by Gay Courter
“What about the mother in Washington State?” Mitzi’s supervisor asked.
“Tammy is a long shot, “ I agreed. “I’d prefer that Cory return home first, but I’d rather send him to Spokane than back into foster care.”
“Then could we agree on an immediate transfer of custody to his mother in Washington?” Calvin Reynolds asked.
“No, not if Cory won’t accept it,” I answered. “Look, since everyone is worried about the risk of sexual abuse to Cory, we also have to ask whether Cory is at risk for sexual abuse in the custody of HRS.” I listed the two sexual abuse incidents he may have had in foster care. “Obviously HRS cannot guarantee his safety either. So, is Cory at risk for sexual abuse in his father’s care? While it is likely that Mr. Stevenson has sexually abused children at some time, he has never been convicted of a sexual offense against a child. Further, Cory maintains his father has never abused him in any way. Also, Cory is almost fifteen, of normal intelligence, has good coping skills, and friends in the community he trusts including his grandfather, teachers, a guidance counselor, a therapist, a former foster mother, as well as his Guardian ad Litem. It is unlikely that Cory would subject himself to serious abuse without contacting someone who could help him.” I told about my recent conference with the forensic psychologist, who discussed the importance of not destroying bonding even in dysfunctional homes. “In reuniting families in which abuse (including incest) has occurred, she felt that it can work providing the child is over twelve, that the abuse is out in the open, that the child is old enough and capable of defending himself, the perpetrator has been scared by the legal proceedings, and if the parent and child receive therapy after they are reunited. Cory Stevenson fits exactly into her definition and I believe he has a better chance of success in his home than in any other environment currently available to him.”
After very little further discussion, Judge Donovan ruled that Cory could return home for six months, to be supervised by HRS. He was to continue with his weekly therapy sessions and was permitted to go on a trip to Spokane for two weeks with Alicia to see Tammy.
Cory left the judge’s chambers and fell into the outstretched arms of his grandfather. Red Stevenson came out and shook my hand. Alicia was standing by, in tears. Not only had she lost her criminal case, she had lost the ability to protect her brother.
I walked Cory to the elevator. “Remember the deal!” I said and he gave me a salute as the elevator doors closed.
Then I went back to his sister in the antechamber and said, “Alicia, I know this seems crazy, but this is a step on the journey. Cory won’t last with your father, but he has to learn that for himself.”
“So, now what?” she said, giving me one of her most petulant pouts.
“We’ll go on from here,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “You’ll both visit your mom in Spokane. Then you each can decide where you want to live. Maybe you’ll end up there together.”
“I don’t ever want to leave Ruth,” Alicia said loyally as Mrs. Levy came to her side.
“Then, just like I fought for Cory, I’ll fight for you to remain where you want to stay.”
“You won’t make me go live with my mother?”
“No. You’ll have a visit—a vacation—that’s all. And you won’t even have to do that if you don’t want to, but hey, why pass up a free trip?”
“Do I have to decide that now?”
“No, Alicia, there is plenty of time for that.”
We hugged and she left with Ruth.
Mitzi was standing beside Lillian complaining about having to supervise Mr. Stevenson. “This will never last,” Mitzi warned me.
“I’m not expecting it to,” I said.
“Then why … ?”
“Because Cory has to learn things for himself. Nothing else will work.”
[This was the story as it ended in the first edition of the book, but the tale took a nauseating twist ten years later. See Chapter 8 to learn what happened.]
5
Saying “No” to Never
The Colby Family
Listen to the mustn’ts child Listen to the don’ts Listen to the shouldn’ts The impossibles, the won’ts Listen to the never haves Then listen close to me— Anything can happen, child Anything can be.
—SHEL SILVERSTEIN
THE DAY I WAS IN COURT WAITING TO CLEAR LYDIA RYAN of her unfair criminal charges, I sat through several other dependency cases. Without knowing their background, it was difficult to follow the proceedings, which were conducted in a legal shorthand referring to petitions and motions before the court. My interest was piqued, however, when the bailiff led in a prisoner dressed in pumpkin orange. As he took his seat next to his attorney, the man’s leg shackles clanked against the metal chair frame. A woman sitting nearby with her attorney glared at him.
“The happy parents?” I asked Lillian, who was beside me.
Lillian nodded her head morosely. “They’re the Colby family. HRS calls them the case that won’t go away.”
The agitation at the moment revolved around the parents giving another caretaker a power of attorney in case of a child’s medical emergency. Since a child in regular foster care would be covered by Medicaid, I was confused.
“These Colby children are under the protective services department, not foster care,” Lillian explained. Protective supervision is a court-imposed condition used as a tool to monitor families in crisis, hoping to keep the children out of foster care.
Lillian then explained that the original Guardian ad Litem for the Colby children had moved and she was acting as the guardian until another could be appointed. “Would you mind reading the file and giving me an opinion on what might be done here?” she asked.
Distracted by Lydia’s impending case, I must have nodded in agreement, for the file came in the mail two days later.
