Casey Watson - The Boy No One Loved - A Heartbreaking True Story of Abuse, Abandonment and Betrayal

‘Get to your room! NOW!’ Kieron suddenly barked at him. ‘And don’t even think about coming down until you’re ready to apologise! You’re a selfish little brat, and if it were up to me, you’d be having no tea at all, you understand?’

Justin’s eyes were now as full of unshed tears as my own were, and as he fled the room, mine spilled out over my cheeks, despite all my good intentions about not crying.

I pulled out a chair and sat on it and put my head in my hands, mortified both that I’d handled things so badly, and that I’d upset Kieron. Upset everything. Ruined Christmas.

But I didn’t sit on it for long. What was I thinking? I stood up again, and went to put my arm around Kieron, as he stooped to gather up the parts of my dismembered phone. He was white as a sheet and I could feel he was shaking.

‘It’s okay, love,’ I soothed him. He hated seeing me upset. ‘He probably just needed to get that out of his system. I think we all did. I’m okay, Kieron, honest.’

‘Oh, God, mum. I know. But, God, I almost slapped him!’ This thought clearly horrified him, as I knew it would. That wasn’t Kieron. He looked hard at me. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

I squeezed his shoulder. ‘I’m fine now. Really fine. I swear.’

I took a step back from him now, gently shaking his shoulders. ‘But look at you! Coming over all Bruce Lee for your mum!’

He tutted at this. ‘Bruce Lee? He’s ancient! Bruce Willis, more like.’

Whatever. I let go a big sigh of relief. Situation diffused. At least for now.

By the time Mike returned with the shopping, I had calmed down sufficiently to see clearly. This was just an outburst – a symptom – not the end of the world. Kieron, understandably, was still very angry and insistent that Justin come and apologize to me, but after he’d explained to Mike what had happened, I felt it was really important that we calm the whole temperature down. I neither wanted nor needed an apology, I told them. It was just the build-up, the anticipation; it had all clearly been too much for him. I should have thought, I went on, about how it must be for him. How different it must have all been from what he was used to. And despite us telling him that Santa was bringing him lots of presents, why should he believe us? He hadn’t seen them, because we’d hidden them. And why, with his past, should he trust any of us? Trust anyone?

Despite that, Mike still felt he must go up and speak to him. Not to rant at him – that, we both agreed, would be pointless; even counter-productive. He was probably well used to people tearing strips off him all the time – but just to make it clear that his behaviour was unacceptable. He already knew that, of course – he’d know he’d lose points on his behaviour chart – but Mike felt strongly that he needed not to gloss over it, but to spell it out.

They both came back down, half an hour later, and Justin’s head was hanging. His eyes were red and swollen. You could see he’d been crying a lot.

‘I’m sorry Casey,’ he said solemnly. ‘I’m sorry, Kieron. I’ll pay you back for everything with my pocket money, I promise. I’ve got £16 in my drawer too, so that’ll be a start.’

He looked so sorry and so ashamed that my heart melted instantly. Poor kid. Poor, poor kid. Born to such terrible circumstances, and none of it his fault.

‘Just forget it,’ I said to him. But Mike shook his head.

‘No, Casey,’ he said. ‘We’ve already sorted it, haven’t we, Justin? That we’ll get him a new DVD player once he’s saved up enough to pay half. Agreed, Justin?’

Justin nodded. ‘Agreed.’

I crossed the kitchen and ruffled Justin’s hair. And he let me. It was only a small thing, but at least we’d made some contact.

Once again, I felt the tension drain out of my body, and my sense of optimism about Christmas returning. It would be fine now. Outburst over, we could now all enjoy Christmas and New Year.

But it would be less than forty-eight hours before I was proved wrong.

I woke on Christmas morning in my usual good spirits, and was once again up early, and straight down in the living room, flicking through the TV channels to find something festive to put on. After a few clicks of the remote I found The Wizard of Oz – one of my favourites – so I left that playing while I headed into the kitchen to prepare breakfast, where I added my Christmas CD to the cacophony, turning it up just that little bit too much.

‘For God’s sake, love!’ said Mike, following me in there in his dressing gown.

I pulled him towards me and tried to get him to do a twirl with me, but he was having none of it. ‘Get off me, you nutter!’ he said, grinning. ‘You’ll have the whole bloody street up with the racket you’re making! Go get some breakfast on, woman!’

He then kissed me on the nose and gave me a bear hug. ‘I’ll go and get these kids up, then, shall I?’

I smiled to myself as I went to the fridge and started pulling out bacon and orange juice. I had the best husband ever. I truly believed that. Never in a million years would I have considered becoming a foster parent if I hadn’t had a great man like Mike by my side.

By the time we took on Justin, Mike and I had been married for twelve years, though we had been together as a couple for much longer. We’d known each other since childhood, and had always been friends. It was only after my first marriage had broken down and I had turned to friends for support, that Mike and I had realised just how much we meant to each other. The rest, as they say, is history, and we remain just as much in love today as we always were.

He was also my rock and my foil – we fitted perfectly. Where I was impetuous and excitable, he was so calm and wise, and he also made me feel safe, both emotionally and physically – he was well over six foot to my diminutive five foot nothing, and I knew I could rely on him totally.

I glanced at the many reminders and post-it notes stuck on the fridge door as I closed it, and which I’d had to prune out and squash up to make way for some big new ones. Beside the meal chart – on which I’d remembered to record both our turkey dinner and our bacon buttie breakfast – was the points chart we’d had in place for Justin from day one, as part of our strategy to get him to modify his behaviour and so – hopefully – be in a position to return to mainstream foster care once he’d completed the programme with us. That was all that we were hoping for (though the word ‘all’ is obviously a pretty big one) – to get him successfully placed with a long-term foster family and thereby have a chance of a happy and useful adult life.

The way we worked the points chart was simple. When he had amassed sufficient he was allowed a choice of treats as a reward; things like choosing the family dinner, say, or having an outing of some sort, the hope being that he’d be motivated to try and earn them. Because no points, of course, meant no treats. If he was good, and did all the day-to-day things we required of him, like cleaning his teeth, making his bed, being polite and so on, he got points awarded. But if he did something bad, he would lose them again. Last night’s episode, sadly, had seen him lose a lot. But, largely thanks to Mike’s input, he’d apologised now, which was no small thing for a child in his situation to do. I was so glad we were now starting Christmas Day on a positive note. The only fly in the ointment was an obvious one. We’d bought him some DVDs for Christmas, as had Riley, and a few others, and now he had nothing on which to play them.

But there was no point in me worrying about that now. We’d just have to deal with it when we got to it, I supposed. At the moment all was calm and that was good enough for me.