Hunger of the Pine

by Teal Swan

  Knowing that the authorities would have to decide whether her report indicated child abuse before initiating an investigation, Aria walked back to the lot to wait for Omkar to show up after his classes were over for the day. The words she had spoken into the phone were a eulogy of her innocence and youth. Aria played through possible scenarios of the cops showing up to look for Aston. She practiced how to go undetected and escape in each one of them.

  The atmosphere when she got back to the lot was a warring absence. Despite the loss of her youth, her decision had left her like a child standing alone in the desert. She had sucked the stone of humanity’s indifference as dry as she could. Now there was nothing more to do but wait … Wait for the priest that followed the beast of mankind’s cruelty, looking to clean up after him.

  Doubt whispered that her life was a room full of errors; that the proud pyramid of her virtue would fall. But it was a call she had already made.

  CHAPTER 26

  Omkar ran the smooth tips of his fingers over the cuts on Aria’s face and, reclining the driver’s side seat, held her against him. The air conditioner of the car blew an unnatural wintergreen chill across their faces.

  Both of them said very little. Aria didn’t tell him the full story about the incident outside the Home Depot, or her time in the Mexican store. Nor did she tell him about reporting Ciarra and Aston. Instead, she simply told him, “Some people out here are kinda territorial. If you go too close to their things, they chase you.” She explained away the injuries adorning her face as resulting from a fall, so she could put it behind them. She wanted to soak in every last drop of the peace that his closeness granted her before he left. They would sit in the parked car like this and talk or not talk for as long as they could before Omkar was forced to return at a time that allowed him to avoid rousing any suspicion in his parents.

  The next day, Aria spent most of her time with Taylor and Luke. She had been carried back to a place of anticipation about what might lie ahead, rather than the hope she had briefly felt.

  At the other end of the city, Ciarra sat on the edge of the bed in a hotel room that her regular john, Larry, had purchased for the day. It was a Saturday. Having taken Aston back to the car lot to be watched by Mike, she had met Larry there in a last-ditch effort to try to exploit his affectionate nature and get him to pay for her abortion behind DeShawn’s back.

  Ciarra told Larry that she was pregnant with his child. She had expected him to grow long in the face and begin to brainstorm about how to get her out of the mess entirely. But that wasn’t at all what happened. Instead, a heartwarming smile spread across his unbecoming face.

  “Really? I mean, are you sure? Did you take a test?” he asked. Ciarra nodded. Larry paced the length of the room once before telling Ciarra to wait just a minute and rooting around in his duffel bag. He walked back toward her with an item he had found inside it, concealed in his palm. “Well, as you already know, I think you’re just about the most beautiful girl in the world. And I’ve been waitin’ to do this for just the right time. But I guess that time’s gonna be now.”

  In shock, Ciarra covered her mouth with her hand as he struggled despite his weight to drop to one knee on the ground in front of her and begin to speak. “Ciarra … Baby doll, I love you. Since the first time I laid eyes on you, I knew you were gonna be something special in my life. The only thing more beautiful than you is your heart. You’re such a special woman to me. I know I’m not the best to look at. But I plan to take care of you. You can quit this and love only me. What do you say? Will you marry me?”

  Ciarra watched his eyes well up with tears, in a state of complete disbelief. There were too many thoughts and feelings to sort through in the seconds granted to her, with his life lingering on the precipice of her reply. “Yes,” she said, letting him slide the little cubic zirconia solitaire onto the ring finger of her left hand.

  Larry leaned in for a kiss, bracing himself against the gloss of her knee-high white go-go boots. For the next hour, instead of getting swept up in the commission of her seduction, Larry lay on the bed with her and held her close. Ciarra was careful to give him the impression that she was happy and in love with him too. He could not see or feel beyond the walls of her façade. Larry was in his own little blissful world alone.

  In Larry’s world, Ciarra loved him. In Larry’s world, he wasn’t taking advantage of the women he paid to have sex with him. He was engaging in a transaction that served them both so he could get the affection he so desperately needed, but that no other woman would grant him willingly because of the way he looked. In Larry’s world, he had come to Ciarra’s rescue and would give her the care a young woman deserves. He could already picture her in the morning, cooking him breakfast in the newly decorated kitchen of his little house. He had always wanted to be a father. Sadly, no woman had been interested in choosing him to sire her child. As he lay there on the bed, happier than he had ever been, he imagined it would be a boy. He pictured the green field of the Dodger Stadium and the look on his future son’s face when he called over the man selling peanuts.

  Ciarra’s world was different. Her profession required her to treat Larry like he was the only man left in the world. She had petted and pampered him. She had listened to him talk for hours about himself. She had sucked his cock whenever it was time to leave in order to go in search of her next client. She wasn’t in love with him in any way. Larry had no idea that she already had another child. It wasn’t something that a girl like her brought up in between the role-play and the fuzzy handcuffs. So why had she said yes? It was because of the inescapable heartbreak of her life. It was because she was desperate to square up. This was the best chance she had at any of it, at exiting the game, at escaping the constant tension of survival, at giving Aston the life that he deserved. Love was nothing next to survival. Love was nothing next to the promise of a safety she had never touched in all her life.

