A/N.: Sorry, this chapter isn't betaed. I didn't like this chapter and I thought it was unnecessary, but the reviews told me that it might be necessary, so I searched through my 'written-rubbish' and found this one. I hope it's okay. Thanks for all the nice reviews
21.
The doctor comes back in the evening. Fortunately Ryan has been calmly asleep during the whole time. He checks on Ryan.
"Seems as if the fever starts to subside, but we need to be careful." He says to me, while my husband doesn't look too convinced.
"May I ask you a question?" The doctor looks at us. I feel uncomfortable.
"Of course." My husband answers.
"Why did you come here? I mean your son has been injured and sick, before you started your journey, why didn't you decide to stay home where he can heal in a familiar surrounding?" What…why? I look over to my husband who stands still as stone. I know that he has been critical about this journey either, but he didn't say a lot, because of…me. He didn't want to fight with me about something like that. I've been on the edge, flying into rage at the smallest occasion. We've hurt our kids enough with our conflicts already. He tried to avoid another conflict which might have hurt our kids any further. He's much more considerate than I am. In fact, when I'm thinking about it now, I can't tell why I had wanted to come here after all. I had wanted to come here. That's all. I had booked everything, gotten myself a few weeks out of the office and I wanted to enjoy the time, far, far away from everything. I thought I cold leave all conflicts and problems at home. It's stupid to think that you can run away from your problems. You can't. They'll follow you everywhere. I just didn't want to be home anymore. I didn't want to fight anymore. I was craving a normal family life.
"We talked to a doctor at home and he assured us that it was okay for us to come here as long as we watched Ryan not getting in contact with sand and sea water." I answer finally, not having an idea what else to say.
"Okay, but didn't you have any second thoughts? I mean, when you're not feeling well, do you want to travel all around the world and being a sick stranger somewhere you've never been before?" He asks us. I don't know what he wants to reach with this. This isn't his business. We've made our decision, not to hurt Ryan. We decide to come here for all of us, because this was supposed to do us good as a family. I look over to my husband. I want him to say something to this man, who implies that we deliberately hurt one of our children out of selfish motives. That's wrong. He doesn't know what I gave up for my family, what I did to make them feel home and loved. This man is in no positions to doubt that we love and care for our kids.
"I'm aware that coming here wasn't the best idea, but you must understand that we couldn't stay at home. There had been too many conflicts and this seemed to be our last chance to get things straight between us again." My husband replies diplomatically. I don't want him to be diplomatic. Didn't he notice that this man attacked us and our competence of being parents?
"What kind of conflicts?" He asks and that's the last straw.
"No offence, doctor, but I don't think that this is your business." I let him know that he stepped over a boarder he shouldn't even have touched.
"Well, I don't want to be impolite, but I'm having a patient here, who's very sick and badly injured. It's obvious to me that he's not feeling well that he's uncomfortable. Also I know that these injuries didn't appear over night, as well as the pneumonia. So for me the assumption that someone hasn't had a close eye on my patient lies at hand. Now I want to know, why nobody realised any of this before - why nobody took care, because if I come to the conclusion that the reason is neglect I have to do something. I can't close my eyes in case you're overtaxed or unable to take care of a foster kid. This would betray the Hippocratic Oath I've taken." Well that's it. Another person, who threats us to take Ryan away from us, only because we're not an ideal family. This is not fair. Nobody ever asked us, how difficult it actually was and is to take care of a kid with such a background. We didn't ask the question and though we do all we can to make him feel comfortable and as member of our family. If we don't succeed, it's not our fault, because we did and still do all in our power. We're not to be blamed for the fact that a kid like Ryan can't deal with the usual family life. I can't take the fears from him. We did so many things to get a handle on this. Nothing worked. What else shall we do? Bring him back and say: take him back, because he's not adjusting as we want him to? This would be mean and unfair, but not our attempted to help him adjust in our family.
