William Edwards Leaves His Screaming Son on a Friday Afternoon in Hartford
“My wife just served me with an emergency custody order,” I said, my voice rising slightly before I caught myself. “My son is with her mother.”
“I will mark it as urgent in her file,” the receptionist said, her tone unchanged. “But she will not be back in the office until tomorrow morning. Please make sure you have the physical documents with you when you come.”
“I have them,” I said.
“We will see you at nine then, Mr. Edwards.”
I ended the call and set the phone on the faded bedspread.
I had spent years trying to build a normal life, a quiet home where Owen would never have to feel the uncertainty of a cold room or a stranger’s house. Now I was sitting in the same kind of motel room my foster parents had used when they traveled between counties.
The silence of the room was heavy, broken only by the occasional truck passing on the highway. I opened the manila envelope containing the court documents, spreading the pages across the fading floral bedspread. The yellow light of the lamp illuminated the details of Marsha’s motion, details I had not been able to process in the classroom.
