My stomach twists into knots. God, I hope I’m doing the right thing. I don’t know. I really don’t.
I set Oliver’s sandwich down in front of him, and he finally moves his hand away from the drawing and pushes it across the table at me.
It’s me and Theo, sitting beside each other like we were during our campout. It’s all done in a cheap ballpoint pen, but the lines are fine and delicate and capture our likenesses shockingly well, with dark crosshatching to represent the night sky and some artistic trickery to make it look like the fire is illuminating our faces.
In the drawing, Theo looks at me with a tenderness I don’t remember from that night. Or maybe I just didn’t see it.
“Wow,” I breathe, looking up at Oliver. “This is really, really good.”
“Thank you,” he signs. “It’s for you. Although you should show Theo when you can.”
Sadness pangs at my heart. “I will. I promise, okay?”
Theo just chews his sandwich and doesn’t say anything.
I let him eat, although I do put the drawing on my refrigerator with a magnet, beside the portrait of Theo that Oliver gave me the weekend of the campout. I bet there are some old frames in this house somewhere, something I can use to keep the drawings safe.
Even if I feel like I can’t keep Oliver safe. Not really.
He finishes quickly and brings his plate over to the dishwasher without me having to ask. As I watch him dutifully load it into place, that low-level sadness suddenly flares into something hot, like anger. His parents don’t deserve him.
“I’m going to go home now,” Oliver says. “Are you going to call the people you think will help?”
My throat feels too dry and scratchy to speak, so I nod instead.
Oliver scrunches up his brow. “It won’t help,” he says. “I know you think it will, but it won’t.”
“Why do you say that?”
He looks up at me. “You’ll see.”
And then he turns and marches out of my kitchen, back out the front door. I follow him and watch him pick his way across the yard from my front porch. It feels too hot out here, the sun too bright, like it can lay bare to all the secrets hidden in the darkness. Not just those of Oliver’s family. But mine. Theo’s.
Still, I go inside and make the call.
The CPSsocial worker arrives faster than I expect, pulling up a little around 5:30. I hear the car door slam while I’m out on my back patio, reading the same sentence in my book over and over again. It’s easier to stare across the water at the peninsula. I wonder if Theo is watching us. Probably.
As soon as I hear the car, my heart leaps up in my chest, and I slip around the side of my house in time to see a woman walk up the sidewalk to Oliver’s house. She has the look of an elementary school principal: older, her hair allowed to go grey, her A-line skirt crisp and professional. If she sees me, she doesn’t acknowledge it.
I watch her ring the doorbell. A few minutes go by. The door opens. Her voice doesn’t carry enough for me to hear what she says, but she’s allowed inside.
For a moment, I just stare at the Jenkins’ house. There’s no sign of movement inside, although the trees rustle around me, having been disturbed by a hot, damp wind that nonetheless makes my skin crinkle with goosebumps.
I glance across the water, one last time. Then I go back inside and pace around my living room, my nails digging into my arms.
I’m not sure how long it is before I hear the slam of a car door again. Fifteen minutes, maybe. I rush over to my window and crack the blinds and watch the social worker’s sleek car slide back down the driveway.
A heavy sense of deflation crashes over me.
That’s it? Fifteen minutes? Was Oliver with her? I don’t know how any of this works. If she thought he was in serious danger, she would take him, wouldn’t she?
And then what? What happens to kids like Oliver when their parents don’t care enough for them? Surely he has other family: grandparents. An aunt or uncle. Someone who can take care of him.
It won’t help. I know you think it will, but it won’t.
Oliver’s been through this before.
Sickness fills my stomach. I step back from the window, my breath tight. If there’s no one for him, he’ll go into foster care. He’ll be taken away from here, possibly whisked off to someplace worse.
