by Amanda Brown
“What?” asked Becca, standing next to the gesturing child. “You want to hold my phone again?”
“Hands!” said Emily, shaking hers. “Watch out for cars!”
Nodding, Becca took the child’s hand. Imitating Becca, Emily slung her purse strap across her chest, Rambo-style, and used her free hand to carry her rolling Barbie suitcase. The ladies were just in from Hong Kong, and Emily felt very important.
Spending the weekend abroad with her new child had taught Becca right away that little Emily Stearns had a constant need for amusement. She talked all the time, interrupting thoughtlessly, eagerly—and, to Becca’s happy surprise, endearingly. Her perspective was hilarious. In the thick of a fairy tale stage, Emily saw the world through the romantic spectacles of a rose-cheeked princess. She didn’t drink from a cup, she sipped from a golden chalice. She didn’t sleep in a bed, she crawled under the shade of a flower petal in a magic garden.
At first, eating the vacuum pack of airline peanuts had only made Emily thirsty, but when Becca suggested the peanuts were enchanted seeds, every crunch of which made an e-mail pop up on Becca’s laptop, Emily finished the pile in ten minutes. She was amazed to see the messages keep flashing on the computer screen, and would have eaten a mountain of magic peanuts until Becca told her the plane had flown out of range for the magic spell. So they got their nails done together, and Becca told Emily about olden times, when there were no airplanes and people were bored to tears all day long.
Edward called out to the child again, and this time Emily heard him.
“Edward!” she exclaimed, rushing to wrap him in a hug. He lifted her in his arms and twirled her until they both were dizzy. An open lipstick—Chanel’s Radical Red—that she clutched in one hand left huge smudges all over the shoulder of his tweed jacket.
Becca cringed, ready to apologize, but she noticed that the man just laughed.
“Becca Reinhart,” she said, peering at him as he introduced himself and shook her hand in greeting. He didn’t seem even a little bit worried about his jacket.
“Edward Kirkland,” he introduced himself. They were even in height, she noticed, returning his gentle smile. His eyes met hers, and then shifted to Emily, whom he held in a long, affectionate embrace. For the past several days he had been exiled in the severest of circumstances, known to nobody but himself and Alice, and he was overjoyed to greet the child he was bound to love and protect. And here, finally, he had lifted her into his arms.
What did Edward Kirkland care, at that moment, about a lipstick stain?
His enthusiasm was extravagant, and Becca relaxed, watching Emily return the warmth of his embrace. The child burrowed her little face into his strong shoulder. When she sat back in his arms, Becca saw that the child beamed with the importance of being met at a big building by a friend of her father’s. The thought that flashed into Becca’s mind surprised her: Maybe Emily needed a dad.
Becca shook her head. What was she thinking? She had done fine without a father. How strange she felt suddenly, how dizzy and unfocused.
“I’m sorry about Amy,” Edward said to her. “You must have been very close.” She felt his hand resting on her arm. Confused, she took a step backward. Was she close to anybody?
“It’s sad,” she stammered, keeping her voice low so Emily would be unaware. “It’s really sad.” She glanced at Emily, who was talking incessantly, describing really fancy dresses and dragons and sticks in the hair and airplane lockers and magic peanuts.
“Does she know?” Edward spoke only loud enough to bridge the distance Becca kept between them.
“Yes—as much as she can grasp, I think.”
Edward perceived that Becca knew exactly how to handle the truth with Emily. He dropped the subject. Bending down, he caught hold of Becca’s luggage to carry it inside. In an instant Becca had pulled it out of his hand.
“What?” She squinted at him in the sunlight. “Do you need something?”
Surprised, Edward shook his head. Setting Emily down on the ground, he picked up the Barbie suitcase and reached for her hand. “Come on, Em,” he said, turning to give Becca a smile. “I’ll carry your Barbie bag.”
Uncertainly, Becca joined them, her bag bumping behind her as they ascended the courthouse steps together. She let Edward carry her bag when he offered again inside the building, feeling the strange pressure of Emily’s eyes upon her, as if seeming to ask, “Why not?”
