“Yeah, but what?” Alicia swallowed. Her tongue felt like crepe paper. “You’re not buying that, are you?”

“No. But I gotta tell you, Kanessa Jackson is no help. That little girl is a ball of confusion.”

“Well, what do you expect? She’s only four, and she was scared out of her mind.”

“And she’s… not exactly…”

He seemed to be having trouble settling on the next word, so Alicia helped him out.

“‘With it’? Is that what you want to say?”

“I wanted to say retarded, but I’m told no one uses that anymore.”

“You were told right. ‘Mentally challenged’, is currently in vogue, but Kanessa’s challenges go far beyond mental. She’s not only HIV positive, she was also a crack baby. She got zero prenatal care. Before she was born she lived inside a woman named Anita Jackson who was stoned out of her mind most of the time; and when Anita wasn’t high, she was having sex any which way you can imagine to get the cash for her next vial of rock. Finally, after seven months of abuse, her uterus spit Kanessa out into the world in an alley. We’re not sure when—either during or shortly after she was born—Kanessa’s brain didn’t get quite all the oxygen it needed, leaving her in a state of bemused confusion most of the time.”

She watched Matthews squeeze his eyes shut.

“Christ,” he muttered. “Talk about child abuse.”

Damn if he didn’t seem genuinely moved. Alicia appreciated that.

“Physical and emotional,” Alicia said. She could feel her anger rising; it sprang to life every time she thought about Kanessa’s mother. “Anita Jackson hasn’t bothered to stop by and see her once. She’s had eight children. God knows where half of them are.”

“Eight,” Matthews said. “Christ.”

“And she’s pregnant again.”

“Aw, no.”

“Yep. You know, if you’d asked me about mandatory sterilization when I was a student, or even a resident, I probably would have taken your head off. But now… now…”

She let the thought trail off. She didn’t like to go where it led. She’d followed it once into a realm of fantasies where the Anita Jacksons of the city were kidnapped, anesthetized, had their tubes tied, then returned to the streets, leaving them free to do whatever they wanted to themselves, but unable to harm any more unborn children.

“Yeah, well,” he sighed. “Then, I guess you know Kanessa’s not going to be able to back you up. It’s going to come down to your word against Floyd Stevens’s.”

“Fine.”

He stared at her, and it made Alicia uncomfortable. Almost as if he was studying her.

“You’re a tough one.”

“Where those kids are concerned? You betcha.”