“Is this friend Brian that we talked about last time?”
Brenda chewed on her lower lip. Brian-that-we-talked-about-last-time, Brenda’s latest gentleman caller, had been crashing on his brother’s couch, technically homeless. “He just needs a place to stay until he’s back on his feet,” she’d told me. Back at the office, I’d learned that Poor Brian had a lengthy criminal record, including burglary, larceny, and violation of a Protection from Abuse order, and that he owed thousands of dollars in child support.
“Brenda,” I said.
She raised her chin and said, “I’m a grown-ass woman. I can see whoever I want, and you need to respect my choices.”
Deep breath, Rachel.
“Do you understand why it’s not a good idea to have Brian move in?”
“Because I don’t know him very well,” she muttered.
“Because he has a criminal record,” I said. “Because his last girlfriend said he’d beaten her children.”
She straightened her neck. “Brian and I talked about that,” she said. “He said that was just his ex making trouble for him, because she’s crazy.”
“Isn’t that what every guy says about his ex-girlfriend? ‘She’s crazy’? Isn’t that what your ex is probably telling his new girlfriend about you?” I wondered if that was what Andy, somewhere, was saying about me.
She nodded, but she didn’t look happy. “Fine, I’ll tell him he has to move out.” Almost immediately she winced, realizing her mistake. “I mean, I’ll tell him he can’t move in.” Which meant, of course, that Brian had already moved in, and that she probably had no real intention of telling him to go.
If it had just been a guy, I might not have cared. But this was a potentially dangerous guy. That I cared about.
“You know you’re not supposed to have another adult here. And I know how much you love your kids, how you’d never put them at risk or do anything to hurt them. Brian might seem terrific, and he might have turned his life around, but we don’t know that. You wouldn’t want to have to find out the hard way that you were wrong. You’re too good a mom for that.”
She sighed and stared at her hands, and finally managed a small and reluctant nod. I wasn’t sure she meant it, but for now it was the best that I could do. The hell of it was that the system didn’t operate on possibilities and potentials. You couldn’t pull kids out of a house because you thought they might get hurt. You’d have to wait until they did.
I flipped to a fresh page on my clipboard. “Let’s talk about Dante. He was absent twice last week.”
Brenda cast her gaze down toward the rip in her couch. “He had an ear infection.”
“Middle ear or outer ear?”
Brenda fiddled with her own lobe. “Uh . . .”
“Did you take him to the doctor?”
Eyes down. Nod.
“Do you have a receipt? We can probably get you reimbursed for the copay.”
“Somewhere,” she mumbled. “Unless I put it out with the recycling.”
“If I call the doctor’s office, are they going to tell me you were there?”
Mumble.
“Sorry, what was that?”
She raised her chin and met my eyes. “I didn’t take him in. I called, I talked to a nurse, she said we’d just be sitting there for four hours like we did last time, and Jim at the bakery said I couldn’t leave again or he’d fire me, and besides, I knew what was wrong. Even if I did go and we sat there, they’d just give us antibiotics.”
This was probably true, but sick kids needed to go to the doctor, and Brenda needed frequent reminders.
“So what happened?”
She squirmed. “I gave him antibiotics.”
“Where’d you get them?”
“Leftovers.”
“From the last time he had an ear infection?”
Mumble mutter mumble.
“Brenda, I’m sitting right here and I can’t hear you.”
She raised her face, eyes flashing. I must have sounded like every teacher she’d ever had, every boss who’d said, “Speak up, I can’t hear you.”
“I had some left over.”
“So you gave Dante your old medication? Did you have an ear infection?”
“Yeast infection. But what’s the difference? An infection’s an infection.”
Oh my God. I tried to keep my face still while I scribbled a note and pulled out my phone. Brenda took advantage of my distraction to flip on her TV.
“About Dante,” Brenda said after I’d gotten him an appointment at the clinic to have his ear looked at the next afternoon. I gave her a look and she turned the TV off. “You think I can get him tested for ADHD?”