I turn the corner into my office suite, and hear high peals of laughter, a young girl, a baby, a deeper sound possibly coming from a tired grandmother relieved of responsibility for an hour.

A cluster of folks in our conference room.  One of my appointed clients, who has her visitation twice a week there.  I stand a few minutes, listening, and then drop my bag and purse on the wooden bench in my office and go in search of coffee.

Their murmuring voices drift through the closed door.  The young mother sings.  I can’t make out the tune but the sense of it surrounds me:  My baby, my sweet little one, oh how I love you.

I wonder if she loves the child enough to let him go.  I know she cannot care for him, not really, not as another woman could.  Another child already grows in her, due in three or four months.  She cannot handle the one now crawling on the floor of my suite, grabbing for the toy she dangles.  My client cannot provide for herself, much less two babies.

I pour my coffee and turn my back on the images that rise in my mind. The tangle of lives criss-crossing in that sad  tableau befuddle me.  That chubby cherub, the simple-minded mother, the grandmother who has already adopted two of her daughter’s children:  they have seen so much pain.  And yet there they are, in my conference room, pouring out laughter as the baby reaches for the smooth faces of the women who love him.

I set my coffee cup on my desk and switch on the computer, pushing that which I cannot understand away, turning to other problems, hoping for something I might be able to solve.