Читать книгу At the Center - Dorothy Van Soest - Страница 11

FOUR

I stayed in the women’s bathroom until I was able to regain my composure. Then I speculated about why Brion Kacey and Betsy Chambers would refuse to let me read the Mellon case file. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that there was something in the record they were afraid might damage the agency’s reputation. That could have explained why Brion got so upset when I told him about J. B. Harrell’s allegation that a five-year-old foster girl had been hurt in the Mellon home.

But then why, once Brion and Betsy knew that I was already aware of the incident, did they still refuse to let me read the file? The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if they knew more about Anthony Little Eagle’s death than they’d let on. I pressed my back against the wall and told myself to slow down, be careful not to jump to conclusions.

Brion’s voice kept echoing in my head. No one...no one will be allowed access to the case file. I thought about how he had given me “permission” (so to speak) to talk to the social worker who had placed Anthony Little Eagle in the Mellon home.

“Thank you, Brion,” I said into the mirror as if speaking directly to him. “That is exactly what I am going to do. Lynn knows what’s in the case file, and she will tell me what it is since you won’t. And don’t worry about Mr. J. B. Harrell, because I am about to prove him wrong.”

With my confidence somewhat restored, I headed down the stairs to the second floor to see Lynn Winters. If she had seen anything in the case file about a suspicious injury to a child in the Mellon home, I was sure she never would have placed Anthony Little Eagle there.

When I walked into the foster care suite, I was surprised to find myself comparing its brightness, from the afternoon sun shining through the floor-to-ceiling windows, to the smoke-filled stench and fog of the courthouse basement up north where I had worked before. The soft voices of social workers talking on their phones was a stark contrast to the cacophony of ringing phones, loud voices, and hiss of steam rushing through the ceiling pipes back then. I hurried between the rows of white cubicles that formed a passageway that led to my office at the end.

I stopped at Lynn’s cubicle and peered over the waist-high wall, but she wasn’t there. Her workspace, unlike those of my other staff, was not yet decorated with family pictures and other personal items. No pictures on the walls, only a computer, a telephone, and a neat stack of papers on her desk.

“She’s in the field.” I turned toward the sound of Melanie’s voice, from the adjacent cubicle. “She was here earlier but she left a few minutes ago.”

“Thanks,” I said. I didn’t know how to respond to the unspoken concern in my worker’s voice. “I’ll leave her a note, but if you see her, could you let her know I want to see her right away when she gets back?”

“Sure, Sylvia.”

I left the note propped up on Lynn’s phone and then went back to my desk to do paperwork. As the day dragged by, every time someone knocked on my office door, I looked up expectantly, and each time I was disappointed to see that it wasn’t Lynn Winters. At five thirty I finally gave up and headed home.

—

My Suzuki Sidekick, fifteen years old and with 180,000 miles on it, wasn’t the only beater car in the lot behind my apartment building, but it had to be the most reliable one there. In the drab lobby I checked my mailbox before getting on the elevator. The man-boy with spiky blond hair and perpetual sleep in his eyes who lived on the second floor and yet never came up with enough energy to walk up one flight of stairs got on with me.

“Hey, Miss Jensen.” He smiled, showing his perfect white teeth. Like he was following his mother’s admonition to be respectful to the resident spinster.

“Good evening,” I said. I didn’t know his name. He, like all the other college students and young professionals who lived in the building, would move out as soon as he was able to improve his circumstances. I stared at the holes in the knees of his jeans.

“Have a nice evening, Miss Jensen,” he said when the elevator stopped and he got off.

I pushed the button for the fifth floor, wondering how I might manage to have a nice evening when all I wanted was for tomorrow to come. When the elevator door opened on my floor, the smells of pizza and Chinese takeout made my stomach growl. I was hungry, and glad I’d made enough tuna casserole on Sunday night to last through the week.

I dropped my keys onto the round table that divided the kitchen from the living room in my tiny apartment. I found myself speculating about what my naighbor would think if he knew I chose to live this simply not out of necessity but based on principle. What would he say about my dated gold and orange shag area rug? The drab off-white walls that hadn’t been painted in all the years I’d lived here, the black imitation-leather couch I’d bought at the Salvation Army, the array of candles and pottery on the windowsills? My old political posters? I imagined telling him that I’d won custody of the antique pulpit chair with its high, hand-carved walnut back and burgundy velvet upholstery as part of my divorce. But I didn’t expect that he would make any connection between my life and the privileges he probably thought he deserved and the luxuries with which he aspired to surround himself.

Speculating about what the man-boy might think of me, while a welcome diversion, soon led me to wondering if J. B. Harrell might be more inclined to trust my sincerity if he saw the way I chose to live. I read a magazine while I ate. I swept then mopped the kitchen floor. I sorted through the papers and magazines that had been piling up for months on top of my old scratched desk in the corner of my otherwise neat living room. But the sadness in the pit of my stomach was still there and soon I found myself ruminating again, about Brion, Betsy, Lynn. I went to bed thinking about who knew or didn’t know what and lay there counting the hours until I would be able to talk to Lynn Winters.

