Agnes Hollowell looked at Calder Boon for a long moment. Then she looked at the nine children. Then she looked back at her clipboard. The home visit, she said finally, in the tone of a woman who is not agreeing to anything but is also not refusing anything would need to be completed before any placement is official. The county would retain supervisory authority.
Any significant concerns identified during or after placement would require immediate review. She paused. Are you prepared to accept those conditions? Yes. And you understand that this is a preliminary approval only?
Yes. And that the county reserves the right? Yes. Calder said, "Whatever the county needs to reserve, it can reserve. Are we going to the ranch or not? " Agnes exhaled through her nose.
It was a very controlled exhale. The exhale of a woman who was going to put in a very long note about this day in the official county file. "Get the children's things from the train," she said to no one in particular. And then something happened that none of the children had planned or discussed or expected. Maisie woke up.
She woke up the way very small children wake up from deep sleep all at once, blinking slightly confused about where she was. She looked at the platform. She looked at Agnes. She looked at the county men. She looked at Clara and Wesley and the twins and Jonah and Benny and Eddie.
Then she looked at Calder Boon. He was the stranger. She had never seen him before in her four years of life. He was a worn-looking man with rough hands and a badly stitched jacket tear. And he was watching her with an expression she probably didn't have a word for yet.
Something careful and almost frightened. The expression of someone who has just made a very large decision and is only now beginning to understand what it means. Maisie considered him for a moment. Then she held out her arms. Not to Wesley, not to Clara.
To this stranger with the torn jacket who had slammed his fist on the counter and said every last one. Wesley went absolutely rigid. Calder looked at the four-year-old with her arms extended toward him. And for a moment, he just stood there. And if you had been watching his face, you might have seen something move through it that had been frozen for a long time.
He stepped forward and picked her up. Maisie put her head on his shoulder. "Okay," she said, in the direct, complete way that four-year-olds say things. Eddie made a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been something else. Benny was already halfway to the train to get the bags.