by Delaney, JP
* * *
—
MEANWHILE, THE LEGAL SIDE of things intensified. We had to write statements, go through the evidence—in particular, Lyn Edwards’s devastating report. She’d recommended that Theo be returned permanently to the Lamberts. He felt safe there, apparently. But so what? Theo felt safe everywhere. Theo would have felt safe on top of a burning skyscraper.
Even though we’d half expected it, seeing it in black and white like that was another crushing blow. Anita told us encouragingly there were lots of things in the report she could challenge. But I remembered what she’d said about CAFCASS in our very first meeting. It’s very, very rare for the judge not to go along with their views.
And now that Theo was staying with the Lamberts, they’d become the status quo. There was a reason possession was called nine-tenths of the law. If he was there, and settled, our strongest argument for keeping him—that moving families would cause disruption—now worked in their favor, not ours.
I invented a new word: CAFCA-esque. Like Kafkaesque, only with added heartbreak.
I still went to the parenting classes, even though I didn’t currently have a child to parent. I didn’t want to give CAFCASS any reason, however small, to say we weren’t being cooperative.
At the classes I talked to the other parents, and heard tales of unbelievable misery—misery even worse than ours. Parents whose kids had been taken away after anonymous tip-offs by disgruntled neighbors, or because hospitals had concerns about minor injuries, or because a parent had lost their temper with a social worker. Mothers who, having proved they were clean of drugs, relapsed into addiction when the system refused to give their kids back. Or even worse, mothers who stayed clean, only to be told that their kids were now settled and happy with their foster families and it wasn’t in their best interests for them to be moved again. Many of the people I spoke to were chaotic, admittedly, or working their way through various rehabilitation programs. But many were just sad and desperate and broken.
And one woman whose story chilled my soul—a woman about Maddie’s age, an artist, heavily pregnant, who’d been told that, because she’d been in a psychiatric unit in the past, she was considered “capable of abuse.” The psychiatrist who had written those words had never even met her. But unless she could convince a judge his diagnosis was wrong, her baby would be taken from her soon after it was born and given up for adoption. It was all to do with numbers, she told me wearily: Removal of newborns had more than doubled since the government introduced adoption targets. I checked, sure she must have gotten that figure wrong. But she was right.
Once, I would have written about these people, and tried to shine a light on the injustices they were suffering. But even if there’d been a newspaper I could publish in, I wasn’t allowed to write anything that related, however tangentially, to our case.
Ironically, as the hearing about Theo neared, the case about David was just getting going. I tried to spend some time researching hypoxia, so I could sound more confident when a social worker asked how we were going to care for him. But the more I read, the more futile it seemed. I looked at our tiny house and wondered how on earth we could accommodate a severely disabled child.
If we even had a tiny house. We could barely afford the first mortgage, let alone the second mortgage that was now covering our legal fees. And if we failed to gain custody of David, there was a high likelihood we’d end up having to pay child maintenance for him.
If worse came to worst, and we lost both Theo and David, there would be another consequence, too. I would no longer have a child to be a full-time father to. I’d have to get a job—not in journalism, obviously; that ship had sailed, but maybe stacking shelves in the local supermarket. Would that cover our mortgages? I looked to see how much shelf stackers got paid. The answer was no, it wouldn’t.
We couldn’t sleep. Night after night, we lay side by side, staring at the ceiling and twitching with stress. Even eating was difficult—the tension made it hard to swallow. There was a time when Maddie would have drunk to relax, but now the pills she was taking meant we couldn’t even have alcohol in the house.
I started sleeping in Theo’s room. There was still a faint, puppyish smell of him lingering in the sheets. I even turned on his nightlight. It helped, somehow.
One night I woke to find Maddie sitting on the side of the bed. I glanced at the clock. It was four A.M.
“Perhaps it’s time to let him go,” she said softly. “Perhaps we should just stop fighting it. We could go back to Australia, have another child. Start again.”
I didn’t answer. After a moment she got up and left. In the morning, I wasn’t even sure I hadn’t dreamed it.
94
MADDIE
PETE IS BRILLIANTLY DOGGED. It’s a situation not unlike the NICU—the kind of crisis that requires resilience and determination, not quick thinking or decisiveness. Left to my own devices, I’d probably do something impulsive: shout at Lyn, or try to run away. But Pete just grits his teeth and keeps going. Researching David’s condition, writing legal statements, going through the evidence.
We both suspect it’s hopeless. But we don’t want to get to court and think there was something, anything, more we could have done.
I find myself remembering the period when I first fell in love with him, back in Australia. We were sleeping together, but I still regarded him principally as a friend and I had no expectation that the relationship would ever become anything more. Then I was invited to go and see my grandparents in Tasmania. Pete had never been, so he tagged along, too—we planned to do some hiking after the visit. It was only after we got there that I discovered the real reason I’d been asked: Grandpa was dying. A series of small strokes I hadn’t been told about had left him barely mobile. The day after we arrived, a larger one paralyzed his left side and made him incontinent. Instead of dropping in on an active elderly couple for a few nights, Pete found himself in the middle of a family drama, with relatives flying in from all over Australia and me an emotional wreck. He just quietly got on with it—ferrying people from the airport, shopping, cooking, even taking care of soiled bedsheets. Not once did he mention the missed hiking. When, one time, I’d started to say Sorry, I know this isn’t what you signed up for, he just looked at me as if I was crazy. “Thank you for letting me take care of you all,” he said simply.
