The Children Money Can Buy

by Anne Moody

  Other than the underwear thefts, Jesse didn’t get into too much trouble. He was in a stable home with experienced and dedicated foster parents, and my job consisted of periodic visits and maintaining the necessary paperwork for his care. Nothing much happened for three years, until the day my supervisor, Jim, decided to accompany me on one of these visits. Jim had also worked with Jesse; he wanted to come along to say hello to him and his foster mother and see how they were doing. We got to the house, sat down in the living room, and had been chatting pleasantly for awhile with the foster mom when Jesse appeared in the doorway with a rifle. Being clueless, I didn’t know how to respond, but Jim—an African American New Yorker—rose to the occasion and immediately started trying to talk Jesse into putting down the rifle, which, in time, he did. We left soon after, with Jesse in good spirits and the foster mother seeming concerned mostly about the lack of hospitality he had initially shown. But Jim took the incident seriously, and not long after, Jesse was on his way to residential treatment in Texas. Our hope was that his stay there would let us make the most of the time we had left with him before his eighteenth birthday, when he would age out of the state foster care system and be released into the wild.

  The second boy was someone I knew only from newspaper reports about his high-profile crime. Like Jesse, Cole had had access to a gun. Unlike Jesse, he had fired it, severely wounding a child and the doctor who had run to the child’s aid, ending the man’s career as a surgeon and leaving the child in a wheelchair. Cole’s shooting spree had terrorized the neighborhood for a period of time before the police were able to talk him down. His rampage was deemed an expression of his feelings about breaking up with his girlfriend, but there doubtless were other contributing factors.

  Cole was just short of his sixteenth birthday and had had no serious difficulties with the law. He, too, was an appealing boy and, despite the enormity of his crime and the corresponding outrage in the community, his youth was taken into consideration and he was sent to a boys’ ranch in Texas rather than to jail, on the theory that he was a good candidate for treatment. My assignment was just to see how he was doing and report back to the court.

  My first visit was to Jesse’s school. He was especially friendly and seemed comfortable there. He was happy about the fact that there were lots of girls at his new school and proud that one of them was his girlfriend. The school was a well-established institution with lots of rules—something I wouldn’t have predicted would sit well with Jesse, but he seemed to be adjusting well. I met with his various counselors, who expressed neither grave concerns nor a whole lot of optimism about being able to set him on a path to success. There was nothing remarkable about any of this, and nothing further for me to do for Jesse other than write my report.

  I had dinner that night with the director of the boys’ ranch where Cole was staying and his wife at a charming restaurant in an upscale part of the city. They were both good company, and he was particularly outgoing and charming and seemed intent on ensuring that I had a good time. The next morning, I set off for the ranch, which was about one hundred fifty miles away, via a dirt road after the first hour. Eventually, in the middle of nowhere, the ranch emerged. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised: it looked like a summer camp with airy, fresh, pine cabins and quite a few large trees—an oasis in the desert. It struck me as remarkably clean and peaceful.

  The plan was for me to meet with Cole, then talk with the director. Cole knew I was coming to see him, but since we’d never met, I doubt that he had any particular expectations other than that the visit might be interesting. He was polite and subdued, and his words seemed overshadowed by a sort of stunned disbelief, as if he was expecting to wake from a nightmare. He had no complaints about the ranch and appeared to be resigned to being there until he was eighteen. Cole must have realized how tremendously lucky he was to have been so young when he committed his crime. Not too many months later and he might have faced a long prison sentence instead of a few years in Texas.

  When I met with the director, he was just as jovial as he had been the night before. He was obviously proud of the ranch, and I was an interested and appreciative listener as he told me about all of their successes. Sitting in his office and looking around at the pictures on the walls, it occurred to me that the boys at the ranch were an unusually good-looking bunch. The pictures weren’t simple snapshots—many were professional-quality enlargements. I commented on how great all the kids looked, and it turned out that the director himself was the photographer. “How nice,” I thought. “How nice that not only do the kids who come here get healthy and beautiful, but their parents get visual evidence that their kids are thriving.” Impressed, I left that ranch thinking that they must have discovered a formula for success . . . and, in retrospect, I very much hope that they had.

  Now fast-forward to a time many years later when I was working as an adoption counselor. I had been asked to complete a home study for a single man in his late forties who wanted to adopt an eleven-year-old boy he had met several years earlier while traveling in South America. The boy’s aging grandmother felt unable to continue caring for him and apparently wanted her grandson to be adopted and come to the United States. The man, Geoff, presented himself as someone motivated by the desire to give this particular child a good life. Geoff stated that he was wealthy by inheritance and did not need a paying job, although he had a history of sporadic work as a teacher and coach.

  Policy at the time required single male applicants to go through an additional step that was not required of couples or single women: a psychological evaluation to determine their fitness as parents. It was widely assumed in those days that single men who wanted to adopt might be up to no good, and that a psychological assessment could ferret them out.

