Today is Mother’s day. I have been feeling guilty all weekend about lying to Mom and Stewart. Carmen and Stewart had an argument on the phone, so she told him she wasn’t coming. Then she told me that she would only come if they didn’t know about it. I went along with it.

We followed the usual routine of getting up at different times and having breakfast. After breakfast, Carmen decided to show me the procedure for administering Diastat to Carrie if I were to ever be alone with her when a seizure happened. The medicine comes in a syringe (no needle) and has to be administered rectally. She showed me the diagrams on the package insert that depicted a baby on its side and a person inserting the syringe in the baby’s rectum. She said insert and push the plunger slowly for a count of 3, then hold it in for a count of 3, then pull out and squeeze the baby’s cheeks together to prevent it from coming back out. Then immediately call 911 and insist on taking the baby to the closest Children’s trauma hospital. In Lexington, that would be UK Children’s Hospital.

She said that Carrie could never be farther than a few minutes away from either Cincinnati Children’s or UK Children’s. That’s why she won’t agree to take Carrie to Mom’s or Dad’s in Berea. They are simply too far away from a Children’s hospital, and the local hospitals aren’t equipped enough to treat a baby as sick as Carrie.

Since Carmen was going to be leaving today, we didn’t plan anything. We just sat on the porch and enjoyed the weather. I held Carrie in the porch swing again. This time I spread my legs apart so there was room for Carrie to actually sit on the swing between my left. Her little feet dangled off the edge. People were walking down the street coming from the church. Occasionally someone would stop to say hi and comment on how cute Carrie is. One woman wished Carmen a Happy Mother’s Day. The woman said, “It looks like it’s your first. Congratulations.”

When Carmen wasn’t around, Kent mentioned to me that she had been counting her money at breakfast and verbally worrying about whether she had enough money for gas. He suggested that I give her $20 so she could fill up on the way home. In my attempt to be “cute” I attached a $20 bill to Carrie’s pacifier fastener. When Carmen came back to the porch she said, “Are you using her binky as your money clip?” I explained that it was her mother’s day gift.

While we sat on the porch she told me about her godmother’s adopted daughter, Tess. She was a fetal alcohol syndrome baby with hydrocephalus. Carmen said that she was 2 before she ever learned to crawl, and then began to walk shortly after that. Teresa is now almost 10 and is diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. Carmen says that she is so smart that she likes to read medical journals and big books.

As she told me this story, I started to wonder how much of it was true. I am skeptical of everything she says anymore. Then I thought about all the things she has seen in her life in the foster care system. Her story of Teresa’s early years sound eerily like some of the things she says about Carrie. Like when she said that Carrie would never walk. Teresa’s adoptive parents though she would never walk. She says that Carrie is developmentally delayed, perhaps to the point where she’ll be disabled. That’s what Teresa’s parents thought about her when she was a baby. It just sounds like Carmen is projecting illnesses onto Carrie that she has seen in other children.

My friend Drew Sxxxx dropped by after playing the trumpet at church. Shortly after he arrived, Carmen left.

Carmen left a message at 4:40 PM to say she got home OK.