On Wednesday afternoon Kris opened the door to reveal Lindsay with two uniformed police officers. "Oh my God," she said, immediately tearing up.
"I'm afraid we're going to have to remove Jennifer from this situation," Lindsay said, no expression on her face. "Officers Swanson and Hill will assist to make sure you or your fianc� don't do anything irrational." Lindsay brushed past Kris and one of the officers followed, the other staying with Kris.
Lindsay walked into Jenny's room where she and Taylor were reading. Taylor looked up. "What the hell is going on?" Taylor asked, spotting the cop behind Lindsay.
"Jennifer, I'm Lindsay Miller. I'm going to have to ask you to come with us." Jenny looked confused.
"Why?"
"We're going to take you somewhere where you can live a very happy life," Lindsay said and extended a hand to the girl. "Come on; you'll be happy there."
"No!" Jenny said and latched herself onto Taylor. "No, I want to stay here!"
"Jennifer, it's for the best."
"With all respect, Lindsay, she's eight. I doubt she knows what 'it's for the best' really means, especially in this kind of situation," Taylor said.
"If you could please remove the child, Mr. Hanson, it would be easier for everyone. I don't want to take her by force," Lindsay said, taking no heed of Taylor's statement. Taylor sighed, but nodded. He didn't want to be arrested as well.
"Jenny, I don't want you to go but I don't have a say in this," Taylor said. "You need to go with Lindsay but I will do whatever I can to get you back, okay?"
"I don't want to go!"
"I know, I know...but sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. I love you. I love you very much, but you have to go."
"No!"
"Jenny, you have to go." Jenny began crying and Taylor kissed her forehead. She reluctantly let go and followed Lindsay out of the room. Taylor stood to follow as well, but the cop held him back and sat him back down on the bed. Taylor sighed.
Kris was being detained in by the other cop in the living room, sobbing into her hands as Lindsay led Jenny to the door. "Kris!" Kristina looked up at Jenny, who was struggling to get away from Lindsay to run to her aunt. The cop held onto Kris's shoulder to make sure she didn't get up.
"I love you, Jenny."
"Kris!"
That was all the two could manage before Jenny was taken out of the apartment, out of the building, and stuffed into the back of a cab headed for the suburbs to meet her new family.
The Sloans were a typical suburban family with a ten-year-old adopted son Joshua and a pet cat they called Duchess. The mother was sickenly sweet. She was tall, had black hair and artificially tanned skin, and although her name was Elizabeth, she insisted Jenny call her Mom. The father, a balding, overweight older man, was a bit more relaxed, leaving it up to Jenny to decide if she wanted to call him Max or Dad, because he was comfortable with both. Jenny had already made her decision--he was Max and the other was Elizabeth, but since she was to be addressed as "Mom," Jenny would never address her.
"This will be your room," Elizabeth said. "Joshua's room is across the hall and the bathroom is next door." Jenny made a face as she looked around her new room.
"I don't like it."
"You will, Jen."
"Jenny," the girl corrected. Elizabeth didn't acknowledge it.
"Let's meet your brother." She pushed Jenny across the hall to Joshua's closed door. Elizabeth knocked before opening the door. "Joshua, come meet your new sister." Joshua was absorbed in a video game and didn't acknowledge his mother's presence. "Joshua Christopher!" Joshua turned around, pausing the video game.
"Hi."
"Come here." The boy groaned and got up. He walked over, standing about a half a foot taller than Jenny. "Joshua, this is Jen. Jen, this is Joshua."
"Jenny," Jenny corrected.
"Josh." That was as much as Elizabeth could get out of her son before he returned to his video game. Joshua looked quite a bit like his mother, with the same dark features, even if he was adopted.
"Well, Jen, I'll let you poke around your room. Dinner is in an hour, and I'll call you when it's ready." Jenny sat down on her new bed that was part of the room's theme of pink. Jenny hated pink. Red was okay, but pink was intolerable.
