Chapter 9

A short time after leaving the corridor, Robert and Rebecca were undressed and sleeping over the air mattress. Millie was curled up and sleeping near the door. The temperature in this part of the labyrinth was cool, about 65F, and Rebecca was happy to be cuddling with Robert inside the sleeping bag again. Leaving the dreary gray maze had boosted her spirits, and for the first time in over a week she felt like chatting, and maybe getting a little sexy. "He understands my moods so well," thought Rebecca. "He is so gentle with me. This past week I was a little depressed, and he was just friendly and cuddly. But now I feel better and he is petting my stomach. It feels nice, feels intimate, feels like it could lead to something really sexy! How did he know? He understands me so well..."

"That feels nice Robert. Up for staying awake for a while?"

"Sure! I love you Becky. I was so happy to catch you coming out of the pipe. This place is so crazy, having us separate is really quite dangerous. And then you were so helpful to me in crossing the bridge. I couldn't have done it without you. I feel like giving you a present, a wedding present. What can I do for you?"

"You're already doing everything... I know! Will you promise to do anything I ask, before I give you my request?"

Robert thought for a moment. "Yes... A gift of trust... A fine gift... Yes, I promise."

"Anything at all, no matter how intimate or embarrassing?"

"Wow! Has my darling vixen returned? Yes, I promise."

"Robert, tell me everything about your childhood."

Robert was silent for a moment, then rested his head next to Rebecca's and kissed her ear. "Becky, I owe you to tell you this anyway. Consider that as part of your wedding present, you still have a granted wish for anything you want." They both kissed, and then Robert began to talk.

"I was born in the pine barrens of New Jersey. I think I already told you both my biological parents were killed in a car crash shortly before I was one year old. Neither of my parents had siblings, I have no aunts or uncles. From some brief conversations I had with my grandparents, I gather that neither side of my extended family really approved of my parent's marriage. Anyway, neither set of my grandparents had any interest in raising me, and the state's Division of Youth and Family Services, D.Y.F.S. pronounced die-fis, couldn't find any other family connection to take me. I was in a foster home for about two years while all this was shaking out, and when I became eligible for adoption my foster parents requested that the state allow them to adopt me. Since they had already had me for over a year, they had first choice by policy, and the paperwork was finalized shortly before I turned four years old."

"Becky, let me back up and tell you a little bit around the foster care system and the people in it. There are six distinct groups of players that interact with each other in complex ways. There are the kids, the biological parents, the foster parents, the DYFS caseworkers, the DYFS administration, and the family court judiciary. Each group has its own agendas, which are often in conflict with the other groups."

"Let's start with the kids. Most of the kids in foster care are there because their parents are involved with drugs, either users or pushers. The kids' world is a world of uncertainty and crisis. They are not your typical neighbors' kids coming over for a visit. Their world is a world of chaos. Adults tend to deal with their emotions, kids will just act on them. There can be difficult times of acting out, when the kids rebel and try to grab some power and control over their situation. If they've been physically, emotionally, or sexually abused, there might also be a whole array of asocial behaviors that the other groups will have to deal with. Destructive behaviors such as physical aggression to other kids, or smashing windows in their foster homes, or even starting fires there."

"Next are the biological parents. There are some who realize they are not capable of being parents and voluntarily surrender their parental rights over their infants. Others who are so far gone on drugs they don't fight to get their kids back. But from my own experience of living with hundreds of kids as temporary foster siblings, many biological parents will work to get their kids back. It often comes down to a critical choice, which is more important, the kids or the drugs. Some parents are up to the challenge, some not. It's a tough situation when the parents want the kids back for the ego trip of being a parent, but really can't quit the drug world. The situation can drag out for years, leaving the kids in limbo while the State tries to support re-uniting the family but keeps failing."

