The Boy No One Loved (22 page)

Authors: Casey Watson

BOOK: The Boy No One Loved

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Epilogue

So just how has Justin progressed since leaving my family? Well, his new placement lasted two years before, sadly, breaking down. As John had warned, it turned out he felt unable to bond with them, and after a couple of years he started talking all the time about being moved back into a children’s home. He eventually left the Hansons and transferred to one, where he remains, detached but settled, to this day. He’s currently working as a gardener.

Though it’s probably true that Justin will never fully engage with society as an adult, he is still very much a part of our family, and comes to see Mike and I every week. As for Riley, she and David have three children now, Levi, Jackson and Marley Mae. Justin still spends every Christmas Day with the whole family, at Riley and David’s house, and loves the kids as much as they adore him, always calling him their ‘Uncle Justin’.

Kieron and Lauren are still together, which has made us all so happy, and are expecting their first baby this year. Justin’s excited about that too and only recently confessed that he keeps a scan photo of the baby in his wallet.

As for Justin, well, he’s seventeen now and, I’m happy to report, still maintains contact with his birth family. He sees his mother and brothers twice yearly and has seemed to have sort of accepted the fact that they’ll never be a ‘proper’ family, really. He still gets yearnings for his mum sometimes but what he tends to do is to call me and we talk them through together. As for Gemma, well, that’s a rather lovely footnote to it all – now she’s old enough, they talk all the time on the phone.

In general, for all of
us
, it’s quite simple. To Justin, we’re just Mike and Casey and we will always be there for him, as will Riley and David, Kieron and Lauren – the whole clan. But if you want to sum things up, perhaps the best way is to say that he refers to Kieron and Riley as his step-brother and step-sister. Which, for me and Mike at least, says it all.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all of the team at HarperCollins, the lovely Andrew Lownie, and my friend and mentor, Lynne.

Copyright

This book is a work of non-fiction based on the author’s experiences. In order to protect privacy, names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed or reconstructed.

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First published by HarperElement 2011

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THE BOY NO ONE LOVED
. © Casey Watson 2011. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Casey Watson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-00-743656-9

EPub Edition © AUGUST 2011 ISBN: 978-0-00-743657-6

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