Three Little Words (31 page)

The reporter quoted me, too: “Kids are always taught there are going to be consequences for what they do, but this case is completely contradicting to that because they are getting a slap on the wrist.”

“Read the part about the time-out!” Gay said with a chuckle. My quote made it into the article.

Phil complied: “Here it is! ‘I think they deserve a little time to think of what they have done. A little time-out.’”

I made the naughty-naughty gesture with my finger. “At least it also mentions my lawsuits.” I exhaled. “Maybe Mandy will see it this time, and she can sue the Mosses.”

My lawsuit was not as glamorous as the ones I had seen on television. Boxes and boxes started arriving as the Department of Children and Families complied with Karen Gievers’s requests to see all the evidence. As I shuffled through the volumes of papers, I noted the signatures of people who I had never met but who had been in charge of a facet of my care during some moment in time. I remembered only a few of the names and wondered if they knew who I was. There were also the histories of all my foster families, as well as the caseworkers’ personnel files. Nothing was in order.

“How am I ever going to make sense of this?” I asked Gay. It took hours to sort through what caseworkers in two states were writing to one another while I was at my grandfather’s. The Mosses’ licensing file was filled with reports calling them “model” foster parents and recommending they get more children. The praises of caseworkers who should have known better infuriated me so much that I had to walk away to calm down.

It turned out that the Mosses were not the only villains in my story. I did not recall that other placements had been almost as crowded. Ms. Gievers told me that foster parents are not supposed to have more than five children in a home, including birth children. The O’Connors had crammed one small bedroom with five toddlers, some even sharing the same bed. The Hineses’ file noted they had too many children and needed a waiver for Luke and me, which might have been one reason they sent me to the other home. The Ortizes had at least fourteen children at one point when their official capacity was two. When I returned from South Carolina the first time, I lived in the Pace home, which was packed with at least ten children, mostly preschoolers.

In addition to the legal irregularities, I was also unaware of many other troubling aspects of my care. It was not until Gay had all the documentation in chronological order that she realized that years had gone by without a judge reviewing our case and that we had originally been sent to South Carolina without a court order, which then made it difficult to retrieve us when our safety became a concern. Gay pointed out that I was officially missing for nine months. By piecing together scraps of information—including photographs that showed me spending Christmases and Easters in South Carolina looking quite different in size and having different hair lengths—Gay figured out that I was with Adele during the paperwork gap. It appears that the records had been doctored to conceal the errors.

“In all my years as a guardian, I have never seen such shoddy social work!” Gay grumbled. “Why were so many of the homes grossly overcrowded? How could they even consider Sam Rhodes as a placement when his own children had grown up in foster care? He was violent and a substance abuser! Caseworkers, licensing people, even supervisors knew of the Mosses’ abuse, and they all looked the other way,” she ranted. “Remember when they first investigated the home and Mrs. Moss forced you to recant? Well, that same night someone else called the abuse hotline and said you children were afraid to tell the truth in front of Mrs. Moss. For some reason, the child protection supervisor decided it wasn’t necessary to check up further.” Gay rearranged a few more documents. “Then, a week later, someone from the school again contacted the hotline, but the worker assured the caller that you were okay and the child protection team didn’t follow it up!”

The more upset Gay became, the calmer I felt. It was as if she were lifting a heavyweight off my back. “Look at this!” She showed me evidence of yet another time the department officials met to discuss the inappropriate discipline in the Moss foster home.

“If my mother had forced Luke or me to drink hot sauce, paddled us, or not fed us, we would have been placed in foster care, wouldn’t we?” Gay nodded. “Then she would have had to go to court, sign a case plan, and attend classes to get us back.”

“I know,” Gay said gently. “It’s hard to understand why the Mosses weren’t at least held to the same standard as parents.”

“What gets me is that the state paid them a lot of money to take care of us, but they wouldn’t give my mother a cent,” I added.

“I’m still floored that the department kept noting that they were overcapped but didn’t remove any kids. Plus, they were allowed to use ‘inappropriate discipline techniques’ because they were frustrated and overwhelmed.” Gay tossed her head as if to try to clear it. “Supposedly, they just clarified their discipline policy with the Mosses,” she said facetiously.

Then Gay’s voice deepened and slowed—always a bad sign if I had done something wrong, but now it was soothing. “Phil and I felt that the process of becoming licensed adoptive parents was exhaustive and intrusive, but we put up with it because we understood the state must protect children who already were victims of abuse and neglect.” Gay slapped some of the Moss papers on the floor, where she had been rummaging through their box. She stood, stretched, and rubbed her temples. “I’m shocked at how many red flags their licensing workers overlooked.”

“You mean when they first became foster parents?”

“Yes. Anyone with half a brain would have realized that Marjorie Moss was probably too troubled to care for needy kids.”

“In what way?” I asked, looking for more validation of my feelings.

