He has been climbing my wall for four days to deliver a message that saved my life. He is eight years old. He has lost his mother. He has an aunt who does not want him. I am not letting him go back to a dumpster tonight.
I am not letting him go back to a dumpster ever. I understand, sir. I would suggest that whatever arrangements you make tonight be temporary in nature and run through child protective services, both for his protection and for yours. There will be paperwork. There will be background checks.
There will be a social worker assigned. None of it has to be ugly. Some of it can move very quickly when an adult of means and a willing child are involved and there is no objection from a legal guardian. Does the boy have a legal guardian?
"There's no one," Elijah said, and they both turned to look at him. His voice was very small. "My aunt signed a paper. She told me she signed a paper that she wasn't responsible anymore. I don't know what kind of paper."
She said it at the kitchen table and she cried a little, but she signed it anyway." They left the estate at 7:20 in the evening in a plain dark green SUV that Detective Marsh had requisitioned from the department fleet. A uniformed officer drove. Detective Marsh sat in the front passenger seat with her notebook open on her knee. Richard and Elijah sat in the back. The boy's backpack was on the floor between his feet."
The gray blanket was still around his shoulders. He had not taken it off. They made one stop on the way out of the city. The gas station on Pier Street was the kind of small two-pump operation that survived on cigarettes, lottery tickets, and the steady patronage of working people coming off late shifts. Inside behind a scratched Plexiglas counter, a small middle-aged man with kind eyes and a name tag that read r a j s h p a t e l was re-stocking a display of energy drinks.
He looked up when the bell over the door rang. He saw Detective Marsh first. His face tightened in the small instinctive way that people who have lived in difficult neighborhoods learn to tighten their faces when official people walk in. Then he saw Elijah behind her. His face changed.