Esme’s was a woman named Marguerite Stiles and she was, over eighteen months, the most consistently unpleasant person I dealt with and the one I would want if it were my child.

The judge found probable cause and immediate and urgent necessity, which is the statutory language, and placed the child in the temporary custody of the guardianship administrator of DCFS.

Which means the State has her, and then the State has to put her somewhere.

The preference, by statute and by policy and by every piece of research anybody has done, is a relative.

There is a formal process for it called relative placement and it is not the same thing as foster licensing, and both of them apply, in sequence, and it is a great deal of paperwork.