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The following Friday morning, Mark came to the apartment to meet Bodhi for the first time. I warned Jinx. “I have to tell

you something, and it’s something I’ve been kind of dreading telling you this whole time.”

Jinx’s brow furrowed. “What?”

I knew it was hilarious, but I was still concerned. “Mark is short.”

“Bodhi’s dad?”

“Yeah, he’s, like, Michael J. Fox size.”

“So?”

“I mean, I know you hoped Bodhi would be big and wrestle, and like...”

“Bodhi is going to be gigantic, Margo. I’m telling you, I have never seen a baby with hands that size.”

“I’m just trying to prepare you, you know. So it won’t be weird when he gets here!”

“I promise not to gasp and say, ‘But you’re so short!’”

“Thank you.”

“I might say, ‘I can’t believe you screwed my daughter while she was your student, you shit bag.’”

“That you can say.”

When Mark arrived, we all got along well enough, even though my dad made a risky joke about breaking his fingers for real

this time when they shook hands. Mark was wearing wide-legged brown linen pants. Jinx raised an eyebrow but stayed admirably

silent, busied himself in the kitchen making tea and snacks while Mark met Bodhi in the living room.

“So this is Bodhi,” I said, bouncing Bodhi on my hip. He was seven months old, had two bottom teeth, and drooled constantly, cascades of spittle down his chin at all times. Despite this he was beautiful in an elfin way, and I was proud. I had him in his cutest romper. It was burnt sienna with white foxes on it, and I’d just given him a bath, so he smelled like honey and oatmeal.

“Oh my gosh! Oh, Margo!” Mark looked at me, and tears were streaming down his face. It was not the reaction I was expecting,

and I was honestly a little touched.

“Do you want to hold him?” I asked.

“Will he go to me? Does he have stranger danger yet?”

“No, he’ll go to pretty much anybody still,” I said. “Here, I’ll put him on his blanket and you can play for a bit, and then

you can try holding him.”

Mark immediately dropped to the floor like I’d told him to do push-ups. “Margo, he’s so pretty.” I put Bodhi on his blanket,

and he immediately got on all fours, which he’d been doing more and more lately. He kind of rocked back and forth and looked

at Mark in a challenging way. Mark got on all fours as well and mimicked the back-and-forth motion, and that made Bodhi laugh.

Bodhi grabbed for his octopus and sort of rubbed his mouth on it and looked at Mark. “Is that your octopus?” Mark asked. “He

must think I’m so weird, crying like this!”

“Oh, he’s seen me cry plenty,” I said. “He probably just thinks adults have wet faces at this point.”

Jinx brought the tea and snacks, and we sat around, watching Mark and Bodhi play together. I thought about what Ward said

about the depo, that Mark was a shitty husband but a pretty great dad. I could believe it. There was no faking the kind of

delight he was taking in Bodhi, and it won my grudging approval.

Then the doorbell rang.

I was so unexpectedly happy I didn’t even worry about it. I stayed sitting on the couch watching Mark and Bodhi while Jinx

went to the door, then I heard Maribel’s voice. I scrambled up off the couch, whispering to Mark, “Shit, it’s CPS.”

“Do you want me to do anything?” he whispered back.

And I said, as though this were a drug deal or something, “Just be cool.” He would tease me about this for literal years.

He still says it to me all the time.

I ran to my desk and grabbed the binder. I could hear my dad explaining to her that Bodhi’s dad was here. “So cute!” she said, when she returned from whatever ocular pat-down she’d done of Mark and Bodhi in the living room.

The moment she sat down at the table with us, I opened the binder and tried to begin my spiel. I’d rehearsed what I wanted

to say dozens of times. Every single night when I went to sleep, when I was using the bathroom, when I was waiting in line

at the store, I was imagining justifying myself to Maribel.

“In our last meeting,” I said, but she interrupted.

“So, Jinx, you tested positive for opiates.”

She said this like it was so damning. Like he should be ashamed.

“We told you he would. He’s in a methadone treatment program,” I said.

“And has Jinx made any plans to get off methadone?”

“No,” I said, “but he is moving out this weekend, so whether or not he is on methadone shouldn’t have any further relevance.”

Maribel gave me an odd look I couldn’t interpret, then said, “I’ll need to see a copy of his lease.”

