The trip to the social services office was fuelled by two cups of coffee as Olivia used her first day off to meet with Elaine Coleman, who happened to be Carter's social worker. She had only found herself with five hours of sleep in her as she had finally found herself turning in at close to three in the morning and waking up at seven. She found herself heading to the social workers office around three a'clock and once there, she made her way through the busy office floor to end up at the small cubical office. She spotted the plaque on the door and immediately knocked gently to catch the woman's attention.
"Elaine Coleman?" Olivia was used to revealing her badge within seconds of asking for someone's name, but in this instance she wasn't in need for it today.
The red-haired woman picked her head up to catch Olivia standing in her doorway and immediately, she removed the glasses resting on the bridge of her nose and placed them aside. "Yes, how can I help you?" She asked by closing up the file before her and placing it aside.
Olivia stepped further into the office and stood near the edge of her desk, not taking a seat on the separate chairs seated in front of her desk. "My name's Olivia Benson, I'm here to speak to you about Carter Benson... I'm her birth mother." She watched Elaine's eyes grow wide as she revealed the truth and immediately, she stood up from behind her desk.
"I'm sorry, I don't exactly understand. As you know, Carter's adoption was a closed adoption and you aren't allowed to contact her until she is legally an adult." Elaine seemed to automatically throw out her assumptions without asking and as she stepped around the desk to escort her out, Olivia was quick to reassure her she was wrong. "I can't help you with anything regarding Carter."
"Yes, I'm very aware of the adoption being closed Mrs. Coleman... but she was the one who contacted me." Olivia found her blue eyes freeze on her as she continued with her explanation to the meeting. "She asked me to meet with you regarding the 'release of rights' paperwork." She pulled the piece of paper out of her coat-pocket and revealed it to social worker, who was quick to let her shoulders sink. "I suppose you weren't aware of her finding me?"
Elaine's eyes widened as she caught sight of the missing slip from Carter's case file, her small laughter hitching in the back of her throat as she sunk back towards her desk chair. "I see... why don't you take a seat, seeing as we have much to talk about." She gestured for Olivia to take the seat before her desk and began to put away the separate files on her desk.
Olivia was hesitant at the first offer, but as she mentioned they had much to discuss she found herself stealing the closest seat to the office door before watching as Elaine pulled out one single file. The file was rather thick with red tabs coming out the sides and papers with folded edges and slammed rather hard against the wooden desk and Olivia's eyes caught Carter's name on the tab. "I'm assuming you weren't aware of her finding me?"
"Not at all, but I'm not surprised in the least... Carter's very independent." Linda flipped open the brown file on her desk and picked her gaze back to meet Olivia's. "It's also one of the reasons she doesn't like me very much. She likes to do things on her own, like finding you."
Olivia was taking in the slightest information Linda was giving her about Carter, while silently sitting there with a hidden anxious knee continuing to bounce. "How long have you been her case worker?" She was digging for answers herself without meaning to.
"Seven months... she tends to change hands often, along with the seven different foster homes she's lived in the past six years." Elaine took the few slips resting on top of the file and placed them out before Olivia, allowing her to take a glance. "Not to mention the girl homes she lived at in between those years." She watched Olivia hesitate to grab them and shook her head in approval. "I know you're a detective, you can go ahead and give it a peek."
Her empty hand reached to retrieve the paperwork set out for her and page by page, she sifted through to see that Carter had been bouncing from foster home to foster home since she was eight years old. However, Olivia was searching for a reason as to why Carter had left these homes in the first place and it all had to start with the first home at the age of eight.
"I looked into you for Carter about seven months ago, that's when she brought up getting emancipated from foster care. I began to get her documents ready and realised one was missing a signature. She's asked me to get them signed by you for quite some time now." Linda wasn't the least bit surprised to not watch Olivia's eyes tear away from the paperwork in her hands and continued on. "The reasons I haven't contacted you is because I feel as if it's in Carter's best interest to stay in foster care until she's eighteen."
Olivia wasn't pleased with the readings on some of the foster families inside Carter's file and the descriptions of the home life sickened her. "Is it?" Olivia's question was rhetorical as she seemed to snap at the other woman. "what about the foster family that made her eat dry pancake mix and expired milk when she was six?" Her brown eyes were lifted from the file as she read off the small horrors inside. "Or the other family that forced her to sit outside in the rain for almost four hours causing her to develop pneumonia when she was nine?" She tossed the file back down on the desk and shook her head. "You're telling me that's in her best interest?"
"Those families were taken care of by a lawsuit of the state and ordered to take classes for those mistakes." Elaine wasn't the least bit surprised of the look in Olivia's eyes as the explanation left her mouth, but she didn't stop there. "I know how that sounds..."
"Do you?" Olivia felt heated as the case worker dared to justify the foster parents actions. "I trusted your agency to get her to a safe home when she was born and you couldn't even do that, now I'm learning of the life she's living and you expect me to find that justifiable." She was finding herself only more angered by her excuses as the detective streaks of Olivia began to shine through.
