The Things I Want Most by Richard Miniter

in their Norwich blue dress uniforms, Brendan and Liam looking relaxed but formal. A few minutes later Susanne held my hand with a dazzling smile all the way to the church.
    Sue was determined to sing at her daughter’s wedding. She stood up front in a stunning white and gold dress singing “Amazing Grace” as Susanne paused at the head of the aisle, holding my arm.
    Then she cried.
    Later, at the reception, her brothers stood up in a tall row, men now, serious, hushing the crowd. One by one they passed the microphone and talked about their sister, told everyone there how much they loved her. Then I cried, too.
    It was outside after midnight, sitting in the ghostly moonlit debris of the wedding reception, that Sue mentioned Mike for the first time in more than a week. “Do you think we can somehow make that kid a part of this?”
    I was smoking a cigar with a glass of wine in my hand. My tie was awry, feet up on another chair.
    â€œDunno. I still have the awful sinking feeling that we haven’t the foggiest idea of what we’re getting into. What do youthink will happen when he has to get into a routine, get up and go to school, do chores, and not be the center of undivided attention?”
    I saw her eyes in the moonlight. “Rich, you really don’t want to do this, do you?”
    Whether I wanted to or not, wheels had been turning in the background. Joanne had completed a written report on the week’s visit, passed it on to Dutchess County Social Services, which reviewed the intended placement with staff, and in approving it, passed it on to family court and the law guardian, an attorney that, at least in New York State, every foster child has appointed to represent his or her interests. Then, everybody in the loop having concurred, Harbour was given a green light, and Joanne called us with one last note of caution. “Remember, Mike wants this placement very, very badly. But it’s almost wholly a peer pressure issue with him. He sees families on TV, and the other children he’s in the system with glorify their own families. But he’s never had one of his own. Push comes to shove, a child like this hasn’t the faintest idea of how to respond over the long haul.”
    Two days later Sue drove up and got him.
    One of the words used to describe to us the withdrawal of a child controlled by the system from a placement was
extraction
.
    Extraction
sounds overly dramatic, much as if a submarine was going to surface offshore in the predawn darkness and launch a black rubber raft. Unfortunately for the children involved, the reality isn’t all that far from the mark.
    Regardless of whether a child has spent one night in a placement, or a year or ten years or his entire life; regardless ofwhether a placement is “home” to the child, the withdrawal is never a “leaving” as families would think of the term, because the child is never, ever coming back. If there are good-byes and moist-eyed grandmothers or anxious parents in attendance, they gather in shared despair, in promises to write, in hurried last-minute hugs or precautions or tears. And often there is not even that, just the “child-care system” cranking the right piece of paperwork onto the right desk, followed by a quick swoop.
    Sometimes the children are taken, have to be taken, in the middle of the night. At other times, circumstances might demand that they be yanked away during school or meals.
    I have tried to imagine what the experience is like. Who can grow up knowing that the world might turn inside out at any moment and frequently does? Who can live knowing that any little treasured possession—a teddy bear, a game, a set of blocks— might never be seen again unless it is kept within immediate reach?
    Mike had been extracted twelve times before Sue parked next to the front door of the children’s home on August 27.
    Desperately wanting this extraction to be a lot