Hard to Untangle

Sometimes it’s hard to untangle life, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. Last Thursday I got a call from the woman who has been raising Primero’s older sister, the one who has come to stay with us on a few occasions. It was a long, difficult conversation. The impetus for her call was mostly because she believed the sister was spreading misleading and damaging rumors about her and she wanted to be sure I heard her side. She started off the conversation by telling me she didn’t want Primero to hear what we were saying. He never left my side the entire time we were talking, except to keep the baby quiet. In the hour plus that we spoke, this woman, who considers herself their aunt, did not say one nice thing about the sister. She called her a money grubbing, gold digging, lying, manipulative, slut. This woman lied to make herself out to be a victim. I asked her how I could help and she asked me to see if there are any services that she could use for the sister. I spoke with two case workers about her situation and one said it sounded like the girl was being verbally abused. She is 18 but still needs to complete her final year of high school and I don’t think she is emotionally ready to be living on her own. The case worker suggested she could sign herself into foster care, thus removing herself from her current home. Primero wants her to move in with us and given how insane things seem to be for her, I consented stating we would worry about the legalities after the fact – sort of like asking for forgiveness rather than permission. My heart breaks for this girl and she sent Primero a picture of her arm full of hundreds of nasty red slashes because she had repeatedly sliced herself with something. Her phone had been taken from her, so we were unable to hear her side of the story. When she was finally able to call, she sounded so broken it took everything I had not to pile the kids in the van and go get her away from the mess. This is hard because I want to help and I care about this girl simply because she is family through Primero. But, I also don’t want to start a war with the “aunt” (she is a friend of their mom’s whom they all once lived with so they call her their aunt) and I don’t want to over-step my boundaries. I feel like this is Hermano all over again with the only difference being this girl is not in foster care and is legally an adult. And I don’t really know what to do or how to help or if I should just worry about us and not get involved.

Saturday we will have Chica Marie and Love Bug’s older sister visiting with us, beginning the bi-weekly sibling visits. It’s convenient that she is back in town again, although I don’t know for how long. I’m sure she will be excited for the visit and I hope she will behave the entire time. We plan on going swimming to give her an activity rather than just sitting around the house. The foster mother and I decided we would take turns hosting the visits, although I’m not sure that she would be keeping Love Bug, probably just Chica Marie. I guess we will see.