“No, we’ve been really careful,” Skylar hurried to say. “Travis stopped by this evening to, eh, check on a stray dog he brought here as a rescue last week. He’s paying for her medical care.”
Travis squeezed her hand again. Yeah, it had sounded like the lie it was. Not a lie, but a serious omission of the full truth.
“Skylar, you haven’t added Dr. Dixon to your list of approved personnel,” Anita frowned, as if racking up demerits, when the screen door pushed open and wheezed shut again.
“Hi, Brandon.” Anita turned her attention to the boy. “I’m going to take you to another home tonight. Will you go pack your belongings? I’ll wait.”
Brandon didn’t move. Also didn’t speak. Courage pattered around him, her tail wagging, her ribs rolling down her sides like a washboard. Anita’s eyes roved over the dog in the glow of the porchlight.
“This dog looks unwell. Are you feeding it?”
The accusation in Anita’s voice made Skylar’s blood boil. Anything to find excuses for her home being unfit, it seemed.
Holding back her mounting anger by a thread, she grit her teeth and gnashed the snark she wanted to spew into submission. “This is the rescue dog Travis brought in. She’s already gained three pounds since last week. I can show you her records. And she’s Brandon’s dog now. If you take Brandon away, you take him from all of this,” she gestured.
Yoda, from wherever he’d been off sniffing, also trotted over to them, his ears perked. Obviously part German Shepherd, his tense body language caused Anita to step back as he, too, circled around them, sniffing at Anita’s feet.
“Yoda, heel,” Travis said, and Yoda dutifully came to Travis’s side and sat. “He’s a retired service dog, ma’am. As good as they come.”
“Look, Skylar, Brandon, my hands are tied,” Anita said now. “Please go collect your things. I’ll be waiting, and we can talk about this on the drive.”
Dread consumed her. “Anita—”
“You can take this up tomorrow with the main office if you think it’s a misjudgment, but for now, I have to do this. It’s in his best interest while the accident reports and police records are reviewed.”
“That truck accident wasn’t even Skylar’s fault,” snapped Brandon.
“Get your things, Brandon.”
“This is bullshit.” Brandon grimaced.
“Brandon? Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be,” Anita replied evenly. “I don’t want to call for backup.”
“Backup?” Skylar gasped.
“You’re treatin’ him like a criminal,” Travis growled.
“This doesn’t concern you, Dr. Dixon. And Skylar? If I think you’ve been involving someone outside of Brandon’s case with him, you risk losing your foster care designation.”
She clenched her hair on either side of her head, taking a deep, helpless breath. Was there nothing she could do? She turned to Brandon, not knowing what to say or do. “Brandon, I’ll start calling folks tomorrow, okay? I…” She shook her head, unable to find the right words. There were no right ones at a time like this. “I’ll fight for you.”
“Bullshit,” he whispered again, his voice so hurt, and he slammed back through the door, his feet stomping loudly up the steps.
Her stomach plummeted. She took a shaky breath, then turned back to Anita. “You have no idea all the progress he’s made that you’re undoing. He was just starting to feel secure here.”
“He won’t talk to me. I asked him today at our meeting if he wanted to stay. He shrugged and scowled at me and said it didn’t matter. None of it mattered.”
“Because he doesn’t think that his opinion counts for anything. Have you really been listening to him all this time? His silence means so much.”
“I can’t try to glean from his silence what he means.”
Brandon slammed back through the front door moments later, his arms loaded down with a trash bag, all of his worldly goods, his school pack thrown over his back. Skylar crinkled her brow.
“Where’s that duffle bag I got you?” she asked.
Seeing the trash bag of personal belongings when he’d first arrived two months ago had gouged, as if his things were no better than junk.
“It’ll just get stolen,” he muttered, a hard, deep, angry frown riveting his brow and pulling down his lips as he marched past her without a hug, a further word, or even a glance, trotting down the steps and ripping open the passenger door of Anita’s SUV. Courage whined, padding down the steps to sniff at Brandon. “You can’t come,” he bit out through clenched teeth.