A Kidnapped Mind

by Pamela Richardson

  “Yes, yes. Dash slept here last night and they just jumped into the pool now.”

  “Okay. I’m going to quickly whip up a batch of Rice Krispies squares and come right over. I’ll be about twenty minutes.” I hung up and called to Dave to help me get the boys organized: we were going to see Dash. I ran back into the kitchen with my heart hammering and pulled the Rice Krispies and marshmallows out of the pantry cupboard, melted the butter on the stovetop, poured it all over, stirred it a bit, spread it out in a tin, threw a tea towel over the top, got the boys in the car, and drove off.

  As we walked through the Frosch’s back gate and around to the pool, I could hear my son’s laughter as he cannonballed into the water. Stephen Frosch shrieked, “Watch it, Dash! Geez, you nearly got me!” A wet child clambered out of the pool. “Oh, yeah? Well watch this!” We heard another dive-bomb and more squeals. God, I’ve missed this boy. Colby ran ahead. Melody was sitting in a big straw hat and waved Quin and I over. Even though she know my situation, I wondered what Melody thought about this mother who had to be called over to see her son.

  “Hello, Dash! Hello, Stephen!” I smiled my biggest smile and willed my nerves to be gone. I patted the tin under my arm. “I brought you boys some Rice Krispies squares.” Dash was suspicious. He narrowed his eyes when he saw me, but called out a reticent hello and then a bigger one when he saw Colby and Quin. “Dash, would you swim with the little boys?” I asked, to break the ice.

  “Sure, Mom.” We helped them into the pool and the four boys splashed and swam. I didn’t try and butt into their fun and went instead to kiss Melody on the cheek and visit with her. I moved my chair so that I could watch them, sipped my coffee slowly, pretending calm, and chatted lightly with Melody. I engaged with Dash little by little as I sat there. “Can you do your crawl, Colby? Great dive, Stephen! Dash, he nearly got you then! Show Stephen your forward somersault, Dash. You know, the way Big D taught you!” Dash took a deep breath and did his forward somersault. He smiled when he came up for air. I called, “How’s your backstroke coming, Dash? Have you been practising? Show me!” Dash swam the length of the pool on his back. “Dash, I’m impressed!” I said, and we smiled at each other then. It was electric. We had plugged away and a spark had caught. Then Stephen jumped into the pool right next to Dash and they were gone. Quin, with his little floaties on, paddled around in the shallow end, and I watched the waves to make sure they weren’t getting too big for him. He was immersed in his own world, smiling, flapping his arms, proud of himself for staying on top of the water. Time passed with everyone happy.

  Later Dash asked me to drive him home. “I’m disappointed with you, Mom,” he said as soon as we drove off. “You weren’t supposed to see me.”

  “Well, I’m glad I did, Dash.”

  He had a hard edge to his voice. “I told you that I didn’t want to see you until you stopped the court stuff.”

  I was used to this conversation and stuck quietly to my message. “I know what you said Dash, but I don’t feel that I have a choice. I’ve tried everything else, and now only a judge can help us sort all this out.”

  “Yeah, but …” his voice trailed off.

  “Every situation has two sides, Dash.”

  “But I’ve heard both sides.”

  “From whom?”

  “My dad.”

  “Dash, both sides is when you hear from each person directly.”

  “You don’t know how hard this is on me, Mom. Every day gets tougher. You don’t know how hard it is to be at my house right now.”

  My throat tightened. “I think I do know how hard it is. I hope this will make a difference. I know it’s been hard for you to trust me and believe what I’m saying, but from the bottom of my heart I need you to understand that I don’t mean to hurt you by being in court. We’re a family, your dad, you, me. And we’re way off track and have to get back in line. You have the right to both your parents, Dash.”

  “Well, I could live without you.” I smarted.

  “But you don’t have to. If I died you would live without me, for sure, but I’m alive and I live ten minutes away from you. That’s weird, isn’t it, Dash?” I looked straight ahead and focused on the road, but Dash was silent and I could see that he was listening. “Dash, I hate court. I hate it. I hate being there, I hate writing affidavits, I hate being in that building. If there was another way I could make a difference, believe me, I would do it. Remember what I told you when we spoke in January, that when parents are having problems and they can’t resolve them, a judge has to come in and make a decision that helps?”

