As I stared at the house, I tried to conjure again the horrors of possibility, but it was harder now that I saw the street. There were children’s toys all over the place, plastic cars, large plastic play sets, a blow-up pool within the confines of a fence. And people were out and about, youngsters moving together in groups, teenagers, kids zipping by on their bicycles. An old man sat out on a lawn chair, sucking on a cigar in the shade of a green plastic awning. A woman was sweeping.

I sat back, scrunched down in my seat, and waited.

I wanted to see someone go in or out of the house; I wanted to get a sense of what I was dealing with. I had my cell phone, and if anything scared me enough I was ready to dial 911 and call out the SWAT team, but I thought I’d better get a grip on things before I did.

The door remained closed, the windows were dark, nothing was happening.

You stare at something long enough, your mind slips into a meditative fog, which is what must have happened, because I didn’t notice until too late the car that slowly slid beside me.

“Is there a problem?”

I startled at the sound, turned to see a cop car blocking my exit, the uniformed driver looking me up and down, wondering, I was sure, what a stranger in an old car and a cheap suit with a bandage on his face was doing in this neighborhood.

“I’m fine, Officer, thank you,” I said.

“Anything I can help you with?”

“Nothing right now, thank you.”

“Can I ask you what you’re doing here?”

“You can ask, sure,” I said.

We stared at each other for a moment, and then a moment longer, before he figured out the gag.

“Step out of the vehicle, please,” he said.

I guess he wasn’t amused.

The name on his shirt was Washington, and he told me that his dispatcher had received a number of calls about the presence of a strange car on the street. After checking my license and registration, and wincing at the Bar Association card I keep in my wallet, he listened patiently as I explained what I was doing there. I showed him the notice of appointment from the judge, I gestured toward the quiet house on the quiet street that matched the address I had been given.

“Why don’t we just go up and ask them?” he said.

I started to say something about Erica Pratt or Gary Heidnick, but within the aura of Officer Washington’s calm, I realized I was being an idiot.

“Sure,” I said, and we did.

The woman who answered the door was plump and pretty. She rubbed her hands nervously together when she saw the uniformed cop and the guy next to the cop in a suit.

“Yes?” she said. “Can I help you?”

“Good day, ma’am,” said Officer Washington. “This man’s name is Victor Carl.” The woman reacted to the name as if it was Beelzebub. “He has a court order that appoints him the lawyer for a girl named Tanya Rose. He’s trying to locate her and believes she could be here. Do you have any idea where this Tanya Rose might be?”

“How did you get this address?” said the woman.

“I just want to find her,” I said, trying to flash a comforting smile and, based on her reaction, failing miserably. “I just want to make sure she’s all right.”

“I need to make a call,” said the woman.

“Is she here?” I said.

“I need to make a call before I let you do anything. I have rights. You just can’t come barging in.”

“Ma’am,” said the officer. “Based on the order, he has a right to see the girl if she’s here.”

I heard a light tread bouncing down the stairs. I stepped past the woman into the dark parlor of the little house. I didn’t notice the ragged furniture or the wall hangings, the old shaggy rug, the spicy scent coming from the kitchen, I didn’t notice anything except the small set of white sneakers jumping down the stairs, the thin bare legs, the denim jumper, the little girl with pigtails and wide eyes who was holding on to a brown stuffed unicorn.

She stopped when she saw me staring at her. “Mama,” she said, “what’s going on?”

“Is your name Tanya?” I said.

She didn’t answer. Instead she backed away, back up the stairs, frightened. I was wrong, Dr. Bob had blown it, she wasn’t the right girl, this woman she called Mama was her mother. I didn’t know what else to do except keep on talking.

“My name is Victor Carl. I’m a lawyer. If you’re Tanya, I’ve been appointed to help you in any way I can.”

The girl tilted her head as if I were an idiot telling a nonsensical story in a language of my own devising. I thought about turning around, apologizing to the woman and to Officer Washington, of ducking out of there and avoiding any more humiliation, but then I thought of three more words to say.

“Daniel sent me,” I told her.

Her smile blew a hole in my heart.

And here’s the thing that surprised me and mystified me and cheered me all at the same time: Tanya was okay, Tanya was in good hands. The Reverend Wilkerson, against all my suppositions and, I have to admit, all my prejudices, the Reverend Wilkerson had done his best by the girl.

The woman’s name was Mrs. Hanson, and she was sweet and nervous and scared to death of me. “Are you going to take my Tanya away?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I told her, and I didn’t.

So we sat in her living room and we talked, Mrs. Hanson and Officer Washington and myself. Tanya went back up to her room to play, sneaking down every now and then to listen before running back up again. Mrs. Hanson called her husband home from his work, and while we waited for him, she made us tea and she told us about her family, about her older son, Charles, who attended Central High, the premier magnet school in the Philadelphia school system. And she told us that when she heard from the good reverend of this girl who needed a family, she and her husband talked about it and prayed about it and decided there was nothing they could do but open their door to her. They would make the effort, suffer through the inconvenience, give this poor girl the benefit of a home, whatever the burden. What they didn’t expect was that they would fall, all three of the Hansons, so much in love with the little girl.

After a while Officer Washington raised his eyebrows, and I nodded that it was all right, and we both thanked him for his time. After he left, Mr. Hanson showed up, a short, energetic man in blue work shirt and pants, and the three of us talked some more. They told about the friends Tanya had made, they told me about their trip to King’s Dominion.

“The Elvis karaoke bar in the Northeast?” I said.

“No,” said Mr. Hanson. “The amusement park in Virginia.”

“Ah, yes,” I said. “Of course.”

The furniture was aged, the paintings on the wall were the kind you buy in warehouses, the television was a decade old, one wall was covered with the style of block mirrors they used to advertise on UHF channels twenty years ago. Not rich, maybe not even middle class, but they were a family, the warmth was palpable, and my scalp didn’t itch inside their house, which was a good indication that the abject dysfunction that had marred my childhood didn’t have a hold here.

When I asked if I could speak to Tanya alone, they looked at each other nervously and then led me up to her room.

She was on her bed, surrounded by a sea of small stuffed animals. It appeared that she was putting on a play of some sort, but when she saw me standing in the doorway, she stopped, lowered her hands.

I stooped down so our eyes were roughly level, not that she was looking at me, and I told her who I was, why I was there. I could see she was listening, the way she smiled when I mentioned Daniel, the way her mouth tightened when I mentioned her mother, but she didn’t respond at all until I asked her if there was a place nearby to get some ice cream.

“A couple blocks away,” she said.

“You want to go?”