I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate (30 page)

“One day or three days, what difference will it make in the long run?”

“I was hoping for a psychiatric referral. Even if it is outpatient it’s still better than having him on the street. With a good therapist and the possibility of a real mother, he might respond this time.”

Mitzi exhaled loudly. “It’s not going to happen.”

“But you’re going to pick him up, aren’t you?”

“Not me. That’s police work. However, I don’t think anyone is going to look too hard for him for a few days, just in case he gets married in the meantime.”

“You want him to marry, don’t you?”

“It takes him off my caseload once and for all.”

“It will never work,” I said in exasperation.

“Nothing else has either,” Mitzi reminded me.

Two days later Mitzi’s early call woke me. “Rich is on his way back to Horizons Unlimited. You ever meet a guy named Kurt there?”

“Spoke to him, I think,” I muttered sleepily.

“He’s been the foster parent for several boys transitioning from that program to regular foster homes and has had a lot of success with emotionally impaired teenagers. He takes them to counseling or school every day when he goes in for his shift at Horizons, then brings them home to a family setting at night. It’s expensive, over five hundred a month, but it is cheaper than a residential program. Kurt seems to have made some inroads with Rich and is willing to try him out in his home.”

“What about the marriage plans?”

“Rich got cold feet and said he needed time to think about it. Janet’s going home with her mother for a while.” There was a long pause. “What do you think? You still want to Baker Act him?”

I told her I would get back to her. Lillian took my call at her home on the first ring. She agreed that it might be wise to put the Baker Act on hold. “Why not see what happens? I have a good feeling about his mother’s attitude and Kurt stepping in now. You can always use the Baker Act if this placement falls apart.”

That evening I spoke to Rich at Kurt’s house. He claimed he loved the location, which was hidden in the woods, and the other kids were “pretty cool.” Then he said he hadn’t wanted his sister or brother to see him in the hospital or at Horizons, but he hoped they could visit him there. Kurt confirmed that guests were welcome, so I set about making arrangements for the three Stevenson children to get together for the first time in over six months.

I traveled more than three hundred miles that afternoon. My home was at one corner of a diamond while the other three points were the whereabouts of the Stevenson siblings. First I picked up Alicia at the Levys’, then drove to the Rose/Perez home for Cory, and continued ninety-two miles south where Kurt lived in an entirely different district. After several wrong turns, we finally found the lane to Kurt’s house.

On the way Alicia and Cory made me stop twice so they could each have turns at the front seat, but otherwise bantered quietly about rock musicians. As soon as they saw Rich, though, they became more boisterous.

Rich greeted Cory with a hard pat on the shoulder, then grabbed his arm in a wrestling hold and twisted it behind his younger brother’s back. Finally I shouted, “Hey!” and Rich broke his hold.

Once inside the house I met Kurt, his wife, Noreen, and five other foster kids, including a biracial boy of six, whom they were adopting. Kurt offered me a seat at the table of the double-wide trailer and together we observed the Stevensons horsing around in the living room. At one point Alicia shoved Rich and he stumbled back against the wall, knocking his arm on the fish tank so hard that water sloshed over the side. Kurt directed the kids outside.

“Rich is a good kid,” Noreen said with surprising warmth in her voice. “He’s just a big baby. If I treat him like one of the smaller children, he does fine. I even read him the Dr. Seuss story
Horton Hatches the Egg,
and he loved it.”

She handed me the book. Thumbing though it, I recalled the story of the steadfast elephant who is asked to mind the egg of a bird named Mayzie while she flies off to have a good time. Despite taunting and storms and being transported to a circus, Horton stays with the egg because “an elephant’s faithful one hundred percent.” Then Mayzie shows up suddenly and wants the egg back just as it is hatching into a half-bird, half-elephant creature. It didn’t take a Freudian scholar to figure out why this story appealed to Rich.

Outside there was a large crash. Kurt leapt up like an uncoiled spring and was out the door before I had even processed the sound. Following after, I saw that Alicia and Rich were dueling with sticks. Alicia had been backed into a shed and had knocked over an empty steel drum. Nobody was hurt, but Kurt took away the ersatz weapons. I suggested it was time to go out for lunch and the kids got into the car. Alicia handed me a new tape to play. As we rode into town we were serenaded by Skid Row singing “Piece of Me.”

