Custody (16 page)

Merry went out. Judge Spriggs chugged down her coffee like a frat boy draining a bottle of beer, grabbed her robe from the closet, nodded to Kelly to don a robe as well, and announced, “Show time.”

Judge Spriggs led the way into the courtroom and up behind the judge’s bench. The court officer had already brought up another chair for Kelly, placed next to Spriggs’s. In a baritone
voice that would part waters, he announced, “Hear ye, Hear ye, Hear ye. All rise. Court’s in session. The Honorable Marjorie Spriggs presiding. God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Turn off your cell phones and pagers.”

Kelly sat looking out at the courtroom, for the first time behind the judge’s bench rather than before it. The large, beautiful room with its high ceilings, brass lamps, blue and gold walls, was packed.

“Good morning,” Judge Spriggs greeted the courtroom. “We’ve got a new judge with us this morning. Judge MacLeod. She’ll be helping me out, so you’ll get double your money. Let’s go. Who’s up first?”

The clerk reached up to hand Judge Spriggs a folder and then read the docket number, the name of the case:
Hodges
vs.
Hodges
, and the cause of action: contempt.

“They’re both
pro se
, Your Honor,” the clerk said.

“Okay, come up here,” Judge Spriggs directed, waving her hands toward her chest.

The couple who approached the witness stand made Kelly think of the old nursery rhyme about Jack Sprat who could eat no fat and his wife who could eat no lean. The moon-faced woman covered her nearly three hundred pounds with a shapeless gray garment. Her ex-husband creaked up on toothpick legs encased in worn but clean jeans and a short-sleeved white shirt from which his thin arms protruded like twigs.

Register Wickes swore them in.

“Okay,” Judge Spriggs said. “What’s going on?”

“Your Honor, when my wife and I were divorced two months ago, I was given weekly visitation rights so I could see our son. Well, it’s been two months, and I haven’t been able to have him over at my place yet. That’s not right.”

The judge peered down at the woman. “Mrs. Hodges?”

The young woman wrung her hands together. “Judge, Keanu is just a little baby. He’s too young to be away from his mother.”

Judge Spriggs flipped through the papers in her folder. “How old is this child?”

“He’s eighteen months old, Your Honor,” Mr. Hodges replied. “He’s walking.”

“Tell me about your home situation, Mr. Hodges.”

“I work five days a week at the Mobil station, but I get weekends off, and I could take care of my little boy in my house then. I’ve got a room set up for him, his own little bed. New sheets. Toys and everything. Also, I’ve got a girlfriend now, and she could help me with Keanu.”

At the mention of the girlfriend, Mrs. Hodges burst into tears. “Don’t take my baby away
from me, Judge! He shouldn’t be separated from his mother!”

Judge Spriggs looked down at Mrs. Hodges. “Tell me about your situation, Mrs. Hodges.”

“I live with my mother and father. I don’t work because I want to take care of my little boy twenty-four/seven. I told Harry if he wants to come see Keanu he can come to my house.”

“Well, Mrs. Hodges, it does say here in the divorce papers that Mr. Hodges gets twenty-four hours a week to have his son at his house. That’s only fair.”

“But Keanu is only a little baby!”

“No, he’s a toddler, and he needs to spend some time with his father. And you know what, Mrs. Hodges?” Judge Spriggs lowered her voice seductively. “You need some time off. If you’ve been taking care of your baby twenty-four/seven for eighteen months, you’ve got to be exhausted. You need some time for yourself. You can go out and see a movie, go shopping with a friend, or just use the time to kick back and relax. It would be good for all of you.”

Mrs. Hodges sniffled.

“Now Mr. Hodges is way behind in his time with this child, so I’m going to order that he have the child every Wednesday night for the next month. Does that suit you, Mr. Hodges?”

“That’s fine, Your Honor.”

Mrs. Hodges wailed.

“Mrs. Hodges,” Judge Spriggs said, “I hope you understand how lucky you are to have the father interested in your little boy. I can’t tell you how many cases I see where the child has a father who won’t pay child support or even see the child. I want you to think about something: Do you hate your ex-husband more than you love your child?”

Mrs. Hodges swayed on her tiny feet as she contemplated the question. It seemed almost beyond her comprehension. At last she whimpered tentatively, “No?”

“That’s the right answer.” Judge Spriggs looked over at the scrawny father. “Mr. Hodges, I hope you will be as helpful as possible in making this situation comfortable for Mother.”

“Yes, Your Honor, I will.”

“Mrs. Hodges,” Judge Spriggs said, steel entering her voice, “I don’t want to see the two of you back in my courtroom because you haven’t let your husband have access to his son. I don’t want to have to fine you or put you in jail for contempt of court. You understand?”

Pouting, the woman nodded.

“All right,” Judge Spriggs said. “Now I hope the two of you can go off and cooperate. You’ve got the best interest of your little boy to keep in the forefront of your thoughts. Okay,
good luck.”

As the couple went off, Judge Spriggs leaned over to Kelly. “If they come back, they’ll have to go to the court clinic. But sometimes they really need to hear it from a judge. No matter how trivial or tiresome it might seem, especially at the end of a long day, each case has to be heard as if it’s the most important one around.”

Kelly nodded.

“Okay,” Judge Spriggs snapped. “What’s next?”

