Three Little Words (29 page)

“I wanted to buy some shoes.”

“You can shop first and meet us at the movie at seven,” Gay added, putting on the pressure.

Later that afternoon she dropped me off at the mall. I saw some kids I knew in the food court and hung out with them. When I checked my watch, it was six thirty and I still had not bought the shoes. By the time I got to the theater, it was ten past seven.

Phil was waiting out front holding my ticket and scowling. “Where were you?”

I held up my shoe bag. “Took longer than I thought.”

“You had more than two hours to buy shoes!” Phil rarely got upset—and ten minutes should not have been a big deal—but he had been embarrassed in front of Gay’s father.

Gay passed me the popcorn bucket and shot me a disappointed look. When the movie started, I focused on the story. Julia Roberts played Erin Brockovich, a woman who was running out of money after a car accident. When her attorney could not get her a settlement, she convinced him to hire her as an assistant. She stumbled on some medical records mixed in with his real estate files and discovered that a corporation was hiding contaminated water that was making people sick. Eventually, she helped file a class-action lawsuit that won a lot of money for the victims.

“That was better than I expected!” I announced when we exited the theater.

Phil clicked the car door opener, but I was too charged up to sit down just yet.

“Why can’t we have one of those class-action suits for all of the kids who lived with the Mosses?” I pumped the air with my fist in excitement. “There must be dozens of them, plus Luke and me, as well as the adopted ones who are back in foster care.”

“In the movie they sued a huge corporation that could afford to pay millions. The Mosses live in a trailer,” Phil said. “Where would the money come from?” He came around and opened the van door on my side, ushering me inside.

“Has any kid ever sued the Department of Children and Families?” I asked as I reluctantly climbed in.

Gay turned around from the front seat. “One of my former guardian kids was in a class-action suit, but it was unsuccessful,” she said somberly.

“I want to talk to a lawyer and see what he thinks!” I insisted.

“Most of the time nobody wins.” Phil’s voice sounded tired. “Anyway, you don’t have to worry about the future, kiddo.” He turned on the ignition. “You’ll always have us.”

That did not satisfy me. “Who will Mandy and those other kids have?”

At my insistence, Gay called Karen Gievers, the attorney who had handled the class-action suit involving one of Gay’s guardian children.

“She told me that she’s working with some other lawyers on a class-action suit against the state of Florida on behalf of all the state’s foster children. They’re hoping to change some of DCF’s practices, but there would be no individual financial benefit for you,” Gay explained. “She wanted to know if you would like to participate.”

“Of course!” I could not believe it was actually happening. “Will she include everyone who was in the Moss home?”

“The problem is that someone would have to locate all those children; next, someone would have to act on their behalf since they don’t have parents.”

“What about Luke? We know where he is.”

“I’ve called Mary Miller to see whether she wants to represent Luke. I’ll also call Heather and Gordon’s parents.”

“What about the Mosses? Can’t we sue them separately?”

“I told the lawyer that Phil and I didn’t want you to dredge it all up again only to be called a liar.” Gay’s voice lifted a little. “You know what Ms. Gievers said?”

“That you should have trusted me the first time!”

“We’ve always believed you—we were just worried about proof. However, Ms. Gievers said that I am a better mother than a lawyer. Once she studies the files, she will know if there is a case against the Mosses or not.”

The summer before my freshman year, a group of lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach on behalf of thirty-one Florida children, referring to most of the plaintiffs by their initials, although they used my whole name. A few weeks later the attorneys decided that anyone who had been adopted or had returned to their biological parents should be excluded from the class. I was disappointed, but Luke was still in it. Ms. Gievers suggested that we file individual lawsuits on my behalf soon because of statute of limitations laws.

“That’s not what I had in mind, and it won’t help Mandy or the others.”

“No,” Gay said, “but if they hear about your case, they can still come forward and have their own.”

That same week—almost six weeks after the arrest of Charles and Marjorie Moss—Wayne Washington’s most extensive article about their home appeared in the
St. Petersburg Times.
It began:

There were two photos of me, one of Heather, the Mosses’ mug shots, and a view of their seedy trailer. The article said that the department had known about the hot sauce and the other inappropriate punishments seven years earlier but had merely offered the Mosses “counseling and reminders of its policy against the use of corporal punishment.” In addition, the department allowed the Mosses to adopt eight of the children.

Gay looked up from the newspaper. “I wonder if we still could get hold of that licensing file or if it has gone missing.”

