Somewhere Out There(4)

The fact that I had children wasn’t the lawyer’s problem; it was Gina’s. I’d met her two years ago, when CPS was called in after I’d been caught shoplifting for the first time, before I got pregnant with Natalie. She’d kept Brooke with her in the lobby while I went through processing at the police station, and then, when I was released with a warning because the store decided to not press charges, she told me I had to attend parenting classes, starting the following week. I’d blown them off, of course, and seeing her now, I felt a stinging pang of regret.

Gina was a heavier woman, thick around the middle with skinny legs, which I imagined probably made it difficult to find pants. Today, she wore a black pencil skirt and a red blouse with a big bow at the base of her neck. The color flattered her toffee-toned skin. “Not only that,” she continued, “it’s your second charge of child endangerment and neglect.” She paused, and looked at me over the top of her glasses, which were perched on the tip of her slender nose. “Do you know what that means?”

I shook my head, pressing my lips together so I wouldn’t cry. I dug the fingernails into my opposite arm until I drew blood; I’d already bitten my nails down to the quick. Could she really be talking about me, endangering my children? Sure, leaving them alone in the car wasn’t the best decision I’d ever made, but it wasn’t like I gave Brooke knives to play with while I was gone. I wasn’t cooking crack in a kitchen while they sat on the floor.

“It means that while you go to jail, the girls go into foster care.”

“No,” I said. “Maybe the lawyer was wrong. Maybe the judge will understand I was just trying to feed them.” A couple of fat tears rolled down my cheeks. I didn’t bother wiping them away. “Please? Can you just wait and see what the judge says?”

Gina sighed, removed her glasses, and closed the folder in front of her. Her dark hair was pulled into a bun on top of her head with a few pieces hanging around her round face; she tucked the loose strands behind both her ears and looked at me. “It won’t make a difference. It’s almost certain you’ll be convicted of theft and abuse. The girls are being removed from your care. When you get out, we can talk about a plan to get them back, but at this point, I’m sorry, Jennifer. There’s nothing you can do.”

“I don’t abuse my children!” I cried, feeling as though she’d just hit my chest with a hammer; pain crackled along my ribs. “I’ve never even spanked Brooke! I just . . . made a mistake.”

“Not just one mistake,” Gina said. She gave me a pointed look. “And that doesn’t count the times you didn’t get caught.”

My cheeks flamed, and I couldn’t lift my eyes to hers. “I love them so much,” I said, unsure of how I could prove this to the woman who held the fate of my girls in her hands. I could tell her how much I knew about them—how Brooke slept with one corner of her “soft side” stuck in her ear; how she giggled when I burped my ABCs, and how she sang “Row, Row, Row Your Goat,” but I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was wrong. I could tell her how Natalie smiled when I kissed her belly, how she rolled over for the first time when she was only three months old and then started to cry, she was so scared by what she’d just done. I longed to show Gina that despite all I’d done wrong, there were at least a few things as a mother I’d done right.

“I know you do,” Gina said, gently. “But love isn’t enough to be a good parent. There’s so much more to it than that.”

It was the kindness in her voice that broke me—I realized she wasn’t judging me, she was only pointing out the situation for what it was. I let loose a low, keening cry from somewhere deep in my belly. The same two sentences from the previous night played on a constant track inside my head: I can’t do this anymore . . . I don’t want to be here.

“It’s so hard!” I sputtered. “I love them, but it’s so hard.”

I leaned forward, face in my hands, and began to rock back and forth in tiny, measured movements. I thought about my mother, the look on her face when I told her I was pregnant with Brooke and I refused to do as she said and get an abortion. I thought about how her face held that same look when I informed her I was not only keeping my baby but dropping out of school and moving in with Michael, my eighteen-year-old boyfriend, who had his own apartment and a job at Radio Shack.

“You will not,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You moved in with Dad when you were seventeen,” I said, thinking this fact more than justified my decision. My parents had met their senior year of high school, and when my mom discovered she was pregnant with me, they got married. He’d left us twelve years later, becoming someone I heard from maybe once or twice a year, then eventually, not at all, but I was certain that Michael and I loved each other too much to share that same fate.

“And look how well that worked out,” she said. Her eyes, the same color as mine, flashed. “I want something better for you, Jenny. Something more than I had.”

“I will have something better,” I assured her. “I’m just going to have it with Michael. We’re not getting married right away. We’re going to take it slow.”

“Moving in with him and having a baby is not taking it slow.” She shook her head and pressed her lips together before speaking again. “What kind of job do you think you can get without a diploma?”