by Gay Courter
Calvin suppressed a grin by pretending to scratch his nose.
“I would like to speak,” Stuart Ryan said.
“Go ahead,” said the judge.
“Why is everyone bending over backward to do what Lydia wants? After all, she is a known child abuser, she is listed in the HRS abuse registry computer and went to juvenile detention.” The abuse data base lists every known record of child abuse that has been investigated and not discarded. It is checked by employers hiring people to work with children and in court cases involving child neglect and abuse.
Lillian leaned forward. “Did you know she was in the computer registry?” she whispered to me. I shook my head.
Stuart Ryan’s voice deepened. “Lydia would do whatever she is told if she didn’t have some busybody do-gooder telling her she can get her way all the time.” He shot a nasty glance at me.
Nancy pushed her chair back and stood slightly. “I want it recorded that earlier Mr. Ryan made some threatening remarks to my guardian.”
“We can’t all be happy campers, Mr. Ryan, but I will not tolerate any inappropriate behavior in my court,” the judge said gruffly. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Mr. Ryan answered, then flushed purple again.
“Now, do you or her mother have any reasons not to want her at the Fowlers?” the judge asked.
“I cannot pay child support there,” Mr. Ryan replied.
The judge removed his glasses and stared across the table at Lydia. “And is this what you would like?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I have prayed to stay with the Fowlers and I think that is where Jesus wants me to be.”
I looked over at Judge Donovan, whose stony face did not betray his thoughts. “Anyone else?”
“Now you can see why I couldn’t argue with her,” I said, unable to control my smile. “Maybe you are willing to fight those beliefs, but I surrendered.”
“I rule in favor of the motion for change of placement,” Judge Donovan said resolutely, and dismissed us all.
Nancy tapped me on the shoulder to remind me to leave, but I still was trying to figure out what had happened. “What—?” I asked, and dropped the Schorr book.
“Our motion. He approved our motion,” Lillian hissed as she handed me the book.
I caught Calvin’s eyes, which crinkled slightly in covert approval.
Lydia waited for me by the door, her parents having disappeared in a blink. “We won,” I said in case she was also confused.
“This is the first time I can leave the court with a smile,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
“Don’t thank me,” I said, turning her to face the judge.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, then ducked out the door.
“But what about being named a child abuser on the computer?” Lydia asked in a tinny voice. “Does that mean that if I ever have a baby someday, they’ll take it away from me?”
Nancy jumped in. “Absolutely not. Those records are wrong. Now that we know they exist, we’ll file the papers to get them expunged.”
“What does that mean?”
“Clearing your name from the computer,” I explained. “And while we’re at it, we’ll get your delinquency files expunged too. Right, Nancy?”
Nancy nodded. “From today on, everything will be new and fresh, and the only way for you to get anything bad on your record will be if you really do something wrong.”
Mona seemed impatient. “I have to stay for some other cases, and it’s too late for Lydia to go back to school. You want to take her home?”
“Sure, I’d love to,” I said.
As soon as we got in the car, Lydia asked, “Can I use your cellular phone to call June at work and tell her the news?” I showed her how to dial the number. “Hi, is Mrs. Fowler available?” She waited. “Hi, Mom, it’s me, Lydia. I’m on my way home!”
I held my breath. Until I saw the signed order placing Lydia in foster care, I was uncertain what we had won, but the language in it was stronger than I expected, saying that Lydia’s return to her parents would be “contrary to her health, safety, and welfare.”
All through winter vacation I held my breath as I hoped that Lydia would behave herself, but she had nothing but good reports. The one low point was when Lydia was tormented by sadness because her father would not permit a Christmas Day visit with the family. “I had presents for them, but he won’t let anyone accept them.”
“Did he have a reason?”
“My mom says it’s because HRS is trying to collect reimbursement for some of my foster care expenses.”
I held my breath when the time came for her to enroll at the vocational school, but they kept their promise and accepted Lydia into their program, where she enjoyed more autonomy and being able to complete work at her own pace.
I held my breath as the Fowlers moved to another home, worried that this might be an excuse to ask Lydia to leave. Instead they took another teenage girl, and soon Candace, Lydia, and the third sister became “the three musketeers.”
I held my breath when I went to see the assistant state attorney to clear Lydia’s files. Neither her shoplifting arrest nor assault charge would remain on her records, she assured me. I held my breath as I filled out the forms to have Lydia expunged from the abuse registry. The process took two months and the paperwork that came from the district administrator of HRS did not exonerate Lydia; her name was expunged because of a loophole. But it served the purpose.
Based on the May 1991 amendments to Chapter 415 of the Florida statutes, the person held responsible for a child, and thus designated as a perpetrator of abuse/neglect or exploitation, must be an adult, 18 years old or older. Lydia Ryan, who is alleged as the perpetrator, was not legally an adult. Therefore the report will be expunged.
