by Lynne Hugo
“What on earth?” she said, opening the storm door.
“I have a summons for Cora Laster, and one for Alexis O’Gara,” he said, his face and voice a practiced neutral.
“A what?” Cora said, chilled by quick fear and the cold that hit her face and bare arms through the open storm door.
“A summons, ma’am. Are you Cora or Alexis?”
“I’m Cora Laster. Wait. She’s a child.”
“I wouldn’t know about that, ma’am. I just deliver these. Please sign at the line marked with the X. It’s just to show that you received it. Is Alexis O’Gara here?”
“I told you, she’s a child, she’s in school.”
“Would you be her parent or guardian?”
“Yes.”
“Then her summons goes to you anyway.”
“I don’t want these…what’s it for?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. But you don’t have a choice. A summons means you have to appear.”
Cora hesitated longer, biting her lip. The sheriff extended a clipboard toward her, and she saw he wasn’t going to leave without her signing his paper and taking the folded ones he pushed at her again.
She signed her name with the black pen he handed her. The sheriff tipped his hat and said, “You have a good day now, ma’am,” as Cora shut the door. She leaned against the wall to steady herself.
“Who is it, Mom?” Rebecca called in from the dining-room floor. Then, again, “Mom? Who is it?” When Cora didn’t answer, Rebecca came down the hall quickly. She was wearing baggy black slacks and what looked to be a maternity shirt. Her hair hung unwashed around her shoulders. For a moment, as she came through the darkness of the hall, she appeared ghostly to Cora, as if there were no help for her, for any of them.
“A…summons. It was a sheriff.”
“A summons to what?”
“Some kind of court. I…have to read it.”
Rebecca snatched the papers from Cora’s hand. “Oh, my God. This says Alexis O’Gara.”
“Let me see one of them,” Cora said, and extended her hand.
Still reading, Rebecca handed the other summons to Cora.
“In the matter of Alexander O’Gara versus Cora Laster, regarding custody of the minor child Alexis O’Gara, you are commanded to appear in the Court of Domestic Relations of Pender County on March 30, 1993, at one o’clock.”
“What does that mean?” Cora said.
“It means Alex is suing for custody of Lexie.” Rebecca felt a small triumph, and she didn’t quite keep it out of her voice: See? I told you.
“He can’t do that. Christine left her to me. I’m her guardian.”
“You’d better be putting a call into that lawyer of yours.”
“Don’t say anything to Lexie. Let me talk to her. I’ll fight this. Christine’s will is clear as glass.” Cora’s heart was beating in her ears, fast, hard, scared. She knew enough to know that Alexander O’Gara had no business with his daughter.
BRENDA DUNLAP HAD BEEN in court when Cora placed her distress call and had gone home from there, not even calling in to pick up messages. She knew about Alex’s suit, but thought the summons couldn’t go out for another day. “Dammit to hell,” she muttered the next morning when she rifled through the sheaf of little white phone message slips the secretary had left under the paperweight on her desk. They had fallen one at a time, like petals plucked from a daisy, until she got to the last two, both from Cora Laster asking about the summons she’d received. Those she held, shaking her head in frustration. “Susan,” she called through her open office door. “Would you hold my calls a while? I’ve got to do damage control.” Then she sat down, took a drink of her coffee, opened the window a crack because the heat—coming from old forced-air registers—made her mouth too dry, and dialed Cora’s number.
“Mrs. Laster? This is Brenda Dunlap returning your call.” She smoothed the sleeve of her gray suit with her other hand, wedging the phone between her ear and her shoulder, letting the awkward position cause a little pain. “Well, it seems we have a problem…Yes, ma’am, I do know. I’m so sorry I didn’t call you in time.”
THE COURTHOUSE WAS nearly a hundred years old. Parts of it had been renovated but even those showed almost thirty years of wear. A high, columned building, its main outside doors opened onto the second floor. Cora had had to stop twice to catch her breath before she and Lexie reached the top. “This puts me in mind of a bad dream,” she panted once, when she stopped and propped herself between the railing and her cane just to breathe. “Like when you’re trying to wake up and it’s like you’re trying to climb out of it. Ever had that happen?”
