of police officers, she decided that he would be better off without her, and left. The woman that teenage Billy finds is living in relative poverty, in a relationship that is clearly abusive – and she still rejects him. She still believes that he is better off in a foster home, and Billy – after taking a moment – agrees with her.

His new foster mother, Rosa, is presented as being actually the ‘ideal’, by contrast. She is patient, warm and loving, and seeks only to provide a safe family unit for children that would otherwise not have that. This is because she and her husband Victor were both foster children themselves. She is able to relate to the experience of the children in her care in a way that many other people would unable to do. She tries to set appropriate boundaries for...

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