Look for Me

by Lisa Gardner

  “I can.”

  “All right.” I watched the line the older woman followed off the school grounds. Then I headed in that direction, keeping my target in sight.

  • • •

  THE WOMAN HAD PARKED ONE block over. She had just reached her vehicle, her hand on the door of a red Subaru, when I caught up. She turned sharply, met me head-on.

  “Yes?” she said, voice crisp, eyes direct.

  I couldn’t help myself. I fell back a step, felt my fingers automatically beginning to fidget. She had to be a teacher because I immediately felt like I was back in school.

  “Umm . . . I’m a friend of Roxanna Baez.”

  She stared at me. “What kind of friend? You’re too old to be a student.”

  I thought fast. “We met in a kickboxing class. Roxy was interested in self-defense. I was teaching her. I could tell . . . I could tell she was worried about something. I hoped I could help. Then, this morning, turning on the news . . .” I shrugged miserably.

  “Your name?”

  Belatedly I stuck out my hand. “Flora Dane.”

  A frown. “Do I know you?”

  I didn’t say anything. Just waited. After another moment, she took my hand. “Susan Howe,” she said.

  “Are you a teacher?”

  “Used to be. Taught seventh-grade English for thirty years before retiring.”

  I believed it. But used to be? Which meant now she was simply a woman who knew both Roxy Baez and Mike Davis? In the next minute I got it. “Are you with social services?” I asked. “That’s why you can’t say anything directly? You don’t want to violate Roxy’s privacy? If it helps, I know about the year she spent at Mother Del’s. With her sister and Mike Davis. I spoke with Mike earlier today.”

  “What did he have to say?”

  “Never get caught alone at Mother Del’s.”

  Susan Howe grimaced. Her shoulders came down. Abruptly, she looked tired. “If only either had told me that sooner,” she murmured. “Teaching kids was hard. Turns out, trying to save them is near impossible. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  It occurred to me I hadn’t eaten lunch, never mind that it was almost time for dinner. “How about a snack? There’s a deli across from the school.”

  “How about one not so close? I know an Italian place up the street.”

  I nodded. She locked her car, headed north. Susan had a brisk walk. Everything about her radiated competence. I wondered if Roxy had liked her. Or at least trusted her enough to confide in her.

  Sure enough, two blocks up, an Italian deli. Suddenly starving, I ordered a meatball sub with extra provolone. Susan went with coffee, black. I paid for mine, she paid for hers, we took a seat in a little brown booth that could’ve used a thorough cleaning. Susan Howe spread out a napkin in front of her, placed her coffee on that.

  I used my sandwich wrappings to do the same.

  “I’m not with child services,” she said abruptly. “I’m a CASA volunteer. Do you know CASA?”

  A jingle from a radio commercial ran through my head. “Who will speak for me? . . . Will you speak for me? . . .” Something like that. I nodded.

  “A CASA volunteer works on behalf of a child in the court system. For example, if a child is removed from her parents and placed in foster care, then someone such as me would be assigned to work with the juvenile, helping him or her understand the process, while also making observations and submitting independent reports to the court on how the child is doing in the foster home environment, during meetings with the biological parent, et cetera. If the child has any requests—say, a desire to see a sibling placed in a different home—she could ask me and I’d direct the request up the chain of command. I don’t have power. I can’t give the child anything or make any promises. Mostly, I’m there to listen, explain, and shepherd a child through a very stressful transition.”

  “If you’re doing all this,” I asked, “what’s the social worker doing?”

  “The DCF worker represents the state’s interests. Given that it’s a DCF agent who takes the kids away from their parents and places them in foster care, many youths view the worker as the enemy, though in fact, a case agent is only trying to do what’s best for the child. Let me put it to you this way: In court, the DCF case worker sits to one side with the state’s lawyer. The biological parent sits to the other side with his or her lawyer. I sit in the middle with the kid. Does that help understand my role in the madness?”

  “How long are you involved?”

  “It’s complicated to terminate parental rights. Takes at least a year, plus half a dozen hearings. The first hearing involves building the case for negligence or abuse. The second hearing spells out exactly what steps the parent must take to get her child back—attend substance abuse counseling, get a job, establish stable housing, et cetera. Then there are subsequent hearings to check up on the parent’s progress. My job is to explain all this to the kids. Help them understand that, yes, their parent loves them, but he or she must complete these steps before the child can return home. I’ve been doing this for the past five years. In cases involving addiction, the requirements facing the parents seem nearly Herculean. How do they get a job when they already have a record for stealing to support their drug habit? How do they get stable housing if they don’t have a job? And around and around they go. The system is meant to protect kids, not break up families. But in our current drug crisis . . .”

  “Most parents don’t get their kids back,” I filled in.

  She nodded.

  “And this is volunteer work?”

  “As I said earlier, I taught seventh graders for thirty years. Clearly I’m a glutton for punishment.”

  I’d devoured the first half of my meatball sub. After a moment’s consideration—when would I have a chance to eat again?—I took on the second. “Juanita Baez got her kids back,” I said around a mouthful.