I brought Lydia two copies of the report, one for her and one she could send to her parents. She read it several times, then said, “Now that I have a clean slate I really am born again.”
I held my breath as she began going with a boy who refused to attend her church. In a few weeks she decided in favor of the church. I held my breath when she started dating another boy she had known from her days with Teddy, one who had also taken drugs, but this time she would only date him at her church youth groups, and he joined willingly.
I held my breath when she confessed that she was falling in love with someone else, a boy in her vo-tech class. I held my breath when she phoned me to say she had an emergency, then deflated with relief when she only needed a ride to her therapist because June was sick. On the way we talked about her new love. “Now that I realize sexual relations are a sin, I won’t have them again until I’m married.”
“I know you feel that way right now, but when a boy and girl really care for each other, sometimes they find they cannot wait.” I then launched into a presentation of birth control methods as well as AIDS, and told her I would never think less of her if she asked for more information about any of this. She promised she would.
I held my breath many months later when she reported she and the latest boy were engaged and things were “getting serious.”
“What are you doing about contraception?” I inquired without missing a beat.
I held my breath during the pause until she said she had gone to the doctor and was on the pill.
I held my breath when she called because she had been in an accident on the way to school. The school bus had been hit, but everyone was all right. She had missed her shuttle to the vo-tech from the high school and was stranded. I was happy to come to her rescue and catch up on the latest news.
“Guess who I heard from last week?” she asked teasingly.
I made a few guesses, but all were wrong. Then she told me that she had received a call from one of her friends at the Tabernacle Home, who reported the facility had closed its doors.
“I guess you would have had to leave there anyway,” I said.
“Yes, but they were good peop
le and they did a lot for me,” Lydia replied in their defense.
I did not comment further, but I no longer regretted any of my actions that brought the brief upheaval in Lydia’s life.
On one occasion there was nobody to take Lydia to a doctor’s appointment. She had been losing weight for no apparent reason and needed some testing. I held my breath while anorexia and bulimia, thyroid disease, pregnancy, and sexually-transmitted diseases were systematically eliminated. She was treated for mild anemia and a sensitive stomach.
I sighed with relief when an early morning call from June Fowler was only a glowing report about how well Lydia had adjusted to their family. “She’s a teenager, of course, with highs and lows, but Lydia is really special to us.”
On Lydia’s eighteenth birthday we went to the best restaurant in the county together. “What’s escargots?” she asked, mangling the word.
“Snails, but if you are daring and like garlic, go ahead. Tell the waiter you want ‘ess-car-go.’ “
She practiced a few times and giggled. “May I also have lobster tail?”
“Sure,” I replied.
Immediately her eyes clouded with tears. I asked what was wrong.
“Last week I went to see the twins in a school play. Nobody told me that my brother also was appearing on stage, so I was surprised to see my parents sitting a few rows in front with my sister. At the end of the performance, I went up to my mother, who said a few words, and gave my sister a hug, but my dad turned his back to me and started to walk away. I followed him and said, ‘Please talk to me, Dad. Please.’ I told him, ‘I still love you, why won’t you even look at me?’ I reached out and tried to tug on his arm, but he shoved me away and I fell back into the edge of a seat.” She gulped, then continued, “Everybody saw me crying, but nobody even stopped—except my foster mother.” Her face hardened. “I’ve made a decision. I’m not going to try to see him anymore.”
Our drinks were served and I toasted her birthday by clinking my ginger ale glass against her cola. I then took out three gifts. “You can open one with each course.”
The first was a tape she had wanted, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique.
“I heard it in music class and I’m going to play this at Halloween,” she said, then told me the story behind the score, something even I had not known.
The snails were served and she fumbled with the unusual utensils. After a few tentative chews, she decided the snails were terrific. As I admired Lydia’s shining hair and flushed cheeks and bright, luminous eyes, and the way she flung her arms expressively as she talked and tossed her head when she laughed, I recalled the withdrawn sprite in the plaid uniform and could see beyond that to the waxen waif who had hung out with unsavory characters and had taken drugs to assuage her inner anguish. How far she had come from those days!
After eating her lobster tail, Lydia opened her next present, an appointment book similar to my own, which she had admired. “Wow! This is great!” She studied it page by page, planning on how to enter her schoolwork, church work, job, and other categories.
I told her the date to mark for her next six-month judicial review. “After that, I will no longer be your guardian, but while they might be able to get rid of me on paper, you’ll always be in my heart, Lydia. And I’ll be here to help you, no matter what.”
“I know that,” she said, shaking her finger at me as though I were a silly child.
The waiter brought a small birthday cake. Lydia blew out the candle and I handed her the last gift.
“Robert Frost! My own copy!” She thumbed through the index, then selected a particular poem. “Would you read it to me?”
I did as she requested, although my voice faltered as I read the last few lines of “Acceptance.”
“Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.”
Writing fiction is so much tidier than real life. If this had been one of my novels, this chapter would have ended on the high and hopeful note of Lydia’s birthday celebration. Just a week after the lobster dinner, though, Lillian phoned me.
