I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate

by Gay Courter

  “That’s a girl who hates me and wants to start trouble.”

  “Do lots of people hate you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know they do?”

  “They call me names.”

  “Like what?”

  “Slut and Mrs. Goodfuck.”

  “Why would they call you that?”

  “They have grudges against me.”

  Walt Hilliard turned away from Alicia and began sifting through pages while Grace and I sent signals of dismay to each other. All we needed was for this kid to come off like a paranoid, sexually active teenager!

  Until that moment I had been confident Alicia would win her case. She had told her story consistently and behaved well. The court-ordered psychological profile had pronounced her competent to testify and said she would “be an effective witness.” She understood the difference between a lie and the truth and would do well on the stand as long as she had appropriate reassurance, which I knew Ruth and I could supply in liberal doses. Although Alicia was usually compliant and passive, Mr. Hilliard had been able to provoke her on several occasions that morning, and he was probably going to build on these vulnerabilities to destroy her credibility.

  Taking advantage of the moment, Walt Hilliard homed in on the inconsistencies in the initial statement that Alicia had handwritten for the police the night they took her from her father’s home. “Did you write this?” He passed the paper to me to hand to Alicia. “Yes, I did.”

  Before I handed it back to Walt Hilliard, though, I showed it to Grace. My finger tapped the box with the time of day marked.

  “Here you state that ‘I was five when my father started to have sex with me.’ A short while ago you said you were nine,” Mr. Hilliard said more belligerently. “Which was it?”

  “Both.”

  “How could that be?”

  Alicia’s eyes brimmed with tears.

  I handed her tissues and said, “Let her calm down first.”

  Walt Hilliard looked at the ceiling, as if he were praying for deliverance from do-gooder guardians.

  “What happened when you were five?” Mr. Hilliard asked.

  “My father started touching me.”

  “Where was this?”

  Alicia misconstrued the question and began to describe the location rather than the part of her body. Mr. Hilliard started to interrupt, then permitted her to proceed. “There was a tool shed in the groves. My father was working on the mower-tractor and he told me I could drive it if I sat on his lap. I climbed up and he ordered me to take off my panties so they wouldn’t get dirty. I did, and he hung them on the shifter, then sat me between his legs, and showed me how to steer it.”

  “Was the mower moving?” Mr. Hilliard asked.

  “No, it was pretend,” she said, her voice rising so that it sounded like a much younger child’s.

  “What else happened?”

  “He told me he loved me and that we could do special things together when we were alone, but they had to be a secret or everyone else would get jealous.”

  “What were those things?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “No further questions,” Walt Hilliard said, surprising me.

  Now it was Grace’s turn to clarify Alicia’s testimony and demonstrate the strength of the case.

  “You were telling us about what happened when you were five,” Grace said, her voice warm and reassuring. “How do you know how old you actually were then?”

  “Well, it’s funny, but my panties were brand-new because my other ones had holes and my stepmother bought new pink ones for kindergarten. I was only allowed to wear them on school days. It had to be a school day because those panties were pink.”

  Grace and I glanced at each other smugly.

  “What did your father do when you were on the mower?” Grace asked.

  “He patted my bottom.”

  “Hard, like a spanking?”

  “No, it was nice, except—” Alicia closed her eyes and I noticed her head roll to one side, as if she were falling asleep.

  “Alicia? Are you all right?” Grace asked.

  Alicia snapped to alertness. “I’m fine.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “No, I promised I wouldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Everyone would have gotten mad at me.”

  “So that is what started when you were five. Is that why you wrote that age on your statement?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time of day did you write that statement?”

  “It was the middle of the night.”

  Grace took out her copy of the document and pointed to the time. “Was it at two-forty-five in the morning?”

  “Around then.”

  “Do you usually stay up that late?”

  “No.”

  “Why were you up so late that night?”

  “The police came to my house and asked me questions, then Deputy Moline took me to the police station and told me I had to write this paper before I could leave.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Somebody from HRS came and took me to the shelter home.”

  “What time did you get there?”

  “They were having breakfast.”

  “Did you sleep at all that night?”

  “No.”

  “How were you feeling?”

  “Terrible. I was crying and upset. I didn’t want to tell everything over and over. I didn’t want to leave home. I thought my father should have had to leave, not me.”

  “Did you take anything with you?”

  “No.”

  “When did you get your things?”

  “A week or so later the HRS lady brought me some clothes, but nothing else. About a month later the policeman took me to get what I wanted.”

  “What was that?”

  “My private stuff, like perfume and brushes and the rest of my clothes.”

  “Anything else?”

  “We couldn’t find my stuffed animals or the glass unicorn or my books, pictures, or my diary.”

  “You kept a diary?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you write about?”

  “My friends, school …”

  “Did you write about what happened between you and your father?”

  “In a way. I made little notes.”

  I knew that, much to our regret, the diary had never been found. Probably Mr. Stevenson had destroyed it, but Grace wanted to place some doubt in Mr. Hilliard’s mind about this crucial piece of evidence.

