I hadn’t heard from Caleb or Gabriella, or from Anneliese for that matter, even by email. And yes, it was hard, so hard on those dreary days when I’d awake from a fretful night’s sleep and want to have Anneliese’s loving hands closed around mine, her smile making me grin back.

I ache for that. But most of all, I ache for the kids. I miss them so much, there is a physical pain in my chest if I think too much about them. And I hope they are okay, desperately hope they’re okay. Their little faces haunt me in dreams, Lola reaching out to hold my hand and then disappearing into mist when I look down at her. Jordan falling like he did that day on the playground, unable to get up, his body twisted like a broken tree branch.

Gavin is the only person, besides my therapist, I’d told about the clonazepam. I had called him the following day in a fit of hysterics, my rage so colossal that I didn’t have the strength to move it by myself. I still couldn’t fully wrap my mind around how she’d put the kids, her own niece and nephew, on a sedative not suited for their little bodies, had intentionally quashed their natural curiosity and energy.

I knew Gavin would quietly listen, which he did, letting me sob and yell and grieve for those children, for my own inner child who was being bruised and battered, the trust choked out of her slender throat.

He had been patient. It wasn’t until I calmed down, my voice back to normal, that he had let out an exasperated sigh. “What a surprise. Another white person trying to ‘tame’ Black kids. My elementary school teachers always said I had too much energy, that I was ‘hard to handle’ in class. What a coincidence that I was also the only brown-skinned kid in the grade. It’s so fucked, but it happens all the time.” Even over the phone, his frustration was nearly palpable. “And actually drugging the kids to control them—that’s even more insidious.”

My anger toward Anneliese flared, anger that she had lied to me, that she had shouldered me with guilt that I didn’t deserve. It felt overwhelming. If it was just the past she’d lied about, I might have been able to get over it—if she would take responsibility. But now she’d forced me to choose my conscience over my own comfort, my own security, when I still felt so vulnerable, so in need of her love.