I saw a photograph.
It came from our county’s emergency placement registry.
The agency posted pictures when children needed homes quickly and normal placement timelines had collapsed because there simply wasn’t enough time.
Five children were sitting on a vinyl bench.
The oldest looked about seven.
Beside him was a girl around five.
Then a boy of four.
A two-year-old.
And an eighteen-month-old toddler.
What stayed with me wasn’t their faces.
It was the way they were sitting.
The seven-year-old boy had one arm wrapped around the girl beside him.