  During the home study interviews, Geoff was talkative and seemed forthcoming. He was a bit older than most applicants, had a lot of life experience, and was open about sharing his biographical information along with his views about parenting, cultural identity, and other topics covered in a home study. Geoff was articulate and sociable, and we discovered we knew a number of the same people since he had been a youth coach in the community where I grew up. I also discovered that Geoff was quite a name-dropper, but I just chalked this up to his wealth, reasoning that if your friends actually are powerful and famous people, it isn’t name-dropping to say so. The only thing that struck me as “different” about Geoff was the way his office walls were lined with photographs of boys—not just sports-team pictures but individual portraits. There was virtually no uncovered wall space, all of it being taken up by these photographs; and there were photographs of boys I had known in high school.

  I submitted my report with glowing letters of reference from Geoff’s friends in high places and his favorable psychological evaluation, and eventually the child arrived. I visited with Geoff and his new son three times, as required, over the next six months and noticed nothing amiss. Geoff seemed to love being a dad and showering this child with all the trappings of a wealthy American lifestyle. Other than the fact that the boy put on weight at a rapid rate (not unusual when a child comes to the United States), he seemed to be in excellent health and adjusting well. I saw no cause for concern.

  Not too long after the adoption was finalized, Geoff called to say that he wanted to adopt another child. He looked through an agency’s list of waiting children and eventually settled on two brothers, also from South America. I updated the home study, which now included lots of information about how well he had done with the first child, and in about eight months Geoff became the father of three boys between the ages of ten and fourteen. Once again, I visited with the family three times over the next six months, and everything seemed to be fine. Geoff didn’t appear to be at all overwhelmed by the dramatic changes in his life, probably in large part because he hired a Spanish-speaking housekeeper to manage a good portion of the workload. I honestly felt that things were go
ing well for everyone in that family.

  But the past caught up with Geoff one day when he decided to accept a substitute teaching position in a high school class that included a child he had molested some years earlier. This boy, more confident now, was shocked when he saw Geoff and went straight to the principal. He implicated Geoff and one of his high-profile references as well. Once they started investigating, the police had no trouble finding all the evidence they needed against these men. The friend was sentenced to five years in jail. Geoff and his sons, whose adoptions had long been finalized, fell off the radar, and I was told they had left the country. Meanwhile, I went searching for answers to the question of why I never saw through his façade.

  Eventually I found a training manual for police officers that proved extremely specific and extremely surprising. Although people are better educated about child molestation these days, the things that really jumped out at me in this manual would still come as a surprise to most. Even more disturbing, it wasn’t any one specific behavior that would pinpoint someone as a pedophile—rather, it was a number of things that, taken separately, would never be viewed as evidence of deviance. The list included a history of volunteer coaching, a history of mentoring disadvantaged children, financial security despite long periods of unemployment, never having been married, and various other normal and benign characteristics. Geoff had all of them.

  The list also included such things as frequent name-dropping, concern with social status and appearance, concern with presenting oneself as charming, and (drum roll) owning lots of photographic displays of children. In short, everything on it described Geoff perfectly.

  Reading this, my mind flashed back to the pleasant memories I harbored from my visit with Cole at the boys’ ranch in Texas. How would I have felt about that situation if I’d had this training manual back then?

  I don’t know what ultimately happened to Cole; I do know that Jesse ended up serving time in Jackson Prison. Shortly after his eighteenth birthday, having aged out of the foster care system, he felt compelled to firebomb a convenience store when the owner refused to give him money for his nonreturnable bottles. True to form, he had an explanation that elicited a bit of head-shaking affection along with dismay. “It’s not my fault!” he said, all innocence, “I’ve got no impulse control!” I guess that’s what he learned at his school in Texas.

  Geoff, of course, denied abusing any of his children, and I would love to believe him. My hope is that the ratio of three boys to one adult, plus the constant presence of the Spanish-speaking housekeeper, may have served to protect them. But I know that is wishful thinking. I just hope it’s not also wishful thinking to believe that the charming, outgoing, photography-loving ranch director was exactly who he seemed to be.

  7

  Termination of Parental Rights

  There are three girls—sisters—who have always weighed most heavily on my mind. I met them when they were nine, twelve, and fourteen; the state removed them from their mother’s home because of her severe alcoholism and allegations of neglect and abuse—including sexual abuse, which the girls at first vehemently denied had ever happened. There wasn’t room for three new girls in any of our available foster homes, so the oldest sister was placed in one and the two younger girls together in another. Grace, the oldest, lived with a young couple in a rural area and seemed to adapt well to her new, quieter lifestyle. Next door to her foster family lived a dynamic woman with four teenaged daughters, one of whom was a foster child on my caseload. The woman happily served as a parenting mentor to the young couple, and her daughters befriended Grace and helped her adapt to her new school. All in all, things went pretty well for Grace, despite the fact that she had learning difficulties, struggled academically, and struggled with some aspects of day-to-day life.