There were three Colby sisters: Simone, sixteen; Nicole, fourteen; and Julie, twelve. Currently Simone was living with a family named Baldwin, Nicole with a Mrs. Lamb, and Julie was back with her mother, Lottie Colby Delancy Hunt. During the past six months Julie had also been to the Holy Family Children’s Home in Miami twice, and had also lived with Whitney Sutton, identified as a stepsister; her father, Mervyn “Buddy” Colby; and someone called Mrs. Hopper. Nicole had also been to the same homes and to Miami once. Fortunately Simone had been able to remain in the Baldwin home for more than a year.
“This is ridiculous!” I said furiously when I called Lillian. “Do these girls live out of suitcases? What the hell is going on?”
“It is complicated …,” Lillian responded demurely.
“Well, give me the short course, okay?”
“Did you read the police files yet?”
“No, I am still on the itineraries. How can these girls have anything like a normal life? Why, Julie alone has had four—or is it five?—school transfers this year, and it’s only February.”
“The father and mother have been divorced for about eight years. Custody went to the mother, and she has remarried twice in that time, maybe more than that, I’ve lost track. At least one of the stepfathers, Jeb Delancy, was violent and abusive. He broke one kid’s nose, beat the other with a two-by-four to the point where she was hospitalized, and terrorized the youngest so badly she developed a stutter and an ulcer. Custody then reverted to the father, who has a serious problem with alcohol. He’s incarcerated now on a drunk driving violation, not his first and probably not his last. He’s fine with them, unless he’s drinking, but then he gets mean. He’s beat them so hard with his favorite instrument, electrical cords, that he’s left loop markings on their torsos. Somewhere there should be some Polaroids of the bruises, including one of Simone’s eye swollen shut.”
While Lillian spoke, I thumbed through the file and found an envelope containing the photographs. “Oh, God!” I said. “How could anyone … ?”
Lillian did not reply. Finally, I broke the silence. “Both parents are unfit, right? So, why don’t we terminat
e their parental rights and find these girls a permanent home together somewhere?”
“HRS doesn’t have a foster home that would accept three teenage sisters.”
“What about an adoptive home?”
“Hardly anyone wants to adopt teenagers. It’s rare to place one child, let alone three of them, Gay.”
“Rare! Where have I heard that before?” I snapped. “Supposedly it was ‘rare’ to get a dismissal on a case, but we got one for Lydia. I’ll bet there is a home in this community for three sisters. What are the kids like?”
“Darling, absolutely adorable. I’ve had to resist taking little Julie home myself. They are affectionate, bright, pretty children.”
“Drugs, pregnancy, diseases … ?”
“None.”
“How are they doing in school?”
“Considering the interruptions in their lives, remarkably well.”
“Then, let’s go for broke.”
“But, Gay, you know the system is set up to be adversarial. As soon as you bring up the idea, the lawyers for the parents are going to fight you tooth and nail. Their job will be to protect the ‘rights’ of their clients, and they won’t give a damn about the children’s feelings.”
“Why can’t we change that? These aren’t little contracts, these are children who need love and care and permanency. Let the biological parents continue to provide what little affection they can while allowing someone else to offer the nurturing and home they, for whatever reason, cannot. If a parent does love her children, she will want the best for them. If she doesn’t, then she shouldn’t give a hoot about signing them away.”
“I love your spirit,” Lillian said. There was a long pause, then, “I gather you are accepting the Colby case.”
I laughed. “Did I ever have a choice?”
The moment I read the prodigious file, I decided that these children had been jerked around long enough. It was the Stevensons all over again. The siblings were separated. Each was having more and more severe problems. Nobody was attempting to reunite either the family or the sisters. Soon it would be too late for any of the girls to recover. If this had been one of my first cases, I might have felt the necessity to check everything with each department in HRS, working my way up the ladder from caseworker to supervisor to manager and allowing each the polite amount of time to get back to me. But I was fortified with an overwhelming sense of urgency. These three sisters were waiting to be settled so they could mature and flourish. When children were without a family, they were like potbound plants cramped in portable containers on a shelf.
They needed to be taken home, replanted in a fertile, sunny garden, and nourished before they could grow strong roots, sprout fresh stalks, and begin to flower. Unwilling to take the chance that these tender seedlings might wither away, I plunged right in, taking steps out of order and pursuing some shortcuts and making unorthodox detours.
After another briefing with Lillian, as well as a thorough study of the files, I called the Colbys’ protective services caseworker, Iris Quinones.
“Simone has found herself a lovely home with the Baldwin family,” Iris said in a singsong voice. “Their daughter, Eliza, is Simone’s best friend. Ken Baldwin is a contractor, who built his family a large home on the Brookside Golf Course. Carol Baldwin is a speech therapist specializing in stroke victims. She’s worked with Julie on her stutter with remarkable results. While the Baldwin family has promised to keep Simone until she graduates high school, they also have two younger sons and cannot accept any more children into their home.”
“Do the Baldwins receive any money from the parents or HRS?”
“No, they cover Simone’s expenses personally. Although they have asked the Colbys to contribute a modest amount every month, so far they haven’t received a penny. They even paid for Simone to have some plastic surgery on her eye to repair the damage from one of her father’s attacks.”
“Does Simone have medical insurance?”