"We told you about the accident, well…since then Ryan is very dependent on others, something we and he isn't used to. When Sophie was born we thought things could start to settle down, but then our other son – Seth – developed some kind of jealousy of Ryan. We still don't know where this comes from. We had trouble dealing with all of this, because Ryan isn't talking about these things and Seth didn't want to and then things were said and done we all regret now, but Ryan can't differentiate between things which are said in a quarrel and things which are really meant. And we thought if we all go on vacations to some place where we have stick together as family, things might settle down again, but obvious they don't." My husband spills the beans. I'm not sure whether I agree with what he said or whether I agree that he said this at all. This isn't supposed to be judged by strangers who have no clue what it means to hold a big family together.
"But you knew that Ryan was too sick to actually travel, did you?"
"Of course we did, but our other son was already looking forward to this journey and he already had to step back because of Ryan's treatments and special needs. It would have been unfair, if we had denied him this here again because of Ryan." I defend myself – ourselves.
"I can understand that balancing all your family members' needs is a walk on a tight rope. But your son – Seth - is nearly an adult. You could have talked to him, explained to him the situation. He's not a small kid anymore, he'd understand it."
"I doubt that. The trouble started earlier than our plans for the vacations." My husband intervenes.
"Then you haven't handled the situation right from the very beginning." The doctor reproaches us. Now I can't refrain from flying into rage. This is ultimately the last straw.
"How can you say something like that? You have no idea how it is to take in a kid that's not your own. You have no idea how it is to coax such a kid out of his shell, to provide him a family life. You have no idea how it is, having to resist every attempt of rejection, to fight his demons tooth and nail no matter at what expenses." I scream it into the man's face who's talking about things he can't even imagine.
"Kirsten…calm down, I'm sure the doctor didn't mean to offend us." Sandy grabs my shoulders with firm hands. I don't care what the doctor intended to do and what not. He has implied that we're incapable of being Ryan's parents.
"You're right, we might have dealt with the changes in our family the wrong way, but we never intended to hurt any of our kids, especially not Ryan. We misjudged the outcome of taking in a foster kid. But we don't regret it now and I ask you to please not give us the feeling as if we have to." My husband says, putting the doctor in his place.
"I'm sorry, if this was the message I conveyed to you. This wasn't my intention."
"Then what was you intention?" I'm still not any calmer than I've been a few seconds ago. I can't calm down, when someone attacks me.
"My intention was, to…demonstrate you potential roots for the conflicts. Of course it is hard to raise kids and I have no doubts that it's hard to take care of a kid with a rough past. The important thing is, that the whole family – every of its members –adjusts to a new situation. It's wrong to think that you can go on with your family life as you're used to, and only Ryan's the one who has to adjust. This won't work. You have to move towards each other to create a new family life each member feels secure and comfortable in. What I see right now, is a family in which nobody feels comfortable in, because the changes made it impossible to go on as usually." I look over to my husband who tilts his head a little. A sign that he understood what the doctor said. I did too. I can't hide from the fact that he is actually right. We didn't even try to change anything, despite maintaining a few more kids, but that was it. It never occurred to me to change my life style, although it's important that I do so.
"Thanks doctor, we'll think about what you've said, but we'll need some time, at least until Ryan is better again." Sandy answers the doctor, while he guides him out of the house. A few minutes ago I would have kicked this man out and never let him back in again, but now I'm not that sure whether my reaction was the right one. I can't allow myself to fly into frustration that easily anymore. Seth might be used to it, but Ryan isn't and Sophie neither. I could never explain to them what I really meant by these rages. I sit down on the couch. I have to think about how to go on. I have to think about how to change our rituals, but still remain the same family. When the doctor is gone Sandy joins me on the couch.
"It wasn't all wrong what the man said." He starts to take part in my thoughts.
"No that's true, but how to change our family, without hurting Seth?" I ask him back.
"We don't have to change our family, just our routines and for the most we have to talk to the teenagers. We can't leave them out of the process." He says and I admire him for his cool head and the fact that he still can think like a teenager.
"Probably you're right, but how to change things which have been a routine for so long?"
"I doubt that this will be that difficult. These routines have been a burden to us, since we expanded our family. The routines don't fit anymore and that's what made all of us cranky. We have to take the life as it is now and I'm sure we'll discover our new routines. They'll develop as the others have. We only have to let go of the old ones." He says and pulls me close, so that I can rest in his arms. Let go. This has never been one of my advantages. But now I have to, for my kids' sake.