Gossamer

During a phone call with the social worker, John’s mother says that she is in counseling and is looking for a job after her recent move. The job would need to be part-time so that she can be home for John, and she’s run into trouble for leaving him alone before. The young woman tells the social worker that she took out a restraining order against John’s father, who seems to have left the state anyway. She wants John back and calls him her best friend. This comment prompts the social worker to remind her that she needs to set limits and parent her child, and the woman says that she’s capable of doing those things. In response to an unknown statement by the social worker, she answers, “I lost it, okay? It was a bad time for me. I did some stupid things” (65). Feeling defeated, the woman begins to cry. She asks the social worker to tell her son that she loves him and that she dreamed about him the previous night.