"Next are the foster parents. My experience has been that in general they are a dedicated bunch of people who do tremendous work in order to save kids from having their lives trashed. The State monthly stipend usually doesn't cover costs. They have all the medical care issues to deal with, all the behavior issues to deal with, all the difficultly of working re-unification issues with the original parents, all the difficultly of bonding to the child in parental love, but then having to release the bond when the child leaves the house. They have all the headaches, but none of the anticipation and satisfaction of caring for the child into adulthood. There are exceptions, but mostly the calling to be foster parents is answered by wonderful people. A lot of them are blue-collar in economic status."

"What?" said Rebecca. "Why is that?"

"It's a lot of hard and sometimes dangerous work. People who are dedicated professionals usually don't want that much chaos and extra tension in their lives. And being a foster parent requires a huge commitment of time. The time to deal with medical issues can be tremendous. The foster kids might have spent their first weeks after birth being detoxed, their time in the womb of their alcohol and drug-addicted mother having caused lifelong physical and neurological injuries. And there is risk to the foster parents. Having your house burned down by a fire-starter is one. It happened in my adopted home when I was six. Another big risk is an allegation of foster-parent child abuse. It's a complex issue that affects all of the players."

"Cases of alleged abuse by foster parents can be extremely difficult to figure out. Sometimes the kids just want control, and will accuse the foster parents of abuse just to strike back at the system. You might have a case where the foster child is screaming that he or she is being tortured by monsters, and has the fresh cigarette burns on their body to prove it, and both foster parents are adamantly claiming it's all lies and that the burns are self-inflicted, and the bottom line is that nobody really knows who is lying. Abuse cases are usually intensely investigated. Many times people realize it's the kids who are lying. Sometimes it's the foster parents who are totally unfit for the job. And sometimes, rarely but sometimes, the foster parents are monsters but such subtle monsters that the abuse goes on for years without anyone being aware of it."

"Oh Robert," whispered Rebecca. "Is that what happened to you?"

"Yes... The people who adopted me never laid a hand on anybody. They didn't have to. They figured out a way to have us kids torture each other as they desired, and they were so subtle about it that they weren't caught for years..."

"My God, my God." Rebecca whispered as she hugged Robert dearly. "You don't have to tell me this. I release you from your promise. Really. You can stop. I'll never pry."

"It's there in my childhood Becky. It's a part of who I am. As my wife you deserve to know, and as my wife I want to tell you anyway... My adoptive parents bought a farmhouse while they were in the process of adopting me. The views were pretty, but the house itself was a wreck and the location quite isolated. In addition to me, DFYS allowed my parents to have up to four other foster children at the same time. They seemed like super valuable foster parents to the system, they were always willing to take the kids that were the most difficult to place, kids with major, major behavior problems. Kids that really needed institutional care and structure. But DYFS had a great conflict of interest. In addition to their mandate to protect children, they had to stay under budget. They tried to cut corners. They would pay my parents the top rates of extra stipends to take the kids they did. It was still way cheaper than the institutional costs."

I think my parents intentionally let a fire-starter have access to matches. DYFS paid to rebuild a major part of the house. Old dilapidated house became newly rebuilt house. Another time, when I was eight, they overloaded me with responsibilities so I didn't have time to lock a door, which allowed a teenager with serious mental problems to have access to knives, a kid with a history of brutally attacking legs. He had been kicked a lot by his father when he was a small boy... That kid should NEVER have been in a single family environment... Well... A foster kid named Teisha was crippled as a result of the knife attack. DYFS paved the driveway, put in a wheelchair ramp, replaced the downstairs flooring, and put in a brand new wheelchair accessible bathroom. They even did major renovations in the kitchen to make it wheelchair accessible too. My parents had DYFS over a barrel. It was a big DYFS placement mistake, and DYFS was eager to give my parents something to keep them quiet and not have the attack be headlines in the press... My parents understood how bureaucracies work very well... Teisha was a very sweet girl, but she back-talked to my parents, and they set her up as the designated target to get the house redone, and they set me up to take the blame and the guilt..."