“First of all, according to her foster parent licensing file, Mrs. Moss’s mother was a strict disciplinarian who whipped Mrs. Moss on three occasions when she was a child. You’d think that would make a person more compassionate, but sometimes it just makes it worse. Guardians are taught about the cycle of abuse—how those who are demeaned eventually take revenge on those who are weaker.” Gay caught my apprehensive expression. “Don’t worry, Ashley, you’ll be fine. You are going to break that cycle.”

“How can you be sure?”

“You are going to have advantages—and education. You’ll be around better role models. Mrs. Moss had several violent, failed marriages.” Gay studied the files. “And one of her sons who lived on their property was a convicted felon?” She groaned. “That’s another reason they shouldn’t have had foster kids.”

When Phil came home, Gay told him what she had learned about Mrs. Moss’s background. “I’ll never understand how anyone can be cruel to anyone, especially
our
child!” he said. “You know I wasn’t in favor of this lawsuit, but maybe it will change practices so they don’t allow people like this to become foster parents in the first place—or at least get rid of them at the first sign of trouble.”

“Their blunders are unbelievable,” Gay said. “Some of the workers, who were supposed to see Ashley monthly, ignored her for long periods. Others falsified their time sheets. One even worked a second job when he was supposed to be visiting children and was arrested on drug charges. Another worker was accused of soliciting. Administrators sent her to South Carolina without the proper judicial order, and you already know they left that telltale note about destroying some of Luke’s files.” She took a long breath. “There was even more. The Mosses were not the only foster parents with a blighted record, and Sam Rhodes was not Ashley’s only caregiver involved with violence. Mrs. Pace was charged with aggravated assault against her husband with a motor vehicle even before Ashley lived there.”

Phil turned to me. “What do you think of all this?”

I shrugged. “I was too young to remember.”

“What about the Pottses?” Gay acted as if she were tiptoeing through a long, dark hallway.

“I’ve told you about that creepy movie!”

“What if I told you that Boris Potts really
was
a creep?” Gay began slowly.

“In what way?” My breath caught, and I felt like I was slipping underwater.

“He was arrested shortly after you left.”

“For what?”

“Pedophilia.”

“You mean molesting kids?”

Gay nodded.

“Well, he never touched me!” Most of my memories of the Pottses were rather pleasant—except for that film. Then again, I was a chatty kid, so he might have been afraid to pull anything with me for fear I would tell someone.

The next day I combed the files for more details. Three years before I lived with Mr. and Mrs. Potts, a relative reported that their son, who allegedly had been charged with attempted murder, was living in their home while a foster child was there. The same relative also reported that Mr. Potts had a pornographic movie collection.

Instead of closing the Potts foster home, the department merely asked the Pottses for an explanation about each of the accusations. They told the authorities that their son had moved out and that he had been charged with
only
false imprisonment and spousal battery. Regarding the filthy films, they said they watched the Playboy Channel after their foster child was in bed. It was like questioning a criminal who says he is not guilty and then closing the case based on his word.

I wanted to talk to Gay about it, but I was afraid that she would get the notion that Mr. Potts had sexually abused me and I was repressing it. I remembered so much—surely I would have recalled if he touched me. The paperwork, though, was sickening. Mr. Potts had driven other foster children to family visits and medical appointments. After he had transported a baby girl, they found blood in her diaper. The incident was categorized as an “injury to the vaginal area, but no known perpetrator.” The report also noted that the Pottses were the only transporters of that child.

Something else was strange. The Pottses had been foster parents for many years and had received a license for two children. For the first time, I was in a home that was below capacity. Why, if they had room for Luke, was I there alone? In the Pottses’ licensing file, a caseworker noted,
The current placement, A. R., has been with the family two plus months. Mrs. Potts reports she is “perfect.”
And yet I was sent elsewhere. There was no evidence that any worker checked on me during the five months I was there, even though they were already investigating Mr. Potts for molestation. The officials must have decided it would be prudent to remove a female foster child from his home, because not long after I left, Boris Potts was charged with committing a felony offense of lewd, lascivious assault on a child under sixteen, plus one count of sexual battery.

“You have a way of finding photos of criminals online, don’t you?” I asked Gay.

“Who are you trying to find?”

“Some of my foster parents.”

“Mr. Potts?” she said as if she had been expecting the request. She handed me a printout from another file. “I found him on a sex offender page. Mary Miller and I ran background checks on all your foster parents for Karen Gievers.”

I stared at the old man’s face. His mouth drooped like a hound dog, and his expression was more worried than scary. “That’s the foster father who gave me all those gifts,” I said. “I thought he was just being nice.”

After Gay called a Hillsborough County detective, she reported to me. “I asked him whether any of Mr. Potts’s victims had lived with him, and he said that one had been their foster child—before you were there—but the other cases involved children Mr. Potts had transported.” Gay’s skin was the color of an eggshell, and her expression was so tight, I thought her lips might crack. “I’m glad they took you out of there,” she said. “The saddest part is that they sent you to live with the Pottses’ daughter, and even if you had wanted to, you couldn’t have confided in her.”