At once, Becca reached for Emily’s hand. She realized how anxious she was because her free hand felt empty, lifeless without a phone to dial or a suitcase to lug behind her. She had no business with Edward, and at the same time they were about to begin the most personal job-share in the world. She felt awkward, and walked without speaking.
“I like your dress,” Edward complimented Emily.
“It’s called a kimo-jo,” Emily bragged, sticking out her stomach to show Edward the purple embroidered dragon that chased the princess with the sticks in her hair.
They laughed, letting Emily’s neutrality relax them. Together the threesome entered courtroom eleven. Becca and Emily sat down while Edward found a place to put the suitcases. Becca’s phone rang, but she left it alone. She cringed to hear it ring unanswered, biting her lip with frustration. The judge might start any minute. For this, she thought, looking at the judge’s austere wooden bench, her call would have to wait.
Emily stuck out her hand to answer the phone, but Becca shook her head. She smiled, seeing her own impatience mirrored in the child’s demand to know who was calling. Did she act like a four-year-old, she wondered? She was going to find out. Hopefully she turned off the phone, leaving the vibrating signal off.
“Later,” she promised. “We have our special meeting first, remember?”
Emily rolled her eyes, but Becca had promised her candy, and she smiled with anticipation when Becca tapped her bag of sugary treats.
“For well-behaved little girls,” she said.
“When?” asked Emily.
“Soon,” Becca promised.
Emily thought of the lollipops. “A rainbow one?”
Becca nodded. “Two,” she whispered, smiling. Emily was so easy to be nice to. While Emily clapped her hands and promised to be perfect, Becca handed her a Ziploc bag of crayons and a pad of graph paper.
“Draw funny pictures of everybody in the room,” she whispered to Emily.
Emily giggled and looked around for a good target.
Edward returned from the back of the courtroom, where he had stowed the suitcases, and noticed with approval the activities Becca had brought along for Emily. He wouldn’t have thought of that. She’s four, he reminded himself, feeling some apprehension as he realized that she probably didn’t play squash yet. He tickled the back of her neck with his fingers.
Judge Lillian Warfield Jones entered the courtroom.
“Draw the judge with a moustache,” Becca whispered to Emily, who giggled and got quickly to work. Becca stood next to Edward as the judge walked across the room, her quick, firm steps echoing on the wood floor. Judge Jones was known for tight control of the courtroom. She disposed of cases quickly and dispassionately.
With a bang of the gavel, Judge Jones called the court into session, and the parties took their seats.
Edward was surprised to feel a wave of apprehension rising within him. The black-robed judge, the seal of New York, the witness stand, the bailiff: The hallmarks of law’s binding presence hit him at once with their compulsory force.
He felt suddenly short of breath, and reminded himself he had been chosen for this day. His friend Arthur had believed he was the right person to take care of Emily; he had left his child to him, Edward thought, squaring his shoulders. He really had no excuse not to accept the responsibility. He was old enough, he was rich enough, he had no real personal commitments that would interfere with Emily’s needs. He felt Emily’s head rest trustingly against his shoulder when he hugged her on the street. He looked back to see her coloring, and the oblig
ation of parenthood hit him like a train.
He glanced nervously at Becca, who flashed him a wide, confident smile.
“Look alive, Eddie, it’s our big day,” she whispered.
He laughed, taking strength from her self-assurance.
The guardianship matter was scheduled to be heard and decided first. The wills were not contested, and the guardians, whose identity was not questioned, were present. The judge moved directly to the next step, parental fitness testing by a court-appointed psychologist. Setting aside forty-five minutes for testing and evaluation, a half hour for lunch, and another half hour for the discussion session with the counselor, the judge adjourned the proceeding. Boom.
Becca was impressed as she exited the courtroom. This was drive-through justice at its best. Her inner taxpayer was well satisfied.
Together in the hallway, Edward and Becca walked for a minute in silence. Emily had an interview scheduled with the court psychologist. After that her temporary nanny was coming to sit with her while Edward and Becca saw the court psychologist.
