“It’ll be hard to find out what pills they have him on,” Aldi said, not inviting us in. “This is pretty common, and sad to say perfectly legal.”

“What did I tell you?” Rudy said.

“When kids go into foster care around here, first thing they do is diagnose them with something. Probably hyperactivity or something like that,” Aldi said. He still hadn’t opened the door all the way, but spoke to us through a narrow opening. All we could see was his nose poking out. We couldn’t even tell if he was wearing clothes or not.

“He’s not hyperactive,” I said. “He’s perfect.”

“I’m in no position to argue with you,” Aldi said.

“I’m his mother. I decide if he needs medicine or not,” I said. “Don’t they have to notify me? Who the hell are these people?”

“Like I said, Elsa Barlow’s probably just doing her best,” Aldi said. “I’m not saying it’s right.”

“What can we do?” I asked.

Aldi sighed, rubbed his face. “I’ll file a motion,” he said.

“A motion? A motion about what?” asked Helen.

“A motion to make them release the information about the diagnosis and the meds,” Aldi said.

“When are you going to file it?” I asked. “Today is February nineteenth. They took Perley on February fifth. That means it’s fourteen days Perley’s been gone. That leaves seventy-six more days until the ninety-day review, which is on May sixth.” They all stopped and looked at me. I was back on the calendar again. I was awake now and I was counting. “We’ve wasted enough time already,” I said.

“I’ll file it first thing in the morning,” Aldi said.

“They ought to be thrown in jail for this,” I said.

“The ones that belong in jail are rarely the ones you see in there,” Aldi said. He began to close the door. Rudy stuck his foot in, forced it back open. “You’re not dropping out on us,” Rudy said. “I know how you get in the winter. You’d better not disappear. You’re going to help us. You promised you would.”

“First we file the motion,” Aldi said. “Then we can try to prove that it’s a frivolous diagnosis. But there are no guarantees. And it’s going to take time.” Polite, he used his own foot to move Rudy’s out of the way. Firm, he closed the door.

On the ride home, Rudy said, “I taught Perley a lot of tricks, you know. During the man internship. I told him about pills. He’s wily.”

“He’s a child, Rudy,” Helen said.

“Still,” Rudy said. “Could be he gets out of this thing all on his own.”

When we got home, Helen said she’d make acorn casserole for dinner, but I said I wasn’t hungry. Rudy said I was welcome to take out some of my anger on target practice up in the nursery, but I told him maybe later. They watched me walk back to the camper. I knew what they were thinking. Don’t go back to sleep. Please don’t go back to sleep. I might have told them to save themselves the worry. I might have told them I would never sleep again.