  From underneath the weight of his arm across her, Ciarra felt her sorrow for Larry rise, and maybe a hint of guilt for the fact that she had lied to him. The father of the child that was now living this abhorrent life inside her was most likely not even his. It could belong to any of the several men she had slept with unprotected. She didn’t plan on keeping the child, even if she married him and so got Aston and herself off of the streets. If push came to shove, she would steal money from him to get the abortion when he was away at work one day and tell him that she had lost the baby.

  The paradoxical gratitude and disgust she felt for Larry stirred like gossamer spice in her chest when she kissed him goodbye and promised to call him the next day. He blew her kisses as she walked away from him. She boarded a city bus and rode it to the bus stop closest to the car lot. The sinking feeling she had felt in her heart when she said yes to marrying Larry had been displaced by heartening thoughts of the way hers and Aston’s life would improve. She jogged toward the car lot, excited to tell Aston about their sudden turn of fortune. Excited to tell him about the fact that soon, he would live in a real house.

  Ciarra was an expert at running in high heels. She jogged forward despite their waver until the sight of a cop car near the lot made her stop dead in her tracks. She began to walk toward it timidly, hoping to ascertain the situation at a distance far enough to decide if she should run in the exact opposite direction. Two police officers and another woman and man (who appeared to be with them) stood in a huddle with Mike and Aston. At first, she panicked that the two people with the cops might be the owners of the little car lot. Maybe they had called the cops to come kick them all out, to make way for a new business plan. But then she remembered the state of Aston’s face and she started running. The adrenaline coursing through her body was enough to make her vision blurry.

  She ran toward them, no longer caring if the defensive rage she felt would get her arrested. “What’s going on?” she yelled out to them, slowing her pace once she got close. The huddle opened up as if they had all been waiting for her to arrive. Dismay was w
ritten across Mike’s face. Aston was examining the wiggle of one of the loosely sewn-on eyes of a teddy bear that the people had brought him.

  When the police car had pulled up to the lot with the two people who worked for Child Protection Services, Anthony and Wolf had scattered inconspicuously into the woods. Aria, Taylor and Luke had already been gone for hours in search of somewhere to get food. And Darren had left early to plant himself somewhere in the city beside his little cardboard sign. The only people who stayed put when the police approached were Robert, Mike and Aston.

  In Ciarra’s absence, they had interrogated Mike about his daughter and grandson. They had searched the van that she had been living in. Once it was obvious to them that Mike was both naive and not the person to blame for the crime that had covered Aston in bruises, they had told him the truth about his daughter. They told him they had reason to believe that Ciarra was both an addict and a prostitute. That she was doing other things with her time and resources than working night shifts at a bar to try to get their lives back on track. Mike felt crushed, a failure, the faith he wanted to have in his daughter reduced to ruins.

  The police and the pair from CPS had already made up their minds. There was no way they could justify allowing this child to stay in the conditions he was obviously in. Unlike the usual, the situation they had found themselves in was an exigent one. None of them confused poverty with neglect or abuse. They would not even need a court order to take Aston away.

  Once Aston had given Ciarra’s legs a hug, the male CPS officer ushered the boy away from the conversation, distracting him with questions about his favorite things and asking Aston to show him a game he liked to play. The female CPS worker spoke for all of them. “The reason we’re here today, ma’am, is because we needed to investigate a report we received of your son being in an unsafe situation. Do you have any idea who might have done this to his face?” she asked, trying to give the impression that she was on Ciarra’s side instead of against her.

  “No one did that to his face, he had an accident riding his bike the other day,” Ciarra said belligerently.

  “Would you be able to show us that bike?” the social worker asked, knowing full well that Ciarra, who was too poor to afford a place to stay, would not be able to produce one.

  “It was a friend’s bike so it’s at another house. What exactly are you accusing me of?” Ciarra asked. She tried to remind herself to stay calm and not get defensive, but she could not control the storm of her emotions.

  “Ma’am, we know that a fall from a bike didn’t do that to his face. The more cooperative you are with us, the better this is going to go for you and Aston,” the woman said in a warning tone.

  Ciarra refused to say more.

  “Does Aston’s father maybe have a number that we could call to talk to him?” the woman asked.

  “No. I don’t know where he is. He’s a musician and he’s on tour,” Ciarra said. The way the woman looked down at an envelope she was holding made Ciarra see red with panic. “This is a violation of my rights. It’s unlawful what you’re doing. You have to get a warrant or a court order to search my home,” she challenged.

  The woman, who had already lost her patience with Ciarra, barked back at her, “A broken-down vehicle in a tent city does not qualify as a home, especially if that vehicle is not even yours. We can do this the hard way or we can do this the easy way. I’m going to ask you again to cooperate with us. Do you happen to have a phone number where we could reach Aston’s father?”

  Ciarra could not control herself. She was locked in a fight to keep her own child. In defense of the terror and shame she felt, her blood boiled hot in response to the transgression. “You can’t prove anything. I love my son and I’m a very good mom!” she yelled.

