Chapter 9 - The Waiting Room
The sterile, brightly lit waiting room at the Portland Child Services Division was quiet when midnight arrived. Liam had been given a new change of clothes—jeans that actually fit his waist and a soft navy blue hoodie that didn't swallow his hands. His old, worn sneakers were replaced with a clean pair of running shoes. He sat in a corner chair with his legs swinging back and forth, holding tightly to the small faded photograph of his mother that Morales had officially cleared for him to keep. I had finished my paperwork three hours ago, but my shift didn't feel over. I stayed in the chair beside him, keeping the quiet vigil we had started on the sidewalk outside Evergreen Elementary. ""Officer Dunham?"" he asked, turning his head toward me. ""Do you think she'll recognize me? I was very small in the picture."" ""Mothers have a way of remembering,"" I told him, offering a reassuring smile. ""She's been waiting every single day to see this face again. She kept your room ready. She never gave up, Liam."" The heavy double doors at the end of the administrative corridor clicked open. Quick, frantic footsteps echoed against the polished linoleum floor. A woman in a dark travel coat entered the lobby, her hair windswept and her eyes red-rimmed from hours of crying on an airplane. She stopped dead in the center of the room, her gaze sweeping past the social workers, past the reception desk, until it landed squarely on the small boy sitting in the corner chair holding a faded piece of paper. The air seemed to leave the room in a single, collective gasp. Clara Thomas dropped her purse onto the floor without a sound and fell to her knees, opening her arms wide as if gathering back five years of lost time. Liam stood up slowly, looking from the photograph in his palm to the woman kneeling before him. Then, without a single hesitation, he ran across the room as fast as his new shoes could carry him, crashing into her embrace with a cry that echoed down the long, empty hall.