"This sucks," Jenny said and kicked a stuffed animal across the room. There wasn't much there, and Jenny hoped she could get her things from Kris and Taylor's place as soon as possible, because at least then she'd have something to do.
She managed to pilfer through most of her new possessions when Elizabeth called up the stairs that dinner was ready. Across the hall Joshua's door opened and he stepped to Jenny's doorway.
"Are you coming?" he asked. She nodded, put down a toy, and followed Joshua out of the room. "Mom's tried this foster kid thing before. It almost never works. Don't expect to stay too long."
Jenny was very disturbed by this but didn't say anything as they made their way to the kitchen. Elizabeth pointed at a seat for Jenny. Jenny sat down and looked over the table at her dinner. Elizabeth had prepared fried okra, wild rice, and some strange concotion that vaguely resembled an entr�e. Jenny's stomach twisted and decided it wasn't hungry.
Elizabeth gave heaps of the food to both Jenny and Joshua. Joshua made a face but ate it anyway, while Jenny could only stare at her "dinner."
"Are you not hungry?" Elizabeth asked.
"No," Jenny muttered.
"Speak up, dear."
"No," Jenny said, raising her voice a little.
"Well eat it anyway, Jen, I'm not going to make something for you later." Jenny picked up her fork and began to prod at her food, but never ended up eating any of it.
Taylor sat in front of a glass window, his eyes drifting around to observe the rest of the visitors. He wasn't sure if Zac was going to see him today or not, but he'd never made it as far as the window, so he had hope.
He sat up when he saw Zac walk over to the window and sit down. He looked a weary mess; already he lost a ton of weight and had heavy circles under his tired eyes. His blue prison uniform didn't suit him at all, but just the idea of him in prison was ludacris to begin with.
Zac picked up the phone and motioned for Taylor to do so as well. Taylor did and heard Zac's voice for the first time since the morning the verdict was read.
"You just don't give up, do you?"
Taylor shook his head. "There's something you need to know, Zac." Zac groaned.
"What now?"
"No, not about that. It's about Jenny." Zac's eyes widened.
"...What? What happened?"
"When I went back home, Social Services came and decided Kris and I weren't suitable caretakers--" Zac leaned forward and put his hand over his mouth.
"Oh my God," Taylor barely heard. "Where is she?"
"I don't know. They won't tell anybody anything. The most I could get is that she's somewhere in the suburbs. I'm sure she's fine."
"How do I know that, Taylor? With you and Kris, as pissed as I am at you, I know Jenny will be okay with you. You and Kris know what you're doing. How do I know this new family, whoever the fuck they are, is going to take care of her? This is why I did all that paperwork, so if something ever happened to Ginger and me, this wouldn't happen! Ginger was in one of those for a while, Taylor! I don't want my daughter to go through that!"
"We're doing what we can--"
"Yeah, and are you using Mark? What a damn good lawyer he turned out to be, huh?"
"No, we're not using Mark. Listen, Zac, we're doing whatever we can to get her back. She doesn't belong there and you...you don't belong here."
"I know I don't belong here, but there's nothing I can do about that."
"You can appeal."
"A lot of good that's going to do. The entire system's against me, and this bullshit with Jenny just proves it. There's something going on out there and the best lawyer in the world couldn't override it. No, I'm stuck here, Taylor. I'm stuck here until I die."
"No way, Zac. I'm not going to leave you in there. I'll get you out."
"It's not so bad, Tay." Taylor gave him a look. "It's just that I'm not exactly optimistic about this! Do what you can, but I doubt it'll help."
"Zac--"
"What's the point? Really, Taylor, what's the point?"
"Jenny's the point. If we find you innocent and you get out of here, you get Jenny back." Zac sighed.
"This isn't going to work, Taylor."
"It will. Trust me. It just might take some time."
"Well," Zac said, sitting back. "I'm not going anywhere."