Moving forward

In any event, they moved up there after they failed to meet the court order that would have given them more time in the apartment. Libby allowed Harold to stay with a friend of his at the apartment complex for the next two weeks with the plan he would be there longer. However, he was picked up by the police and dropped off with us. Libby made that choice supposedly because we hadn't gotten to spend any time with him that summer. According to her one of the people at the apartment complex told her that Harold and the two friends he was staying with smelled of beer. He stated that it was only the other two. Libby and Steve came over to tell "they couldn't deal with him and everything else. My dad said if he was left he was staying until graduation because he didn't want Harold ending up in jail or worse, and the people he'd been running with the last few weeks were heading that way. I had been woken by Steve yelling at Harold and was very pissed when I came out to find out what the hell the screaming was about. Dad made his speech while woke up. It was about 30 min later Harold came to me upset because I hadn't spoken him since his arrival. I said hi and got a hug, he seemed happy then but was very vocal about not wanting to go to the Reed property.

I told him if he wanted to stay he'd be going to school here then adjustments would need to be made. As we lived across the street from the football coach, he would need to get on a team as well. He pointed out that he had previously tried baseball and eally enjoyed it. I pointed out the two seasons where opposite so he could still do both. At first, he said no, so we let it go and only asked him to keep an open mind. He said he would and we started to talk about going back to school. A couple weeks later he asked if he could stay with us til he graduated, I said I thought he already was. He started talking about going to school and began to get excited for it. A few days later we were talking about football again and asked Harold why he didn't want to try out. He said it was because he didn't know the game, we let him know the camp that ran the following week would teach him how to play. He was surprised by this and said he'd think about it.

Just before football camp I spoke to Libby, and explained that he wanted to would like to stay with us, she and I spoke for almost an hour before she asked if she could talk to him. Of course I called him in immediately, she could have done the same. I asked if they wanted me to leave and they said no, then she asked him if he really wanted to stay and have her fill out paperwork and he said yes. So, she did, she then asked who was gonna tell Steve. He asked that she tell him because he didn't want to deal with the attitude Steve would have. Harold was convinced that if he told Steve then Steve would more or less drag him back up to Reed property and enslave him there. He stated that's why he didn't want to go up there to tell Steve because he was afraid if he went up there, he'd never be allowed to leave. Libby was rather surprised by this but didn't say too much. She started to ask Harold if he knew how this made her feel, he said he did but he loved her and I told him I needed to speak with Libby alone again.

We spoke a little bit about some type of support for us taking care of him, food, money for supplies and such, we'd agreed on $75 a month, and half of any major expenses. Later that night she sent me a message stating that she wasn't sure she did the right thing. I asked her if $75 was too much, she said it wasn't about the money and wanted to know if Harold really thought this through all the way, wanting to know if he'd considered how this affected his sisters. I assured her that he had thought it through and that he felt it this was a better option than seeing "Daddy and big brother" fighting. She asked how she was supposed to explain this to Sophie and told her it was easy. Tell her he's doing this to be a better big brother for her. I assured her doubt was normal and she said she would speak with me "tomorrow" seeing as it was so late.

I made several appointments for him the next day, getting him set up with a primary care doctor (he'd stated that he hadn't seen a doctor since his baseball physical two years ago or more), getting the evaluation for his braces, mental health, and glasses.

The next day she did come down so My mom could take her to an appointment for her knee. Once that was over she came back to the house and told Harold what wrong and what restrictions she was under. To me this seemed to be her way of trying to get him to feel guilty about not going with her to "help" her.

When she left she said her biggest worry was that I would use the PoA paper to attempt to take custody of Harold from her. I told her that I would not use the PoA paperwork to take custody of Harold, and I had no intentions of doing anything more than getting him enrolled into school, and doing whatever was needed to make get him "back on track" to being a happy healthy 14-year-old. She accepted this and went back up there and on Aug 4th Harold and I went school shopping, he was very excited and got a new clothes, along with school supplies. While shopping, we had to stop a couple times because he tended to get a bit overwhelmed and go blank for a moment. At some point during the shopping trip he stated that he wanted to do the football camp, and I said that was fine, we'd talk about it later. I worried that perhaps he was just saying this out of some misplaced sense of obligation due to all the new stuff he was getting but wasn't sure how to approach the topic. We went slow shopping so he could adjust, at one point he broke down sobbing, when I asked why he said that he'd never gotten so much new stuff all at once, especially not for school.

On the 7th Libby showed up with Harold's two sisters, the family dog, and Steve with the excuse that Sophie and Claudia woke up and wanted to see their brother. We had only had about a 45 min warning that Steve was coming as well. Given how new the situation was we allowed Steve to be present purely as a courtesy to Libby. We also didn't know the extent to which Steve had traumatized Harold. Harold and Sophie played most of the day with the slip and slide, Steve getting involved too until Harold had his first football practice. There was a lot of laughter but I could tell Harold didn't ever seem completely at ease. They left at that time as well to go back to the Reed property as Jason kept calling Libby's phone, when she answered he was screaming at her. Not only would she not hold the phone to her ear, but I could hear it across the room over the playing outside.

On the 15th Libby showed up with Steve and Sophie again, My mom was supposed to drive Libby to her VA therapy appointment. Libby stated that Steve was going with her, initially Libby had intended for Harold to babysit while they went but Harold stated that he had a beading class and couldn't do it. Libby had not spoken to Harold about babysitting prior to that moment. Libby did however take time to let Harold know that Jason had bitched her out for coming down to see him, rather than going with Jason to some doctor's appointment. To which Harold replied Jason was a crazy old man and Libby didn't need to hold his hand and had he been there he would have hit Jason. Libby told him that Steve had started sticking up for her. I'd also spoken to a publishing company I'm affiliated with since there was a summer writer's contest for a new laptop.

On the 19th he had his intake evaluation followed by football practice, which went off without a hitch.