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him. He decided he would call her after he returned from Kennett Square. He hurriedly left the office.
    When he arrived at the storage facility, the police were there. Together with the manager, they found four children, all seemingly in good shape but frightened by the authorities. The group stood outside a shed filled with sleeping bags and a mattress. The manager speculated irritably that the parents were illegal immigrants, and they were nowhere to be found. The children spoke no English, or pretended they didn’t. They shrugged without speaking when one of the police officers questioned them.
    Lock addressed the tallest of the children, a girl wearing a red shirt and black pants.
    “Dónde está tu madre o padre?” He squatted and spoke slowly and softly.
    “En el trabajo,” she said.
    “Dónde trabajan?” Lock asked.
    “Ellos trabajan en una granja de hongos,” she said. “No te preocupes, ellos vendrán aquí con la comida después.”
    Lock stood and turned to the police. “Their parents are working at a mushroom farm somewhere, probably Kennett Square. She says they’ll be back later with food.”
    “Let’s go lock up their parents,” one of the officers said. Two of the smaller children cringed and looked at each other. Obviously those two, at least, spoke enough English to understand.
    “We’re not arresting anyone,” Lock said loudly and clearly, for the benefit of the children. “We just want to make sure these boys and girls are okay.”
    The police officer said nothing. Lock turned to the children and knelt on the asphalt. “Who likes McDonald’s?”
    The oldest girl said something to her siblings and their eyes widened.
    “We love McDonald’s,” she said. She barely had an accent. “And my baby brother, Miguel, likes the chalupas at Taco Bell, too.” She pointed to a smiling, dirty-faced boy who looked about three.
    “Well, that’s good, because I know a McDonald’s very close to here. All we have to do is wait for my friend who has a bigger car so we can all ride together. McDonald’s will be the first place we go.”
    The girl translated and the kids lit up, hugging each other and hopping up and down.
     
    After a brief stop at a McDonald’s drive-thru, it took Lock most of the morning to get the children checked out at the hospital and processed into the child welfare system. Lock knew, of course, that the children would prefer to be with their real parents—regardless of the sleeping conditions—rather than be placed in temporary foster care with outsiders who would give them strange foods and unfamiliar accommodations. It bothered Lock that he was the one officiating over the separation, no matter how brief or how necessary.
    He kept thinking about a gin and tonic. But why? This situation was nothing compared to some of the things he’d seen in his profession. If he had children, he knew, he’d dedicate his entire being to them, find a way to provide everything they needed. But these four? What was really better for them? He knew what it felt like to be neglected, but there were different kinds of neglect. As far as he could tell, these kids had parents that loved them, even if they weren’t able to take care of them as well as they should have.
    Just before noon, after a brief conversation with the temporary foster parents who would care for the kids until the matter was resolved, Lock decided to skip lunch and catch an AA meeting. Something was gnawing at him that he couldn’t identify, but he knew through experience that a meeting could be a great cure-all. Meetings reminded him to seek progress, not perfection. Lock drove to the church in Media that hosted the lunchtime meetings and took a seat in the back row.
    That day’s speaker, a young man wearing a flannel shirt and several days of facial stubble, told how he had come to be a member of the group, explaining that after three failed suicide attempts, he decided to take a different approach to solve his drinking