—

I woke up the next morning with my stomach twisted into a pretzel of anticipation after having dreamed that I called J. B. Harrell to tell him he was wrong. With a cup of coffee and a plain bagel I’d picked up from the café on the first floor of the Health Services Building on the way to my office, I sat down at my desk. Eating the bagel made my stomach relax, so I decided to give the coffee a try. I was just lifting the cup to my lips when a timid knock on the frame of my open door startled me. The coffee splashed over the rim and I watched a brown circle spread over the flowery print on my skirt.

“Are you ready for me?” Lynn Winters stood in the doorway. Her eyes, which were usually a luminescent green, were cloudy and red-rimmed, and her cheeks were puffy. She was wearing a shirtwaist dress that hung loosely off her shoulders like she’d recently lost weight and hadn’t had time to buy new clothes.

I motioned for her to come in. She sat in the chair on the other side of my desk with her shoulders hunched over, the stringy tips of her long hair brushing the tops of her thighs. I thought about seeing her for the first time just a few months ago, an eager, compassionate, and idealistic twenty-four-year-old with a master’s degree in social work. Her hair had been a thick and fluffy blond; by everyone’s estimation she had been the most fashionable and beautiful woman ever to work in our agency. It made her disheveled appearance now all the more alarming.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She nodded.

“I know this must be terribly hard for you,” I said.

She nodded again.

“Do you feel up to talking about it?”

“Do you want me to tell you what’s in my statement?” she asked.

I pressed my hand on the folder lying on the desk in front of me. “I already read the statement you gave to Brion Kacey,” I said. “But I’d like to hear more about what happened the day you placed Anthony Little Eagle.”

“I’m sorry...uh...you mean...?” Lynn’s voice was a barely audible whisper.

“Take your time. Just anything you remember.”

Lynn started to speak but then stopped and looked around uncertainly. I empathized with her, remembering what it was like to be young and new on the job.

“It’s okay if you want to start with what’s in your statement,” I said. “I’m also interested in anything that isn’t in your statement, anything you thought of later or maybe something you weren’t asked.”

A piece of paper slipped off Lynn’s lap and fell to the floor. She moved to the edge of her chair, looking a little shaky as she scrambled to pick the paper up. I thought back to the times I’d gotten into trouble as a new social worker. Only unlike Lynn Winters, I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong. I’d firmly believed I was in the right when I licensed a foster home with only one exit in the house (after all, there wasn’t a single house on the reservation that had the required two exits), and when I gave out birth control information against agency policy. How ironic it was that now, as a supervisor, I had a reputation for demanding that my social workers adhere to all agency procedures, when most of my own offenses had involved skirting bureaucratic red tape.

“I’m sorry...I don’t know what you want me to say.” Lynn’s voice wavered.

I cleared my throat and picked up my pen. “Maybe if you start with the day you placed Anthony Little Eagle, it will help us work through what happened, see what we can learn from it.”

“It was late on Friday afternoon,” Lynn said with a tremor in her voice. “A child welfare worker named Ted Pound called just before our office closed saying he needed an emergency placement. He said the police found Anthony Little Eagle’s parents passed out in an apartment in the public housing complex and a drunken uncle was screaming and waving a gun around. They arrested the uncle and brought the boy here.”

“And how did you decide to place him in the Mellon home?”

“They were on our list of emergency foster homes and we’d used them before, so I figured...” She sniffled and wiped away a tear. “I didn’t want to send the boy to a shelter for the weekend. Most of the kids there are tough teenagers. He was so little and so scared.”

I pushed a box of tissues on my desk closer to her. I sympathized with her, but at the same time, there was something missing. Something wasn’t making sense.

“I understand that a child might have been injured in that foster home in the past. Tell me what you know about that.”

“What? I...I didn’t...” Lynn’s green eyes widened.

I began to wonder if the girl was hiding something, if maybe she was in collusion with Brion and Betsy. If maybe she’d been told what to say and what not to say. Or maybe, it was possible that Lynn, in her eagerness to protect the boy by keeping him out of the shelter, had ignored a red flag about the foster home. Was that why she looked so guilty?

Lynn twisted a piece of tissue into a pile of little white scraps on her lap. “I guess I didn’t...I didn’t think...”

I tried to put myself in her shoes. It had been late on a Friday afternoon. Maybe Lynn had been so anxious about protecting Anthony Little Eagle from the dangers that might await him in an emergency shelter that she simply didn’t think, didn’t see any warning signs. I wanted to believe that she had operated with the best interests of the boy in mind, that she had followed agency procedures.

“We can come back to that,” I said. “So you brought Anthony Little Eagle to the Mellon foster home. Then what?”

“I went home.”

“Actually, I was thinking about what you did to follow up. The training manual says that workers are required to check on children four hours after they’re placed in a home.”

Lynn leaned forward. “Oh yes,” she said with an eager nod of her head. “I called the foster home first thing the next morning. I was worried about him. He was so scared and confused when I left him there. I had to make sure he was okay.”

