“Angela, your social worker's here.” Dee knelt down beside her.

“I ain't blind,” the teenager said.

“We're going to have to take the baby now,” the social worker interrupted, as if completing this assignment was all that kept her from catching the next Caltrain.

“No!” Angela pulled the infant even closer. “You can keep me in this hole, you can send me back to Claymore, but you're not taking my baby.”

“Please, honey, only for a few days,” Dee Collins tried to assure her.

The teenage girl drew her arms protectively around her baby, who, sensing some harm, began to cry.

“Don't you make a scene, Angela,” the social worker warned. “You know how this is done.”

As she came toward her, I watched as Angela jumped out of the chair. She was clutching the baby in one arm and a glass of juice she'd been drinking in the opposite hand.

In one swift motion, she cracked the glass against a table.

It created a jagged shard.

“Angela.” I jumped up from the card table. “Put that down. No one's going to take your baby anywhere unless you let her go.”

“This bitch is trying to ruin my life.” She glared. “First she lets me sit in Claymore three days past my date, then she won't let me go home to my mom. Now she's trying to take my baby girl.”

I nodded, peering into the teenager's eyes. “First, you gotta lay down the glass,” I said. “You know that, Angela.”

The DCF worker took a step, but I held her back. I moved slowly toward Angela. I took hold of the glass, then I gently eased the child out of her arms.

“She's all I have,” the girl whispered, and then she started to sob.

“I know.” I nodded. “That's why you'll change some things in your life and get her back.”

Dee Collins had her arms around Angela, a cloth wrapped around the girl's bleeding hand. The "DCF worker was trying unsuccessfully to hush the crying infant.