She turned toward Edward with a sudden smile. He wore a distant expression and walked without noticing her.
She shrugged, reached into her Hogan bag and withdrew her mobile phone.
He smiled then, noticing her. Digging his hands into the pockets of his wool gabardine trousers, he turned his eyes straight ahead and walked silently into the examining room.
CHAPTER 8
Sunday Starter
Inside the courtroom, the psychologist, the judge, and the representative from Stearns & Fielding stayed in their seats. Dr. Gail Erikson, the child psychologist, approached the witness chair where Emily was already seated. Emily’s eyes were wide and her mind was full of adventure. The location of the witness box was a particular delight to her. She pretended she was trapped in a tower surrounded by a crocodile-filled moat, where she had to answer questions put by an evil princess until her beautiful fairy godmother came to rescue her.
“We need to learn a few things about your friends Becca and Edward,” Dr. Erikson began. “Would you mind answering some questions for me, dear?”
“Why?” Emily wanted to know.
“You can help us,” cooed the psychologist.
“I can?”
“Sure you can. Your feelings are important to us. We have to decide what’s in your best interest.”
“What do you mean, ‘interest’?”
“What’s best for you.”
The psychologist changed tactics for a minute, complimenting Emily’s purse, her shiny kimono, her beautiful hair. When she felt the child had been lulled by enough small talk, she pounced.
“What do you think of Becca?”
“She’s great!” Emily bubbled with enthusiasm. “She’s so much fun. She wore a kimo-jo in the hotel that was all purple, like a magical fairy princess! We had a great time. We put feathers in our hair and called room service. She put me on the handles of her bike too, and we went so fast! All over Hong Kong, up and down the hills!” She puffed her cheeks out like a frog. “We ate soooo much rice,” she said importantly.
Dr. Erikson moved her hands like waves, inviting the child to go on.
Pausing, Emily remembered the super-cool “first” that Becca had contributed to her life. She puffed out her chest and bragged: “I flew to Hong Kong with her on business. Across the ocean. And I wasn’t even scared.”
The psychologist raised one eyebrow. This was the first clue Dr. Erikson had that Ms. Reinhart might be inclined to take too many risks with this recently traumatized young child. Perhaps Mr. Kirkland should assume the major portion of custody. All she said to Emily was “Lovely.”
“It was great,” Emily said. “I love peanuts. I think I ate…five hundred! Or five hundred five hundred!” Emily bragged, spreading her arms wide.
The judge bit back a chuckle while Dr. Erikson nodded her head with a frozen smile.
“I know you haven’t been together for very long,” the doctor said gently, “but can you tell us anything you’ve learned from your friend Becca?”
“Sure. She taught me how to eat with chopsticks. And karate chop!” Emily sliced the air and made a scary face to show she was a fierce dragon fighter.
“Wonderful,” said the psychologist, but Emily didn’t hear her. She was karate chopping the air with wild swats, imagining that the big Chinese dragons were all around, and her chops were turning them into glitter. When she had settled breathlessly into her seat, Dr. Erikson resumed the conversation.
“Has Becca taught you anything else?”
Emily took the bait eagerly. It had been an exciting few days. She wanted to tell them all the cool things Becca had shown her.
“She showed me how to make pictures of myself on the Xerox. Look!” Emily dug around in her Barbie suitcase, which she had pulled up to the witness box with her, in case she got any e-mails, she said. She pulled out several pieces of paper.
“This is my ear. That’s my chopsticks in an X. That’s my butt!”
Emily laughed and laughed, her shoulders wiggling with delight, as she held up the page. “See? I have a heart on my jeans pocket. See there?”
The psychologist frowned. “How artistic,” she attempted.
Emily smiled.
“Has Becca taught you anything, perhaps, in the category of early childhood development?”
“What?” Emily asked.
“In English,” Judge Jones reminded her.
“Any big learning ideas?”