  “Yeah,” Dash said, but he was wilting. We had arrived in front of his house and I stopped the car.

  “Please believe me Dash, I will keep trying to see you because I love you.”

  “Can’t you just stop? I want it over.”

  “I know you do. We all do. But it’s a bit like saying ‘I want to be in Grade Twelve now’ without going through the other grades first. We’re in a process. Like when countries have problems and they go to the UN to sort it out. It’s a process. We’re almost there.”

  Dash shifted the tin of Rice Krispies squares from his lap. “I have to go, Mom.”

  “I know. But it was so good to see you today. I’ll call you tomorrow. Maybe we could do something, next week?” I looked into his eyes and tried to read what he was feeling. There was nothing there. “Umm, I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll call you.”

  “I’ll call you! I love you, Dash, with all my heart.”

  I put my hands together in our little heart, but he ignored it and clambered quickly out of the car. Two days later, from the stand, Dash asked angrily, “What was she doing showing up at my friend’s house with a batch of Rice Krispies squares?”

  I promised the judge that, if I was given custody, Dash would stay on at Queen Mary Elementary (with a tutor to help him enter high school), continue on his soccer team, and see as much of his friends in the neighbourhood as ever. Nothing would change for him, except that he would be installed in my house on a primary basis. Dash would have permission — indeed, the court’s sanction — to begin rebuilding his relationship with me. My family was ready for it. I promised the court that I would ensure that Peter had lots of access to Dash, because he needed both his parents. It served no one to obliterate Peter in the way that I had been. I told the judge, “I’m not here to take away Dash’s dad. I’m here to give him back his mom.” At the end of August 1996, two weeks after Dash’s twelfth birthday, the trial-division people called Jamie: Justice Brenner had made his decision. I was picking up groceries at Granville Market when Mimi called me on my cell.

  “Pam. The judge has a verdict,” she said. My stomach rose into my throat. “Come home. Jamie is on his way here.”

  “Has he said anything?”

  “No. Just come home.”

  I ran out of the market toward my car, fumbling for my keys, breathless and excited. I’m getting my son back. I drove, vaguely mindful of traffic lights and cars, but able to register little else. I saw Jamie and Jo-Anne waiting on my doorstep as I flew down my street and parked at the gate. I leapt out of the car, but went only three steps before I took in the expressions on their faces. Jo-Anne looked stricken; Jamie, devastated. A former child advocate, he couldn’t believe what he held in his hands. I knew, and convulsed into tears.

  “No. Jamie. Please—”

  “Pam, he’s given Peter sole custody again.”

  Justice Brenner had seen so much, from our court appearances in 1993 — giving us the ultimately doomed order for an independent assessment of Dash by Dr. Leslie Joy — to the completion of twenty-nine days of evidence in 1996. He was troubled about Dash’s disintegrating progress at school. Peter was a liar. Peter had a drinking problem. Peter had committed “custodial parental misconduct.” He had sent astonishingly inappropriate messages to his son. I was a good mom and Peter’s behaviour toward me was “appalling.” Peter’s refusal to send me school information, Justice Brenner
said, was part of a “continuing wish to dominate” me “and to force” me to go to him “and ask for things such as report cards.” It was “part of his ongoing efforts to control” me. Given his current state of mind, Brenner said, it was likely he will “continue to be a substantial impediment to the access relationship between Dash and his mother.” Brenner believed that, if I was given custody, I’d have encouraged generous access to Dash’s father, while Peter had “no interest in doing anything to assist in improving Dash’s relationship with his mother.” The judge handily rejected Peter’s argument that I had caused my own estrangement from my son by bringing custody applications. The judge found the abuse and interrogation claims to be nonsense. The only blight against me was that Dash did not want to live with me.

  After twenty-nine days in court, I had been successful in obtaining one thing — joint guardianship — but Peter had challenged even that order and we had to go back and ask for clarification in front of Brenner. Yes, I could now see the teachers, get report cards, and seek information from Dash’s doctor and dentist, but because it was joint guardianship, any decision-making had to be agreed upon by the two of us.

