Fanny was exhausted. It was 5:30am, and she was already on a minibus heading out of the sleepy village of Lo Tsz Tin. She had had to get up even earlier to prepare and leave breakfast for her current foster assignment, a 14-year old who had run away from a physically abusive mother and had been brought to Fanny’s home at 2am a week prior by a colleague from the Department of Social Welfare. As an only child and with her own parents long dead, Fanny had the family village house to herself and had volunteered her availability as an emergency foster on top of her regular work as a social worker.

Fanny was currently on her way to Sham Shui Po for her first home visit of the day, a family of 3 crammed into a tiny shoebox. There were two boys, 6 and 9 respectively. Teachers at their school had raised concerns with the department after the boys had recently started collapsing from fatigue and suspected malnutrition, and had started missing more and more school days. It was suspected that the boys’ single father was incapable of looking after the boys properly, and Fanny had been assigned to work with the family before the situation became any worse.

As part of this assignment, Fanny had to be at the family’s home first thing every weekday morning to ensure the boys were fed, cared for, and ready to go to school.

Fanny knocked on the sliding metal cage door, earning a whispered tirade from a neighbour who stuck her head out of her doorway to voice her displeasure at Fanny waking her up yet again with the harsh metallic echoes of the gate reverberating down the cramped hall of subdivided flats. Fanny quickly apologised, silently hoping someone would let her in before she had to knock again. She couldn’t leave until she’d visited the family.

To her relief, the wooden door opened and the little boy Ting unlatched the gate for Fanny to slide it open and come in. She stood at the entrance, worriedly looking down at the undressed little boy, wondering why the father hadn’t let her in, and noting that Ting wasn’t even ready for school yet. Just then, the older boy Alaric walked around the corner in his school uniform, holding his younger brother’s clothes in one hand and half a bread bun in another. He passed both to Ting, looking at Fanny to help with the rest.

As Fanny finished dressing Ting and was satisfied the boy was eating, she asked Alaric “Where’s your dad?” Silently, he motioned for her to follow as he walked down the narrow corridor to the living room, where Fanny found the boys’ father sprawled out on the floor in front of the TV, surrounded by empty beer bottles and cigarette butts.

Alaric saw Fanny’s disgust at the sight mingling with growing concern for the boys. For a moment, he felt the tender bruise under his shirt, and wondered whether he dared tell her. He was too young to know what foster care truly meant, but he was old enough to know Fanny could take him and his brother away from this hell if he stopped protecting his father’s shame and simply told the truth.

Part of him was terrified. Would they just be exchanging one pain for another? But he saw his brother’s sad eyes and knew he had to protect him from the dangers they knew, even if he didn’t know what new dangers could follow.

He embraced his fear, and told Fanny the emancipating truth.

Food for thought: How can embracing your fear give you freedom, even if the future remains as uncertain as ever?