Father's Day by Simon van Booy Page A

relatives or friends. Others by people they had never met. It was especially hard for these children, who were expected to begin new lives while still anchored to old ones that no one wanted to talk about.
    Wanda cared not only for children like Harvey, who’d been orphaned by circumstance, but also for those whose parents went to jail, or were addicted to drugs, or were abusive or negligent or a combination of those things. Over thirty years on the job had given her an instinct for who would make a good parent and who wouldn’t. It wasn’t always what you’d think, she told her husband. You get surprises where you least expect—for all that glitters is not gold.
    After her first twenty years with Social Services, Wanda thought she had seen it all, but with each passing year came something new—and always the pinch of bureaucracy, which sometimes prevented her from placing children in the homes that best served their needs.
    As retirement neared, she found herself taking more risks, “losing” data that wasn’t helpful, or lying to put her own spin on things—the way she’d lied to Jason about Harvey’s grandparents filling out adoption paperwork.
    She told her husband everything, and he stood behind her. His name was Keith. He was from Baltimore. They had no children of their own.
    â€œYou gotta do what you gotta do,” he always said. “Trust yourself.”
    When Harvey’s case was assigned to Wanda’s office and all the facts came out, no one could agree what to do. The obvious choice would have been the girl’s maternal grandparents, but it turned out they had recently passed, down in Tampa, Florida—within a few months of each other.
    There was a much older great-aunt who also lived in Florida, but Wanda would need to know more about her; when family members fell out of touch, it was sometimes for good reason.
    Wanda had known early on about the deceased’s older brother, but felt he was probably a lost cause—the obvious family link broken by a list of violent criminal charges against his name and recent investigations by the IRS into thousands of dollars of undisclosed income—possibly the result of drug deals or resale of stolen goods. Charges for burglary or criminal damage were one thing, violent assault was another.
    Wanda had all but crossed Jason off the list when Harvey suddenly mentioned him on the way from Miss Bateman’s apartment to the foster home. “Jason? Who’s that Harvey?”
    â€œMy dad’s brother.”
    â€œYou ever meet him? Your uncle Jason?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHow come you never met him?”
    â€œMom says he’s a bad man.”
    â€œThat so?”
    â€œTried to kill people, Mom said.”
    Wanda paused a moment. “Sure you want to meet someone like that?”
    â€œDad said he never killed people—he just made them blind.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œNow he goes to diners and has a fake leg.”
    â€œDiners?”
    â€œYeah—so we know that he eats.”
    â€œWas your father in touch with him, Harvey?”
    â€œNo, but they had a dog called Birdie, and my dad said that when Birdie left, Jason cried and cried, and he’d never seen his brother cry before the dog just ran away.”
    â€œBirdie is a nice name for a dog.”
    â€œI’d cry too, if my dog ran away.”
    â€œSo would I,” Wanda said. “And so would my husband, Keith. He’s a real animal lover.”
    They were getting close to the Goldenbergs’, but Wanda didn’t want the conversation to end, so she pulled to the side of the road and asked Harvey if she had any stories about Jason.
    â€œMom would be mad if she knew,” Harvey said. “But Mom’s in heaven, right? I don’t think you can get mad in heaven, right, Wanda?”
    â€œYou don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Wanda assured her.