“Next week’s court docket has Lydia Ryan down for a status conference on a criminal indictment of some sort.”
“Lydia! Nobody told me!” My temple pounded painfully. “She’s been perfect. I don’t understand …”
“Better check on it.”
“She’s eighteen. Am I still her guardian?”
“Because she is still in school and remains in foster care, you haven’t been officially discharged yet.”
“Would she be tried as an adult?”
“Yes.” Lillian sensed my anxiety. “Don’t get all worked up until you find out what this is about.”
I dialed the state prosecutor’s office. “Yes, she is on the docket,” the clerk said, “but it is an old case that is up for review.”
“What was the offense?”
“Aggravated battery.” The clerk read me the criminal case number. “You know, the microwave oven case.”
“But that was to be expunged when she was eighteen. Why is it still active?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Mr. Harmon, the new assistant state attorney.”
“Could you connect me?” I had met Merv Harmon once before when he had taken a deposition from a child who had been raped. He had been gentle and considerate, so I felt comfortable calling him.
“Hello, Mrs. Courter, what can I do for you?” I explained that I was Lydia Ryan’s guardian and asked what was going on. “It’s a status conference to determine the final disposition of her two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon,” he continued.
“Frankly, I don’t understand why this is even coming to court,” I began. “The last person I spoke to in your office assured me that this would be wiped from her files when she was eighteen.”
“It might have been if the delinquency caseworker at HRS had filled out the required paperwork, but he didn’t, so it has remained in the active file. This status conference will determine if probation should be continued or if the case should be disposed of in another way.”
“Have you read the file?”
“Briefly.”
“I know it is confusing, but the bottom line is that the entire charge is baloney. There never was any baby or any microwave oven.”
“That’s not what my papers say.”
“The supposed ‘baby’ was her eighty-pound sister, and the only time a microwave was involved was in a verbal threat by her boyfriend.”
“It says right here she pled nolo contendere, Latin for ‘I do not wish to contest,’ which essentially is a guilty plea,” he said condescendingly.
“Lydia is a casualty of a misunderstanding.”
“She was represented by an attorney and then served time in juvenile detention.”
“If you will read further, you will realize those are not the correct facts of the case.”
“What do you want to do, retry the case on the phone?” His voice had taken on a nasty edge.
“Look, this is a young girl who absolutely did not commit any crime. Since I was not her guardian at that time, I am not certain why she pled as she did, but I know she was set up for reasons that have nothing to do with this case. We’ve worked together before, Mr. Harmon, and we were both on the same side, the side of the victim. Lydia is the victim in this case, and if you want I can prove it to you.”
“Are you a lawyer?”
I was taken aback. “No. I am a Guardian ad Litem.”
“Well, you sure sound like a lawyer.”
Was this a compliment or a complaint? I wondered.
Mr. Harmon continued, “Nevertheless, I suggest you talk to a lawyer because as far as I am concerned this case is going to remain on the books as a serious offense.”
“Why aren’t you willing to give a kid a break?”
“I have stated my position,” he said, then hung up.
My
next call was to the public defender’s office. Jules Gervais had been assigned the case, but he was not in. His secretary explained that Lydia’s original attorney at the time of the alleged offense had been someone else, who was now in private practice. She would give Mr. Gervais the file and my message.
Even though I had not heard anything by the end of the day, I drove to Lydia’s house on my way home from my office to discuss the latest turn of events.
“You promised me it was over!” Lydia said, her face turning to chalk.
“I thought it was. I gave you copies of the HRS computer expungement and I took the former assistant state attorney’s word that the files would automatically be sealed when you were eighteen. The problem seems to be that the delinquency officer at HRS didn’t file the necessary paperwork to wipe the conviction from your records.”
“They keep lying to me,” Lydia said with a strangled groan.
“In what way?” I asked.
“When it happened, my lawyer said I wouldn’t have to go to jail, and I did.”
“How much time did he spend with you?”
“Maybe fifteen minutes. He told me I could tell the judge I was guilty and then I would get some sort of probation and community service. He said it might be the easiest way, but I wouldn’t give in. Why should I? I didn’t do anything. So then he explained that I could say I was not guilty, but that would mean a trial. He warned me that they would dig up everything about my past, like what happened between me and Teddy. They’d even want to know with whom I had sex and when.”
“So you were afraid that by going to trial your personal life would be exposed.”
Lydia nodded morosely. “Then the lawyer said there was a way out by not saying I either did it or didn’t do it.”
“By pleading no contest?”
“Yeah, but what he didn’t tell me is that I could go to jail for that too.” Lydia’s body shuddered and she broke into sobs. “It will never be over. Never!”
“Oh yes it will!” I vowed. “Even if I have to chain myself to the judge’s bench until this case is wiped clean.”
“Would you really do that?” she asked, her head tilted toward me.