  “Every now and then, the system works.”

  “Or there’s an exception to every rule.”

  “She loved her kids,” Susan said abruptly, the sadness on her face genuine. “I don’t work with the parents, I merely see them in court. But that woman loved her kids. And she fought for them. Because that’s what it takes. When I first started out, I thought things would be more black-and-white. Bad parents who didn’t deserve their kids or good parents who needed time to get their act together. But all the parents, whether they’re good or bad, love their kids. And the kids, whether they should or not, love their parents. But particularly these past few years, it feels like the opioid epidemic is winning. As much as some of these people care about their children, in the end, they need drugs even more. Have you been following the foster care crisis in the news?”

  I shook my head.

  “There’s been a nearly thirty percent jump in recent years of children removed from their homes. Basically, there are now over nine thousand kids in Massachusetts who currently need foster care families. Except the state doesn’t have enough families to meet those needs. So where it used to be that a home could have no more than four foster kids, now the state is issuing waivers to permit five, six, seven kids in the same home. I’ve heard stories of ten. But needless to say, this creates its own set of issues.”

  Including a couple of deaths of foster kids, charges of abuse at other places. Those headlines had caught my attention.

  “The system’s overcrowded. Too many kids in need, not enough resources,” I summarized.

  “Exactly.”

  “Which must make your life harder.”

  “As a volunteer, I only work with one child at a time. Or, in the case of siblings, possibly two or three.”

  “If a family involves three siblings, shouldn’t all three be placed together?” I didn’t provide names, sticking to our policy of generalizations.

  “Ideally, yes. But given the lack of a
vailable space in foster homes, it’s a miracle that even two of them were together.”

  “Are homes monitored, screened?”

  “As much as DCF has time.”

  “Which, given the sudden jump in business . . . Do you see things, report things?”

  “I don’t actually spend much time with the foster family. I see the kids in court. I meet with them at their request or offer to take them out. Let’s get lunch and talk, that sort of thing. But they aren’t zoo animals. I don’t just sit around watching them.”

  “Can kids call you?”

  “They can and they do. I have a separate cell phone I use for my CASA work. The number one request I get in the case of separated siblings is wanting to see the other family member. For example, I worked with two sisters once. They really missed their younger brother.”

  I nodded, understanding.

  “But I might also get a call about needing more clothes, articles for hygiene. These kids, they’re often given less time to pack than convicted criminals before being shuttled off to their new home. And while the foster families are paid stipends and given a clothing allowance—” Susan shrugged. “A foster parent has many charges, whereas I bring a single focus. It’s easier for the child to ask me, then I work within the system to make things happen.”

  “Okay.”

  “Medical requests work in a similar fashion,” Susan stated abruptly. “The child might make the request to me for a doctor’s appointment, then I arrange for the foster parent to take him or her.”

  I waited, the last of my meatball sub dripping onto the brown paper wrappings.

  “We practice this in training, given one of the top medical requests from girls is birth control.”

  I didn’t move.

  “It can be shocking to have a thirteen-, fourteen-year-old girl demanding an appointment for birth control pills, condoms, whatever. Again, it’s not my place to judge or grant permission. Just record, then work the system to determine the possibilities. Once, however, I had a very young girl make the request. Eight years old.”

  I stared at her. Susan picked up her coffee cup. Set it back down. Her hand was shaking.

  “I asked her why. She wouldn’t tell me. I did my best to inquire about relationships at school, in the foster home, was there anything else she wanted to tell me? Of course, regardless of whether or not she felt the relationship was consensual, any kind of sexual activity with an eight-year-old is clearly abuse. But the girl wouldn’t explain. In the end, she said the request wasn’t for herself but for her friend. An older girl who didn’t have her own CASA volunteer.

  “I told her I was willing to help, but I would need a name in order to do so. At which point the girl clammed up. Wouldn’t say anything more. She withdrew her request, the subject was dropped.

  “But recently . . .” Susan took a deep breath. “I’ve had a parent reappear. First time that’s ever happened. Asking me questions about her girls’ time in foster care. What I might’ve seen, what I might’ve known. And that’s made me reconsider that afternoon, the eight-year-old’s appeal.”

  Susan looked at me.

  “I wonder now if she was telling the truth about asking on behalf of a ‘friend.’ Because an eight-year-old is very young for birth control. Whereas her eleven-year-old sister, whom the eight-year-old clearly adored . . .”

  An eleven-year-old sister who, years later, would be making similar requests on behalf of a mystery friend? BFF123—which maybe should’ve been SisterlyLove123?

  “Did you relay these suspicions to the mom?” I asked now.

  “Yes, when I spoke to her two weeks ago.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She didn’t. She took notes. Then she cried.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “They were my success story,” Susan Howe said abruptly. “Five years of doing this. Five years of trying to help kids. They were my single success story, children, mother, family, all better off.”

  “Until today.”

  “Until today,” she agreed.

  After that, we didn’t speak again.