Pizza Hut might have been fun for the kids, but it was an ordeal for me. The Stevensons used foul language, elbowed one another, spilled a drink, and shot spitballs to the ceiling. They ate messily and argued over who got the largest slice of pizza. There was poking and joking and smoking, as Cory passed around cigarettes to the other two while I was in the rest room. When I returned, I asked them not to smoke in front of me, and they went outside.

While I drove back to Kurt’s, Alicia sat in the back with Rich, her head resting on his shoulder. After we arrived, neither wanted to get out of the car. I went in the house to talk to Kurt, who said that while we had been at lunch Janet had called three times.

Back at the car Alicia and Rich were saying their good-byes. He pulled her hair back so hard that she was grimacing. To get released, she punched her fist into his chest, then handed him her dime store ring and told him to wear it always, and not to give it to Janet. He promised he wouldn’t and placed it on his pinkie. Then she kissed him on the back of the neck and he spun around and kissed her hard on the side of her mouth. She pretended to be disgusted and made a raspberry sound, but all the while she was squeezing his hand. Annoyed at being left out, Cory kicked dirt in the driveway.

Rich ran around and opened my car door. “Could you lend me ten bucks?”

“Sorry, I can’t.”

“Hey, never hurts to ask. No hard feelings?”

“Of course not, Rich. Talk to you soon.”

That was on Saturday. On Tuesday I called and spoke to Noreen, who said that if Janet continued interfering, she had some doubts about Rich lasting there, but that at the moment he was doing fine and she had no complaints. Two weeks later the situation had improved even more. Noreen informed me that Rich had met a girl in group therapy that he liked better than Janet. The next time Janet phoned, Rich told her he was breaking up, and Janet claimed that she had a new boyfriend as well. Kurt saw this as progress and was going to enroll Rich in the school program he had selected.

By the end of that week, though, Janet had spoken to Mitzi to tell her that she was marrying Rich in a few days. Mitzi wasn’t concerned. “The girl is full of stories,” she reported to me. “Now she’s claiming that she might have a venereal disease, or even AIDS-related complex.”

“They are not exactly in a low-risk group. I think Rich should have a screening for sexually transmitted diseases, don’t you?”

“I am thrilled to add it to my list,” Mitzi replied.

On Saturday Alicia called to ask if what she heard from another foster parent was true.

“What’s that?”

“That Rich ran away from Kurt’s house.”

I called Noreen, who confirmed that the previous afternoon Janet had arrived with a friend to pick up Rich. “At first he said he wasn’t going to go with her, then when she said she was leaving, he got his things, and jumped in the car with her.” Noreen coughed a few times, then said, “Frankly, I wasn’t sorry to see him go. That kid belongs in a locked facility.”

The honor of the next trip to a locked facility, however, went to Janet. Rich and Janet had been staying in an apartment near Cocoa Beach that belonged to a friend of Janet’s mother. When they had a fight, Rich threatened to return to Kurt’s, so Janet went into the kitchen and slashed her wrists. Rich called 911 screaming, “There’s blood everywhere!”

Police had Janet committed to a local psychiatric ward under the Baker Act and took Rich into custody. After they ran Rich’s name through the computer and found he was a juvenile on runaway status, they contacted his caseworker. Mitzi had to drive across the state to pick him up. Kurt and Noreen agreed to take him back temporarily, and that added another two hundred miles to Mitzi’s journey.

By the end of the following week Kurt had proposed that he would resign from Horizons Unlimited and work full-time with his foster children, including Rich, if HRS would pay his salary. Kurt explained that this would be cheaper than putting either one of two difficult boys in a residential facility, and HRS was considering the idea. He also felt that he could prepare Rich for a successful reunion with his mother. This sounded like a fine solution to me, and I said I would back it.

But Rich was always two steps ahead of everyone. The next Sunday afternoon, Mitzi’s call took me away from repotting my orchid collection.

“Rich and Janet were married on Friday. That means you and I no longer have any responsibility toward him.”

I could hear the ebullience in Mitzi’s voice and understood why she felt as she did, but I could not share her glee. Maybe she wouldn’t have to drive all over the state to retrieve him, but nothing good could come of this marriage.

A few days later I received a copy of the marriage certificate and a notice that my duties as Guardian ad Litem for Richard Leroy Stevenson, Jr., had been terminated. Included was the address where Janet and Rich were living. Although it was more than a hundred miles away, it was around the corner from a nursing home where we often went to visit elderly relatives.

