Written by Dastem
Catch Up:
Angelica’s drive to succeed as an adult largely stemmed from her experience in the foster care system.
She quickly learned that there was always an inevitable problem in every home she was placed in. When it did, she would turn to the picture of her mother.
Even if they were false, the memories she conjured up always made her feel more at home than any foster family ever could.
That’s part of what motivated her to keep her nose to the grindstone all through school. She even put herself through college, working as a waitress in a local café.
Every teacher and professor she had along the way said that her dedication and focus was nothing short of spectacular, as though she had an internal drive to change the world.
In the end, Angelica succeeded in becoming one of the most passionate and influential social workers in the city. She was on the fast-track to a flourishing career in case management. Oh, the lives she would touch…
By the time she was twenty-five, she’d earned a reputation for being a hard-handed and ruthless adversary to abusive parents. Not once did she hesitate to remove a child from the home, so long as it was deemed ‘unsafe’.
In her mind, she was a savior to every child, and the retribution that their abusive parents deserved.
Yet, as Angelica would soon discover, when you live the life of a hammer, all you end up seeing are nails…
That realization came when a unique case hit her desk one day. The details were peculiar–
Evidently, firefighters pulled a five year-old girl named Lily from a burning building after she accidentally started a fire.
According to them, the blaze was caused by a hotplate, which Lily used to make herself grilled cheese sandwiches with. Apparently, she forgot to unplug it.
Angelica got involved because the girl’s parents were nowhere to be found at the time of the incident.
During their interview, Lily said that she’d never met her mother, and her father was gone a lot. She told Angelica that he had to “work.”
Oddly enough, the apartment was as beautiful and affluent as the surrounding neighborhood. It was obvious that the family had more than enough money to make ends meet. Moreover, the neighbors all spoke highly of Frank, the girl’s missing father.
“Oh, Frank’s a good man,” the elderly woman down the hall told Angelica.
“It’s just the two of them living there, and he travels a lot for work. I help take care of Lily when he’s gone. He’s doing the best he can, you know? Sometimes it just takes a village.”
“That’s no excuse,” Angelica replied coldly. “No child should be left alone.”
When Frank finally showed up the next day, the police were waiting to take him into custody.
Of course they interrogated him, the way police do. Being that he was a lawyer, though, Frank knew just what to say to ward them off.
When Angelica sat down with him, however, it was a different story…
She explained that Child Protective Services made their decisions independent of law enforcement. Even if the police let him go, he still wouldn’t get Lily back.
She said, “If you want any chance of seeing your daughter again, then you’ll have to talk to me.”
Her ploy worked, because Frank eventually broke down and told her everything.
He said that whenever he disappeared, it was to go to a house on the other side of town. There, he would pass his time chasing the dragon.
“I see,” Angelica said condescendingly. “So, it’s a ‘trap house’?”
“No, it’s not like that!” Frank insisted. “The woman who runs the place has rules. If you don’t follow them, you can’t go there.”
“So? Who cares? Why wouldn’t you just go somewhere else?”
Frank looked appalled.
“Somewhere else? You don’t understand… The guys who go there aren’t crackheads. They’re like me… Doctors. Lawyers. Some of them are even in politics. You wouldn’t see any of them buying dope in any alleyways, put it that way.”
“Oh, I get it. It’s an upscale trap house.”
“Look, it’s the best for what it is… a safe place. Kids aren’t allowed to go there and we know the drugs are clean. ‘Mother’ makes sure we all stay responsible. She says if we don’t keep our jobs or do what we’re supposed to do in our regular lives, then she’ll cut us off, and she will! She’s done it before. Nobody ever questions Mother.”
“…Mother? As in your mother?” Angelica asked bitingly.
“No, no,” Frank replied. “That’s just what everyone calls her.”
The more he talked, the more Angelica realized that Frank really believed in “Mother”.
He insisted that she was the only reason his addiction hadn’t devolved into something far worse. He repeatedly called her an angel, even claiming that she’d saved his life… and Lily’s.
“She told me something once that really stuck with me,” he explained.
“She said that if we don’t raise our children, then our demons will do it for us. She gives us a place to let those demons out in a controlled environment… almost like therapy.”
Angelica was dumbstruck. The memory of what her father said the last time she saw him suddenly came rushing into her mind.
She went careening into an emotional whirlpool of vengeance-fueled bitterness.
Suddenly, the world became one big “nail”.
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