  Mr. Hilliard shuffled through his notes.

  “You stated that the first time you had sexual intercourse with your father was at his old marine shop, the one he had in town,” he said.

  “Yes,” Alicia replied.

  “And you stated that the incident occurred in the bathroom.”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you describe it?”

  “It was a regular bathroom.”

  “What color?”

  “The walls were green and the toilet, sink, and bathtub were beige.”

  “There was a bathtub in the marine shop? Are you sure you aren’t getting that bathroom confused with one at home?”

  “No, it was really big. It has a woodstove and little table and everything.”

  “Where was this?”

  Alicia’s jaw tensed. “I told you, in the marine shop.” Her voice was on the edge of breaking.

  Fortunately the ordeal was over.

  When I took Alicia home, Ruth Levy pulled me aside and had me come into her small office behind the kitchen. “How’d it go?”

  “She got upset a few times, otherwise she did very well.”

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” Ruth whispered and closed the door. “Today I was at a foster parent group meeting. One of the other mothers asked about Alicia and I mentioned that she was being interviewed today. Then that mother told me that she had been in court the day Alicia
and Dawn were brought in to give testimony in her foster care hearing. They were outside in the hall waiting for their case to be called and this woman was around the corner, but she could hear them speaking. She claims she heard Dawn whispering, ‘Let’s keep our story straight,’ and ‘Don’t forget that part’ and then, ‘If we do it right, they’ll let us live together.’ To her, it sounded like they were making up a story so they wouldn’t be separated.”

  “What do you think?” I asked Ruth.

  “Alicia has told me that she assumed the police were going to allow her to live with Dawn because Dawn’s parents invited her. She never thought she’d wind up in foster care.”

  “Are you suggesting that Alicia invented the entire incest story so she could go live with Dawn after she moved away?”

  “No, well … Honestly, I’m not sure.”

  “But Ruth, does it make sense for her to have created a story that began ten years ago? Wouldn’t it be more logical for her to say that her father started molesting her recently? And she has so many details about a shed and a bathroom. Grace Chandler says that people remember these first sexual encounters vividly. I can’t describe an average experience with my husband three months ago, but I could give you a long description of my first time with him.” I paused to think this through. “Also, Alicia has never had a great imagination. I can’t believe she’d make up something like him showing her dirty magazines and her father holding her elbows when he had her lean over the toilet to have sex with her.”

  “Alicia told me about that.” Ruth rocked from one foot to the other. “Milo is about the same size as Mr. Stevenson. The other night he was standing by the sink helping dry the dishes that Mandy was washing. Mandy is ten, but she is probably around the same size Alicia was at nine. Mandy’s back was to him and she was bending over slightly … and let me tell you, there is no way in hell that a man that tall could have done it to a girl her size in the position Alicia describes.”

  Because the trial date was temporarily scheduled for June, we began making plans for Cory and Alicia to visit Tammy as soon as it was over. The more we discussed it, though, the more negative Alicia became.

  “What is worrying you?” I asked.

  “If I live with my mother, I’ll go back to drugs and partying.”

  “Do you feel that if you don’t have Ruth around to depend on, you might not be able to depend on yourself?”

  “I guess …”

  “You’re a different person than you were when you were living with your father. You know that you can control yourself if you want to.”

  “I don’t want to go to Washington.”

  “Hey, nobody is going to force you,” I said, then changed the subject.

  The next day, when Alicia was in school, I called Ruth to discuss the trip. “She’s very negative. What might have changed her mind?”

  “Look, Gay, I know you found her mother and all that, but after the way Tammy has behaved, I can’t push Alicia in her direction. You know how little time she spent with Alicia when she was here, and since then she has called only three times and sent two letters. If it were my child, and I wanted her to come and live with me, I’d do something at least every week.”

  “I see your point, but what does Alicia say about this?”

  “You know she was disappointed and didn’t warm to her mother the way she thought she might. Yesterday one of the other girls said something about her mother and she replied, ‘You mean Ruth or the old hag?’ “

  “Okay, Ruth, I will not push Tammy on Alicia. Just knowing that she has a mother might be enough.”

  “If she doesn’t want to see her, what will you do about Cory?”

  “He might want to travel without her, or maybe not, we’ll see. Also, even if Red is acquitted, Mitzi says HRS is not going to permit him to have custody of Cory. Maybe if he forms a bond with his mother and her family, that will be his solution, although I know he’d prefer to live either with Alicia, or somewhere nearby.”

  “I’d take him as a foster child too, but I only have girls here.”

  “I know, Ruth, so unless they live with their mother it is unlikely they’ll ever be together again.”

  Cory had healed under the ministrations of Birdie Rose and Patty Perez, but then Patty was offered a part-time job outside the district, which was also nearer to specialized medical care for Manuel and Sheila, whom they were going to adopt, and everyone moved but him. Cory hid his disappointment well, but HRS handled the transition abominably.