I went to the store and purchased the largest, most florid wedding card I could find and sent it to Janet and Rich. The enclosed note explained that I visited in that area and hoped to see them soon. I told them that even though I was officially not Rich’s guardian any longer, they could always telephone me collect for information about Alicia and Cory, and I wished them well.

Mitzi phoned me the next week and sounded irate. “Is it true?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been in touch with Rich and Janet.” I explained about the card, but she didn’t believe me. “I heard that you and Nancy are trying to get Rich’s marriage annulled on the grounds he is mentally incompetent.”

“I don’t know anything about that, but let me check with Nancy.”

I phoned Nancy immediately. “Hey, great plan!” she said, laughing. “If I had thought of it, I might have suggested it.”

“Where would Mitzi get such an idea?” I asked.

“HRS is filled with strange rumors, don’t let it worry you.”

“Is there anything else I can do for Rich?”

“No, Gay. I’m sorry, but there isn’t. The idea of an annulment might have some merit in another case, but I cannot see how it could help Rich. Do you?”

“I guess not. May I visit him when I am in the area?”

“Sure, you can do anything you want.” Nancy went on to explain how hard it was to let go of a kid like Rich and sympathized with me for feeling as though I had not done enough. She pointed out that he had been not only victimized by his parents but also by the system. “We all should have done more for him, but considering what you had to work with, you did the best that you could.”

My distress had not abated. “Why can’t I agree with you?” I asked.

“Because of you, now Rich at least knows he has a mother he can contact. Do you realize what that means? He finally has at least one parent.”

I tried to imagine Rich’s future, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not match him with Tammy. Horizons Unlimited! Ha! I wondered how long it would be before he came back into the system. Only which system would it be: mental health, social welfare, or criminal justice?

As if she were reading my mind, Nancy added, “Don’t forget about Alicia and Cory. They need you now more than ever.”

3
The Unfound Door
Who Will Be Our Mother?

… A stone, a leaf, an unfound door. And all the forgotten faces

Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father’s heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?

—
THOMAS WOLFE

A
S THE DATE FOR TAMMY’S ARRIVAL APPROACHED, SHE
and I spoke often about her children. For the most part Rich had avoided any discussions about his mother, but Cory was openly hostile. He insisted his father was innocent and that he would return to live with him after the trial. With no memory of his mother, Cory saw her reappearance as a threat because it meant that Alicia, and possibly even Rich, might move across the continent to be with her. Alicia had been writing her mother letters. They had exchanged photographs and a few phone calls. As the time grew nearer, though, Alicia admitted she was afraid that her mother might not like her or want her. Also she was uncertain she wanted to leave Ruth Levy.

I tried to reassure her—not that I could promise it would work out. “No matter what happens you will always know who your mother is. If you want, you can visit her, live with her or stay in touch.”

Arrangements and permissions had to be approved by Mitzi Keller, who was in charge of the movements of the Stevenson children. Mitzi was worried about unsupervised visits with Tammy before the home study was complete. I could not imagine any serious problems. They were old enough to get away from her if she became abusive and there was no history of her ever hurting the children. At last Mitzi reluctantly agreed that Tammy could see her children, as well as take them to visit each other, but they each would have to sleep in their foster homes at night.

More than anyone, I realized that I had a vested interest in this working. But I could not shake some of my concerns. Tammy had talked a good game, but I reminded myself that this was a woman who had neglected her children in the past and had a dismal record in selecting husbands.

At last the final plans were set. Tammy was going to be met at the airport by an old friend, who was loaning Tammy her car. The plane wouldn’t arrive until 11 P.M., so she would spend the night with her friends and drive to Alicia’s house the following day. I would have lunch with her the day after that.

On the appointed afternoon of Tammy’s reunion with her daughter, I phoned Ruth Levy. “Tammy’s here!” Ruth announced. “And Mitzi too. We’re waiting for Alicia to come home from school. Oh, I hear the school bus!” she said. “I’ll call you back.”

Less than an hour later the phone rang. It was Ruth. “Alicia wanted me to call you, then she’ll get on.”

“Is Tammy still there?”

“No, she didn’t stay long, which surprised me to say the least, but she said she had to get the car back to her friend, who needed it this evening. I thought you said she was renting a car.”

“She was going to, but her friend offered hers.”

