Chapter 6 - Twenty-Eight Days
The first twenty-eight days after diagnosis were the part of my childhood I remembered most clearly.
Not because I left with Rachel on day twenty-eight.
I did not.
Memory had compressed months into symbols.
Day one:
Leukemia.
Day two:
Bone marrow biopsy.
Day three:
Chemotherapy.
Day six:
Hair began coming out.
Day nine:
Linda visited for fourteen minutes.
Day twelve:
Richard arrived with a lawyer.
Day fifteen:
County took temporary medical decision authority.
Day nineteen:
Rachel stopped being assigned as my bedside nurse because she had asked social services whether she could be considered as foster placement.
Day twenty-eight:
A social worker told me Rachel had completed initial home evaluation and asked whether I wanted her considered.
That was the moment I remembered as:
“I want to take her.”
Reality was less cinematic.
More meaningful.
Rachel had already been a licensed foster parent for eight months.
She had never received placement because hospital nursing shifts made matching difficult.
She was thirty-four.
Single.
Two-bedroom townhouse.
Student loans.
Old Honda.
No heroic wealth.
She had sat with me during night shifts because I had learned chemo hurt less when someone played cards badly.
Then she went home and quietly called her licensing worker.
Could medically fragile foster children be placed with a nurse employed at the same hospital?
Potential conflict.
The hospital ethics team reviewed.
If Rachel pursued placement, she had to leave my direct care team.
She did.
I was furious.
For three days I thought she had abandoned me too.
Then Teresa Wynn entered my room.
“Rachel asked if you would be comfortable with her being considered as your foster parent.”
I stared.
“What?”
“She cannot continue being your nurse if she is part of placement process.”
“Oh.”
Nobody had explained.
Then:
“Do I have to go?”
“No.”
“Will she still visit?”
“If approved.”
“Does she want me?”
Teresa smiled carefully.
“She asked us to ask you.”
Choice.
I said yes.
Placement occurred six weeks later, after induction phase stabilized.
I arrived at Rachel’s townhouse with two bags.
One contained clothes.
The other medications.
She had painted the second bedroom yellow.
I hated yellow.
She repainted it blue.
No speech.
Just:
“Pick a color.”
That was motherhood before the word.
Meanwhile, Linda and Richard still had parental rights.
The reunification plan required:
Medical-care education.
Family counseling.
Regular visitation.
Safe home plan.
Participation in oncology appointments.
They could have done it.
Maybe taken me home later.
They did not.
The juvenile file Julia obtained showed why in more detail than I ever wanted.
First missed visit:
Allison’s campus tour.
Second:
Richard business conference.
Third:
Linda reported “emotional inability to tolerate hospital setting.”
Fourth:
Family vacation booked before diagnosis.
They went.
Without me.
I had remembered Rachel taking me to a county fair that week.
I never knew my biological family was in Aruba.
Then six-month review hearing.
Richard’s attorney argued placement with Rachel was working and reunification could be postponed.
The judge asked whether parents were relinquishing.
Not yet.
They wanted flexibility.
I was a child they did not want home but did not want formally to lose.
Then Dr. Grant testified:
Hannah requires reliable caregivers. Uncertainty is clinically harmful.
Rachel testified too.
Not:
Give her to me.
She said:
“If Hannah can safely reunify with her parents and wants that, I will support her.”
I cried reading.
Even then she did not claim me.
Then month ten.
Linda and Richard filed voluntary relinquishment.
Reason in petition:
Family circumstances and child’s established attachment to foster parent.
Not cancer.
Not finances.
No admission of neglect.
In exchange, county did not pursue a contested termination finding.
The court still had to determine voluntariness and best interest.
They signed.
Linda initialed every page.
Richard signed before notary.
Allison had been away at boarding school that week.
Then one memorandum from Richard’s attorney to county counsel surfaced in the file.
Confidential? If filed or produced in record maybe not privileged. Let's make it a settlement letter not privileged.
The Barretts wish to avoid a public adjudication that may affect older daughter’s school environment and Mr. Barrett’s professional reputation.
I read twice.
They gave me up partly to protect Allison’s school environment and Richard’s reputation from a neglect case.
The same priorities.
Different paperwork.
Then Allison read the file through her own attorney after obtaining lawful access to records relevant to her statements? Juvenile records sealed; as sibling not automatic access. Better Hannah authorized sharing copies in her possession where lawful. Julia redacted third-party info and sent key orders. Fine.
Allison called me at midnight.
“They told me you begged not to come home.”
I closed my eyes.
“I stopped asking them to come by month six.”
“That’s not same.”
“No.”
“They said Rachel pressured you.”
“No.”
“They said social workers thought you were safer because Mom had panic attacks.”
“Mom did hate hospitals.”
“But Dad?”
“He hated losing control.”
Allison went quiet.
Then:
“I wrote you letters.”
I sat up.
“What?”
“When I went to boarding school. I wrote you.”
“I never got them.”
“I gave them to Mom.”
My heart started pounding.
“What did she say?”
“That you didn’t want contact.”
We had found another missing file.
Not hospital.
Family.
Allison still had drafts of two letters saved in an old email account because she had typed them before handwriting copies.
Hannah, I don’t know if you’re mad at me.
Hannah, Mom says you need space.
May you like
Hannah, I miss you.
The sister I had believed chose college over me had been sixteen and lied to too.