  Attempting to force Dash to leave the parent whom he loves and with whom he wants to remain would clearly be a draconian outcome, Brenner said. The clearly articulated wish of the just-turned-twelve-year-old child “outweighed the negative probability” that, if he remained with Peter “Dash’s relationship with his mother will continue to suffer.” Dash wanted to remain “where he has always been” and the court, “if satisfied as to the capacity of the custodial parent, should be wary of taking what would be the drastic step of ruling that a six-year-old custody order be reversed.” Dash was believed, and Peter was seen as fit — or fit enough. My relationship with Dash could go down the toilet so long as Dash wasn’t moved. This is a nightmare. And it’s never going to end.

  But there was still more, a pièce de résistance. Justice Brenner gave Peter a free hand and took away the only tool I still had — the threat to Peter of future proceedings if he didn’t stop what he was doing to Dash. Justice Brenner declared that the question of Dash’s custody was never to be brought to court again, and that he would continue to be the judge on record for any future matters. Like many in the judicial system, he hoped that Peter and Dash would settle down if the custody question was put away forever, but I knew it would just bring the iron curtain back down on Dash. As I sat on my steps I knew. He is lost to me now. I knew it in my bones. Would he be lost to himself? PAS children can suffer for the rest of their lives. As Dr. Richard Gardner says, being “programmed to believe things that don’t coincide with their observations and experiences” can produce “a paranoid delusional system that … may last for years, if not throughout a child’s life.” Dash was not only going through a relationship breakdown, he was directly enmeshed in his own mental breakdown. I wanted to run inside my house, call Justice Brenner, and scream at him what my heart already knew. “You spineless man! This boy is going to die.”

  Chapter 6

  Bringing in the Troops

  Dave and I led the kind of life some people think glamorous and exciting, with our years filled not just with raising children but with dinners, business functions, “society” and charity events. I met new people all the time, and because women are women they always asked, “Do you have children?” or “I have two at home with the sitter. How many do you have?” I would always say “three” and hold my breath to see if the topic would just fade out. If it didn’t, I would tell a truncated version of my story. “I have three children, but I am only raising two,” I would say. “I don’t see my first son, Dashiell.” I’d explain what happened and then watch their faces.

  Some looked at me like I was from another planet. What do you mean you don’t see your son? Have you been to court? How did you ever lose custody in the first place? Some would narrow their eyes and wonder what I had done to make this happen. I learned to deal with it all and I never, ever lied. I never made up a more palatable story. I never disowned Dash and said, “Two boys.” I never made it easier on Peter and the courts by pretending to understand what had happened. I made it political, telling anyone who asked that what had happened to me was happening to thousands of other parents around the world. “This can happen to anyone,” I said. “The courts don’t understand and they don’t act until it’s too late. But at least I haven’t been alone. I have support. Some fight this as single parents or while working double-overtime to make ends meet. Fighting PAS is a full-time job.”

  It was so easy for other people to talk about their children and their families, and it always reminded me that something every other mother did with so much ease was so painful for me. I always knew what I had missed, because I didn’t miss any of it with my other two children. I comforted myself with the knowledge that children are built out of both their parents, and Dash still had me. I hadn’t gone anywhere. I was thankful that he still lived only ten minutes away from me. I was thankful for the wonderful things I had in my life. I had given birth, in my forties, to two healthy babies who had grown into happy, open, strong boys. I had in Dave a wonderful and supportive partner. I was grateful for what I had and I loved my life, and because of that I was able to move forward. It’s amazing how little time there was to dwell, anyway. The “Dash” side of my life — trying to reach him by phone, arranging visits, baking treats, and writing letters to be dropped off, and constantly thinking about how to make things work — was a constant balancing act with looking after Colby and Quinten, looking after our home, and nurturing my marriage. I was mostly too busy surviving to dwell inside my pain. As long as I was still trying to make a difference for Dash, I felt that I was allowed to take-five on the misery and live fully in the part of my life that was emotionally sustaining.

