Innocence

The elevator spills open to a fourth floor foyer decorated with plastic and paper flowers. In the main room green leaves have been painted on a support beam and except for a few fist sized holes in the wall, the colors are calm and inviting.
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The receptionist sits behind a glass window. Although she’s only two feet away, visitors are instructed to introduce themselves to her through a white phone that hangs on the wall.
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There are four small rooms off the main room, all with doors. Each is marked with its own large letter: A, B, C and D. Each has a window, a small table, a couple of chairs, a second hand Fisher Price plastic shopping cart, a worn puzzle box or two.
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The visitor watches as two women and a 3 or 4 year old girl emerge from room A. The first woman is neatly dressed in jeans and a cotton shirt; the other, in a black pantsuit, carries a clipboard. The girl has curly blond hair and the unsteady walk of a little child. The woman in jeans walks to the door toward the elevator and stops to turn to her.
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“Mommy loves you. I’ll see you next week. Be good”.

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The woman with the clip board waves goodbye to the woman in jeans.

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“Come on honey” she motions to the little girl. “Come with me”.

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The little girl takes five small steps toward her mother and away from the woman with the clipboard. The little girl waits in place, until the woman with the clipboard calls her again.

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"Come on honey. You’ll see Mommy again next week”.

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The little girl turns and follows the woman with the clipboard into the room with the glass window and the receptionist gives her a piece of candy.
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The little girl is in state sponsored foster care, taken from her mother because of allegations of abuse or neglect of some kind. She will see her mother for an hour a week, under the supervision of Child Protection Services, for a number of months, until her mother is able to demonstrate that she is fit and able to care for her.
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The visitor has important business to do in the main room. She is there for an appointment and she needs to concentrate. But she cannot shake the picture of the little girl looking and leaning toward her mother, and she cannot shake the discrepancy of her mother’s lingering goodbye.
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The visitor knows that there are details missing, stories that explain why all the alphabet rooms are all filled at the same time with small children and their absent parents. And yet, for the rest of the day, and for some time to come, the visitor wrestles with the gestalt of a little girl with curly blond hair and tiny feet, and her mother at the doorway, both of them following the woman with the clipboard.