“What little blue dog?”
“My favorite little blue dog that I love.”
“The one at home on your dresser?”
Harvey nodded. “Darn! I should have asked you to bring him with you.”
WANDA HAD APPEARED promptly that morning, at seven o’clock, in a stiff gray suit. She was holding a bag of toasted bagels, chocolate milk, and deli coffee.
Jason was frantically undoing knots in Harvey’s sneakers. He’d had a haircut the day before, and Wanda said it looked smart but that he might also want to shave. She had brought along one of her husband’s ties, but Jason said he was wearing a turtleneck to cover his tattoo.
When Harvey came out still in her pajamas, Wanda frogmarched her into the bathroom. Jason sat on the couch and listened to the tub fill up. In two hours, people would judge whether he was good enough to look after a child.
When Harvey was finally ready, Wanda put her on the couch with a toasted bagel, then sat with Jason and went through everything—including what he should say if they asked about his incarceration.
When it was time to leave, Wanda had to drive because Jason was too nervous.
The county court offices took up an entire block opposite the Long Island Rail Road station. People were outside smoking and trying to get comfortable in suits that didn’t fit. There were unmarked police cruisers parked on the sidewalk, and shops offering money transfers and bail bonds.
Wanda led Harvey and Jason straight in through double doors, where they had to pass under a metal detector, and Wanda had to open her pocketbook for the guard to look inside with a flashlight.
They got to Room 204-D fifteen minutes early.
“This is good,” Wanda said. “Early shows organized, efficient, and enthusiastic.”
She had been to plenty of these meetings and said the officials got pissed when people were late.
On the wall were posters about abuse, with phone numbers people could call for help. One of them showed three children hiding under a kitchen table, covering their ears. THERE ARE MANY VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, it said.
The chairs they were sitting on reminded Jason of high school. There were paper cups in the trash from earlier meetings, and a lower pane of glass in the door had been cracked, maybe where someone had gotten angry or knocked it while carrying a chair.
Harvey was wearing a pink party dress with flower stitching. Jason had bought it for her at Marshalls, along with white tights and pink clogs that fell off if she walked too fast.
As they waited, Harvey made a picture with some crayons that Wanda had brought. Harvey was wearing her ring that once had gum in it, and the chair clicked as her feet swung under the table.
Then there was a knock and the door swung open. It was a woman in her forties, along with a short, stocky man who had a mustache and was about Wanda’s age. The man seemed jovial and cupped Jason’s elbow when they shook hands.
The woman apologized for being late and explained what was going to happen. They would chat together informally; then it would be time to speak with just Jason and Wanda, then just Harvey and Wanda. All three sessions would be recorded.
Jason said he understood and the interview began.
The first thing they asked was about school.
“There’s one near my house,” Jason said. “So that’s easy.”
“Miss Harvey is going to start second grade in the fall,” Wanda added. “It was my professional opinion that Jason and Harvey should spend a few months hanging out before formal schooling began for her again.”
“What do you think of starting second grade in the fall, Harvey?” the woman asked.
Harvey looked at her drawing, kept moving the crayon.
“It’s big-kid school,” the woman went on. “You’ll get to draw lots of pretty pictures there.”
“Looking forward to school, Miss Harvey?” Wanda said.
“No,” Harvey said finally. “I’m not looking forward.”
“You don’t want to go to school?” the woman said.
“I want to stay home with Jason and watch TV.”
The court officials looked at Jason.
“What sorts of things do you watch on TV?” the woman wanted to know.
“Mostly scary stuff,” Harvey said.
“Me too,” the man with the mustache said, putting down his legal pad. “What kind of stuff do you like?”
“Aliens and monsters killing people.”
“Doesn’t that frighten you?” the woman said. “That would frighten me.”
“I change the channel if she’s really scared,” Jason said.
“No, he doesn’t,” Harvey said. “He thinks it’s funny.”
