Wildfire Heart – Chapter 03 – ScarsLikeVelvet

Chapter 03

June 30, 1991 – Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA

The nurses at the hospital adored their newest patient. Little Evan Christopher Buckley, named so by his big brother, Daniel Owen Buckley, because his parents couldn’t be arsed to give the newest member of their family a name, was the star of the nursery. He slept, ate, and pooped like clockwork, and didn’t cry unless someone tried to hand him to his parents or sister.

Everyone quickly learned that he had lungs ready to burst eardrums if they tried such shenanigans, and it even drew the attention of the Department of Children and Families, who took a deeper look into the Buckley family’s situation because it was weird for a newborn to throw such fits.

What they found out was most certainly not what they expected. There were dozens of reports on the family on file that had all been marked as handled but nothing was ever done about all the complaints regarding the fact that the oldest girl, Madeline Grace, ran roughshod over everybody and their brother and was forced to take care of her brother who was eighteen months younger than her.

The boy had a lot of health issues since birth, but the parents didn’t take care of them until the sickness the little boy had suffering from caused him to collapse in school and an ambulance had been called to save his life before anyone even reached out to the parents, who promptly lost their shit at learning their child had been taken to the hospital which they had avoided like the plague since he had been born because it would have proved the glaring point that they weren’t taking proper care of their children.

The moment they were potty-trained, they left them mostly to themselves, occasionally employing a babysitter or a nanny, but the moment either of them asked about the surefire signs of the children not being taken care of by their parents, they got fired and buried in legal shenanigans that made them shut up or fired and paid to keep their mouths shut, depending on the individuals.

What the investigators found was such a clear-cut case of child abuse, blackmail, and hush money paid to make people look the other way when it came to what was going on in the Buckley household, that they arrested Phillip Buckley, the main instigator behind the pay-offs, on the spot without the option of paying bail because of his flight risk.

Since his wife had been diagnosed with a long-term, untreated case of postpartum depression and had been remanded into an involuntary psych hold that was already in front of the judges to force her to stay there until she was either declared healed or at least stable, which no one expected to happen at any point in the near future, especially since she seemed to have a break from reality since the birth of her youngest child, which she called the spare parts for her middle child while constantly asking if the boy, Daniel, had been healed yet.

The whole situation was an absolute mess, especially when DCFS took charge of the children and found out that the Buckleys had allowed their sick with a cold daughter to visit their son without enforcing any hygiene and safety measures to ensure the boy didn’t catch her cold while as immune-compromised as he was.

It seemed like they wanted Daniel to catch a cold and die, instead of helping him survive despite having a savior sibling—an atrocious thing to do to a child in everyone’s opinion—which they figured was more likely to be a replacement for the sick child as they made sure he was genetically perfect as opposed to Daniel in their opinion.

They allowed their daughter to do as she pleased, buying her anything and everything she wanted, and any bad choice the girl made ended with the parents patting her on the head and telling her not to do it again without ever enforcing any other consequences aside from that.

Madeline Grace Buckley was quite the unhappy camper when her new foster parents told her that “No, you aren’t visiting either of your brothers while sick. And no, you do not go out to visit your elderly neighbors while sick either. You are to remain in bed to recuperate, unless you wish to make yourself sick enough to be hospitalised with the possibility of dying like your brother currently faces.”

Maddie had promptly burst into tears and thrown a tantrum worthy of a two-year-old with all the wailing, throwing herself on the floor, and throwing things around she did, which caused her to face the first real consequences in her life.

A hefty swat on her bum before she was taken to her new room and tucked into an unfamiliar bed. Her foster mother gave her cold medicine, which made the unhappy, still crying girl sleepy and eventually knocked her out for a while. She remained sitting by Maddie’s bedside to keep an eye on her new charge because she was worried about the little girl’s mental and physical health. It was clear that she hadn’t been receiving any care at all and had been left to fend for herself far too long. So long, she didn’t even know how to accept help from anyone else.

