Never shake a baby, the flyer insisted. Never, never, never. The public service brochures displayed at the district attorney’s office seemed to be speaking directly to Hannah, each one pertinent and personal. The face on Break the cycle of domestic violence was one big yellow-blue bruise. Substance abuse abuses us all, another insisted, a martini glass with a slash through it. The illustration was so highly detailed as to include a toothpick-speared olive.
Her fifteen-year-old son, Leo, had demanded that Hannah wait rather than join him and his probation officer. Down the hall, a door banged open, a courtroom released. A young man in an orange jumpsuit emerged between two older, somber men, trailed by weeping women. His lawyers, his guards, his mother, sister, girlfriend. Like the brochures, this scene also seemed a warning; Hannah had passed from one kind of life into another. A small boy brought up the rear of the procession, one hand hitching his pants, the other swiping at his running nose. Hannah felt close to tears. Ten years from now, that little boy would be wearing the jumpsuit, she imagined, leading the pack. Her own son seemed poised somewhere between these two, teetering.
“Ma,” he brayed, suddenly beside her, nudging to indicate that his appointment had ended, they were free to go. Still free, Hannah thought, and her mood lifted.
“You take us to the most interesting places,” she said as they exited the courthouse. This had been the third required meeting since he’d made a bomb threat at school. Beside her, passing through the metal detectors, Leo pulled in a savoring breath. “Good times,” he murmured.
He’d been to jail, he’d worn handcuffs. He now had a psychologist, a lawyer, and a probation officer; this current round of meetings was part of something called “diversion,” and maybe it was sort of amusing. Leo’s delinquency had to become something else, Hannah supposed, having already been terrifying, divisive, pricey, and heartbreaking.