Wanda laughed nervously.
Harvey looked up from her drawing at Wanda. “He really doesn’t.”
“Well, then,” the man said. “If you don’t get scared of what’s on TV, what do you get scared of?”
Harvey thought about it. Wanda started to say something, but the woman raised a finger to stop her.
“Nothing, I guess,” Harvey said.
“Nothing scares you?” the woman said. “What if I asked you to pick one thing?”
“Well,” Harvey said, thinking carefully, “I’d have to say black holes.”
The woman nodded and wrote something down.
Then Harvey thought of something else. “And who will look after me if Jason dies. Maybe you, Wanda?” Harvey said, turning to look at her.
Wanda touched her shoulder. “Maybe sweetie pie.”
The court officials reassured Harvey that Jason almost certainly would not die, and asked if she had bad dreams at night.
“I once dreamed that the house burned down. My toys got burned too.”
The woman said it must have been bad. What a terrible dream to have.
“Their faces melted,” Harvey said. “Like in a horror movie I saw.”
“What horror movie was that?” Jason wanted to know.
Harvey shrugged.
“Tell us more about the dream,” the man said.
“That dream was with my first mom and dad,” Harvey told him. “But I’m not scared now, because if anyone tried to burn down the house, Jason would blind them.”
Wanda laughed and brought up the subject of budgeting.
After talking for a little longer, the woman suggested they sit with Jason alone for a while. Harvey was taken to a room where children were supervised and could play with toys. Jason looked at her empty seat until Wanda returned and the interview continued.
The man saw him looking. “Harvey will see you as her father eventually,” the man said. “If she doesn’t already.”
“And her mother too,” the woman added. “Unless there’s a strong female presence in her life, you’re playing the role of both parents.”
“Wanda is a good female presence,” Jason said.
“But I won’t always be with you, sweetie,” Wanda said, patting his arm. “I have other cases, and I’m going to retire soon.”
The woman wanted to know how Jason felt he might cope without being able to call on Wanda.
“Fine,” Jason said. “I pretty much know what to do.”
“And what’s that?” the woman said flatly.
Jason looked at Wanda, who nodded for him to speak up.
“Make sure there are three good meals a day, keep the house clean, make sure there’s heat and everything is safe.”
Wanda had gone over this with Jason. It was a standard question, but the woman kept nodding, so Jason tried to think of more things to say.
“Spend time with her. Take her to the doctor if she gets sick, make her buckle up and shout at her if she doesn’t, teach her not to steal, teach her to be a good person, don’t let her use knives, make sure her window is closed at night so she can’t get abducted, keep her away from stray dogs, people on drugs . . .”
“Okay,” the woman said. “That’s good, Jason.”
“What’s a typical meal like?” the man asked. “Just something y
ou would normally make.”
“She gets more than enough to eat,” Jason said. “There’s always leftovers.”
“Like what kind of stuff?” the man said.
“Pizza, chicken fingers, french fries, Hot Pockets, toast, cereal, apple slices, pork and beans, cereal, ravioli, mini-hamburgers, ravioli, pasta, corn, mozzarella sticks, ice cream . . .”
“You’re making me hungry,” the man said.
“Last week Jason made his first meat loaf,” Wanda told them.
This made the woman smile. “It’s hard to make a good meat loaf. How did you stop it from drying out?”
“Covered it,” Jason said.
The woman wrote meat loaf on her legal pad and circled it.
“What was your father like, Jason?” the man asked.
Jason thought for a moment. “Full of energy,” he said.
“How do you mean?” the man wanted to know.
Wanda cleared her throat. “He was a World War II hero.”
“The war messed him up,” Jason said. “But we had fun in the end.”
“That’s excellent,” said the man. “Families who laugh a lot are usually close.”
Wanda then mentioned how Jason had made extra money before Harvey moved in, so he could purchase a dresser, a desk, and a mini drum set for her.