  Mike broke his silence in response to her argument. “Ciarra, I think you oughta cooperate with these folks.”

  Her rage turned in the direction of her father. “What the fuck, Dad, now you’re on their side? They’re tryin’ to fucking take Aston away from me, don’t you see that? They’re trying to take Aston away.”

  She directed the fight back toward the social worker. “Who the fuck told you he was getting abused? I want to know who called you.”

  The social worker cocked an eyebrow. “Ma’am, I’m not allowed to tell you who gives us a referral. But we do need to take Aston to get a medical exam. The law allows us to take custody of a child in this situation.”

  “No fuckin’ way. No fuckin’ way am I gonna let you take my son away.”

  Ciarra started to walk toward Aston, intent on claiming him away from the man who was preoccupying him. One of the police officers, who had been standing like a guard statue, spoke up. “Ma’am, if you intervene, you may be lookin’ at arrest. I may have to arrest you.”

  Ciarra yelled, “This is bullshit. This is such fucking bullshit.” Her anger gave way to uncontrollable sobbing.

  Mike interjected. “Well, what if I take custody for a while? I’m his granddad.”

  The woman shook her head regretfully. “We can’t let Aston stay in a place where we can’t be sure that he has access to running water or food. Whoever has custody of him has to be living in a suitable residence.”

  Mike looked down at the floor, his hope expended by the grief that he dared not overtly show them.

  “What the fuck about all those people down on Skid Row?” Ciarra asked. “They have fuckin’ kids. Why the fuck aren’t they getting their kids taken?”

  The way they reacted to her question denoted that they had no explanation to offer her. Ciarra collected herself and tried, despite her despair, to make herself the victim. “We’ve had a hard time, that’s all. It’s just me and him, you know? His dad don’t give us any money. We don’t live here. We’re just here temporarily so my dad can watch him when I work.”

  Ciarra was pacing up and down. The social worker thought about asking her about her work, but seeing as how she already knew the answer and knew that Ciarra would lie, she didn’t bother. “Ma’am, because of the hour right now, I’ll be taking Aston to the office. We are going to do Aston’s physical tomorrow morning. Unless for some reason the physical goes on all day long, which it shouldn’t, I’m going to pick him up from there and drop him off at school. Within five days, you can request a visit with him and we can have someone supervise that visit. During that visit, we are gonna need you to do a urine test just to make sure that there are no drugs in your system. I can update you any time if you want to call me. Do you have any questions before we take him with us?”

  Ciarra’s rage took over her terror again. “I don’t appreciate these fucking allegations. How the fuck would you feel if someone just came into your house in the middle of the day and took your kid away? How the fuck would you feel? Yeah, I feel pretty shitty, obviously.”

  Mike walked over to the purple van and put Aston’s toy cars into his little school backpack, along with a jacket and a toothbrush. “Can we at least say goodbye to ’im before you guys take ’im?” he asked, handing the backpack to the social worker.

  “Yes, you can definitely do that,” she said.

  Mike kneeled down in the dust in front of his grandson. “Hey Aston, you’re gonna go with these nice people for just a while, so Mommy and I can find you a house, would you like that?”

  “No.” Aston shook his head.

  “But if we could get a house, we could get a dog. Wouldn’tcha like that?”

  The dejected look on Aston’s face brightened. “Can he be like Scooby Doo?” he asked.

  “He may be a little different than Scooby Doo, but we can look for one the same color,” Mike said, uncharacteristic tears welling up in his eyes. “Go say bye to your mother,” he added, guiding his shoulder to turn toward Ciarra.

  Ciarra gave a sigh of defeat and put a hand against her forehead, turning around to try to repress her tears. Aston jumped up on her, completely unaware of what was actually occurring. She picked him up and held his head flat against her n
eck. “Hey Mommy, Pop Pop said I could get a dog. Can you find a house soon?” Aston asked, suddenly more excited about the reason for needing to go with the strange people standing in the lot than apprehensive.

  Hearing Aston use his pet name for her father made the burden she usually felt toward Aston vanish. All that was left was the torment of losing something she loved so much. She started crying. “I love you, buddy,” she said. “You be good, OK? Mommy’s gonna come get you as soon as I can, OK?”

  Aston sat up to look at her. He put his fingers into the wet of the tears on her cheek. “Mommy, why are you crying?” he asked, confused at why such good news had made her act so sad.

  “Mommy is just gonna miss you, that’s all,” she said.

  “It’s OK, Mommy,” Aston reassured her naively. “You don’t have to miss me, you can see me every day.” His blatant innocence about what was going on made her cry even harder. He walked toward the man he had been playing with and let the man lead him out of the lot.

  Everyone stood there watching him walk away willingly until the sight of the car door closing behind him restored Ciarra to her original state of uproar. The woman social worker handed her a piece of paper that she didn’t bother to look at. “I’m gonna fuckin’ sue you for this. This is a violation of my rights. I am a good mother! Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you.”

  The woman and the cops stayed completely calm in response to her outburst. When they were certain they had said everything they legally had to say and had given her all the information they legally had to give her, they left.