“You’d think that since she got a free ticket, she’d be able to contribute something,” Ruth said with some vexation creeping in her tone.

“How did Alicia react?”

“Not like I would have expected. When she came in, she saw the three of us sitting in the living room. She said hello to Mitzi, then gave me a big hug and kiss—much more eagerly than usual—then she plunked herself down on the seat on the far side of the room and didn’t even speak to Tammy. I finally had to introduce them like strangers, and even then Alicia barely looked at her mother. It was like she was giving her the cold shoulder.”

“I suppose she has reasons to be hostile toward her.”

“Well, I didn’t appreciate her attitude one bit. She wasn’t just aloof, she acted like a brat.”

“How did Tammy handle it?”

“She talked a little about her husband and other children, then she up and left.”

“Maybe when she sensed Alicia’s animosity, she felt uncomfortable.”

“If she had stayed longer, maybe she could have broken through Alicia’s wall. Tomorrow Tammy has a meeting with Mitzi in the morning to go over the home study paperwork, then is having lunch with you, and has to get the car back again, so she might not even see her daughter,” Ruth snapped. “You want me to put Alicia on?”

“Sure.”

While I waited, I tried not to feel annoyed at how critical Ruth was of Tammy, because I sensed she was having trouble letting go.

“Hey!” said Alicia.

“How’d it go?”

“Okay …”

“What’s your mother like?”

“She’s older than I imagined. One of the other girls here called her ‘prune face’.” Alicia began to cry. “I don’t want to leave Ruth and go someplace I’ve never seen and live with people I don’t even know.”

“You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to.”

“Mitzi said that if the home study is approved, they are going to ship me out there after the trial because I have to live with any relative that will take me in.”

Placements with relatives were considered preferable, but I could not imagine forcing a fifteen-year-old to live with a parent she hardly knew. “Even if HRS orders it, I will represent what you want in court.”

“What if nobody listens to me or you?”

Tammy’s poor choices of husbands leapt into my mind. “Don’t worry, Alicia, I have enough information in my file to convince the judge to keep you with the Levys, if it turns out that is what you want. Why not give your mother a break? At least use this time to get to know her better. You’ll want to stay friends, no matter what, right?”

Alicia agreed reluctantly, then was eager to hang up the phone.

The next day I met Tammy for lunch. We hugged in the parking lot of the Waterside Inn like long-lost friends. She commented on how pretty Alicia was and understood that she was “shy,” especially in front of Ruth and Mitzi. “I think she was worried about hurting Ruth’s feelings,” Tammy said astutely.

“It is going to take time …”

“I know that. I’m not going to rush her.”

“Cory might be even more withdrawn. You know how he feels about his father.”

After we placed our orders for omelettes, I purposely cut the small talk. I began by asking about the children from the time they were born. During her pregnancy with Rich, Tammy had been nauseated for many months and recalled spending much of that time in bed, which “annoyed the hell out of Red.” After a difficult, heavily medicated breech birth, during which the doctor had manually attempted to turn the baby into a head-down vertex presentation, Rich required several days in intensive care. Tammy said she had a complicated recovery due to the side effects of the drugs as well as the pain from lacerated vaginal tissues. Labor with Alicia had been easier, but Tammy had hemorrhaged afterward and was so weak she could barely handle both babies. When Cory was born after they moved from Oklahoma to Florida, it was easier because her father was nearby, and he had a girlfriend living with him who helped her out with three babies in diapers at the same time.

Next I reviewed the history of her marriages, in reverse order. Tammy talked affectionately about Kirk Spate, her current husband, saying how much he loved children and the husky dogs they raised. As Tammy spoke, I observed her carefully. Her fingers clutched the iced tea glass tensely, but her eyes were focused on me and her voice had the same resonant warmth I had heard over the phone. But Alicia had been right. This was not an attractive woman. Her features were coarse, and her thin lips drew into a tight line between sentences that made her seem disapproving. Her words made her seem genuinely motivated to find a way to construct a bridge to her natural children, but her expressions were more negative.

“I should tell you where I was this morning,” Tammy whispered after the meal was served. “I went to see my father. I called him from my friend’s house and he said he wanted me to come by.” She looked at her plate but did not lift her fork. “He gave me some old photographs of me as a child and of him and my mother. I didn’t know whether she was alive or not, but he told me that she’s still in New England. He hasn’t been in contact with her for twenty years, but he hears about her from an uncle.”