“Do you play the drums, Jason?” the man asked. “You musical?”
“I used to,” Jason said. “Harvey asked me to teach her.”
The man was impressed. “That’s exactly the kind of thing we want to hear—music to our ears, so to speak.”
AT THE BEGINNING of the trial period three months earlier, Wanda had brought Harvey’s stuff in two suitcases, along with a few bags of groceries so she could cook a celebration meal.
Jason had converted the spare room, which pleased Wanda. The carpet was gone, replaced by new dark wood flooring that Jason had bought at Home Depot and cut to size on Wanda’s husband’s table saw. The dresser he picked out had butterfly handles and a glass top. Wanda had found a bed frame at a yard sale near her home in Hempstead, which her husband had cleaned up and painted.
Harvey’s stuff was mostly clothes and toys. Wanda laid everything out on the bed, showing Jason how to fold and keep socks and underwear in one place, shirts and leggings in another. Wanda said that Harvey was still wearing diapers at night, and she would get him a six-month supply of the nighttime Pull-Ups, courtesy of Uncle Bill.
“Who’s that?” Jason said.
“We just say that when we expense things.”
Wanda said she liked how the spare room was shaping up. She saw the mini drum set and told Jason how important it would be to do things with Harvey for the first time.
“She’s never ridden a bicycle without training wheels,” Wanda said. “So that’s something else to look forward to. Make sure you take a camera.”
Wanda said the next three months were very important if he was to be appointed official guardian. “Reach out to your friends,” she advised him. “Have them write letters about the good things you’ve done and what a nice, pleasant person you are.”
BUT THREE MONTHS later, a week before the court interview, Jason confessed that the only person he knew well enough to ask for a character reference was standing in front of him.
“What about the neighbors?”
“They don’t speak English.”
“Damn it, Jason—you could have said something earlier.”
“What should we do?”
“The interview with the courts is next week . . . I’ll have to get my friends to do it.”
“Is that allowed?”
“If I did what the law allowed,” Wanda explained, “we wouldn’t even be standing here having this conversation.”
FOR THE FIRST few weeks living in Jason’s house, Harvey cried a lot for her parents, and kept having accidents.
One night Jason woke up and saw her shivering in his bedroom doorway. She had wet the bed a second time within a few hours and was afraid to wake him again.
Jason carried her into the bathroom and ran the hot tap. Then he washed her legs with a warm towel. “If it feels itchy, wake me up and I’ll wipe you off again.”
He could see she’d been crying because her eyes were red. “It’s not a big deal,” he told her. “Even tough guys with tats who ride motorcycles wet the bed, Harvey.”
“Like you?” Harvey said.
Jason nodded.
Then he took a Pull-Up from the bag and helped her step in through the holes. Finding clean pajamas was more difficult, but there was a pair with spaceships in the laundry room, and Jason warmed them up in the dryer.
Then Harvey sat cross-legged on the floor and watched Jason strip the bed and put on fresh linens. When he was done, Harvey got in and went back to sleep.
A couple of nights later it happened again. The mattress was wet on both sides, so Jason had to put a garbage bag over the stain, then a blanket over the bag. When he was finished, Harvey wanted him to stay and hold her hand. She asked if he knew any songs, but the only one Jason knew by heart was “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath.
“Sing it,” Harvey said.
When her grip loosened, Jason knew she was asleep, and he went outside for a smoke. The night was cool and there were many stars.
THE COURT OFFICIALS wanted to know how Jason made a living, intrigued by his eBay business. Jason explained it as basically an online yard sale. When they asked about his problems with the IRS, Wanda said that Social Services was working with them directly to sort it out.
“I don’t really understand this Internet business,” the woman said, “but as legal guardian, it’s also your job to support the child financially, and that means filing your taxes once a year.”
Jason said he had applied for a job at a hardware store near the house. He said if they hired him, he could work while Harvey was in school.