“I already told you that,” snapped Emily. “When is Becca coming back?”
“Any colors?” persisted Dr. Erikson.
“I already know my colors.”
“Okay,” the psychologist nodded, “good. Can I do a little game with you?”
Emily nodded.
The psychologist pointed to her yellow-green scarf.
“What color is this?”
“Chartreuse,” Emily answered. “And it looks bad with your face.”
This time the judge actually released a tiny chuckle as Dr. Erikson stumbled for a moment on her next question.
Emily noticed that she was having an effect with her answer about the colors, so she went on.
“Becca gave me a scarf on the plane. She tied it on me. It was called a sarong. It was tangerine, with melon stripes. She never wears it, she said. She got it at a wedding party. So she gave it to me!” Emily clapped her hands. Her eyes sparkled.
“How charming,” said Dr. Erikson, still smarting from the child’s comment about her scarf.
“How old are you?”
“I don’t know,” Emily said with a careless shrug. “How old are you?”
Dr. Erikson gulped.
The psychologist reviewed her file and recalled that the child was four. Some kids do numbers at four, but not all. “How would you like to count to ten with me?”
“I can do my numbers in French. Un, deux, trois,” Emily began.
“Good!” The child psychologist beamed. French. That was something.
“Did Becca teach you that?”
“No! Becca calls it ‘frog talk.’ But Eddie knows it. He says I am très bien.”
“Charming.”
“I can hop like a frog,” Emily announced, springing up at once to demonstrate.
“Not here, dear.”
“Becca lets me do it wherever I want,” the child answered, her arms crossed defiantly.
“How nice. She seems permissive.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means she lets you do what you want,” Dr. Erikson explained, trying to hide her disapproval under the shallow ring of an affirming, preschool-teacher voice.
“Nuh-uh,” said Emily. “I wanted to show everybody at the good-bye dinner my days of the week wheel, but she said I shouldn’t.”
“Oh, too bad. What’s your days of the week wheel?” she prodded.
“It’s what Becca gave me to teach me the days of the week.”
“That’s
wonderful. And very advanced for four.”
“I forget them sometimes,” Emily admitted. “But then I check the wheel. Becca says I can have the wheel until I get them all in my mind. Then I don’t need it anymore. Anyway I can’t hurt anything with it, she says. It’s all empty.”
“Empty?”
“Yeah!” Emily dug around in her Barbie suitcase, glad she brought it to the stand. She had so much to show off. She pulled out a round, green birth-control dispenser. The pills were all gone, but the days of the week were prominently featured on stickers.
“See?” Emily said, holding the dispenser in the air with a proud smile.
“This kind is a ‘Sunday Starter,’” Emily said importantly. “So we start with Sunday as the first day. Ready? Sunday, Monday, Toosday, Wens-day, Tursday, Friday, Sataday, and then”—she twisted the wheel—“see—it goes back again. I can read the letters, so that’s my hint. I see an S…” she explained her method, but her little voice fell on deaf ears.
Dr. Erikson stared wide-eyed at Emily’s day-counting device. The courtroom had fallen quiet, except for the bailiff, who had trouble stifling his laughter.
“A birth-control dispenser,” Judge Jones whispered under her breath. “How unorthodox.”
Marge Hannock, the court reporter, had heard worse in thirty years of witness testimony. She shrugged her wise, square shoulders.
“What’s the big deal?” she said to the bailiff. “It’s empty.”
Emily was still explaining her method.
“Also I can use the colors if I forget. On Becca’s full one, the yellow ones are in Monday…”
“Enough, please,” the psychologist said, in firmer a tone than she intended. More gently, she added. “Becca won’t want you to tell all her secrets.”
“Oh, she won’t care,” replied Emily with a happy shrug. “She doesn’t care what people think about her. That’s what she told me in Hong Kong, when I wanted my food plain.”
The psychologist saw an opening to gather more information.
“I see. Can you tell us what happened? Did you get your food ‘plain’?”
“Sure did. Rice, rice, rice. And then fortune cookies. It was great!”