The day ripped past. They dealt with matters of motions to compel production of documents, motions for temporary orders, and uncontested divorces which, as “amicable” as divorces could be, still aroused powerful emotions. One woman stood before the bench in taut, fiercely controlled dignity, while tears streamed down her ashen face. Another time, the husband standing before them seemed to age years within minutes as he acknowledged in a strained voice that yes, their marriage was irretrievably broken. His face turned gray, his lips blue, and his shoulders slumped forward—his entire body seemed to cave in as his married life crumbled and officially, legally, dissolved.

This was not a new sight to Kelly, but it was always hard. Sitting on the bench provided her with quite a different picture of the proceedings than representing a client on a case had done. She could witness a defendant blushing, or cringing; she could see a plaintiff drop his eyes, bite his nails, or attempt to hide all traces of emotion, only to give it away by the muscle that clenched and unclenched along his jaw.

After one day on the bench she realized that even the wisest, most sympathetic person couldn’t solve all the problems that came before them. An impoverished mother, divorced, with three small children, came to ask the court to give custody of those children to her ex-husband, their father, because she was ill with cancer and would not have the energy, with various treatments, to care for the children. But the father was a drug addict and an alcoholic, barely capable of taking care of himself. He pleaded with the court not to be given custody; he was afraid the stress of having to care for three small children in his straitened circumstances, in his small apartment over a sporting-goods store, would drive him back to drink and drugs. Neither party had parents or siblings who could help out. “Let’s ease into this with baby steps,” Judge
Spriggs decided, ordering the father to take care of the children two days and one night a week for the next month, after which they’d review the situation again. Kelly didn’t think she could have come up with a wiser ruling.

By eight o’clock on Wednesday morning, Randall was in the elevator at Mt. Auburn Hospital, on his way down. He’d just finished his rounds and was wondering whether or not to stop somewhere for a decent breakfast. Right now, he was running on caffeine and sugar, and he had a full schedule ahead at his office. His stomach rumbled and burned. Crankily he ruminated on the knowledge that he was no longer a young man who could go all day on coffee fumes and last night’s lonely microwaved “man-size” prepackaged meal.

He really was going to have to change his life. Find more time for Tessa. More time for himself. Stop burying himself in his work and rushing through whatever it was that he called his private life.

The elevator dinged, stopped, and the doors slid open. One woman waited, the crisp lines of her white nurse’s uniform unable to disguise her generous curves.

When she saw Randall, her dark eyes went wide.

“Randall.” She started to step inside the elevator and then hesitated, biting her lip.

“Lacey. Hello.” Randall was almost as unnerved to see her as she was to see him. “Going down?”

“Um.” Her hand went to her throat. She laughed uneasily. “Yes.” Taking a deep breath, Lacey Corriea stepped into the elevator. The automatic doors slammed against her arms, then popped back, wide open, leaving Randall and Lacey together, side by side, staring out at the empty hallway. For what Randall thought must surely be the only time in the hospital’s history no one else was racing to catch the elevator, no orderly with a stretcher or wheelchair, no doctor, nurse, visiting relative. The elevator floor shuddered slightly beneath them, its cables humming. They might have been alone on the moon. Or in a private room.

It seemed like an eternity before the doors slid shut and the elevator clunked, shuddered, and organized itself to descend.

Randall smiled at Lacey, who was sweet and young and beautiful. He couldn’t help but remember with gratitude the nights he’d spent burrowing into her generous warmth. He had not
enjoyed his year of lonely, celibate nights. “So. How have you been?”

“Fine.” She cleared her throat. “You?”

“All right.”

“How do you like surgery?” It had been twelve months since he had ended their affair, and Lacey, heartbroken, unable to face him every day, had moved from the geriatric floor.

“It’s pediatrics, Randall,” she corrected.

“Ah, right.” He could tell by her expression that it hurt her that he hadn’t remembered where she’d transferred. He hated it that anything he said or did still had the power to wound her. She’d changed her hair since he’d last seen her. The flyaway curls were gone, in their place a severe bell. “I like your haircut,” he offered.

“Oh.” She blinked and touched her hair with her hand. “Thanks.”

The elevator stopped on the second level. The doors slid open. No one was there. Damn, Randall thought silently, this was way too intimate. He was uncomfortably aware of her body beneath the uniform. Proximity sparked an image: luscious Lacey, naked, a fragrant, giving cushion a man could sink into forever.

He remembered Lacey’s bedroom. Like her entire apartment, it was decorated in pastels and inhabited by what seemed like a million baby dolls and stuffed animals. Lacey wanted children, lots of children. She was proud of her full breasts and deep hips. They were perfect, she said, for babies.

“How about a drink some time?” Lacey asked brightly.

He smiled gently, looking at her mouth, not wanting to meet her eyes. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, really.”

She laughed. “Oh, come on. It’s just a drink.”

He shook his head. “I’m straight out.”

“What about Friday night?”

“I’m busy, Lacey.”

“Come on.” She laughed, and her laugh was the way he remembered, as intoxicating as a good burgundy wine. “Let me prove I know how to be grown up. Just a drink between friends. Aren’t you curious about what I’ve been up to the past year?”

He hesitated.

“Saturday night?”

“I can’t.”

“Why don’t I call you next week and see if you’ve got anything free?”

The elevator rumbled to a halt. The doors opened. It would be easier to refuse her on the phone. “Well, maybe.”

“Great.” Lacey stepped off, tossing him a little smile over her shoulder. She hurried down the hall, and Randall knew that extra sway in her hips was for him.