“We need to take her to see a doctor and maybe a psychologist. She clearly isn’t well at all, and something is very, very wrong with her. We need to cut that mess off at the knees before something bad happens … either to her or with her causing an accident or the death of someone. She is so insistent on spreading her illness to the most vulnerable people out there, it isn’t even funny anymore,” her husband said from the door leading to the room.

His wife nodded.

“I agree. You should call our GPs office and make an appointment to get her seen to as soon as we can. It is important to document all of her behaviour as the Department of Children and Family Services need to know what is going on with her, if this is just a behavioural issue that can be corrected through strict boundaries or if she is sick in the head or something,” she said.

“You think she is suffering from psychological issues?” Her husband asked, sounding curious.

“Are you telling me you don’t?” his wife retorted.

He bit his lip and remained silent for a moment before he shrugged and replied, “I don’t know, but the doctor will surely know more.”

She just inclined her head and focused back on the exhausted girl sleeping in the bed beside her.

— — —

“Daniel?” Nurse Maria Hadley addressed the sick little boy sitting on his bed in the oncology ward. “Do you feel up to a conversation with Mrs Walsh from the Department of Children and Family Services?”

Daniel tilted his head to the side and regarded his caretaker in silence for a long moment. Eventually, he opened his mouth and asked, “Will the lady from … the children and family thingy … be able to help me keep Evan safe?”

His words surprised the nurse.

“What do you mean?” She blurted out before she could stop herself from asking.

Daniel looked down at his lap, licked his dry lips and sighed.

“I know Mom and Dad just had Evan to save my life … that they want to use his … body to make me healthy again, and if that doesn’t happen to let me die and still have the sweet, blonde boy that fits their vision of a perfect family with a house, a white picket fence and two children, a boy and a girl … Evan shouldn’t have to carry their screwed up believes. He’s a baby and innocent …,” he rambled, causing tears to spring up in Nurse Hadley’s eyes.

“Mrs Walsh can help you,” she eventually managed to get out without choking on her tears. “That is why she came here. Your mother is currently receiving help from doctors for her issues, and your Daddy has other issues he needs to take care of, which is why he can’t take care of you and your siblings at the moment.”

Daniel just nodded in response to her explanation, knowing that he needed to make sure he didn’t sound too adult in what he was going to tell her.

“But … Maddie won’t be allowed to stay here with me, right? She’s always trying to make me sick … like forcing me to go out with wet hair … coughing in my face when she’s caught a bug herself … it’s icky … she makes me feel icky and I don’t like how she talks to me … and sometimes …,” he trailed off after blurting out something he knew he should be talking about but didn’t feel ready to and shrugged.

Nurse Hadley looked at him with worry clear in her eyes, but she knew better than to push. She just sat down on the edge of Daniel’s mattress and looked at him with a serious expression.

“Those are things that are important to tell Mrs Walsh,” she told him gently. “Anything she or your parents do that you don’t like are things that she needs to know so that she can make the best choice when it comes to your continued care.”

“Whatever Mrs Walsh decides, I don’t want to be in the same home with her,” Daniel blurted out. It was such a visceral shout that Nurse Hadley flinched, and the door to the room got pushed open by a woman with greying hair and a worried expression.

“Hello, Daniel, my name is Bridget Walsh. I work with the Department of Children and Family Services, and I couldn’t help but her you call my name,” she said as she entered the room and introduced herself.

Daniel looked at her with a suspect expression and asked her to show him some form of identification, something he had seen adults do more often than not when important things happened. He looked at her expectantly, and she smiled and showed him a badge that clearly identified her as being the person who she told him she was, not that he would be able to verify it in any way.

“Thank you,” he said and watched as she settled on the chair next to his bed and pulled out a small recording device, and a notepad.

“Are you okay with me recording our conversation? It will allow me to focus on what we are talking about instead of having to take a lot of notes while having a conversation,” she asked, giving him an explanation why she wanted to do it before he could even ask.

Daniel didn’t hesitate. He wanted to make sure that Evan would never have to go home with Margaret and Phillip Buckley for the reason of having seen how his little brother had been treated in their dubious care after his death. He didn’t want Evan to have to go through such a mess ever again.

