Three More Words

by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

  Thinking about these boys being abandoned in the steamy trailer, hungry and in excruciating pain, triggered a crying jag. Erick overheard me and came rushing upstairs.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I indicated the files strewn on our bed. “The grandmother was supposed to babysit but she was running late, so this—this monster beat the crap out of the kids, broke Skyler’s leg, and left them alone to die.” I handed him the report that said when Tiffany’s mother arrived, the trailer was locked with the two unconscious children inside. By the time the authorities broke in, the air was fetid with garbage and dirty diapers and the temperature was almost 104 degrees. “The baby would definitely have perished in a few more hours,” the doctor told Tiffany. Luckily, Denver’s injuries were more superficial, although he was old enough to remember, as we would soon discover.

  At first Lillian seemed to be free of any symptoms from her sexually transmitted diseases. Then one evening I noticed some odd pearly bumps on her buttocks when I dried her off after her bath, and so I took her to the doctor.

  Lillian was sitting on the edge of the examining table, wearing her big-girl panties with ruffles and holding a doll. I spoke rapidly, using a cheerful voice to keep her from feeling anxious. “She’s our foster daughter,” I emphasized. We had never met this nurse, even though we had been in that medical office many times with several children.

  “What brings you here today?” the nurse asked in a sing-song voice.

  “A new rash,” I said. “It could be an STD.”

  The nurse gasped. “I know that’s horrifying,” I said, and I lowered my voice. “She was molested before she came to us.”

  The nurse rushed from the room with tears streaking her face.

  Dr. Swanson appeared in her wake, and I showed her the bumps. “This is called molluscum,” she said. “It will take awhile for this outbreak to clear.”

  “Is there any ointment or other treatment?”

  “Sure,” she said, writing out a script. “It won’t really do much, but it might make her more comfortable and make her workers feel better.”

  A few months later Lillian sprouted lesions on her lips and inside her mouth. This time the doctor diagnosed an active case of herpes.

  “I wonder if she was contagious before we noticed anything.” I shuddered because I had let down my guard during my pregnancy.

  “Just use infectious disease precautions,” the doctor told me. “Your husband should put the medication on her lips wearing gloves and wash thoroughly afterward. You need to avoid all direct contact due to your advanced stage of pregnancy.”

  “What about the other children in our home?”

  “Make sure they wash their hands regularly and try to keep them from touching each other.”

  Yeah, right, I thought, although we did our best. We gave Lillian her own “special” dishes, cups, and flatware. The dishwasher worked overtime to sterilize everything, including toys. We encouraged blowing kisses to show affection and say good-bye, and high fives to congratulate or relate happiness.

  Lillian’s Guardians ad Litem were a husband-and-wife team, Edna and Howard Daugherty, who were in their late seventies and worked in Pasco County, which was where she had originally been removed. We kept her home from preschool on the day of their monthly visit and met in a nearby restaurant. We arrived on time, but by the time the guardians showed up late, she was about to reach her toddler-in-public limit. I pulled some toys out of my purse to add a little time to the meter.

  “How are her brothers doing?” I asked Edna.

  “We’re hoping to get all the kids back to Mom, starting with the brothers.”

  “Really? We were told they were very disturbed,” Erick said.

  Lillian stuck out her tongue and started chirping like a wounded bird. “Hi, cutie,” Edna said to her. She turned to me. “We are lucky to have such sweet kids on our first case.”

  “The caseworker told us that her mother is living with a new boyfriend who has three children and a felony domestic violence charge for choking a woman, so how can that be a safe place for Lillian?” I asked.

  “We’re hoping he learned his lesson,” Howard said.

  I dropped my fork with a clatter. “So you plan to put all these kids back together and see what happens?”

  Lillian had touched my heart in a different way than Albert or Lance. I saw some of myself in her girlish ways—spinning in a dress, making faces in a mirror, and talking to her dolls. As a woman I took the nature of her abuse as a personal assault and had a visceral reaction anytime I thought about her perpetrator. I worried how this would affect the rest of her life. Had she been young enough to forget it entirely, or would it be a dark shadow she couldn’t quite shake—or even define? With a few of our foster children, Erick and I had “the moment” when we asked each other, “If they were available, would we keep them?” The answer for Albert had been a resounding “Yes!” For a long time we had come to believe Lance would remain with us until a mystery aunt was presented in the final hour. All the others—until Lillian—were too temporary or had positive placements to move on to. What about her?

  First, she had two brothers. We had met them several times during court-ordered sibling visits and realized they were very angry, disturbed, and not only had been abused but acted out on each other; therefore they had to remain in separate foster placements until they had been stabilized. They had also been cruel to Lillian. And yet the long-term plan was for them to be reunited with their dysfunctional mother, who hadn’t protected them in the first place. During a staffing, she admitted that she knew about the sexual abuse but didn’t think it was a “big deal.” Now the mother had chosen another dangerous partner with a violent felony record who had three kids of his own. Didn’t anyone else see the danger behind this twisted Brady Bunch scenario?

