Gone, Baby, Gone (spoilers!)

Now, I know this is a controversial subject, but I can't help but bring it up again.

I've just finished watching Dennis Lahane's "Gone, Baby, Gone" for the second time, and I'm riled up again.

I love that movie, not only because I think it's a great movie, with a lot of talent in it, but because it shows a lot of true life from the streets of Dorchester and South Boston.

Yes, we really do talk like that. Most of us try not to curse as much, I think, but the characters and the lives of those from this neck of the woods really are like that. I knew many people like that in my time, as have a lot of you who will read this. It's where we grew up, where we lived, where our parents struggled to put food onthe table...or places close by that are just like it.

Now, here's the spoiler, so if you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want the ending ruined for you...don't read any further.

A child was kidnapped from her mother in this story. Her mother is a junkie...a selfish woman who didn't give a shit about her child until the cameras were rolling. Otherwise, this beautiful girl was hardly an afterthought in her mother's head, while she looked for her next fix or lay.

In the end, after many violent turns and about a hundred f-bombs, we discover that the child was taken not by a sex offender, as believed, but in a well thought-out plan by the police themselves. And not just any policemen, but by the captain himself, who wanted nothing more than to give her a decent life, to be raised by people who would love her and provide for her and care of she were alive or dead.

So the dilemma Patrick (Casey Affleck) faces in the end is whether or not to return her to her mother from whom she was taken, and leave her to whatever future she would be dealt, or turn the other way and let her begin a new life with a good family.

My husband would do what Patrick did. He would return her to her mother, because of course kidnapping is a felony, and that's where she belongs. He would then try to work through DSS and hope she could be taken from her mother and placed in a foster home, and then maybe have a better chance at life by going through the system.

I would walk away.

I know it's wrong. I know it was a kidnapping and that her mother would never see her again. But I know that if I took away that child's possible only chance to be brought up in a loving, safe environment and return her to a mother who's only concern is what's in it for her, and just hope for the best, it would haunt me for the rest of my life. I would do what my heart told me to do.

So...now I ask....what would you do?