotions and able to get along with people even when they're frustrating is an important adult skill, and kids who don't learn how to resolve conflicts productively instead of screaming and throwing things will have a hard time getting a job and stuff. ...You don't have that problem, I'm not at all worried that you'll lose your temper at your boss when you have a job and get fired, which is why I told the nurse that we don't need to try to solve a problem you don't have." 

"You tell the nurses, this foster child not obey, they send this foster child - classes on obeying? What happen in classes on obeying?"

"I think anger management classes really aren't for solving a problem you have. And - I guess 'classes on obeying' isn't totally wrong, but it's the kind of obeying that adults have to do in lots of situations too? So they teach you things like how to notice when you're getting angry so you can leave the room and calm down instead of shouting at someone, and to, like, take a deep breath and count to ten rather than hitting someone? And, like, impulse control in general, and thinking about the consequences of something before you do it. A lot of kids who grew up in difficult circumstances have trouble with, like, making long term plans and sticking to them? Because that's a skill, that you have to learn, and if a kid's parents can't teach them because they never really learned it themselves, then you end up with kids who - say, impulsively steal things because they want them now and aren't thinking about how they'll get in trouble later. And they need to learn things like - it's still not right to hurt someone even if they hurt you first and it's reasonable to be angry with them." 

"Where I am from, the reason it is not wise for a child to shout or disobey is that they will be hit. And the reason it is not wise for a child to steal is that they will be killed. Here it sometimes feel like - none of it comes to a stop anywhere. And maybe this should feel like not being a slave, because it is right that it is not like being a slave, to not be hurt for disobeying, but - but it feel to me like America think it can make people obey, and I do not see how it can do this but that does not make me sure it cannot do this. And when the nurse asked this question, that maked sense, because - it is the question a place ask if it do know how to make people obey, and will do that when it needs to.

If people are not obeying because they are too stupid then maybe a class help. But I would have thinked that more often people are not obeying because they do not think it is a way to get what they want, and - at some point you have to make it true that disobeying not get them what they want. And I do not see how America do that, and but America look like a place that do that."

".....Huh. Yeah. I - that's helpful, I think I understand more of why you're confused and why it feels - less safe."

Man, Emily would explain better, with her whole 'the power of the state is rooted in violence' shtick, but Evelyn isn't sure if she entirely believes that frame. It's not false but it's not complete, either. Evelyn is pretty sure that 'fear of going to jail' has nothing to do with why she doesn't steal, even though stealing would make her financial constraints a lot easier if she thought she wouldn't get caught. She just - doesn't want to be a person who steals. That's not how her parents brought her up to behave. 

"I - guess going to jail is what happens, if nothing up to that point convinces people to follow the law. But I think the punishments for crimes are less harsh than they used to be a long time ago? America does kill people for some crimes, but not stealing, and most of the time not even for killing someone? And we have lower crime rates than countries did in the past, especially violent crime rates, so I think there's - something else. I think maybe a lot of it is just what people consider normal? And we've spent a long time, as a culture, trying to move toward people not thinking violence is normal and a good way to solve their problems. 

"...And maybe a lot of it is having better options? I think most people would steal if they were going to starve otherwise - even if they expected to be killed if they got caught! They might not get caught, and if they starve they're dead and maybe their family is too. But America is rich, even poor people in America are rich compared to where you come from, and there are food banks, and - fewer people are desperate, and usually stealing is stupid." Shrug. "It doesn't work perfectly. A lot of people do end up in jail with a criminal record because they were stupid. ...The punishment is less harsh for breaking the law if you're a kid. We expect kids to be - the thing isn't 'stupid' exactly, but not having the skills to get the things they want in other ways?" 

" so - there are some things where 'what happens if you break the rule' is 'we try to talk to you a lot but in the end we send you to jail' and there are some things where what happens is 'we try to talk to you a lot and no matter what not send you to jail'. And I do not know which ones are which. I do not know if I go to jail for saying no to the blood tests, I do not know if I go to jail for no going to school, I do not know if I go to jail for leaving Evelyn house.

I obey even if I not go to jail unless God call me do other thing, and if God call me do other thing I obey God even if I die of it, so maybe it does not matter, but - it matters to if I am slave, and it matters to knowing how America is."

"...They do have something like jail for kids. If you murder someone - not in self-defense - or if you were selling illegal dangerous drugs or something, you would probably end up in juvenile detention, that's a special prison just for kids that has school and stuff. But most of the time when kids commit crimes and go to court about it, the sentence is community service - having to do things like volunteer at the food bank - and sometimes mandatory classes like the anger management thing."

She frowns thoughtfully. "I don't think refusing the blood tests is even illegal? I might get in trouble if Social Services thinks I'm failing to provide you with good medical care, especially for vaccines - because you not being vaccinated might put other kids at risk - but I won't try to force you to do them, just try to understand your objection and whether there's a way of doing it you would be okay with. Not going to school is - more illegal, and parents can definitely get in trouble if their kids aren't in school, but I've had a lot of kids who refused to go to school, and the thing we're supposed to do is understand what the problem is and find a way they can learn that they're okay with, I've had several kids who ended up working with home tutors because the school environment just didn't work for them. ...If you run away from my house the police will look for you and if they find you they'll bring you back to me, because - I guess it's because America cares more about kids being safe than them having the freedom that adults do, and most fifteen-year-old girls wouldn't be safe on their own. Teenagers in foster care run away pretty often, though, and I've never heard of someone end up in juvie just for running away a lot." 

"I agree that the thing you are saying is not be a slave. The thing you are saying does not make a lot of sense to me and it is not be a free person but it is not be a slave.

Why do fifteen year old girl run away if they are not safe on they own? Probably because they not safe in foster house?"