Nowhere to Go by Casey Watson Page A

the woman who was still standing there, 15 feet away, sipping her drink, observing us.
    ‘But that’s not fair!’ Tyler blurted out. ‘That’s not fair, Dad! Just cos she says I stabbed her! And I never – it was an accident! And what about Grant? He wants me home, Dad – who’s going to look after him if I’m not there?’
    Tyler’s dad put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Just give it some time, lad,’ he repeated. ‘We have to think about what’s best for everyone, don’t we? I’ve told you, son, Licia’s my wife, and I have to do right by her. She’s done her best for you, son –’
    All this ‘son’ talk was grating. And not just to me, clearly, because Tyler was having none of it. He wriggled from his father’s grasp and put some distance between them, by high-tailing it out of the main doors.
    Neither father nor stepmother made any move to follow him. It was Mike who was immediately hot-footing it in pursuit.
    Tyler’s father looked at me then, with resignation in his eyes. ‘What can I do?’ his expression said, while his voice provided back-up. ‘She’s done her best for the lad,’ he repeated, as if trying to convince me. ‘Brought them up both exactly the same. God only knows how one turns out to be no trouble at all and the other one turns out to be such a wrong ’un. I know it looks bad, Mrs Watson,’ he said, almost apologetically, ‘but, well. I’m sure you know what happened. His mum was a wrong ’un too, so perhaps it’s in his genes …’ He tailed off then, glancing back again at his wife, in a gesture that screamed appeasement. A bit like young wolves did when faced with the leader of the pack.
    ‘I do know the background,’ was all I could think of to say to him. ‘And I’m sure you’ll be glad to know that we haven’t written him off
just
yet …’
    ‘Oh, of course …’ he said, looking embarrassed now. ‘But, look, I really have to get off now. I just wanted to come over and introduce myself and let you know how grateful we both are for what you and your husband are doing. Let’s hope you can sort him out, eh?’ he finished, just as Mike and Tyler were returning, and then, almost as if he wanted to rush away rather than face them, he turned back in the direction of the coffee machine.
    To where the she-wolf was waiting, I thought. I couldn’t help it; I couldn’t see her any other way.
    ‘Come on, love,’ I said to Tyler, putting my arm around his shoulder. ‘No point hanging around here, is there? Let’s jump in the car and go for a burger, eh?’
    But Tyler shook his head. He didn’t want a burger and neither did he want platitudes. He wanted his dad and his brother and he wanted to go home.
    And when was that going to be happening now? Ever?
    I glanced at Mike over Tyler’s head as we made our way to the car park.
Unlikely
, our eyes said as they met.
    It would obviously be unprofessional to stand in judgement over any family in whose lives, as foster carers, we were involved. In the real world, however, that was sometimes easier said than done, because as part of our briefing we sometimes knew too much. And, in our case, given the extreme nature of many of the children’s circumstances, what we knew was about family situations that were far from ideal.
    Tyler’s disclosures to me ate away at me for the rest of the day, and while I had always understood that he had been taken in by his stepmother in extremely difficult circumstances (and that credit must have been due for her selflessness in doing so), what had happened subsequently, from what I could gather from Tyler, anyway, was that she’d done that time-honoured thing of perhaps acting in haste. And it had obviously taken the slog of caring for another woman’s child for her to realise she’d made a mistake.
    A mistake she now seemed determined to make
him
pay for.
    ‘You don’t know that,’ Mike had said, reasonably enough, when Tyler was out with Will the following evening, having been