  Chapter 22

  Name: Roxanna Baez

  Grade: 11

  Teacher: Mrs. Chula

  Category: Personal Narrative

  What Is the Perfect Family? Part IV

  How do you know what you’re going to be when you grow up? A loser? An addict? Or, somehow, one of those who rises above it all? How do you know, when you’re still my age, that it’s all going to work out in the end?

  I see these kids. They wear the same shirt every day. They have a lunch bag, but there’s nothing in it. They carry a binder, but their homework is never done. Some lash out, disrupt class. Show the world their pain.

  But there are plenty more who never say a word. Just show up, sit in class, present but separate. They know the world is there. But they also know it’s already beyond their reach.

  Adults judge. Kids, too. First thought in everyone’s mind: Girl’s no good, just like her mother. Boy’s a loser, just like his father. But some children will go on to rule the world. We’ve all heard the stories. They’ll channel their frustration and rage into business, political, athletic, artistic success. They’ll become the feel-good profile on the news. A model for others to follow.

  How do you know which person you’re going to be? Especially if you’re a kid like me, with a mother who’s an alcoholic and a father who’s never existed. How do you know it’s all going to work out when you’re stuck in the soulless abyss that’s foster care?

  Mother Del’s. Six months after being torn away from our mom, I can’t tell you if my sister and I are any better off. We’d gained a roof over our heads and food on the table. But those things didn’t make it a home.

  Lola and I steal butter knives, screwdrivers, fingernail files, anything we can find to help us survive one more night. It isn’t enough to watch out for Roberto or Anya. They plot against us just as much as we struggle to outsmart them. They break dishes, bully other kids into breakdowns, burn cigarette holes in the ratty sofa, then blame us. Or really me. Anything to get Lola and me apart.

  Lola can’t sleep. The constant strain of being on guard. The endless chore of changing diapers and comforting babies. She’s started picking at her hair, pulling out dull black clumps while the smudges grow darker under her eyes. She’s become one of those kids who shows up to school but is never really there. I tell her it will be okay. At least we have each other. And as long as our mom keeps following the steps, meeting the court’s requirements, we’ll all be together as a family soon.

  Except as days turn into weeks, weeks into months, it’s becoming harder for either one of us to believe. Home is a distant memory. The nightly survival dance is our new reality. As I watch my little sister slip further and further away.

  I’m the oldest. It’s my responsibility.

  We should join sports, I announce one day. After-school activities. Anything to give us more time away from Mother Del’s. As a sixth grader, I have options. Soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, softball in the spring. I’ve never played any sports before, but that’s not the point.

  For Lola, however, after-school activities for third graders barely exist. Programs are meant for weekends, organized through a community or rec center, coached by a parent. She can kill an hour or two, but not much more.

  Walking home from the bus stop one day, however, I find the answer. A poster for the local theater. A production of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist. Child actors wanted. I can’t help but laugh. Seriously? Oliver Twist? Have they hung out in foster care recently? But then I read on: Rigorous. Intense. Only Serious Talents Need Apply. Rehearsals are several hours every other night and most weekends. In addition, once the play is off and running . . .

  It’s perfect. Lola and I will join community theater, and ne
ver come home to Mother Del’s again.

  I drag Lola to the auditions. She doesn’t want to go. She’s tired. She’s depressed. She just wants to hang out with the babies. But then, we are there. She walks onto the stage, doing as she’s told. The lights come on, she looks up . . .

  And my little sister comes alive. For the first time in months. She sparkles. She doesn’t just stand on that stage, she owns it. Afterward, everyone bursts into applause. The other little kids look at her, awestruck. And that’s it. My little sister becomes the first female Oliver Twist.

  I go to work on set design, recruiting Mike Davis, who needs to avoid Mother Del’s as much as we do. For someone who bounces and jangles all the time, he has an amazingly steady hand once he’s focused. He’s also an incredible artist, turning plain plywood into elaborately painted backdrops. While both of us steal any sharp objects we can find. For our inevitable return to Mother Del’s.

  I think Oliver Twist would agree, hope is a funny thing. You need it. Then there are times you have to let it go again. Except, of course, you can’t give up completely, or there’s no coming back.

  We have weekly meetings with our mother now. We tell her about our new lives in theater. She relates stories from her new job as an ER nurse. And yet the better she appears, the more Lola and I retreat. Because it’s too hard to go from her to Mother Del. It’s too painful to hope that she might really remain sober. That we might someday be a real family again.

  Manny. We see him once a week at the family meetings, as well. He lights up every time he sees us, but now, six months later, he also runs easily to his foster mom at the end of the hour. I take to staring at my mother’s face. The way she forces herself to watch as her son embraces another woman. Her penance, I think. I wonder if it would make her feel better to know what Lola and I are going through, that we dread every second at Mother Del’s. But maybe that’s petty of me. Manny appears to have decent, caring foster parents. I have to hope it’s true.

  The theater gives me hope. Watching my sister work the stage, belt out her lines. Painting away with Mike quiet by my side. Later, running up the scaffolding, taking our seats along the lighting catwalk, the entire playhouse sprawled out beneath us. Up that high, everything feels small, insignificant. For a moment, we don’t even worry about Mother Del’s.