“It’s right here in the binder,” I said, pointing to section 3 in the table of contents.

“What is all of this?” she finally asked.

“These are examples of case law regarding previous CPS cases against camgirls in the state of California.”

Maribel let out a fake-dramatic sigh. “It really was not necessary to do all of this. Case law doesn’t determine whether we

find your home safe or not. Margo, you did pass the urine test, which is why we are now asking for a hair follicle test.”

This was pretty much the worst thing she could have said. “Why would passing a drug test require me to take another drug test?”

I asked. My heart was beating like dubstep. I would fail that hair follicle test. Ward and I had gone over what I should say,

but I didn’t know what would happen if Maribel said something unexpected.

“When one person in the home tests positive for illegal drugs, it’s policy to do a more extensive panel on all the caretakers to catch anything the urinalysis may have missed. It’s very simple, we take an inch of hair, a single strand.” She explained this like I was a child who needed to be convinced to take medicine.

“Do you have a warrant for the drug test?” I asked.

Maribel half laughed. “We don’t usually get a warrant for a standard drug test.”

“Well, technically you should have gotten a warrant just to enter the apartment,” I said. “We only let you in as a gesture

of goodwill on our part.”

“Are you refusing the drug test?” Maribel asked.

“No,” I said. “I would be happy to take the drug test if you show me a warrant for it.” Ward was positive no judge would sign

off on such a warrant. There was no reason to suspect me of drug use, there were no drugs in the home, and Jinx’s positive

result had a logical explanation. “They have zero probable cause,” Ward said. But I was kind of putting my whole life in Ward’s

slightly sticky, weirdly hairless hands right now.

Maribel was writing something down in her notebook. Her pen had a little Sanrio frog on it. She was shaking her head, then

she looked up at me, met my eyes. “When a parent refuses to cooperate in an investigation, it’s a big red flag. Refusing to

take a simple hair follicle test—it makes you look extremely guilty.”

I kept trying to swallow, and it felt like my throat was swelling shut. “I understand,” I said. Of course refusing made me

look guilty. Why had Ward and I convinced ourselves this would work?

Maribel reached over and rested her hand on my arm. Her nails were neatly painted a sparkly purple. “I’m saying this because

I care about you, Margo. Refusing to cooperate with the investigation will look very, very bad.”

And just like that, I had the ground under me again. Maribel didn’t care about me. She’d taken the bluff too far. She was trying to manipulate me, and in an instant, everything was simple again. “Oh, I’m eager to cooperate with your investigation. I’ve organized some documents to help you. You can see, here is the table of contents and my 730 evaluation, which includes a full psychological profile and concludes that not only am I fit to parent Bodhi, but that my parenting style is optimal.” My voice was trembling. I cleared my throat in an effort to regain control of it. “Here is a letter from Mark, Bodhi’s father, expressing his full support for my work at OnlyFans. At the end is a collection of California case law examples that establish clear legal precedent for the legality of my work. There are dozens of cases wherein it was established that a mother working in a legal, sex-work-adjacent field could not have her employment used against her by CPS, whether that work was as a stripper or a camgirl.”

“That may be, but OnlyFans is a new phenomenon,” Maribel said, “and provides a unique situation because the sex work is taking

place within the home where the child is being raised.” She said this with careful seriousness, stressing the words within the home . It was exactly the way they talked on Sesame Street .

“Right,” I said, smiling and nodding. “Yes, I can see that. But there is very little material difference between cam work

and hosting a profile on OnlyFans. The last case in here was a successful lawsuit against CPS and the State of California

on the part of Kendra Baker, whose children were taken because of her successful career as a camgirl. Just like me, Kendra

Baker worked out of her home. Just like me, she kept her children out of her work life and was a good mother and a fit parent.”

I opened the binder to the correct page.

“She sued for, wait, what was it? Two million dollars?”

I left the page open so Maribel could see the actual amount was $2.2 million. And that Kendra Baker had won.

“This is very detailed,” Maribel said. “But like I said, our first concern is that the child is safe in the home .”

She sure loved that phrase.

“At this point,” I said, “I think your first concern should be assessing your own legal risk. Here is a letter from my attorney, Michael T. Ward, asking you to stop entering my home without a warrant. The last time you were here, you entered under false pretenses by claiming that you would take our child unless we complied, which, as I am sure you know, is a violation of our rights and leaves you vulnerable to prosecution under 42 U.S. Code 1983, the Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights.”

