Better Off Alone (Adopted by Brendon and Sarah Urie)

29. Brendon

Callie was despondent when we got her home. The doctors had assured us that she was okay, that the boys hadn't raped her. One of the doctors had told us that during the examination, Callie had been particularly upset and behaved in ways he'd seen sexual abuse victims react. He suggested we find her counselling if that were the case. One of the nurses said the same thing.

At home, Callie went up to her room and when I went to check on her, she was curled up on her bed and hadn't responded to the door knock alert. But I didn't want to let her stew, so I'd gone in and seen her lying on her bed, back to the door.

I tried to explain to her that she was okay and was in her forever home. I tried to get her to come down and have some lunch. She claimed she wasn't hungry, but she hadn't eaten much at the hospital. And she hadn't eaten as far as I knew, the day before.

When I couldn't get her to come down, I told her she could text or just come down.

When I went back downstairs where Sarah was compulsively wiping the clean counter, Bogart went upstairs.

"Is she okay?" Sarah asked.

I shrugged.

"I don't know," I said. "She won't say anything about what happened to her  before her dad gave her up. She just lying on her bed, curled up."

"Poor kid," Sarah said, looking up the stairs. "I want her to know we know what her dad has done, but I feel like she doesn't want us to know. But you know me, B. I want to be open and honest with her. I want her to know this isn't something to be ashamed of. That she did nothing wrong."

"I know. I think getting her a therapist might not be a bad idea. We don't know a lot about her past even with what Sheri told us."

Sarah nodded. The two of us ate a light lunch together, silent. Both of us were thinking what the best course of action would be with Callie. Now that we knew more about what she'd been dealing with, we needed to help her heal. She had been holding on to these things her whole life pretty much.

One challenge would be finding a therapist who knew sign language. I didn't know if an interpreter would be someone who could handle Callie's past. Or if Callie would trust an interpreter with what I believed she thought was a secret.

"I'm going to go out to my studio and do a little research," I said to Sarah. She nodded as she put our lunch plates in the dishwasher.

My parents were expected by five, and I wanted to at least get some ideas of how best to help Callie before they came. Just so I didn't have it over my head.

My heart was breaking for my daughter. She was so certain we were going to give her up. Sheri had told us, as we'd been frantically searching for her, that her father and some of her previous foster dads and foster brothers had taken advantage of her. The one family that had been promising, Sheri told us, the foster mother's mother had caught the family's older son assaulting Callie. That was the reason Callie had been removed from the home. It had been for her safety. But Callie had thought it was because the woman had forced the family to give her up.

How many times, how many men and boys had taken advantage of a small girl who couldn't fight back and couldn't tell anyone around her what was happening? She couldn't cry out or scream. And since most of her foster families hadn't learned sign language, she couldn't really tell them. She could have written notes, of course, but that would have easily been intercepted or pushed off as a troubled kid making up stories.

I wanted to help Callie heal from this trauma. But I wasn't qualified to give her the help she really needs.

I sighed as I sat at my computer in my studio, Penny Lane sitting beside me looking up expectantly. I picked up the pug and scratched her behind the ears.

"How do we help our girl, huh?" I asked the pup. She responded by licking my face.

"Something tells me Callie wouldn't appreciate me licking her face," I smiled at Penny.

I turned on my computer and started a Google search.

After about an hour, I had some resources and had made a few phone calls. There was hope. But Callie had to want to accept the help, too.

All I wanted was to give her the best life I possibly could. She deserved it. Despite her rough start after her mom died, Callie needed to know she has value in this world. That she now has a forever family. That we do love her. That we want to raise her. That we want her and love her and that her past does not define her or her future.

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I thought about the pain my small daughter had endured at the hands of her birth father and her foster families.

The foster system had failed Callie in so many ways. And she'd hidden the pain and trauma so well.

But I wasn't going to let her let that define her. Sarah and I were going to help her heal. She deserved it.

With a couple of printouts, messages left at a few places and resources researched, I wiped my eyes, took a few minutes to compose myself and went back into the house.