Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

In time, the presence of a county social worker was announced; a pale, bespectacled child-woman appeared not twenty minutes later. She seemed to Lani more a rookie kindergarten teacher than a person who potentially held the life of a child in her hands. Lani explained about her husband finding the girl and how fortuitous it was that she, Lani Mott, “just happened to be a court-appointed special advocate for children.” At first, the clueless social worker assumed Lani had somehow — in whatever capacity — already been assigned the case. It was obvious she was just another overworked CSW who had never even heard of the illustrious advocacy program to which the baker’s wife belonged; most social workers hadn’t, even though volunteers like Lani made their lives so much easier. Who could blame them? County caseloads were so heavy that they barely remembered their own names.

When the paperwork was done, the CSW and her ward — who had by now officially declared herself Edith Stein — traveled to a DCFS building on 6th Street. Lani and Amaryllis found themselves in yet another room with utility tables and disorderly rows of stuffed animals. This one had peppy sky-blue walls, beanbag chairs and a real live boy, who had the slack, glazed look of an airport toddler studying strangers while they alit. During a lunch of take-out McDonald’s, Amaryllis made further inquiries about her brother and sister, but the CSW, who for some reason now referred to herself as a “clients’-rights manager,” could find no record of the “Stein” siblings in the computer. (“It’s really unusual to find Jews in the system,” she said offhandedly, and Lani thought that inappropriate.) The orphan, in a great war with herself, nearly exposed the babies as Kornfelds to expedite their discovery; but in the end, reasoned that might put them in danger.

At the end of the afternoon, having advocated and managed all manner of prickly clients’ rights, the CSW announced that a “suitable placement” had been found. Mrs. Mott gave aka Edith a hug and the girl followed her to the hall like a stray when she left. For Lani, that was the worst part.

They crawled through downtown traffic, onto the Harbor Freeway. Amaryllis wondered what was meant by “placement”—and a suitable one at that — but was afraid to ask. A placement was not quite a place; that meant she was going to a not-quite someplace. Or maybe it was even more than a place … She angrily gritted her teeth at the thought of Topsy dropping her off like a package, shooing her toward the stranger in the silly cook’s hat, cruelly sealing her fate. Then, seeing his hairy face and kind, cookie-size eyes float before her like a genie’s, remembering how all those weeks he had fed her and soothed her then run with her in the night; watching herself turn traitorously on her only friend in the world, she wept with shame. Seeing her tears, the woman reached for a teddy — the backseat was chock-full of the furry placebos, shoveled in by the truckload.

If the Department of Children and Family Services could be counted on for anything, it was stuffed animals. A child might collect dozens even as his soul was being killed; suchwise, the Department would not fail. It was a child’s inviolable right to bear arms and bear legs and bear tummies, to have and to hold and to clutch and to sob against a sad, soft donated thing staring back with synthetic, understanding eyes that could do no harm. (In protecting the rights of bears and child-bearing, the Department inarguably stood in the vanguard.) She handed a cub to Amaryllis, who instantly drew it to aching, purulent breast. Caressing the bereft girl’s head, the CSW hassled her with kindness, tongue clicks and gentle shooshing I know s (as if she really did), coos and moans and It’ll be all right s (as if it really would).

Wide-open spaces now. She asked where they were going and the woman said Tunga Canyon. A canyon! — another place to get lost in … another place not to find her precious babies. She may as well have said Alaska.

They arrived in darkness at the house on Chimney Smoke Road, greeted porch-side by the folksily winning Mrs. Woolery, sixtyish and straight out of a Knott’s Berry Farm parade. “It’s Earlymae —none uh Mrs. Woolery for my kids. Call me Earlymae!” she said, squatting eye to eye with Amaryllis. “ Grown-ups the ones call me Mrs. Woolery .” Crystel Hallohan, a brunette the same size and age as the newcomer, attached herself to Amaryllis like a barnacle. An anarchic, gleeful boy in decal’d bike helmet and flannel PJs ran from the house jubilantly screaming. As Mrs. Woolery led them to the front door — drying Amaryllis’s tears with a sleeve as they went — a bruised green-brown Wagoneer pulled up, disgorging a smiling Latino in ill-fitting sport coat, tie and teeth. He carried a mess of grocery bags, paper-in-plastic. Mrs. Woolery introduced him as Jilbo, then laughingly told him to “hup to.” Grinning, he made a mock dash to the front door while the helmeted boy dervished after, spinning and shrieking and scrimmaging.

It was close and cluttered inside. There were so many nooks, knickknacks and promise of rooms that Amaryllis felt she’d entered a honeycomb hive. Mrs. Woolery entreated Crystel to please finish cleaning for their guest — she said the place was in a bit of a shambles, which it wasn’t — but first the girl walked Amaryllis over to the flowery couch and set her down like a fragile, favorite doll.

The professionals immediately set about finalizing documents. The boy whirled about in his test-pilot helmet, taking all the dips, turns and tangents of a rubber band wind-up plane; Mrs. Woolery told him for heaven’s sake to come in for a landing, while occasionally calling to the kitchen to goad Jilbo into “hupping it with dinner” unless he wanted them all to starve. After one such encouragement, she winked at the CSW, remarking how Jilbo was “short for Gilberto. I give everyone a name. Now our Jilbo is what they call a slow mover — not like our friend ,” she said, indicating the fly-boy with a hitchhiker’s jab of her painted thumb. She had a smoker’s pulmonary laugh, even though she’d quit years back. “That’s Dennis —I call him Dennis the Phantom Menace!” Laughing again, one heard the gritty gear-teeth of bronchi engage, her thick white Maidenform corseting a bosomy round-the-clock excavation of wheezing water, quartz and steam.

The benumbed Amaryllis watched MUTE flash on the big-screen television over QVC faces. After a brief absence, Crystel reappeared and dutifully presented her with a bouquet of Barbies. Mrs. Woolery peered benevolently from half-glasses and told Crissie Fits—“We call her Crissie Fits ’cause she always fittin’ . But she’s a good ol’ girl”—not to bother the “newbie,” but the CSW said it was sweet and encouraged Edith to say thank you. (“We think that’s her name,” said the social worker.)

Amaryllis demurred, limply taking a doll by its thin, hard, dirty nude leg. Dennis flew to the rear of the house and screamed so shrilly that dogs outside began to bark. Mrs. Woolery rolled her eyes and shouted for Jilbo to “Hup the food now, ’fore Dennis the Menace blows a gasket! Vamanos caballero! ”

When they finished signing the aforesaid papers, the CSW knelt and told Amaryllis she probably wouldn’t be seeing her again very soon. Which meant never. Her job was to help children find nice homes during times of emergency and now, she said, another person would be coming “for follow-up.” Amaryllis almost asked right then about the babies, but didn’t have it in her. Mrs. Woolery palmed the orphan’s forehead and said with some concern, “You’re warm as a toaster.” She told Crystel to get some Bayer’s and start a cool tub. Jilbo came from the kitchen grinning like a square dancer to see the social worker off.