  Overall, Grace was pleasant, but passive to the point of seeming almost defiant at times. Since her foster home was about thirty minutes from my office, she and I had lots of time to talk as I drove her to and from various appointments. After we had accumulated some twenty hours of driving and chatting time, she finally worked up sufficient nerve to tell me that she thought I drove too fast. (I slowed down.) She never was able to get comfortable enough to tell me about the abuse she endured. That information came from Jessica, the twelve-year-old.

  Jessica and their other sister, Annie, lived in what appeared to be a happy, stable foster family. The parents seemed kind and easygoing, the mom was especially easy to talk to, and the couple’s other kids were friendly and well behaved. The house was ramshackle, and it was clear that the family was struggling financially, but the girls were welcomed enthusiastically. All the kids seemed to get along and Jessica was able to assert authority over the family’s oldest child, a boy who was only a year younger but was much smaller than she was and less socially dominant. I visited the girls regularly but didn’t have the one-on-one conversations with them that I had with Grace on our drives.

  As time went on, Jessica and the foster mother developed a bond, and Jessica began to share some information about the history of abuse she and her sisters had endured. The girls started therapy and, little by little, Jessica revealed the extent of the sexual abuse, which amounted to (according to Jessica) Grace and Annie having been prostituted by their mother in exchange for alcohol. After this became clear, I felt I had the information I needed in order to try to terminate Sandra’s parental rights. At about the same time, I discovered that I was pregnant with my first child.

  The girls remained in their respective foster homes, and everything seemed fairly stable, while I built the legal case to terminate Sandra’s parental rights. The case was based primarily on her untreated alcoholism and the therapists’ and Jessica’s testimony. Grace’s learning difficulties and general passivity made it hard to communicate reliably with her, and Annie was too young and too traumatized to be put through the ordeal of testimony. But Jessica, who was now thirteen, was bright, socially adept, very beautiful, and somehow possessed of the strength and commitment needed to tell their sad story to a judge.

  The effort took a long time and many months went by. Terminating someone’s parental rights is (as it should be) an extremely painstaking and thorough process, and Sandra had to be given every possible chance to get help and change her ways. My service plan for her included getting counseling and treatment for alcoholism, neither of which she was able to do. I was also required to arrange for regular visits between her and the girls. She had been informed that there would be a termination hearing if she did not make the necessary changes, and presumably her attorney had impressed upon her that the stakes were now extremely high. My own relationship with Sandra was obviously damaged by my having filed for termination, but she continued to treat me with the same sort of jovial disdain she always had—an obvious mask of her true feelings. She wanted nothing to do with me or any other social worker, but she had to put up with me pestering her about visits with her daughters. At last, she agreed to schedule a visit for a weekday evening, and I gathered up the girls at their foster homes for the trip to see their mother. Jessica and Annie were happy to see Grace, and all three girls shared stories about their foster homes on the drive but then fell silent as we neared the house where Sandra was staying.

  Sandra moved a lot, and this visit was to take place at the home of her current boyfriend—an elderly-looking man who seemed pleasant enough. He ushered us in, and I helped him gather up chairs and arrange them so everyone would have a place to sit while we waited for Sandra to appear. When she finally came into the room, she didn’t say anything or make any gesture of greeting, and I could see the girls slump with the realization that their mother was drunk. I tried to get them talking, but they were too distraught to give more than one-word responses to whatever I brought up, and Sandra wasn’t saying a word. The boyfriend and I just ended up making small talk for a while.

  After ten minutes or so, Sandra started muttering. Then the mutters escal
ated into veiled threats to “do something” to me, then into very specific threats about getting a knife and “killing you and that baby.” The boyfriend, a frail man who was clearly no match for Sandra, kept yelling at her to shut up, which only intensified her anger. The girls were giving me ever-more-frantic looks, but I was trapped at the far end of the room, away from the door, with no idea of how to extricate us from the situation. Making a run for it at eight months pregnant seemed unwise, and telling the girls to run was likely to increase the danger to them, the way fleeing from someone triggers the chase. So the four of us sat stock still while Sandra ranted and threatened until she wore herself out. When the vitriol finally decreased and there was enough time between outbursts, I managed to shuffle the girls and myself out the door while the boyfriend distracted Sandra.

  The whole episode lasted about thirty minutes, but of course it felt like hours.

  As soon as we were safely in the car, I told the girls that I would never put them or myself in that situation again. If there were to be any further visits, they would have to be in the office, with adequate supervision and with the assurance that their mother hadn’t been drinking. We were all frightened as I drove them to their respective foster homes. Seeing their mother drunk and making threats was nothing new to the girls, but I had just shown them that they weren’t safe even when they were with me. Of course they already knew that—no one had ever been able to keep them safe from her. I was the one with delusions.