“So you know what it is like to grow up without a mother.”

Tammy’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I would never have left my babies if I didn’t think I was getting them back. When I tried to see the kids, Red chased me off the property with a rifle. I was afraid of him, and I had good reason to be. You know about his first wife, don’t you? The one he killed.”

“Killed! How?”

“He shot her while she was sleeping on the couch. He claimed he was cleaning the gun and it went off. They tried him for murder but couldn’t prove anything because there were no witnesses. He used to brag that she had bad-mouthed him once too often and he’d do the same to me if I crossed him.”

“Where did that happen?”

“Tulsa, Oklahoma.” Then Tammy presented me with another bombshell. “What hurt most was that when I left, my father sided with Red against me. I never understood that … until now.” She stared out at the parking lot as she continued. “He loved Red in a way he could never love me. Do you know what I mean?”

“You think they were … lovers?”

“I do now. I can’t explain it, but my father seems so … feminine. I didn’t remember him that way.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, it’s later than I thought.” She had volunteered to take her daughter to her new therapist at the county mental health clinic.

“You hurry on, and I’ll pay the check.”

Tammy stood and started for the door, then she turned on her heel and waved back at me, and as she did so, there was something poignant about the gesture—something reminiscent of Alicia.

The next day was a Saturday. Tammy was planning to spend the whole day with Alicia.

When I returned from running some errands at six, Ruth called, frantic. “Where’s Tammy?” she demanded.

“Isn’t she with Alicia?” I asked, thinking that maybe Tammy had been late returning Alicia to the Levys’.

“The hell she is! That child has been waiting all day for her mother, who never showed up. We didn’t have Tammy’s phone number and she sure didn’t try to call us, because Alicia’s been sitting by the phone and grabbing it on the first ring.”

“I can’t believe it. Maybe she had an accident.”

“Do you have the number where she’s staying?”

I said I did and would get right back to her.

“Tammy?” I asked when I recognized her voice on the other end of the line. “Are you all right? We were afraid you might have had an accident.”

“I’m fine. My friend’s husband took the car to get the brakes fixed, so we’ve been hanging around here catching up on old times.”

“But Alicia’s been waiting for you all day.”

“Oh, no! I told her I couldn’t get the car today, but that I’d call and make arrangements to take her to see Cory tomorrow. She must have misunderstood.”

“Alicia’s been so worried. Do you want to call her or shall I?”

“Would you? Everything is long-distance from here. Tell her I’ll pick her up at ten tomorrow morning to go see her brother.”

“May I give her this number?”

“Sure, of course you can. Tell her to call me if she wants.”

Trying to control my irritation, I dialed Ruth and explained the miscommunication. “Tammy claims she was only going to call, not visit.”

“That’s not the way I heard it,” Ruth retorted adamantly. “You would think that since she is only going to be here a week, she would want to spend every available minute with her children.”

“Apparently she didn’t have a car …”

“Hey, Gay, if it was your daughter, wouldn’t you rent, beg, borrow, or steal a car?”

“Yes, but …” My mind churned with the revelations of Tammy seeing her father, her telling me about Red killing his first wife, as well as her suspicion that her father and ex-husband might have been lovers. Tammy had fears about greeting her eldest son, who so recently had been in psychiatric institutions; she had been snubbed initially by Alicia; and was going to visit Cory, even though he claimed that he didn’t want to see her. “Don’t you think this is stressful for Tammy? Perhaps she needs a day to reflect on everything.”

“And perhaps Alicia needs a parent who does what she says,” Ruth responded emphatically, then hung up the phone.

On Sunday Tammy picked up Alicia and drove her to Cory’s foster home, where they stayed about an hour, then she took Alicia back to the Levys’. Birdie Rose, Cory’s foster mother, told me that he was chilly but polite to Tammy. After she left, Cory said he was looking forward to seeing her again when she and I would visit him on Tuesday. On Monday Tammy was up early for the long drive to Cocoa Beach to meet Rich and Janet. The next day I was due to meet her at Cory’s house.

Because I felt I had lost my objectivity about Tammy, I asked Lillian if she would accompany me on that visit. “I want so much for this to work, I’m afraid that instead of thinking about the children, I am rationalizing Tammy’s behavior.” I then explained how I had defended Tammy when she had not shown up on Saturday.