“No, none.”
“That means she’s utterly dependent on the kindness of strangers.”
“Yes, and so is Nicole. A neighbor of her mother’s took pity on Nicole when she was beaten a few years ago by her stepfather, and to get her out of the house started taking her to their church, where she met the Lambs. They have an older married daughter living with them while her husband is in the Middle East on a government contract, and they use Nicole to help care for the daughter’s two-year-old child.”
“How does Nicole feel about this arrangement?”
“The last time Nicole lived with her mother, they clashed so much the mother threw her out in the middle of the night. She claims she is willing to put up with the Lambs’ strict rules and her duties as a babysitter to stay there because they are kind to her.”
“Isn’t there something exploitive about it?”
Iris sighed. “She’s known much worse.”
“What about Julie?”
“She started out the school year living with her mother in a trailer on the south side, but then her mother had the big fight with Nicole. Because Lottie didn’t think she could cope with Julie either, she sent her to the Catholic home, but they mostly take in unwed young mothers and girls with addictions, so it was unsuitable for a twelve-year-old, to say the least. Then, when Lottie married Mr. Hunt and moved to his much nicer house in the Sawgrass district a few months later, Holy Name sent her home for a trial visit.”
“How is it going?”
“Hard to say. Julie calls me almost every day after school because she is home alone and doesn’t know anyone in the area.”
“Where’s Mrs. Hunt?”
“She likes to fish. She and her new husband have a bass boat and they spend every spare moment on the various lakes around here.”
“What does Mr. Hunt do?”
“He’s a night watchman at the mall.”
Next, I put in calls to the three children. Two weren’t home, but Nicole, the fourteen-year-old, was. I told her I was her new Guardian ad Litem and asked when it might be convenient to visit her.
“Right now?” she asked in a sugary, yet slightly leery voice.
“Fine with me,” I said, then was delighted to discover the Lambs lived only a few miles from my home.
Fay Lamb opened the door wearing an apron. The house was filled with the aroma of baking apples and cinnamon. Nicole came into the room, greeted me with a tense smile, then curled up on the couch and pulled a knitted afghan over her bare legs. She had gray eyes fringed with thick lashes and long, dark straight hair, pulled back with a series of combs. Her face was ivory, her cheeks blushed pink, but her posture was as tense as an animal trying to choose between fleeing and standing off the intruder.
Nicole listened alertly while Fay Lamb spoke—or rather preached—about the Colbys’ predicament. “It’s a shame the girls cannot live together. They are sisters and it isn’t right. But that mother!” Fay shook her blonde ringlets disapprovingly. “She marries the first man she meets by the docks and thinks more about hooking a fish than feeding her children. And the way she puts down Nicole! I mean she does have what we call her ‘moods.’ We can deal with those, but her mother claims that Nicole is a threat to her safety, which is utterly ridiculous.”
Just then there was a knock on the door. Fay went to get it. When Nicole heard the voices in the foyer, she pulled the blanket over her chin. “That’s my mother!”
Lottie Hunt walked into the room, noticed her daughter huddled under the coverlet but didn’t say a word to her. I stood and introduced myself as the new guardian for “all your children.”
“Didn’t I see you in court?”
“Yes, but I was there for another case. I was assigned to your daughters a few days later.”
Mrs. Hunt opened her purse and removed a paper and showed it to me. “Will you tell Iris that I brought it over like I said I would?” she asked me. I took one look at it and handed it to Fay. It was the power of attorney Mrs. Hunt had been ordered to p
roduce in court. A few weeks earlier, Nicole had fallen getting off the school bus and the Baldwins had wanted her wrist and shoulder x-rayed. Without parental permission, she could not be treated at the emergency room, and no private doctor would see her because there was no insurance. Fortunately, they had been able to locate Mrs. Hunt, and she went to the hospital and signed the papers. “What if it is a more critical problem next time?” Mrs. Baldwin complained to Iris Quinones, who had taken the matter to court to force Mrs. Hunt to comply.
“I hope there won’t be another emergency so these won’t be needed,” I said to fill in the silence. When nobody else spoke, I told Mrs. Hunt that I had been trying to reach her that afternoon to set up an appointment to meet Julie. She said to come the next day after school, then left without another word to Nicole.
Obviously distressed, Nicole went to the bathroom with the blanket still clasped around her shoulders.
“See what I mean?” Mrs. Lamb said as soon as the car backed down the driveway. “How can a mother be so cold to her own daughter?”
“It’s very kind of you to keep Nicole,” I said softly. “But how long can you accept full financial responsibility?”
“My husband and I are talking about it. What with having Stacy—that’s my daughter—and little Stevie here, we don’t have much room. Nicole shares the room with the baby, so she’s a help with him, especially when Stacy works at night, but she should be with her sisters. I can’t take any more in, what with my mom having Alzheimer’s and my church work.”
Nicole returned to the room and leaned against a doorway. After Fay had prattled on for some time about her missionary committees, I asked Nicole to come out to my car so I could give her some phone numbers. She put down the blanket, but as soon as we were outside, she began to shiver. I told Nicole to sit in the car and I turned on the heat. “So, how’s it going?”
