The final placement

The final placement 

Failure was what I knew, all that I knew, all that I ever seem to manage. I’m good at failure. I’ve had lots of practice. I wrote the book on failure. 

They kept a book on girls like me. Tracking the spiral, going down. 

It all goes down, what I did wrong. The problems caused. The sanctions. 

Sanctions - that’s a nice harmless word. A word that tells you nothing. Nothing to show who’s at fault. No adult is ever at fault - just me. 

Point the finger of fault at Eve. She’s too quiet, too bright, needs too much. The question now is what to do. Who gets the shortest straw, gets Eve? 

An idea, the committee have an idea. What can that Godly couple do with her? That Godly couple. Older not wiser. The triumph of optimism over experience. 

Older, greyer they welcomed me in. A bad start, a Bible on the bed. It got worse. Grace at the start of the meal. Then silence, an awkward strained silence.

God’s Will broke the silence. A nice Sunday School lecture on sins and faults. 

My sins and faults no doubt. They pause for breath, my turn to speak. Deep breath. 

A deep breath, a faked yawn. “I’m very tired, can I go to bed now, please”. No fight. 

No fight left in me. Just another unfamiliar bedroom. No fighting until tomorrow!

Editor’s Note - Eve remembers relatively little of her time in foster care. Some of her memories are very fragmented and others are so specific that they might allow places or individuals to be identified by a determined researcher. The story of Eve's final placement is somewhat different because she remembers the details so clearly and because no personal details need to be disclosed for the full story to be told.