When The Bough Breaks

She came back with three steaming mugs, cream and sugar on a porcelain tray upon which had been silkscreened a panorama of Yellowstone Park.

"This is delicious, Olivia," Robin said, sipping.

"Kona. From Hawaii. This dress is from there, too. My younger son, Gabriel, he's there. He's in import - export. Does very well."

"Olivia - "

"Yes, yes, okay. La Casa de los Ninos. The Children's Home. Started in 1974 by the Reverend Augustus McCaffrey, as a place of refuge for children with no home. That's right off the brochure."

"Do you have the brochure with you?"

"No, it's at the office. You want me to mail you a copy?"

"Don't bother. What kind of kids stay there?"

"Abused and neglected children, orphans, some status offenders - you know runaways. They used to pull them in jail or the CYA but those places got too crowded with fourteen - year - old murderers and rapists and robbers, so now they try to find foster placement for them or a place like La Casa. In general these institutions get the kids nobody wants, the ones they can't find foster placement or adoptive homes for. Lots of them have physical and psychological problems - spastic, blind, deaf, retarded. Or they're too old to be attractive adoptees. There are also the children of women in prison - mostly junkies and alcoholics. We tried to place them with individual families, but often nobody wanted them. To sum up, dear: chronic wards of the Dependency Court."

"How's a place like that funded?"

"Alex, the way the state and federal systems are set up, an operator can pull in over a thousand dollars a month per child if he knows how to bill it right. Kids with disabilities bring in more - you get paid for all the special services. On top of that I hear McCaffrey's terrific at bringing in private donations. He's got connections - the land the place is on is an example. Twenty acres in Malibu, used to belong to the government. They interned the Japanese there during World War II. Then it was used as a labor camp for first offenders - embezzlers, politicians, that type. He got the county to give it to him on long - term lease. Ninety nine years with token rent."

"He must be a good talker."

"He is. A good old boy. Used to be a missionary down in Mexico. I hear he ran a similar place there."

"Why'd he move back up?"

"Who knows? Maybe he got tired of not drinking the water? Maybe he longed for Kentucky Fried Chicken - although I hear they've got it down there now."

"What about the place? Is it a good one?"

"None of those places is Utopia, Alex. The ideal would be a little house in suburbia with a picket fence around it, gingham curtains and a green lawn, Mommy and Daddy and Rover the Dog. The reality is that there are over seventeen thousand kids on the Dependency Court docket in L.A. county alone. Seventeen thousand unwanted children! And they're piling into the system faster than they can be - here's a terrible word - processed."

"That's unbelievable," said Robin. She had a troubled look on her face.

"We've turned into a society of child - haters, darling. More and more abuse and neglect. People have kids and then change their minds. Parents don't want to take responsibility for them so they shunt them over to the government - how's that from an old Socialist, Alex? And abortion - I hope this doesn't offend you, because I'm for liberation as much if not more than the next woman. I was screaming for equal pay before Gloria Steinem went through puberty. But let's face it, this wholesale abortion we've got is just another form of birth control, another way out for people to avoid their responsibility. And it's killing kids, at least in some sense, isn't it? Maybe it's better than having them and then trying to get rid of them - I don't know." She wiped the sweat from her forehead and dabbed at her upper lip with a paper napkin. "Excuse me, that was a tedious polemic."

She stood up and smoothed down her dress.

"Let me check the strudel."

She came back with a steaming platter. "Blow on it, it's hot." Robin and I looked at each other.

"You look so serious, I ruined your appetite with my polemic, didn't I?"

"No, Olivia." I took a slab of strudel and ate a bite. "It's delicious and I agree with you."

Robin looked grave. We'd discussed the abortion issue many times, never resolving anything.