Tears roll down his cheeks, as Ray stares at the uneaten cheeseburger, cold and congealing on his plate. It’s our third meeting, and the third time I’ve had to break the news that his daughter won’t be coming home any time soon.

“The tests are just wrong,” he wheedles. “You can do the research. The labs make mistakes all the time.”

“Well, Ray,” I start, “That’s one of the problems here. Your tests can’t be wrong all the time. It’s an argument I can make in court, at best, once. And it’s pretty unlikely to sway a judge even then.”

“But Angela is better off with me than in some crappy foster home,” Ray insists.

I don’t really disagree. Still, all the familial love in the world won’t budge the bureaucracy from its insistence on ‘clean and sober.’

“Ray, I know you want your little girl home with you. But shaving your head to avoid a hair-test, telling your worker you ate too many poppy-seed bagels, missing your piss-tests—it’s not the way to go. Working your program is hard. I get it. But you can’t outwit the state. They’re holding all the cards. And they’re holding Angela.”

“I’m clean, I swear! And I haven’t let my ex move home, no matter what they think. My neighbors are just trying to get back at me. That’s why they say the stuff they do.”

“Sure, I know, Ray. But give them six months of clean urines, then we can argue about who lives in the house. Right now all they have is years of you and Georgia drugging and beating on each other. They’ve gotta see you make a start on some new history.”

I trudge back to my car, head bent, and heavy-limbed. It never gets easier. I’ve got kids of my own, and it would tear the heart right out of me if the state snatched them away and refused to give them back. Empathy doesn’t do much good though, and I have yet to find the magic words to keep Ray on the right track, or any of my clients for that matter.

People imagine child protection work is centered around raging parents doling out harsh punishments, kids suffering burns and bruises and broken limbs. But it’s almost always about parents with addictions, desperate and feeling hopeless. They live shadowy lives in slow decline, or they cycle back and forth between ‘good mommy’ and walking dead. The kids wind up a different kind of broken.

I already know if I keep at this long enough, the sad-eyed toddlers we’re fighting to protect today will be my grown-up clients tomorrow. Ray is right. The system is rigged. Self-righteous disgust will replace tender sympathy the day these damaged kids blow out eighteen candles on their birthday cakes.

Ray grew up in foster care. And so did Georgia.

When I turn in at night, I no longer imagine I’ll rest easy for fighting the good fight. In my fitful sleep, I’ll grit my teeth and crack my molars instead.

July 18, 2024

About the writer

Suzanne Miller is a flash fiction/essay writer, recently retired and living on the peaceful Connecticut shoreline. Suzanne left a career as a child-protection attorney to pursue more uplifting work with children: operating a nature-based early learning center in the woods. She is using her newfound time and freedom playing badminton with her grandchildren, and polishing up her lifetime of stories. Most recently she has published pieces in CafeLit, The Rumen, Krazines/Moss Piglet, Wild Greens and surely magazine. Suzanne is also a Writer Advice’s 2024 Microfiction Contest winner. You can link to her Substack account “Flash Light” at https://substack.com/@suzesq/posts.