The truth was that, since her mother’s death, Lexie had had exactly that happen a number of times. But she’d not give her grandmother the satisfaction of having something in common with her. “No,” she answered, and drew her chin back and raised her eyebrows slightly, an expression to suggest Cora was perhaps just a tad insane.
They’d had an argument that morning, and its residue hung on like a frightened skunk’s passing. Lexie had tried on three separate outfits. When she asked Cora to iron a fourth one, Cora’s patience evaporated, and her tone had a serrated edge when she said, “I’ve done all the ironing I’m about to do. What’s going on here? I thought you never wanted to lay eyes on this bottom feeder.”
“How can you say that? I hate him. I just don’t want to look like a dork in public. You could at least help me. It’s not like I have any decent clothes anymore,” Lexie said, her voice too loud to be respectful in Cora’s opinion.
“If you don’t have any decent clothes, how come my credit card is over four hundred dollars and there’s all these rags lying around that you want ironed?”
It was the first time the tension between them had separated, like grease from pan drippings, and Cora had recognized a chance to skim off the bad and make a little gravy. “Honey, we’ve got no call to be at each other. We’re in this together. We’ve got to help each other through. It’s you and me, kid,” she’d said, her tone light and kind at once as she opened her arms and stepped toward Lexie.
But Lexie only tolerated the hug. Her grandmother was way off the mark. Her only interest in her father was to make him eat shit and die when he saw what he’d run off and left when she was hardly born and her twin hardly dead.
Now, though, entering the building, the notion of seeing her father had hollowed out the center of her indignation, leaving space for a strange, guilty fear. She held the heavy door for her grandmother and followed her in, shielding herself behind Cora’s large, cane-wielding body widened by the flare of a gray cloth coat. Lexie let Cora lead the way, even knowing Cora had as little idea as she where Hearing Room 204 might be. Lexie walked behind Cora at just enough distance to make it indistinguishable whether the two were together or not. Her father would recognize her grandmother, though certainly not her, she knew. She kept her eyes down.
Cora looked around the wide hallway that served as a lobby. Wooden benches full of people edged the walls. Most were in blue jeans and baseball caps, a few more formally dressed. Now and then, a man in a dark suit with a muted tie, good haircut and shined shoes, or a woman in a business suit, understated jewelry and mid-height heels walked purposefully down the center of the floor where millions of footsteps had worn a track into the tile. Cora peered through the bottom of her glasses at the numbers printed on plaques one side of each closed door.
Brenda Dunlap appeared then, through a door farther down the hall and gestured. “There you are,” she said when they approached. “I’m glad you’re early. Would you like to wait in an attorney-client room? It would be more private.” She glanced around at the people seated on the benches, and Cora understood Alex might be one of them.
“Please,” Cora said.
Cora and Lexie followed Brenda’s fitted gray suit down the hall, Cora trying to use peripheral vision to look for Alex, and Lexie studying the floor.
“This is supposed to be only for atto
rney-client consultations,” Brenda said, opening a door into a narrow hallway with several more doors on each side, “but, well, sometimes it can be difficult to have to look at someone in the hallway while you wait. I’ll come get you when they call us.”
“What are you going to say?” Cora asked.
“We’ll demonstrate that Mr. O’Gara effectively abandoned Alexis as an infant, and try to demonstrate that prior to abandoning her, he wasn’t a fit parent.” Brenda glanced at Cora to see if her oblique reference to the lack of the full story had been received, but Cora’s expression didn’t change from terrified determination. “We’ll enter Christine’s will and the appointment of a guardian into evidence—of course, the guardianship was already taken care of, you remember, at the same time we handled the will—anyway, we’ll ask the court to terminate his parental rights. That’ll clear the way for the adoption to proceed. Alexis, do you have any questions?”