Later, after my granddad passed, I was reminiscing with my grandmother when she patted my knee and said, “I hope you and Pete will be as happy as me and your granddad were.”
“Oh, we’re not serious,” I began, but then I saw the look on my grandmother’s face. And realized that, of course, we were. Pete was a keeper, and I’d have been mad to let him go.
* * *
—
I PHONE THE DAILY MAIL to say I can’t do an interview after all. But when I get through to the news desk and ask to speak to Kieran Keenan, there’s a pause.
“Are you a relative of his?” the man who picked up asks.
“No. It’s in connection with a story he’s working on.”
“I’m afraid Kieran won’t be coming back.”
“Won’t be back? Why not?”
“He was involved in a traffic accident—quite a bad one. He’ll be in hospital for some time. But if you have a story, tell me and I’ll see if we’re still interested.”
“What kind of traffic accident?”
“He was hit by a car. Broke his back, poor guy. They say it could be six months before he’s on his feet again.”
A terrible notion flits into my brain. “Did they arrest the driver?”
“Usually it’s us who ask the questions,” the journalist says, amused. “But someone wrote a piece, if you’re interested. It’s on the website. Now, tell me about this story of yours—”
I’ve already disconnected.
* * *
—
I FIND THE ARTICLE in between two flickering sidebars of clickbait about the plastic surgery disasters of celebrities I’ve never heard of. MAIL REPORTER VICTIM OF HIT-AND-RUN. It’s only twelve lines long. Kieran was found unconscious by a passerby near his home late one evening. The driver had fled the scene. There were no witnesses.
Did Kieran pick up on my comment about it being a bigger story than it looked, and decide to check out Miles for himself? Coming to the end of his internship, he’d be desperate to make his mark with a big story. And had Miles decided he’d rather not have whatever Kieran found out published?
I have to be wary of reading too much between the lines, I know. But I feel, in my heart, that any one of us could be in danger.
95
MADDIE
THREE DAYS BEFORE THE hearing, we go to a small, anonymous building in Camden to see Theo. The place looks not unlike a nursery or a small school, with rooms full of toys and play mats. But the sign outside says CAMDEN CHILD CONTACT CENTER, and the reception area is plastered with posters saying things like AT CCCC THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IS THE CHILD! and PLEASE LEAVE YOUR DISPUTES AT THE DOOR. WE WANT THIS TO BE A POSITIVE PLACE FOR OUR CHILDREN! along with advertisements for women’s refuge centers and Childline.
We’re led down a long corridor, past room after room of lone dads playing awkwardly with their kids. Despite the drawings on the walls and the jaunty, pastel-colored furniture, it feels like we’re walking ever farther into some bureaucrat’s version of hell—a surreal cross between a privatized prison and play school. This is where the detritus of broken families ends up, I think, looking around. They should send anyone who’s contemplating getting divorced here for an afternoon, not to couples therapy. Any marriage, however bad, would surely be more bearable than seeing your child somewhere like this.
Eventually we come to a door marked PENGUIN ROOM. AGE 2–4. Through the glazed panel we can see Theo squatting on the floor, engrossed in a marble run. A middle-aged woman with a notebook sits to one side. That must be Janine, our supervisor. Her job, we’ve been informed by email, is to write observations on “the quality of our interactions” with Theo for CAFCASS, who may then share them with the court.
I feel strangely nervous as we walk in. Which is ridiculous, I tell myself firmly. This is our son, and we’re simply going to play with him. Just like we’ve done a million times before.
“Hi, Theo,” Pete says eagerly. “How are you?”
Theo looks up briefly, then returns his attention to the marble run. “ ’lo,” he mutters.
Undeterred, Pete gets down on the floor next to him. “That looks fun. Can I have a turn?”
Theo shakes his head.
“Come on, Theo. Remember we talked about taking turns?” Pete reaches toward the plastic pot containing the marbles, but Theo snatches it away.
“Mine!” he declares.
I daren’t look at Janine to see what she’s making of all this. “Theo,” I begin, getting down on the floor as well. “Daddy really wants a turn with those marbles—”
For the first time, Theo looks at Pete. “You’re not my daddy.”
I feel my blood run cold. For a moment Pete’s too stunned to react. “Why do you say that, Theo?” he asks at last.
“Daddy Moles is my real daddy.” Theo glances at me. “You’re not my mummy, too. I was growed in Mummy Lucy’s tummy. Daddy Moles told me.” He turns back to the marble run and puts a whole fistful of marbles into the top so that they skitter down, one after the other, patter-patter-patter. One bounces out and rolls under Janine’s chair.