“It’s fine,” he agreed and looked at Nurse Hadley, who moved to stand and leave them alone. “Can you stay, Nurse Hadley? I don’t know Mrs Walsh that well, and I … I don’t want to stay alone with an unknown adult.”

Nurse Hadley smiled and sat back down, taking Daniel’s hand and giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

“Look at you for asking for what you need to feel safe,” she murmured gently before looking at Mrs Walsh, knowing that the woman would need to agree, which she did without a single ounce of hesitation.

“That’s fine. This young man deserves to get the support he needs,” Mrs Walsh replied before she activated her recording device and rattled off who exactly was in the room with her for the conversation before asking Daniel to tell her about his home life.

Daniel took the big cup with the straw holding his water from the bedside table and took a long sip, gathering his thoughts while drinking before he started talking.

“Most of the time Maddie is the one who takes care of me … sometimes there are older children … or nanny’s who help her, but when they see things they think are wrong or don’t like they tell my parents and they make them go away … I don’t like it when Maddie takes care of me alone … she … Miss Trudy in kindergarten said people shouldn’t touch me in my private places if I don’t want it, but Maddie always does … she says I’m too little to clean myself right … but I know how … Dad showed me … and the nurses here say I do it well even when sick … so I don’t know why she does … I told her ‘No’ but she says my ‘No’ doesn’t count because she is my big sister,” Daniel rambled, revealing the one thing his parents had forbidden him to talk about ever that had been weighing heavily on him.

Nurse Hadley gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

“You have the right to say ‘No,’ whenever someone touches you against your will, Daniel. Being your sister doesn’t give Madeline any rights to your body,” she said firmly before Mrs Walsh could formulate an answer to the revelation the little boy made.

“Nurse Hadley is right. What your sister has been doing to you is wrong, and I would like you to talk to a special doctor about what she did to help you process it, so you can grow up with a healthy mindset,” Mrs Walsh eventually said, making a note to get in touch with a psychiatrist specializing in treating children who faced physical abuse by a family member, specifically what seemed to be a form of abuse that leaned toward sexualised abuse, though she couldn’t be sure that was the girl’s motivation.

“Is there anything else your sister does that you don’t like?” Mrs Walsh asked, causing Daniel to talk about what he had told Nurse Hadley before, who added some things she had watched personally during Daniel’s hospital stays.

“The parents are very permissible when it comes to their daughter doing what she wants. They have been repeatedly told she needs to stay home as sick as she is, but they allowed her to step into both the oncology and maternity wards, and the girl had to be escorted out repeatedly, which led to tantrums that frankly would have led to the child receiving at least a stern talking to if not a spanking in other house holds. I think the charge nurses keep a record as we didn’t know who to tell about what was going on since every complaint to DCFS seemed to have vanished before,” Nurse Hadley explained, looking at the DCFS worker curiously.

“Ah, yes. That issue is currently being thoroughly investigated and getting taken care of. According to the head of my department a lot of heads will roll over this. Thankfully not mine,” she replied, but shook her head when she saw that Nurse Hadley wanted more information. She didn’t wish to talk about such things in front of a child, even if a lot of it likely would go over the seven-year-old’s head.

“I’m tired,” Daniel said with a yawn. He understood quite well what was going on, but he also wanted to cuddle with his little brother and have a private conversation with him to tell him what he had told the DCFS worker. “Can I cuddle with Evan for a bit before my nap?”

Nurse Hadley didn’t hesitate. She could see Daniel needed a pick-me-up and what better pick-me-up was there than cuddling a newborn?

“I’ll call the nursery and ask them if Evan can spend some time with you,” she told him and shared a small smile with Mrs Walsh, who packed up her equipment almost immediately.

“I might come back to have another conversation with you when you are up to it. Is that alright with you, Daniel?” she asked gently.

Daniel just nodded. Right now, he just wanted his little brother and a nap. Preferably at the same time, though that might be a bit iffy, since they feared he might roll over and hurt Evan.

Please be aware that the third chapter took a darker turn than expected, and there are mentions of a child being abused by another with what seems like a sexual component.
While I had most of the relevant tags added from the start, I wanted to let people know about the added incest tag so that they could avoid it if it might trigger them in any way.