“Will I have to say anything?” The girl was pale, Brenda noted, her eyes an unusual light blue with long black eyelashes beneath heavy brows. Maybe it was just the thin light from the small, high window, but Alexis looked almost ephemeral. I hope she’s got some backbone, Brenda thought, wondering how thoroughly she should warn her clients about the possibilities of loss. Today was only a pre-trial hearing, unless some agreement was reached.
“Not today,” she said, noticing Lexie deflate a little as she registered the answer. “The judge might ask you some questions himself sometime, but not the other attorney. Not this time…this is what’s called a pre-trial. Today, you won’t even come in. The other attorney issued a subpoena, but I’ll get that quashed. It’s improper with a minor in a custody issue, unless the judge wants to talk to her himself. It’s just harassment, and not something the judge will put up with.”
“I have to come back?” Lexie interrupted, looking panicky.
“It could happen,” Brenda answered. “Anything could happen. Try not to worry. We’ll handle it.” She wished the hearty confidence that propped up her voice and smile were real. But she’d advised Cora at first to let it alone, so her conscience was nearly clear.
LEXIE AND CORA WAITED over an hour for the case to be called. Brenda had left them alone to fidget and worry, make small, flat conversations and then lapse into silence. Then Brenda came back. She smiled without it ever reaching her eyes and said, “Cora? We’re ready. Lexie, you can stay here. You’re not to appear today.”
The hearing room was nothing like what Cora had expected, her private vision having been shaped by the movies where robed judges presided from raised mahogany benches and a uniformed bailiff intoned “All rise” when the judge entered from a private door behind his bench. Instead, it was an unadorned, high-ceilinged room, windowless, a nondescript beige. Three large, marred conference tables took up most of the space, two of them arranged side by side—with several feet of space left between them—facing the third which was centered, and about ten feet away. A tape recorder lay on the single desk, a cassette tape alongside it. The two tables each had four chairs lined up on one side, to face the person who would sit at the single chair behind the other table.
“This is the court?” Cora whispered to Brenda.
“This is the court. That’s Reardon Greevy, Alex’s attorney,” she added, nodding toward a tall, good-looking man who’d come in seconds after they had. “I haven’t been on any cases against him, he’s an out-of-towner. Brett says he’s good, though. He has a reputation, perfectly willing to play dirty. We’ll see. We’ve got a decent draw with the judge—not exactly Mr. Personality, but he’s usually fair.”
“Brett?”
“Brett Fuller, one of my partners.”
“Where’s Alex?” asked Cora.
“He’s here, I imagine.”
Brenda set a brown leather briefcase on the table and opened it. She pulled out a long manila file and as she turned its pages one at a time, Cora studied her. How young Brenda’s hands looked, nails short and manicured with clear polish. No rings. A simple, leather-strap watch. But the skin was unwrinkled, almost like Lexie’s hands. Cora snuck a look at Brenda’s face, not more than a foot from her own, in bent profile. No lipstick, but a little eye makeup behind her glasses. A small face with small, regular features. Cora wondered how she could have trusted Lexie’s future to someone who probably dyed the gray streaks into her hair to make her look old enough to practice law.
Lately, Cora’s own glimpses into any mirror had been almost startling. Her eyes and cheeks and chin all had heavier pouches than she thought should be there. Often she hardly recognized herself, the discrepancy between the young woman she was in her head and the old one whose face and hands looked more and more like those of Cora’s mother, dead twenty-one years. Errant hairs jutted from her chin; she plucked them with a vengeance, remembering how her mother hadn’t.
How had all this happened? As she waited next to her attorney, Cora felt bewildered that she could be sitting in a courtroom trying to retain custody of her dead daughter’s daughter. She’d never been in court for so much as a traffic ticket. She and Marvin had planned their lives. They’d made decisions. Some of the decisions had stood, oak-like in their apparent permanence, while others seem to have been the laughingstock of fate. We have control of our lives, all right, she thought. Some anyway. The trick is you never know when you have it and when you don’t. You have to assume you’re in charge of at least your own life, and as often as not, something else entirely takes over and you find yourself in a funeral parlor or a courtroom or someplace else you had no intention to be.
Cora didn’t even notice at first when her former son-in-law slid into a seat next to his attorney on the far side from her. She was mapless in the forest of her thoughts.
