Saturday, November 3, 2007

The Revealing Phone Call

I returned home in a great mood after my first session back with Ben. As I pulled my car into the driveway, I was still smiling, and all I thought about was how happy I was to see him in a safe and loving environment.

I walked into my door, and before I had a chance to even put my things down, the phone rang.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Hi, may I please speak with Mindy?" the woman on the other end asked.

"Speaking," I responded. "How may I help you?"

"Mindy, this is Anita; I'm calling from the Department of Social Services.

My stuff dropped to the floor, and I plopped into a chair.

“How can…um, how can I help you?” I stammered.

“Do you have a few minutes?” She asked. “I really need to speak to you regarding Ben Holmes.”

My heart started to beat fast. I told Anita that I had all the time in the world. She proceeded to tell me that Sally had been harassing the department for information regarding Ben, and that I was not allowed to answer the phone if she called me. Of course I had asked why, but didn’t expect this response:

“Mindy, Ben was witnessing domestic violence in the home. We pulled him and Emily out as soon as we were privy to this information. Sally, his prior foster mother has been lying. Apparently she hid it quite well.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out.

4 comments:

Floating Reflections said...

So sad for him, at least he is in a better place now. Keep up your good work

halfshared said...

This Sally did seem a bit dysfunctional. I am not so shocked that the s.s. found out about violence in the home. I'm glad he is outta there!

Scraps said...

Oh dear, no wonder they pulled him. That's just awful. Though I must say, I agree with halfshared; I'm not surprised at all to learn this, and I'm glad he's out.

Bas~Melech said...

I'm actually not surprised. From your previous posts, I gathered that Sally was not OK.

I can understand why it hit you like that, though... :-(