  I could put Dash and our struggles aside when my family sat down to dinner or when I lay down with Dave at night — because I had to. We all needed a break from my worry about him. I needed an oasis; we all did, and we found it in each other. Because Peter had done this to destroy me, if I didn’t carve happiness out of the rubble he would win. So my family was my guardian, warding off the demons, repelling Peter’s hatred while I slept. I stayed logical and sensible. I didn’t reach for something destructive to ease my pain — drink, drugs, an affair, yelling at my kids when I was tired and frustrated. I turned instead to my children and laughed and taught and cared and dug up the best of me. I turned to my husband and thanked him for his love. I included Dash in our lives all the time, letting myself simply remember and cherish him. When we were on holiday or at the lake in Whistler, Dave and I would often flash a glance at each other and say, “Dash would love this” or “Remember when Dash …” and I encouraged the boys to do the same thing. We rarely spoke about how little we saw Dash. We spoke about how we were going to see him soon, and we looked to a future when things would be different, not to the past when there was only pain.

  The reality was still there, though, each morning when I woke up, that Dash was truly gone now. The site inside my heart that since his birth had been Dash’s permanent real estate was emptied and scraped clean that summer. He’d moved out. Now and then I would look around our dinner table or sit as a passenger in the car with Dave driving the four of us to a movie, and I would struggle sometimes to clearly picture what my family would look like with Dash in it. My family didn’t look whole, but it didn’t look flawed, incomplete, or wrong either. We were a unit and we all had lives, and Dash had, by now, after all this time, floated to the side of it. But I could still feel how Dash had melted into my arms and I could still see when I closed my eyes at night his beautiful, gentle brown eyes as they looked into mine, and hear his quiet voice when he told me, “I love you, too, Mom.” Moving on didn’t mean leaving Dash behind. It meant being able to get up every morning without paralyzing heartbreak.

  Now and then I passed the house that had been so warm and beautiful when Dash, Peter, and I had all lived on Trimble St
reet — and where Dash and Peter still lived. It had become as neglected as Dash. The front door was peeling and scuffed; the windowpanes were cracked and repaired with tape. Six months after Christmas in 1997, the previous year’s tree lay sprawled in the front yard, with tarnished strands of tinsel twisted in its bare branches and its metal stand still attached. Dash was alone at home with his father now, with Greg doing his residency and Suzanne long gone. When Dash wasn’t at school, he spent his time by himself, on the streets with his skateboard or at home in his room. He was burning through his friends with his neediness and defensiveness, with his indifference to their needs. His long-term friends still loved and supported him. They saw the pain he was in but didn’t know how to help.

  A friend of Dash’s told me recently that he became a hard person to be around after the 1996 trial. He had been left without hope, so of course he was difficult. Dash’s good friends knew he was in trouble. Newer friends, more troubled friends, took advantage, as they pushed him for invitations to his house because it was fun and unsupervised. They could drink there. Even when Peter was home he was often drunk, and the children could do what they wanted. Dash was embarrassed about the way his father acted around his friends. He turned beet red. Kids had been coming to the Hart house to drink, smoke, and hang out since Grade Six; the girls had been coming since Grade Seven. Peter called himself the Pied Piper. The children made fun of him, but Peter seemed unaware, and Dash never said a word against him.

  I didn’t know any of this for years. What I did know was what Dash told me. He said that he organized most of his own meals, making sandwiches for dinner or grabbing subs and pizzas out, so I got him a junior membership at the Jericho Tennis Club, somewhere he could go to eat healthy food and relax a bit. Though he never, ever, called me when he was there, I knew from the tab receipts I paid each month that he did go, and often. I would have given anything to be able to cook for Dash, to care for him, but I had to let these other people try and do it: the club, his peers, his friends’ parents. Peter had long stopped picking up Dash and dropping him off at his friends’ houses, leaving Dash to skateboard there and back or rely on the charity of other parents. Dash was drifting and unparented. It had been a year since the trial, and he was thirteen years old. Though not always successful, I still tried to pick up Dash at the specified time as all three of us had agreed in court.