“It was good that you called right away. Who did you talk to?”

“Mrs. Mellon. She said everything was fine. She said Tony, that’s what she called him, she said he ate a good dinner but that she would have to fatten him up, that he was too skinny. She said he was quiet but that was to be expected and he did respond when she asked him questions. She said he wanted his eggs scrambled that morning. Everything was okay.”

“Did you talk to Anthony?”

“No, but I called again the next day,” she said, looking at me as if seeking my approval. “Mr. Mellon said Anthony was taking a walk with his wife and that he thought the boy was adjusting as well as could be expected.”

“Did you visit the home on Monday then,” I asked, “so you could see Anthony yourself?”

“I...was planning to...but...all my other cases...it was so busy that day...I thought he was okay.”

Okay, I thought. I might have assumed the same thing myself after calling the Mellon home twice to check on him.

“Tell me,” I said, “about your consultation with the Indian Child Welfare Act compliance officer. It seems to have been left out of your statement.”

“Who?”

“We’re required to confer with Peter Minter, the Indian Child Welfare compliance officer, before removing or placing American Indian children in non–American Indian homes.”

“I’m sorry, I...I guess I...”

I bit my tongue and waited for her to say more. We’d spent a whole day during orientation discussing the ICWA requirements, but my social workers didn’t always absorb it or understand how important it was to follow all the proper procedures. I worried about the unacceptably high number of American Indian kids that were still being removed and placed in white foster homes.

“I guess...,” Lynn went on. “The poor boy just looked so scared...I’m sorry. I guess I was too anxious about that to think about anything else.”

A rush of heat radiated up into my chest. The image of Anthony Little Eagle’s fear-filled eyes rose before me once again, the uniformed police officer’s gigantic hand crushing his bony shoulder.

“I saw him that day,” I said. “I saw how frightened the boy looked.”

I wondered if I expected too much of Lynn. She was so young and fresh, one of those social workers who had gone directly from a bachelor’s degree program into an advanced standing graduate program without any work experience in between. And then, after only two weeks of training, I had given her too many cases. I knew it was essential because of our agency’s heavy workload, but I should have monitored her more closely. Maybe she was so intimidated by my emphasis on policy and procedure, by my high standards, that she’d been afraid to ask any questions. Maybe she’d been unable to exercise common sense out of fear of making a mistake. Maybe she’d been so anxious to protect Anthony Little Eagle that she convinced herself she was keeping him safe. Yet the question remained: had she ignored the warning signs, had she not seen them, or hadn’t there been any?

“Let’s go back to the other child who was injured in the Mellon home. I understand it was about five years ago.” I said. “Tell me what you know about that.”

Lynn’s shoulders sagged and she stared at her lap for a long time. She finally raised her head and I saw a shadow—was it fear? guilt?—cross her face.

“I’m sorry. I know...I know...”

“What is it? What do you know?”

I leaned forward and my chair squeaked. Lynn jumped. She looked as guilty as if she herself had killed Anthony Little Eagle. I knew then that she was hiding something. Did she know a child had been hurt in the Mellon home before? Did she know and place another child there anyway?

Lynn choked on a sob and started crying loud enough to be heard by the other social workers in the row of cubicles outside my door. She said something, but her words came out garbled.

“What?” I asked. “I didn’t understand what you said.”

“I...it’s just that...well...I don’t know why the Mellon home was on our emergency list...if...if...It’s just that...that...I think someone should have known if that home was safe or not.”

“That’s true. Did you see anything in the case file about the five-year-old girl that was injured in that home?”

“I’m sorry, Sylvia. I’m so sorry, but...I didn’t...I didn’t...”

“You didn’t what?” I heard the impatience in my voice.

“I didn’t...read the case file.”

I sat back in my chair and pushed my hands into my stomach. I was stunned. So that’s it. That’s her secret. It was one thing for her to make a conscious decision to do what was best to protect the child by keeping him out of the emergency shelter, but it was quite another thing to not think things through—and Lynn Winters clearly did not think things through. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. It was unacceptable to not read about a foster home before placing a vulnerable child there.

I looked down at my hands, clasped tightly in my lap, and tried to talk myself down. Calm down. Be professional. The poor girl is devastated.

When I was finally able to look at Lynn, she jumped up and ran out of my office. I didn’t try to stop her. Maybe I was being too hard on her, but damn it, there had to be consequences for not following procedures, and especially for not even bothering to read the case file.

I rested my head on the back of my chair. I hadn’t gotten the reassurance that I’d hoped for from talking to Lynn. I still didn’t know if a girl had been injured in the Mellon home, as J. B. Harrell had said, and not only that, I was left with more questions than before. Was it possible that the Mellons had lost their license to be foster parents but their home had not been removed from the emergency list, through some administrative error? Was that why Brion and Betsy had glanced at each other when I mentioned the injured girl? Or did they know something else? I was sure something was going on that I was not being told about, and I didn’t know how to find out what that was. I leaned forward and reached for my cup of coffee. It was cold and tasted bitter on my tongue and when I swallowed it my stomach howled in protest.