  My old foster child defense system—turning off my feelings—failed me when it came to worrying about children in my care, and my inner mother tiger tensed to pounce if I could identify the target.

  It took far too long for the guardians to order their food. Lillian started squirming, and I took her to the bathroom. She refused to get back into her booster seat.

  “Would you like some ice cream?” Edna asked. The guardian should have checked with us first, but we let it slide. “I wanted you to know that we’re recommending the court reunify with the grandmother first,” she said.

  I snapped, “This is the same woman who left the children in a car with a dead person?”

  “That was an isolated incident,” Edna answered.

  “The long-term goal remains reunification with the mother,” Howard added.

  “Where’s my ice cream?” Lillian cried out.

  Edna looked around for the server. “Just a moment, hon.”

  “You know what?” Lillian blurted.

  “What, honey?” Edna asked.

  “My daddy hurt me.”

  My mouth gaped. “Lillian, where did your daddy hurt you?” I asked.

  She pointed directly between her legs. Both guardians shot daggers at Erick.

  Edna turned to her husband. “We are going to have to call this in as an abuse report to the hotline.”

  “You do understand her prior history?” I said carefully just as the ice cream arrived.

  Lillian had play therapy with Bonnie. Last week Bonnie reported that Lillian had undressed an anatomically correct doll and poked a toy screwdriver between its legs. I had gone to a staffing the next day with Bonnie and Lillian’s mother. When the therapist described this behavior, her mother said, “Oh, she’s been inserting things in herself since she was a baby.” At that, I had to excuse myself from the meeting and get some fresh air.

  Lillian started to pitch her ice cream spoon across the table, but Erick was a split second ahead of her and caught it. She kicked. He stood and lifted her from the booster seat. “It might be time for us to be on our way. I’ll put her in the car seat.”

  Later that evening Edna e-
mailed me a copy of what she’d sent her case coordinator and what she’d called into the abuse hotline. She had put “Daddy touched me” in quotes without any discussion about which daddy that might be, and she didn’t even quote Lillian correctly. All abuse reports go to a central hotline, which prioritizes them before passing them down to local investigators. Panic suffused my body, and even my baby began to kick wildly inside me. Would the next knock on our door be an ignorant bully of a worker who would try to nail my gentle husband for hurting this traumatized child?

  Even though it was late, I phoned Edna. “I just got your e-mail,” I said in as steady a voice as I could manage. “You need to clarify that Lillian was not referring to Erick.”

  “Oh, well, I’m sure they’ll find that’s the case,” she said.

  “Mrs. Daugherty!” I said shrilly. “This little girl came to us with several sexually transmitted diseases, and she had been living with a child molester who also abused her brothers. You should have made that clear in your report. Someone new to the case isn’t going to know these important details and may suspect my husband. You have to call the hotline back and leave no room for speculation.”

  I took a long breath. “Further, Edna, this is precisely the reason we have been wary of parenting sexually abused children. We agreed to take Lillian before those facts were known. But the minute someone shows up to investigate us because of irresponsible reporting, they will have to find her another placement.”

  “But why? You are so wonderful with her. We wouldn’t want her moved from your home.”

  My voice was stern. “I realize you are new guardians, but a report like this can ruin someone’s life.”

  “Yes, of course,” she backpedaled. “I didn’t mean to implicate your husband.”

  Thankfully, we were not involved in the police investigation that took place after these allegations. Bonnie confirmed that the child had been placed in our home because of prior abuse. The brothers gave the most graphic descriptions of what at least two men—Murph and someone named Roddy—had done to them and Lillian. The boys described pornography tapes they had watched as well as seeing their parents, grandmother, and other adults in sexual situations. The investigators said Lillian couldn’t speak well enough to get a solid statement, so they dropped the case in a few days. After that, Erick and I became more insistent that if a foster child wanted to call us “Mommy” or “Daddy” that we were to be “Mommy Ashley” and “Daddy Erick” to separate ourselves from their parents.

  When we learned the sexual abuse case was not going to be prosecuted, I tossed a dishcloth across the room and clutched my swollen abdomen. “The boys named the guys who did it, and they get to walk free because the different county departments can’t figure out who should take it on. They jail people for possessing pot or for shoplifting, but not for ruining a child’s life!” I fumed.

  My schedule was busier than ever—balancing school, my trips for speeches, as well as campaign-related events. My friend Nikki was going to babysit one Sunday while Erick and I attended a political forum. She texted us to say she thought Lillian was running a fever. We came right home and found she had a slight temperature. We gave her a dose of a children’s fever reducer and she popped up ready for school Monday morning. At noon her school phoned as I was packing for a flight to California the following day. “Something’s wrong,” her teacher said. “Lillian’s doubled over like a little old lady.”

  I took her directly to the pediatrician’s office. The nurse said she needed a urine sample to test for a bladder infection. Lillian refused to pee or drink water or juice. “I’ll do it at home where she’s more relaxed,” I said.

  “That won’t be acceptable,” the nurse said.

  I insisted on taking one of their sterile jars anyway, since it was time to get the other children. “I also want to see the doctor before I go.”