The man laughed and asked if the hardware store had a name.
“Home Depot,” Jason said ironically.
The man wrote it down and asked if Jason could give him the name of someone in human resources.
“You think I’m lying?” Jason said.
“We don’t think that at all, Jason,” the woman said.
Jason ripped a folded piece of paper from his pants pocket and threw it on the table. Nobody moved. Then the man picked it up and handed it back to Jason without unfolding it. “I just asked because I was going to call over there and put in a good word for you.”
“Oh,” Jason said. “I didn’t know.”
“This interview is about how you look after Harvey,” the woman explained, “and what’s best for her.”
The man nodded. “We have to be thorough because—as I’m sure you understand—we’re here to act in the interests of a minor, and we answer to Judge Thomas, who quite rightly errs on the side of caution.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Jason said. “I’m sorry.”
“Remember this,” the man went on. “There is no perfect parent. We all make mistakes. You just have to do your best, keep them safe, and—you know—feed them from time to time.”
“And love them,” the woman added. “Above all else, you have to love them.”
Wanda took out the letters of reference from Shawn Mullen of Hempstead, Rhonda Jales of Hempstead, Taquisha Suarez of Farmingdale, and Reverend Desmond Cox of East Islip. Wanda also had an Excel spreadsheet showing how Jason had spent the Social Security payments on Harvey’s behalf.
When it was Harvey’s turn to be interviewed, they kept her in the room for only fifteen minutes.
On the way out, Wanda called her husband to tell him how it had gone. Then she said that Uncle Bill was taking them for lunch at Chuck E. Cheese’s.
“I used to go there with my dad,” Harvey said.
An hour later, as Harvey was shooting plastic ducks with a pink gun, Wanda got a call from the courts to say they were extending the trial period to six months.
Jason couldn’t believe it. “W
e gotta go through all that shit again?”
“You think it’s easy to get custody of a child?” Wanda said fiercely. “Think about it, Jason!”
Harvey’s game ended and she reappeared, holding the tickets she’d won from the machine.
“Go trade them at the counter for a prize,” Wanda said.
“You guys come too.”
“We’ll come in a minute, honey, you go on.”
“They could have been real hard-asses,” Wanda said as Harvey walked away. “They could have busted your ass. I’ve seen it happen, and it ain’t pretty, let me tell you . . .”
“I was hoping today would be it,” Jason said.
“That’s just not how it works in New York. But whatever anyone says, you are her guardian, Jason. You see anyone else lining up to take care of her?”
“What about the Morganos?”
“I can’t go into that right now,” Wanda said, waving the subject off.
“But won’t they want to see Harvey in the future?” Jason pressed. “Maybe we could all go visit them in Florida? Your husband can come too. When was it they were up here, again, Wanda?”
Wanda gave a quick little laugh. “I guess Harvey told you, then.”
“You’re sly, Wanda,” Jason said. “But I guess you really know what you’re doing with this adoption business. What else are you not telling me?”
Harvey shouted for them to come and help her choose a prize from a row of stuffed blue dogs.
“It’s lucky for you the nice gentleman let that shit go,” Wanda went on, “you throwing the piece of paper that way. They most certainly could have used it as an excuse not to renew the trial.”
It hadn’t once occurred to Jason they might take Harvey away.
“Mark my words,” Wanda said, “Harvey could have been on her way back to the Goldenbergs’ right now.”
“But I’m her family,” Jason insisted. “We’re flesh and blood.”
“What if he’d really pushed your buttons, Jason? What then?”
“How should I know?” Jason said, but in his mind was already dragging the man from the seat and driving his head backward toward the white brick wall. His body is light. His eyes are rolling. Jason has him by the neck and he can’t breathe.
Everyone is screaming and he can feel Wanda pulling on his arms. Her voice echoes through him: “Thought you said you hated bullies, Jason? Thought you said you hated bullies . . .”
Father's Day Page 8
