I was doing, and they did their best to give me discounts and keep the bills relatively low.
As horrible as the reality was, children already knew the evils of their parents by the time social services step in. They’re also familiar with it. Placing a child with strangers, promising them the hope that things will be better, only for things to turn out nastier, is an imaginable cruelty worse than leaving them with their fucked-up parents in the first place.
Nothing’s more devastating than giving a broken child hope just to have it snatched from them later.
I hated these goddamn people.
I needed to start going back to church.
I stood up, smoothed the wrinkles from my pencil skirt, and gathered Darian’s thick file from the cushion of the couch. Jennifer didn’t bother standing, but I could hardly expect manners from her if she couldn’t be bothered to feed her child.
I looked down at the woman and laid down the law. “It’s simple, Jennifer,” I began. “Moving forward, you will no longer be on scheduled visits. I-”
This time, she stood up “What?!”
“I will be making surprise visits, and the first time I see any sign of neglect, I will be pulling Darian from your home and pushing for adoption by the Schiffers.”
“You bitch!” she screamed. “You can’t do that.”
I wanted to punch her in the face.
But I didn’t
“I can,” I insisted. “And I will. Get your act together, Jennifer, or I will take Darian.”
“Fuck you, you snotty bitch! I’ll never let you take my baby!”
“Darian’s future is entirely up to you, Jennifer,” I replied, ignoring her insults. Plus, I’ve been doing this a long time; I’ve been called worse. “If you want to keep him, straighten up.”
“You don’t understand!” she accused. “You don’t know what it’s like!”
Of course, she was right. I didn’t know what it was like. I didn’t even have children that would give me maternal insight. But I still knew what basic human decency felt like and any decent human being should want all the children of the world well cared for.
“I’ll be back soon,” I warned, and walked out of the trailer as she hurled insults at my back.
I got in my car, started it up, and waited until I was a few blocks down the street before I pulled over to give myself some breathing room.
I kept picturing Darian’s sweet little face and I knew I was going to do everything in my power to see him with the Schiffers. Whether Jennifer ever got her shit together or not was no longer my concern. My concern was for Darian and Darian only.
I pulled out my recorded and taped a recap of my visit and recommendation for Darian Engelman. I always recorded my notes within minutes of each visit, so I wouldn’t forget anything later when I returned to the office. The social services offices were riddled with cubicles on an open-floor plan and it was hard to collect your thoughts sometimes with all the noise around you, so recording my session notes in the peace and quiet of my car helped a lot.
I tossed Darian’s file into my backseat of my used KIA Forte and reached for the next file from the stack in my front passenger seat.
Three down, only ten more go to.
Chapter 3
Luca~
Dinner had been perfect, as always. And I had to agree on with Ciro on this; one of the best things about Francesca finally coming home was the woman knew how to cook, and she liked to. And, even though, she was super busy going back to school to get her degree and learning the ropes from Phoenix, she still made time to cook for us. Especially if we were all going to be available for a family dinner. Not a Benetti Family dinner, but just our family.
We had grown up in the same neighborhood, but Ciro and I being the same age, we connected first. A few months later, Phoenix came into the picture and the three of us had become a unit. We’d been incredibly young, but even at the tender age of eight, I’d already known what I was meant to become, and Ciro and Phoenix have been with me the entire way.
Then there was Francesca.
Francesca was Ciro’s little sister, the same age as Phoenix, and Phoenix had fallen in love with her when they were just seven-years-old, and he has never looked at another female since. And even the six years they were apart, Phoenix never so much as touched