  As soon as I had heard that Patty had accepted the job, I asked where Cory might go. Mitzi mentioned that there were two possibilities: one nearer his sister, another in his original school district where he had many friends.

  “Does that mean he’ll have to change schools with less than a month of the semester to complete?”

  “He’s not lighting any fires, so what difference does it make?” Mitzi snapped.

  “Couldn’t you find him a temporary bed in his school district? There are a lot of end-of-year activities he’s looking forward to.”

  “Listen, Gay, I’ll be happy if I can get one of these families to take him.”

  “Have you thought about introducing them to Cory ahead of time? Maybe he’d accept a new family better if he felt part of the selection process.”

  “Puhleeeze! Do you know the trouble we’d have if we let kids pick their placements?”

  “Yes, I see your point,” I said, even though I didn’t, “but this is a special case. Unlike Cory, most kids have been abused and are afraid to return home, while Cory thinks home is paradise. If he were included, he might feel ownership of the decision and he might make more of an effort to fit in.”

  “Well, it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon,” Mitzi said with finality in her voice.

  Cory was moved to the Hornsbys, who also had a seriously asthmatic small boy, two children of their own, and a teenage boy they were in the process of adopting. Cory was so dejected he stopped working in the new school and would sleep through classes. When Mrs. Hornsby caught him smoking after warning him twice that it wasn’t permitted, he was transferred to the Sheldons. They had a retarded daughter of their own, were raising their infant grandchild, and were already the foster parents of the most notorious children in our district: two- and three-year-old siblings who killed animals for kicks.

  I complained to Lillian. “They’re treating this kid like a Ping-Pong ball.”

  “And he’s learning the system,” Lillian agreed sadly.

  “Marvelous system, isn’t it? You don’t like where you are living, so you figure out how to get thrown out, and thus find that rebellion brings more concern than compliance.”

  “You’re right. Kids would rather have the negative attention than be ignored.”

  “Then how can we halt the cycle?”

  “If he wants out, there will always be a rule he’ll figure out how to break or a line he’ll be willing to cross,” Lillian added.

  “Yes, but no matter what rule one of my sons breaks, I don’t get to throw him out, do I? Eventually my son learns to comply or suffer the consequences. The consequence for Cory is getting what he wants—or thinks he wants.”

  Mrs. Sheldon was cooperative in arranging visits between Cory and his father but told me that Cory acted much worse in the days after the visit. “Maybe he shouldn’t see him until the trial, otherwise I’ll never get him to settle down.”

  “I understand why you feel that way,” I said, “but there is no definite date. I think that a long, undetermined delay might make Cory even more angry.”

  Mrs. Sheldon said she’d go along with my recommendations, but a few days after the most recent visit with his father, Cory called me.

  “They arrested me!” he shouted in a combination of rage and fear. “I didn’t even do nothing and this guy phoned the police!”

  “Calm down, Cory,” I said. “What happened?”

  He explained that he had been on his way to catch the school bus when h
e looked into a neighbor’s car and saw a pack of cigarettes lying on the front seat. “I was just going to take one or two,” he explained in a whiny voice, “but the guy saw me from his window and called 911 before I had the car door open.”

  “You didn’t take anything?” I asked.

  “No, I swear I didn’t, so how could they arrest me?”

  “You did open the door and intended to steal cigarettes.”

  “Just a couple of smokes,” he responded belligerently.

  “But, Cory, they did not belong to you. Do you understand that?”

  “Is that a reason to fingerprint me and everything?”

  “Is the neighbor pressing charges?”

  “I dunno, but I got another HRS worker on top of Mitzi and she’s even more of a pain in the butt.”

  I took the name of his delinquency caseworker and called her. She said that they were trying to work out a deal with the neighbor. The Sheldons were throwing him out anyway, so Cory wouldn’t be in the area much longer. I suggested that Cory be placed in a facility where he would receive the counseling he desperately needed. The worker reminded me that they were under orders to select the “least restrictive” environment.

  “I like the theory,” I told her, “but after so many failures, these foster homes are not the solution. What Cory needs are some successes.” I hung up the phone angry at everyone, especially myself.

  I realized that I should have seen this coming. Cory had been a time bomb waiting to explode. He had been furious when the court removed him from the home of his father and grandfather, enraged when they placed him in a shelter home, then moved him to another group facility. His first foster care placement with the authoritarian MacDougals had been the most destructive situation yet, and when they threw him out, he felt like a failure. Then just when he made his first real attachment, to Patty and Birdie, they had to move.

  A few days later Mitzi announced that the Palomino Ranch had some temporary beds available. I despised substituting the term “bed” for a home for a child. To HRS, foster children were trouble units to be “placed” in “beds.” Beds had to be in approved homes that contained the requisite number of bathrooms, smoke detectors, and fire extinguishers. There was never any mention of the family’s personality, the style of parenting, the psychological match of child to parent. Attachment and caring and love were words that were never uttered, and certainly nobody seemed to speculate about what the child might have wanted.