The reporter had interviewed one of my teachers who said I was “a once-in-a-lifetime kind of student” and “a determined, focused girl.”

Phil beamed as he read aloud. “‘Now, some of that determination and focus are aimed at the Mosses and the system that allowed them to take in children. In addition to serving as a plaintiff in the lawsuit against state officials, she gave a statement to police to support the case against the Mosses.’”

Wayne Washington quoted me in the final paragraph: “‘They used us to get money,’ she said of the Mosses. ‘They used us to look like better people in the community. My whole goal is to make sure they never get children again.’”

“Is there any mention of the class-action suit?” I asked.

“Yes, Erin, there is.” Phil chuckled and pointed to quotes from Karen Gievers.

“Has anyone found Mandy yet?” I asked.

Gay shook her head. “We’re trying. All I know is that all of the Mosses’ adopted kids have the same guardian.”

“So ask him.”

“You know he can’t tell us anything because of confidentiality.”

“I hate that confidentiality crap!” I snapped. “It just protects the workers, not the kids.”

After the incident with Brooke, I felt as though I had broken through a wall—one I had carefully constructed over many years. I still had to navigate the fallen bricks so I would not trip up again. I know the Courters were angry and distrustful of me for much longer than they let me know, but they did not punish me for what I had done. For the first time, I let myself appreciate Gay’s generosity. She was always trying to please me—sometimes too hard—but her intentions were kind, and only someone who loved me would have tolerated how mean I had been to her in both little and large ways. Once Phil recovered from his initial outrage, he was the same as ever—gentle, understanding, and always offering to help me with homework, drive me somewhere, make me a snack, or play a game of pool or basketball. I finally noticed that they were always
there:
waking me up, tucking me in, ready to listen, checking whether I needed anything.

I was harder on myself than they were, and I resolved to prove their faith was justified. Before, I had held something back so that when they discarded me, I would not be so wounded. But with my parents by my side, who had proven their love for me, I felt safe enough to allow sunlight to sweep the shadows from my life. So many wonderful events were unfolding that I believed that I had been given a second chance.

One of my first opportunities was being asked to give the keynote speech for the National Court Appointed Special Advocates Association, the CEO of which I had met at the White House. Gay helped me write the speech that explained everything Mary Miller had done for me as my Guardian ad Litem, and Phil edited a video clip that illustrated my journey through foster care.

I loved drama and giving speeches at school, but I was worried about speaking before a huge crowd. One of Gay’s friends, Lou Heckler, is a professional motivational speaker. She arranged for him to be my speech coach. When the time came, I stood behind the lectern gazing across more than a thousand pairs of eyes that were intent on me, but I was confident—at least at the beginning—because I had memorized my speech down to the pauses and emphases that Mr. Heckler had suggested.

“I like to think that my story has three parts,” I began. “First is the time when I felt like I was lost in the system. Second is when my CASA, Mary Miller, came into my life. And third is when she helped find a family for me.”

When I started to describe the horrors at the Moss home, my urge was to rush and get the address over with more quickly, but Mr. Heckler’s voice in my head was like a conductor keeping the beat. “But the worst moments were the really cruel punishments” [pause] “like having to run laps in the hot sun” [pause] “crouching in awkward positions” [pause] “being hit with a spoon until my bottom was raw” [pause] “and even food was withheld.” I took a long breath. “Luckily, I was the kind of kid who knew how to stay out of trouble, so I learned to avoid the worst of the punishments. Unfortunately, my brother had much worse things done to him” [pause] “like having his head dunked in the bathtub until he nearly drowned and having hot sauce poured down his throat.”

The audience gasped in unison, then groaned when I told them how Violet Chavez had let me go back for the weekend. They applauded when they heard how Mary Miller rescued Luke after he was sent to the Mosses a second time, and they cheered when I announced that the Mosses had been arrested.

Then I drove home the point about the difference Mary Miller had made in my life, even though I had not appreciated her when I was younger. “I’d like to say that my guardian and I became best friends, but by then I was used to caseworkers who came and went—all sorts of therapists, counselors, and people with different titles who said they would do things but never did.” I held up my hand and counted on my fingers. “By the time I met Mary Miller, I’d already had eight foster mothers, a biological mother, my grandfather’s girlfriend, not to mention shifts of counselors in the shelter, and though Mary was nice enough, I didn’t expect her to make a difference.” I took a long pause. “Why should I? Nobody else ever had.”