Chapter 5
Sharon stared at the phone in her hand with disbelief. It seemed to stare back mockingly. She slammed it down on the receiver and accidentally spilled a Styrofoam cup of black coffee over her desk.
This week’s notes eagerly soaked up the liquid. She would have to redo all these ruined forms later.
Two bad phone calls had occurred in just the last two hours.
First, the call at 9:43 a.m. from that strange flannel-shirted guy with the Mercedes last night, who now wanted to talk to her, whatever that meant. He evidently picked up her cell phone when they tumbled to the pavement. Really she was sick of men for now—single, happy, and wanting to be left alone, especially by psychos.
The other call was the one she just hung up on, from Cindy’s county social worker relaying terrible news.
Sharon ran down the hall, smacking into the wall with her left shoulder as she rounded a corner, closing the door behind her after entering her supervisor’s office. “Beth, I have to talk to you.”
Beth’s desk faced the wall to the right. Her bony arms supported her thin body hunching over a Cosmopolitan magazine on her desk. Both her shoulders jutted upwards. Piles of papers and folders surrounded the Cosmopolitan magazine. She didn’t look up. “What is it?”
“They placed Cindy back with her family last night.”
Above the desk was a cheap print of a famous painting entitled The Scream. Hollow mouth in bizarre surprise, hands held over the ears in agony, painted by a schizophrenic man—it made Sharon uncomfortable.
Beth finally looked up. “Yeah?”
She needed Beth’s full attention. She needed everything she could out of her supervisor. Cindy’s worst fear was slowly coming true, and Sharon didn’t know how to stop it by herself. “Not with her parents. Not yet. But with her maternal grandparents.”
Beth reluctantly turned her chair to face Sharon. Her toenails stuck out from her sandals, painted black with silver stars and moons. Sharon probably would’ve liked that on any other person. But this anorexic-looking woman had been promoted before Sharon, despite having less experience. Beth and the director were close friends. Sharon could handle feelings of envy that would normally come from such a predicament, but Beth had proven to be irresponsible as a supervising social worker.
She replied flatly, “So soon?”
“The clearances for their fingerprints came back yesterday afternoon, and the county social worker had evidently checked the house earlier this week.”
“So what’s your concern?” Beth shoved the eraser part of a pencil into her sharp chin.
“Cindy became hysterical during the parent visit yesterday.”
Beth sighed. “I’m sure she’ll be okay. The county wouldn’t place her with family unless they felt comfortable about it.”
Sharon didn’t feel understood. Her training had taught her to first validate other people so that they could open up to other points of view. “You’re probably right.”
Beth’s face brightened. “Hey, did you see the Laker game last night?”
“No,” she replied, clasping her hands together, trying to hide irritation.
“It was amazing. Kobe is amazing. Vanessa is so lucky."
“I just feel worried,” she said urgently. “Like I’ve let Cindy down in some way.”
The supervisor’s painted toes wiggled. Her voice returned to its usual bland tone. “The biological parents will still be required to have monitored visits. Cindy won’t be alone with them yet.”
But she wasn’t convinced. Her supervisor had a tendency to minimize things. Sharon’s concerns before from another case had fallen on deaf ears. That foster mother had yelled in a rage at her during several home visits. She expressed this to Beth, with the concern that the foster mother could also be targeting her rage at the three-year-old foster girl in the home, but Beth assured her that emotional abuse to the child was improbable. She explained to Sharon how the foster mother appeared hard-nosed on the outside but was really warm and fuzzy on the inside. Sharon later discovered the child was being beaten by the foster mother.
“Cindy will be okay,” Beth continued. “There’s no way the Brewsters would risk swinging a hammer into her head again.” Her toes kept wiggling. “She’ll be fine.”
Although she would never actually do it, Sharon wanted to step on those toes. “Shouldn’t they have called and asked for my opinion? Doesn’t the foster care social worker’s observations count for anything in this field anymore?”
Beth folded her arms across her chest. “You’re responsible for the foster home, not the foster child. Cindy is the county’s responsibility.” She sighed heavily. “Placing with the natural family is a priority, Sharon. You know that. Besides, it’s cheap. No monthly payments required for fostering the child. If the grandparents are safe, there would be no reason to ask for your opinion.” She turned back to her desk and flipped through her magazine. “You seem a bit over-involved in this case. It’s appropriate to back off now.”
Sharon stood up and reached for the doorknob. “I need to say goodbye to Cindy. They didn’t even give me that chance.” She couldn’t help thinking of her younger sister, Marlene, who she also never got to say goodbye to. It had happened so fast while Marlene was playing on the grass of their front yard at age ten. The drunk driver had been speeding…
Beth was already engrossed in an article from her Cosmopolitan magazine, hunching her bony figure over it.