Ward had leaped on that detail when we met. He kept calling it a game changer and asked me ten times if she’d really said

that. We’d even called Jinx and made him repeat it exactly word for word. She threatened to take Bodhi twice, at first when

he wouldn’t let her in and then again when I wasn’t home. Ward had guffawed: “What, like it’s illegal to have a babysitter?

This chick sure loves to make threats, let’s see how she feels about receiving a couple.” I wasn’t sure it was as big a deal

as Ward thought. There wasn’t any recording of the conversation. We didn’t have actual proof she’d ever said that. All she’d

have to do was deny it. It would be our word against hers. Maribel pulled the binder over for the first time and began really

looking at it. She skipped all the case files and read the letter from Ward.

Jinx reached over and took my hand. We held our breath as we watched Maribel read, occasionally murmuring the words to herself

under her breath. When Maribel reached the last page, she lingered for a moment, then slowly closed the binder. “This is very

interesting,” she said, “and it’s clear you put a lot of effort and time into this. And certainly, our primary concern here

is Bodhi’s well-being. We’re not here to try to take a child that doesn’t need to be taken. Our goal is always to keep the

child with their family if at all possible.”

“Right,” I said, breathless. It almost felt like she was backtracking. And I needed her to feel like backtracking was possible,

would be easy. “That makes sense to me. Because our lawyer was so upset that he wanted to press charges immediately, but I

said to him, ‘Ward, I think CPS really wants to help. They’re the good guys. Let’s give them a chance to show it.’”

“Absolutely,” Maribel gushed, “our first priority is always to try to keep a child within the home. What matters, at the end

of the day, is whether the home is clean, whether the child is receiving regular medical care, and so on. Your drug test came

back negative. The other people we interviewed confirmed everything I learned from you and from James here.”

“See,” I said, “this is exactly what I told Ward. But he was so caught up in the technicalities! He kept saying, ‘Margo, what they did was illegal, you could sue for a lot of money,’ and just going on and on.” I laughed like he was being silly.

Maribel was nodding rapidly and chewing on her upper lip. “No, we really do always want to do right by our families, that’s

what we’re here for—to make sure everyone is safe! And thank you for this research, all this legal research. I think you make

some very compelling points about the related nature of OnlyFans and cam websites, and we certainly do have legal precedent

regarding the, uh, the cam websites.”

Jinx was squeezing the shit out of my hand. She must think she’d be in deep shit for lying to Jinx about taking Bodhi. She

wasn’t even trying to argue.

“So at this point,” she went on, repeatedly clicking her pen, “this visit counts as your second home visit, which concludes

your case, and once I file my report your case will be considered closed. But here is my number, and if you ever have any

questions or concerns, or need help with social services or finding care, just give me a call or shoot me a text.”

“So wait,” I said, “when will we hear from you?”

“There is no further need for me to perform another home visit at this time. The only thing that would trigger a return visit

is if we received another complaint.”

“Or if your supervisor has a problem with any of the documentation we provided?”

“I don’t really foresee that,” Maribel said. She wasn’t going to show her supervisor a single page from that binder, I realized.

She was going to bury this as fast as she could.

“I think I’m gonna cry,” I said.

“Don’t cry,” Maribel said, “be happy! This is the outcome we all want, right?”

Was it? I stared at her, smiling in what I hoped was a genuine-looking way. She had us sign some papers saying the home visit

had been performed and we’d been informed the case was now closed and that was it. She was leaving.

When I showed her to the door, I wanted to say something. “Good luck,” I said, and gestured to her stomach.

She looked confused. I realized I sounded insane. It was insane, really, that I still wanted to wish her well. I didn’t think

Maribel was some villain; I thought she was an idiot who got off on power trips and probably did genuinely think of herself

as one of the good guys. I also knew her whole life was about to get exploded, and not by me.

“It’s like falling in love,” I said, though maybe that sounded even more insane. “It’s the biggest love you’ll ever experience.

And it will change everything about you. At times you will think your whole life is ruined, but you know, like, you wouldn’t

change any of it. Just... I’m excited for you. That all that’s about to happen.”

“Thank you,” Maribel said in her guarded but sweet way.

I nodded and shut the apartment door.