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pocket, handing it to her.
    Kerrie Ann saw the Children’s Services logo on the card and felt herself hurtling back in time. The old nightmare playing itself over, this time with her child.
    As soon as she could pull herself together, she drove to the county offices, where her pleas and entreaties were met with more indifference. All anyone would tell her was that Bella was in a safe place. The woman at the front desk suggested that Kerrie Ann get a lawyer, which only left her feeling even more at a loss. Whom could she hire? And how would she pay them? She was on her way to her supplier’s—to satisfy a more immediate need—when, stopped at a red light, she spotted a billboard advertising a free clinic for those looking to kick a drug habit. Kerrie Ann would never know what caused her to head in that direction instead. In her twelve-step program they attributed it to her Higher Power, but for her it was simply a case of do or die—the choice between either stepping off a high ledge or retreating from it. Because the one thing she was sure of was that there would be no meaningful life for her without Bella.
    She had little memory of the first week in rehab; she was in the detox ward for most of it, on meds that kept her so out of it, she barely knew what planet she was on. Gradually she emerged from the fog, and the days and weeks that followed were filled with meetings—meetings with her counselor, meetings with her peer group, twice-a-day twelve-step meetings—interspersed with a daily routine of menial chores and communal meals. All the while the desire to use again a constant beat on the boom box inside her head.
    It was the longest month of her life.
    She doubted she’d have gotten through it if not for Bella. She’d naively believed that if she could just get clean, that was all it would take to get her daughter back.
    Her counselor at the clinic, Mary Josephson, a recovering heroin addict with twenty years of sobriety, suggested she call Legal Aid, and Legal Aid put her in touch with Abel Touissant. Days later she had a court date. But at the hearing, it quickly became evident that things weren’t going in her favor. The judge, a portly middle-aged man, probably with children of his own, addressed her with such contempt that she felt as if she were on trial—which in a way she was.
    “The child will remain in foster care until such time as the mother—” he scowled down at Kerrie Ann from the bench, “can demonstrate to the court’s satisfaction that she’s a fit parent.” In addition to continuing with her twelve-step program, submitting to weekly drug testing, and taking a parenting class, she would need to find steady employment and “appropriate accommodations,” he elaborated.
    “How long? Weeks, months?” she tearfully asked her lawyer outside the courtroom.
    Abel spoke with a directness she would later see as a sign of respect but which at the time felt like salt on her wounds. “I can’t answer that. It’s up to you.” One misstep—a failed drug test, a lost job, a poor report from the caseworker—and she’d be back at square one, he warned.
    “What if something happens that I have no control over?” she fretted aloud.
    He smiled at her encouragingly. “You’ll be all right as long as you keep your eye on the ball.”
    But Kerrie Ann soon discovered that good intentions weren’t enough. Her résumé, which listed only a string of short-term jobs, was hardly an incentive for anyone to hire her. The part-time job at Toys ‘R’ Us was the best she could do until she got her GED or some kind of occupational training. And without full-time work, how could she afford “appropriate accommodations”? Life was a series of dominoes: Knock one down, and the rest followed suit. If she could just get her legs under her . . .
    Which was where her sister came in. Lindsay was the only card left to play. Lord, don’t let me fuck this one up, too , she prayed. So much was riding on it.