"You might be right, but you have no ties to Carter aside from that piece of paper, Detective Benson. That is if you're here to sign over your rights." Elaine glanced at the piece of paper in Olivia's hands as she scoffed a bit at the comment. "Is that what you came here to do or did you come here to tell me how to do my job?"
Olivia had fallen silent under the comments made by Elaine, her assumptions alone causing her to laugh in silence as she broke her gaze to look out the window and attempt to calm herself down. She felt her head spinning from all the information she read in that file and it made her sick to her stomach knowing Carter had suffered through that, but it made it worse to know her case worker didn't seem to help.
"Listen, I know it's not ideal to learn of abuse in foster homes, but sometimes it's something that goes unnoticed."
"I'm very aware of that." Olivia found her eyes glaring back to Elaine sitting across from her and surprised the blue eyes staring at her. "I work in special victims, I hear about abuse on foster children more often then none and it's because it's never reported. And you're telling me that Carter is better off with families like these?" She ran her fingers along the side of her chin as her silent anger was attempting to settle down. "It's not wonder she's trying to run from it."
Elaine sat quiet patiently quiet for a minute as Olivia got up from her seat and began to stretch her legs from the tense conversation, leaving her to pick up the rest of Carter's file and place it back in the rightful place. She allowed Olivia a few extra minutes of peace before speaking once more. "I'm doing my best by Carter... I took her out of the last home she was in and planned to contact you once she turned sixteen. If you sign off your rights, her court hearing is this weekend..." She watched Olivia keep her back facing her and leaned back into her desk chair. "It's your choice."
It was in that moment Olivia realised she was one of the first people in Carter's life to do right by her, if she decided to sign off her rights. That alone was a difficult pill for Olivia to swallow as she fought the decisions in the back of her head as the files alone were enough to make her sign off. However, the thought of Carter struggling as a fifteen year old girl was the only thing preventing her.
Today was Thursday, which gave Olivia a day and a half to decide before making her final decision.
"... Will you be here tomorrow?" Olivia asked with her calm demeanour coming over her as she turned on her heel to steal one last glance at Elaine. She received a nod before making her way out of the office without another word.
Olivia got to the elevator without stealing a glance at another social worker and once inside the evolving doors, she felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. Every word read in Carter's file made her regret the choices of giving her up and it didn't make it any easier in knowing she had made the wrong choice. She attempted to hide her discomfort for the next thirty seconds left of the elevator ride and relief disburse as the doors opened in the lobby. She planned to leave the building and head back home, but the bathrooms across the hall left her racing to a bathroom stall.
It wasn't long after Olivia hooked on the latch in the bathroom, she regurgitated her at lunch and afternoon coffee into the toilet. Luckily, it was empty in the time she was sick and once flushed she was allowed to wipe her lips with toilet paper. Her restless stomach was fuelled by the description of Carter's life in only two of the foster homes, but Olivia couldn't shake the homes that weren't documented as abuse.
She caught the noise of the swinging bathroom door open followed by footsteps making their way into the bathroom, causing Olivia to open carefully wipe her lips once more before flushing the toilet. Olivia stepped out of the bathroom expecting to see another social worker making her way into the stall beside her, but instead she spotted a young woman fixing her makeup in the mirror. She proceeded to the sink to wash her hands and craved rinsing her mouth with water before hand wanting to wash away the heavy acidic taste on her tongue.
Olivia felt the weight of her choice resting like a heavy brick in her stomach and it did not help to feel it on her shoulders as well. She dried her hands with a paper towel before tossing it in the trash and leaving the bathroom. Olivia wasn't able to get a proper breath out until she was standing near the water fountains to grab herself a drink of water, washing down the nasty taste in her mouth and ridding herself of the tension in her throat.
Instead of leaving the building, Olivia stood against the wall by the fountains and took a deep breath in and out, allowing her a moment to think it over before finalising the signature. The one thing keeping her from signing was the thought of Carter ending up in a worse situation than she was in presently... but at this point, she didn't believe Carter was safe in foster care. The woman she lived with now hardly seemed to care for her.
If Olivia were to guess from Carter's abrupt comments last night, Linda was a drinker who hid it well... but not from Carter, who assumed the role as care taker when she was drunk or working. Liv also assumed Linda worked to keep the government checks from rolling in, but struggled to keep her job at hospitals because she liked the bottle more than serving others.
As for the foster father, Carter might've been lucky enough to miss out on him.
Olivia's mind kept rereading the reports of Carter's intake of abuse and it sickened her to know that it wasn't handled, but the foster care system was a sticky place and Olivia knew that. She couldn't stand it. The folded up piece of paper in her coat pocket was slowly pulled out and unfolded to read over once more, before pulling out the blue stray pen in her other pocket.
Olivia's trip back upstairs was quick as the elevator music faded with her counting down the seconds and before she knew it, she was making her way down the narrow hallways and back into Coleman's office. The woman was carrying out a phone call as Olivia stepped back into her office, Elaine's eyes meeting hers once more as she leaned over the edge of the desk. Her signature was simple and done within a few strokes, leaving Olivia with one job and that was to hand it over it to Elaine.
She heard Elaine rushing to get off the phone, but didn't hesitate to wait another second to give an explanation... Olivia simply left the paper on her desk without another word.