She was standing by the side of the road. We’d just picked up our younger son from his first summer at sleep away camp. It was a semi-rural stretch of road dotted with summer homes and tattered month-to-month rentals.

There she was. Too close to traffic. Too small to be near a highway. Too alone. Like the deer you see grazing by the side of the six lane highway… you know the story doesn’t end well.

We drove by.

My wife turned and looked at me. We turned the car around. Our kids were mortified. Moments later we were half pulled into a driveway… not quite guests not quite passersby. The little girl was still there. My wife walked over and crouched by her side, speaking in her mom voice. The girl didn’t seem at all concerned that she was talking to a stranger. Her name was Raven. She was getting the mail for her mom. She was three.

Wearing a winter jacket in the 90 degree heat and barefoot. My son snapped a picture through the car window. My wife talked to her, the boys and I stayed in the car. After a few moments I walked over. Up-close, what we sensed from the highway was confirmed. She hadn’t had a bath in weeks, and there were bruises on her face and arms. Differing colors, some purple some pink. I’d never seen a child who’d been abused before, but I knew instantly what this little girl was dealing with. Behind a chain link fence there were some children’s toys littered in the dirty yard.

We’d been there more than 10 minutes. No one had come out looking for Raven. No one had noticed that our car had pulled off the highway and into the driveway. We dialed 911. Raven talked quietly with my wife. A few minutes later, a boy came out barefoot and shirtless. An older brother, he seemed in better shape. He was cleaner, no bruises. We asked where his mom was. “On the computer” he answered. And then, under his breath “she’s always on the computer.” The Sheriff’s car – lights flashing – crested into view and pulled into the driveway. Three-year-old Raven looked up at my wife, betrayed. “The Cops?” she asked, disappointed. That wasn’t the help she was hoping for.

The officer was crisp, blue, and foreboding. He had a gun. He didn’t make much of an attempt to put the children at ease. We asked if we should stay. "No need" he said. He’d been here before. We’d done enough. Things would ‘change’ – he said somewhat perfunctorily. He took the two small children and headed toward the front door. Reluctantly, we got in the car and continued our journey home.

Back home, our brave camper ensconced in his upper-west side apartment, we wanted to know about Raven. What happened to her family? She was neglected, but well fed. She had good teeth. Her brother was bathed. Was it drugs? It didn’t seem like it. We dialed the upstate Sheriff’s office, asking for any news about Raven. The dispatcher knew about the case – it was a small town. “CPS” the dispatcher explained. Child Protective Services. But that was all she knew – and that wasn’t enough for us.

My wife had helped Raven get the mail, so we had the mother’s name and address. The son had said she was on the computer, so we went in search of clues on line. Three Google searches later we were deep inside a family drama. Raven’s mom, her MySpace page, pictures of her family, her husband, her poetry, her blog posts. She was 27. She had 4 children. She had a job. She lost her job. Her husband wrote lovingly of her on his blog. But something had gone wrong. She’d had drinks with her boss about her promotion. She’d lost her job. She’d developed a ‘special friendship’ with a man from Cincinnati on MySpace. He appeared to only have women as ‘friends’ on his page.

Just a year ago Raven was bathed, clean, smiling, and part of what appeared to be a stable family. But those pictures were out of date.

No one on MySpace had seen what we’d seen. Raven, dirty, alone, standing by the side of a highway in the blistering heat wrapped in a winter coat. The mom’s MySpace ‘friends’ were an assortment of strippers, players, and wanna-be gangsters. Dad was a carpenter.

Raven’s mom was a published poet, whose blog posts and poetry reflect a small town girl, drawn into a fantasy world of MySpace friends that seemed far more glamorous than the real world facing her and her four kids.

Briefly the information superhighway and the real highway crossed paths.

My wife and I considered what, if anything, we should do.

Should we contact the MySpace ‘Friends’ and tell them about what happened? Would they come to her aid? Should we contact the husband, tell him that just a year ago he and his wife had a beautiful family. That there ought to be some way to set things right? And what about Raven – all of three years old – who had to stand by the highway and hope someone would stop and help. What would CPS be able to do for her and her brothers Conner, Cougar, and Clifford.

The internet had told us a lot about Raven. It had answered so many questions. It had given us a glimpse into her life. It allowed us to read her mother’s poetry. It had made us closer . At the same time there was the words of her son “she’s always on the computer” that hung in the air.

She wasn’t addicted to drugs. She wasn’t disabled. She wasn’t a gambling addict. She wasn’t into porn. She was a small town girl who’d fallen in love with a bunch of imaginary friends. In her blog she wrote: “if I die tomorrow, will you miss me.” She posted the question to 15 people whom she’d never met except in a virtual world.

Raven’s mom went looking for a new life among her friends on MySpace. Along the way she forgotten her four children and the real lives that desperately needed her to be an average mom.

There's no doubt that social networking is powerful stuff. And i don't mean to say that MySpace is at fault for what happened to Raven - clearly not. But like all fantasy worlds, not everyone is going to be able to draw the line between real life and imaginary friends. And that isn't good news for little girls like Raven.