Pete swivels to Janine. “Write that down!” he demands furiously. “Write down that those—the applicants have been talking to him about the case. When we all agreed we wouldn’t.”
But even as he says it, I realize we didn’t all agree to that. It was just something Pete and I always assumed. Because telling Theo the truth about his parentage is so irrevocable, so final, that it has literally never occurred to us to do so. We were, I suppose, sticking our heads in the sand and hoping this would somehow go away before it became necessary. And while we’d made it clear to CAFCASS that we weren’t telling him, Lyn had never actually confirmed that she agreed with our position.
Janine says calmly, “The applicants asked the CAFCASS officer for permission to undertake some structured life story work with Theo. He has a right to know, after all. The officer thought it was a good idea to do it now, before…” She hesitates, and I have the impression she was going to say, Before he leaves you. “Before the hearing,” she finishes.
“He’s two,” Pete says incredulously. “Two. Years. Old. What kind of monstrous bitch would allow—”
He manages to stop himself, but the damage is done. “I’m going to terminate this contact now,” Janine says sharply, tucking her biro into her notebook to keep her place and standing up. Her hand hovers over a big red button on the wall. “Please go quietly, or I’ll have to call Security.”
96
MADDIE
OF ALL THE THINGS we’ve endured—Pete being made to move out, Theo staying at the Lamberts’, the police investigations—it’s those few brief moments in the contact center that seem to hit Pete hardest. That Miles has managed to weaponize Theo himself in the battle against us seems to rip away the last shreds of hope in his mind.
And that’s why Miles has never bothered to kill us, I realize. Not because he wouldn’t, but simply because he doesn’t need to. The system is on his side, and all he needs to do is let the various processes play out to their conclusion.
* * *
—
THE DAY BEFORE THE hearing, Pete collects his suit from the dry cleaners and I iron a black linen jacket. Funeral clothes, I find myself thinking.
Pete watches me, waiting his turn to iron his shirt. “You know, I keep thinking about Solomon, and that baby he ordered cut in two,” he says glumly. “If CAFCASS had existed back then, they’d probably have taken away his children, on the basis he’d threatened violence against a child. As for the women, when the real mother said let the other one have it, they’d have written a report saying she clearly no longer wanted him and was guilty of neglect.”
“We shouldn’t blame CAFCASS,” I say gently. “It’s not their fault they’ve run up against Miles. Think how long it took us to see him for what he really is.”
“True,” he admits.
I go on ironing.
“Wait,” he says suddenly. “I’ve had an idea. Why don’t we divide the children?”
I look at him. “What do you mean?”
“We have two children between two families, yes? Why don’t we simply share them? Theo could spend two weeks at ours, say, while David spends two weeks at their house. And then we swap, so David’s here and Theo’s at theirs. That way, we each have one child at any time. We could take turns, the way we’re always telling Theo he ought to.”
He looks so excited at the idea that some kind of compromise might still be possible that I don’t have the heart to tell him Miles will never go for it. Why should he? He’s never shown the faintest interest in compromising, not genuinely. And even if he did, who would decide about schools, or holidays, or even little things like haircuts? Perhaps right at the beginning, when things were different, we could have thrashed out an agreement like this. But now, when Miles so nearly has both children within his grasp, it’s pointless.
But I don’t say any of that. Instead, I say, “Well, it’s got to be worth a try.”
97
MADDIE
“GOOD MORNING, AND PLEASE take a seat,” Marion Wakefield says pleasantly.
I still can’t get over how informal the family courts are. It’s astonishing to think that every day, in this room, parents are separated from their children.
“First, I’m going to ask you again whether you think any agreement could be reached,” th
e judge continues. “Mr. Kelly?”
“My clients have been open to all suggestions, madam,” the Lamberts’ barrister says. “It seems a ruling by the court is the only way to resolve this.”
The judge nods, clearly expecting that answer. “Ms. Chowdry?”
Anita says, “My clients have a proposal they would like to put forward.”
Judge Wakefield looks at her over her glasses. “Would you like to outline it?”
“In brief, to share time with both children fifty–fifty. Theo will spend half his time with the applicants and half with the respondents. David will do the same, but in the opposite rotation. Since the children have very different needs, this will allow each child to get the best care at any one time.”
“Very well. We’ll take a break for the parties to discuss that.”
We all troop out. There are no spare rooms, so we sit in the foyer. Pete and I wait with Anita, while the Lamberts go into a huddle with their barrister and solicitor. After a couple of minutes Miles comes over, smiling.
“Nice try,” he says approvingly. “You know you’re going to lose, so you thought you’d try to salvage something from the wreckage. But equally, since I know we’re going to win, there’s absolutely no chance we’ll agree. None whatsoever.” He wanders back to the others.
“I see what you mean about him,” Anita says, watching him go.
“Believe me, that’s Miles on a good day,” Pete says. He puts his head in his hands.