wasteland | outer banks (obx)

PART V | HOMECOMING

TRIGGER WARNING / mentions of drugs/drug abuse, familial incarceration, domestic violence, mentions of home removal into foster care

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dakota was eight-years old the fateful twilight that harvey was hauled off in a police cruiser in handcuffs, a mere year younger than rowan and august were now, and then—they were meager year-old infants, still breastfeeding and barely toddling without somebody there for them to clutch with their pint-sized fingertips that dakota had a penchant for illustrating blue and green nail polish on. harvey had gotten indisputably high that afternoon—it was a tuesday, and the wintertime, almost christmas, in fact, and the california atmosphere was crisp and threatening to collapse beneath the weight of the holiday desperation. the neighborhood was frantically implementing their finishing touches on outdoor lighting displays, and the elderly couple two houses down had offered to pay penny fifty dollars for presents for her trio of children, considering they were empty nesters and had leftover cash from their occupational christmas bonuses. not to mention, penny suspected that they were doubtlessly aware of their circumstances, and they, being good-natured, tender-hearted people, offered their aid. not that penny accepted, anyway. she was never one to admit defeat.

dakota was bathing rowan and august in water heated in a pot on the stovetop, and penny was in a rousing altercation with harvey about what a, quote, "lazy piece of shit," he was since he had gotten fired from his recent career bagging groceries at the supermarket on the corner for dropping dirty. dakota was singing "jingle bells", loudly and without pause, to suffocate the cacophony of provoked adult voices in the bedroom adjacent to the bathroom. from what dakota remembers, there was a thunderous knock at the front doorway, and before penny could huff exasperatedly and peer through the peephole to discern who was on her doorstep, a resounding, "santa monica police department, open the door!" echoed through the parlor of the homestead. penny, a fearless mother, swiftly shut the bathroom door with her children inside, opened the front entryway, and pointed soundlessly to where harvey was located in the household. what startled penny was that child protective services was close behind the police officers, and demanded questioning concerning the safety and care of her three children.

the truth is, there had been a disturbance the evening prior where harvey had left penny with a black eye and a split lip, and intimidated penny that he would do worse to her if she didn't "get off his back" about shooting up everyday. the elderly couple two houses down had been returning from their daughter's household for sunday dinner when they eavesdropped on the pandemonium, and they had reported to the police, who in turn contacted child protective services, that harvey was a drug addict who regularly sold heroin out of his house with three minors in it, and that he was a domestic abuser. after minimal investigation—because harvey wasn't slick with his crimes—and intelligence from their informants, the police presumed this to be veritable. now, they were at their residence, handcuffing harvey with penny weeping to the child services caseworker.

dakota heard all of it—everything, through a crack in the maple paneling of the bathroom door. she thought everybody was knowledgeable that her father was oftentimes high on heroin and abusive towards penny, and she thought that, as a result, nobody was going to rescue her and her brothers and mother from the jeopardy he regularly imposed upon them. thus, this intervention came as a shock to her eight-year old perspective.

penny pleaded with child services to allow to the dakota, rowan, and august to remain at their household—that she had never touched heroin in all of her livelihood and was clean, and that she had battled tooth and nail to protect her beloved children. child services whisked the trio away to a foster home for a total of two weeks while penny was drug tested and went through a standard judicial process, but they were, in fact, returned to their biological mother.