THAT NIGHT, CORA lay on her side in the dark beside Lexie, on Lexie’s bed where the girl faced Cora fully for the first time since Christine died. Though her arms were bent at the elbow, the pull of Cora’s arms around her back pressing her hands like flowers against her chest, her head nested of its own accord between Cora’s breasts, and if she moved at all, it was to draw closer to her grandmother for the visceral sense of her protection. Cora used her free arm to rub Lexie’s back. “Shh, shh, it will be all right, we’ll beat it, shh, honey, it will be all right. I’m here,” Cora whispered. As unforeseen and as unbelievable as the spring tornado that had ripped the roof from their house five years before Marvin died, a gavel had fallen after a judge consulted a manila file and declared that Alex O’Gara was the legal father of Alexis Marie O’Gara and that, as such, custody of the minor child would automatically revert to him due to the death of the custodial parent, Christine Laster O’Gara.
“Objection, Your Honor.” Brenda had been on her feet. “This is a pre-trial. We intend to show that Mr. O’Gara is not a fit par…”
“Save your objection for trial, Counsel. You are, of course, free to refer this to social services for investigation, but in this court, we don’t terminate a man’s parental rights without there being proof of unfitness.” The judge’s eyes were close-set, Cora saw. He was a man she would have disliked just meeting him in line at the grocery.
“If it please the Court, the minor child has had no contact with Mr. O’Gara for fifteen years. As is noted in the brief, Mrs. Laster was named guardian in the mother’s will…”
“Save it, Counselor. That provision is null and void unless Mr. O’Gara is shown to be presently incompetent. Are you prepared to offer such proof today?”
“Your Honor, it was our understanding that…”
“I’ll take that as a no. Do you wish to file any motions on behalf of Mrs. Laster at this time?” The judge interrupted without even looking up.
“I certainly do, Your Honor.”
Brenda had filed a motion for a stay of execution. Of course, the court had just called it a temporary order that Alexis remain with Cora until social services could conduct an investigation regarding her best interest in the matter of permanent custody. It was L
exie who had called it a stay of execution when Brenda explained to her what had happened.
Cora and Lexie had walked out together, reeling, and ridden home in silence for an entirely new reason.
Now Cora listened and comforted and soothed, not even trying, yet, to review in her mind all Brenda had told her. She circled with her palm, letting her fingers define the separate, delicate muscles that crisscrossed Lexie’s back, and the ladder of her ribs. How fragile it all is, she thought, how losable, and how much suffering comes with the loss, and still, we love like this, this unbearably much.
eight
I HATE HIM. I HATE him more than Hitler, geometry, Frank Vallus The Biggest Jerk in the School, a whole summer at Camp Tree-branch, and clarinet lessons. Take Grandma’s lima beans, her disgusting meat loaf, her fried rubber-chicken steak, and her fisheyes vanilla tapioca pudding, and roll it all into a giant burrito and I’d rather eat that than have anything to do with my father. The only thing I hate more than him is my mom being dead. I hate my mom being dead the most of anything I’ve ever hated in my life. Sometimes I used to tell her that I hated her when we’d have a fight and I was mad. I never really hated her, but I told her I did, and now there’s nothing I can do about it.
I saw him at court. He didn’t see me, he’s too stupid to know where to look, but I saw his skinny ass. He looks like a piece of rope. I wish he’d make a noose out of himself and tighten it real good around his own neck. I mainly saw his back and what he looks like sideways when he was walking out with his lawyer. Our lawyer had us wait until he left, but the door was part open and I stood behind it and looked out the crack. He’s got dark hair like me (note: buy bleach). It’s short, and he’s got real white skin, I think, but his cheeks were blackish looking. Probably he forgot to shave. His shoulders are kind of hunched, and he’s pretty short. Not like a dwarf, but I don’t think he’s a lot taller than Mom was. She was taller than me, I remember that much. He had on a jacket that was too big, I mean, his fingers barely hung out, and a tie that was so long it could have got caught in his fly.
