Ciarra was an expert at running in high heels. She jogged forward despite their waver until the sight of a cop car near the lot made her stop dead in her tracks. She began to walk toward it timidly, hoping to ascertain the situation at a distance far enough to decide if she should run in the exact opposite direction. Two police officers and another woman and man (who appeared to be with them) stood in a huddle with Mike and Aston. At first, she panicked that the two people with the cops might be the owners of the little car lot. Maybe they had called the cops to come kick them all out, to make way for a new business plan. But then she remembered the state of Aston’s face and she started running. The adrenaline coursing through her body was enough to make her vision blurry.
She ran toward them, no longer caring if the defensive rage she felt would get her arrested. “What’s going on?” she yelled out to them, slowing her pace once she got close. The huddle opened up as if they had all been waiting for her to arrive. Dismay was written across Mike’s face. Aston was examining the wiggle of one of the loosely sewn-on eyes of a teddy bear that the people had brought him.
When the police car had pulled up to the lot with the two people who worked for Child Protection Services, Anthony and Wolf had scattered inconspicuously into the woods. Aria, Taylor and Luke had already been gone for hours in search of somewhere to get food. And Darren had left early to plant himself somewhere in the city beside his little cardboard sign. The only people who stayed put when the police approached were Robert, Mike and Aston.
In Ciarra’s absence, they had interrogated Mike about his daughter and grandson. They had searched the van that she had been living in. Once it was obvious to them that Mike was both naive and not the person to blame for the crime that had covered Aston in bruises, they had told him the truth about his daughter. They told him they had reason to believe that Ciarra was both an addict and a prostitute. That she was doing other things with her time and resources than working night shifts at a bar to try to get their lives back on track. Mike felt crushed, a failure, the faith he wanted to have in his daughter reduced to ruins.
The police and the pair from CPS had already made up their minds. There was no way they could justify allowing this child to stay in the conditions he was obviously in. Unlike the usual, the situation they had found themselves in was an exigent one. None of them confused poverty with neglect or abuse. They would not even need a court order to take Aston away.
Once Aston had given Ciarra’s legs a hug, the male CPS officer ushered the boy away from the conversation, distracting him with questions about his favorite things and asking Aston to show him a game he liked to play. The female CPS worker spoke for all of them. “The reason we’re here today, ma’am, is because we needed to investigate a report we received of your son being in an unsafe situation. Do you have any idea who might have done this to his face?” she asked, trying to give the impression that she was on Ciarra’s side instead of against her.
“No one did that to his face, he had an accident riding his bike the other day,” Ciarra said belligerently.
“Would you be able to show us that bike?” the social worker asked, knowing full well that Ciarra, who was too poor to afford a place to stay, would not be able to produce one.
“It was a friend’s bike so it’s at another house. What exactly are you accusing me of?” Ciarra asked. She tried to remind herself to stay calm and not get defensive, but she could not control the storm of her emotions.
“Ma’am, we know that a fall from a bike didn’t do that to his face. The more cooperative you are with us, the better this is going to go for you and Aston,” the woman said in a warning tone.
Ciarra refused to say more.
“Does Aston’s father maybe have a number that we could call to talk to him?” the woman asked.
“No. I don’t know where he is. He’s a musician and he’s on tour,” Ciarra said. The way the woman looked down at an envelope she was holding made Ciarra see red with panic. “This is a violation of my rights. It’s unlawful what you’re doing. You have to get a warrant or a court order to search my home,” she challenged.
The woman, who had already lost her patience with Ciarra, barked back at her, “A broken-down vehicle in a tent city does not qualify as a home, especially if that vehicle is not even yours. We can do this the hard way or we can do this the easy way. I’m going to ask you again to cooperate with us. Do you happen to have a phone number where we could reach Aston’s father?”
Ciarra could not control herself. She was locked in a fight to keep her own child. In defense of the terror and shame she felt, her blood boiled hot in response to the transgression. “You can’t prove anything. I love
