All Four Of Me

Chapter 9

NATHAN

Yesterday was a complete disaster.

If I had known just how terrible the day was going to turn out I would have stayed in bed when my alarm woke me up that morning. However, being an adult isn't that simple and considering there are bills and Mortgage to pay I had no choice but to get myself out of bed at some ungodly hour of the morning and drive all the way out into the middle of no man's land to scope out a potential foster family.

Maybe if I had been given the correct directions to the property, or if my tire hadn't blown out on the dirt road, or the lack of phone reception made it impossible to call the insurer for help, things might not have turned out so bad. All of these things were only minor inconveniences and could be easily handled.

However, after changing the tire myself and doubling back to the nearest service station to ask for directions things had only gone downhill from there. Sure, I was finally able to find my way to the correct address, but it was all a complete waste of time because there was no way on God's green earth that I would let our agency place a foster child in a situation like theirs.

The foster family itself at first wasn't too bad. Maybe if they had lived a little closer to civilization they would have been slightly more desirable as a potential foster family, but at first glance they didn't exhibit any major red flags.

It wasn't until they starting listing their preferred "characteristics" of a potential foster child that their true intentions started to reveal themselves. Most foster families aren't too picky when it comes to accepting a foster child into their family, but we always try to ensure that the child is a suitable match for the prospective carers.

In this case, the potential carers were specifically looking for an able-bodied teenage male who could adapt to their lifestyle. Or in other words, they want a teenage boy who is capable of working on their farm without the expectation of payment. That to me is an unacceptable reason for wanting to take a foster child into your family and the idea that they would apply for a caring role when they simply wanted to exploit the child for their benefit frustrates me to no end.

That's why when I was finally able to leave the premises after three hours of listening to those people talk about how much better their lives would be if they had an extra person in their household, my mood had soured considerably.

The drive back to Melbourne had been bumper to bumper traffic almost the entire way due to a traffic accident at one of the main exits and having to deal with the impatient drivers in the long queue behind me was just the cherry on top of my disaster sundae. I wish I had known back then that the worst was yet to come because maybe then I would have been able to prepare myself for the remaining chaos that was yet to unfold.

As it turned out, I wasn't the only one having a particularly trying day and the moment that Will walked into the house claiming that he needed to talk to both Chris and I in the office I knew instantly that shit was about to hit the fan, because there is only one thing that Will would want to speak to the both of us about privately.

Mackenzie.

In all honesty, Kenzie had been an angel over the past couple of weeks. Until yesterday there hadn't been any major issues with her behaviour other than a few sassy remarks here and there whenever we push her a little too far out of her comfort zone, but that is nothing compared to what we had prepared ourselves for. That's why when Will told us that the principal had called him about the incident with her English teacher it came as a bit of a shock.

We had all expected to face some challenges when it came to Kenzie's behaviour, but we hadn't expected her to flip so suddenly after the last two weeks of her practically blending into the walls. Something didn't quite add up to the Principals' version of events, but after the absolute shocker of a day we had all experienced, none of us had been in the right mindset to try and approach the situation from a gentler angle.