  Dr. Swanson gave me less than a minute of her time. “With little girls that age, she most likely has a bladder infection or constipation, but we can’t give her medication without a sample. We can do a swab for strep throat.”

  “Look at how she’s standing.” I reached for Lillian’s hand and pulled her toward me. She was bent doubled over like a pretzel. “Stand up tall, sweetie,” I said.

  I pulled her shoulders back gently. “No!” she screeched.

  “Could it be something else?” I asked.

  “I can’t do anything without a urine sample,” she said.

  We managed to get a trickle of urine at home, which I delivered to the doctor on my way to the airport the next morning. When Erick called for the result, the nurse said there hadn’t been enough to test.

  I texted Erick for an update as my plane taxied to the gate at my connecting airport. Erick called right back. “She’s much worse. She can barely stand up.”

  “This can’t wait until I get home; take her to the hospital!” I shouted when he picked up the phone as I changed gates. The message waiting for me when I landed at my destination read: Lil needs surgery; ruptured appendix.

  I began to weep. Poor, poor baby! Less than three and she had been through more suffering than most adults I knew. I phoned Erick. “Within an hour of getting to the ER, they diagnosed a perforated appendix,” he reported. “She had surgery to clean out the abscesses and infection in her belly.”

  “Did they take out the appendix?”

  “No. They want her to have antibiotics for a few weeks first.”

  “You mean another surgery?”

  “Yes. If Dr. Swanson had done a blood test, she could have had a simple laparoscopic procedure.”

  “Could she have died?” I asked with a quavering voice.

  “I don’t know, but she was filled with pus and she was in critical condition.”

  “I feel like the doctors at that practice treat our foster kids like second-class citizens.”

  “Oh, that’s not even the worst part,” Erick added sarcastically. “There was a huge problem about getting permission for surgery. They wouldn’t let me sign, and I couldn’t reach her case manager. Technically, only a parent or a judge can consent, but this was an emergency.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I called Maya and they faxed some paperwork back and forth that will cover it for now.”

  “You should have just said you were the father and asked for forgiveness later.”

  “I was almost at that point.”

  As we talked out the issues, we both calmed down. I wished I weren’t on the other side of the country, leaving Erick with one child hospitalized and two more at home.

  “Got it covered,” Erick said, and explained his plan. “I’m going home as soon as I know she’s stable. My parents are at the house with the boys. Then Nikki is going to spend the night in case I have to go back to the hospital.” He paused. “Thank goodness we have friends who are background-checked babysitters.”

  Erick was spending all day at Lillian’s bedside and taking care of the boys before and after school until I returned from my speaking trip.

  Erick had deep bags under his eyes and a scruffy face. “Can’t sleep well when you’re not here,” he said.

  “I’ll go to the hospital in the morning,” I said, “and you can sleep in.”

  I brought Lillian a balloon bouquet. After playing with it for a few seconds, she looked around. “Where’s Daddy Erick?”

  Every nurse who came into her room looked crestfallen to see me instead of Erick. “Your husband has been a saint,” the charge nurse said. “He reads to her all day long and will do anything she wants, because she needs to keep that IV in.”

  “He’s the best.”

  “You have no idea! We figured he was her father, but when we heard he’s only the foster dad—well, nobody can get over it. Half the time we don’t even see real parents here for more than an hour a day.”

  She looked at my large belly. “Lillian has done best sitting on your husband’s lap, but I don’t see how your condition will allow that,
” she said sympathetically. “Otherwise she has to stay in bed and not jump around or she’ll dislodge the IV.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said.

  After I read her two books, Lillian kicked the blankets into knots. She pointed to my phone on the bureau. “Call Daddy Erick!” she demanded.

  “He’s busy,” I said, determined to give him a break. But tending Lillian at bedside hurt my back. I had a condition of pregnancy called severe symphysis pubis dysfunction, which gave me chronic pain in my pelvis. After two hours, I knew I had to go home and lie down. I decided that Lillian—and the nurses—would be happier if Erick came back.

  14.

  losing and winning

  Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.

  —Elie Weisel

  As November approached, I wondered which would come first: the election or the baby. He was due only two days after the election, so we did absentee voting just in case.

  “I just don’t want to be embarrassed by the election results,” I said. “Latvala’s last opponent got only thirty-six percent. If do better than that, I’ll be happy.”

  On election night I was transfixed as my numbers jumped from 50,000 votes to 75,000 in an hour. Jack Latvala was still ahead, but the margin wasn’t substantial. More worrisome was the cramping in my back. Could this be the start of labor?

  When “Final Results” flashed in green on the television, I had 93,296 votes! That was a huge amount considering my opponent’s wealth and status. I had a solid 42 percent of the votes—far more than anyone had imagined. Friends and family called in congratulations. Yes, I had lost, but I proved that I could be a contender. The next time I run for office, I could win!

  Erick and I both wanted as natural a birth as possible. We found a local medical group with two midwives who work in conjunction with two obstetricians. One of them—Darlean—had studied under our family friend Ruth Wilf at the Frontier Nursing University.