“I knew it,” he grumbled as he read the petition for sanctions citing the numerous occasions on which Jeffrey T. Caruthers had deliberately and willfully defied the court.
His first telephone call was to Noreen Sarnoff. “Have you seen this petition yet?” he asked.
“What can I say, he’s an odd duck, that’s for sure.”
“Does he realize that I can have him incarcerated for failure to obey the court order?”
“I’ve explained it any number of times, so either he’s too dense to understand or too contrary to care.”
“Well, Counselor,” Judge Brill said, “I want to see you and your client in chambers tomorrow morning at nine-thirty.”
“Let me call and make sure he’s available.”
“I didn’t say I want you to try to be here. If either you or Jeffrey Caruthers fail to show, I’ll send a squad car to bring you in!”
Noreen already regretted her decision to defend JT, but now she was stuck with him. She dialed Jeffrey’s telephone number and listened to it ring for at least five minutes. Then she got in her car and headed for his house.
~ ~ ~
Jeffrey had learned to ignore the sound of the doorbell since it was generally somebody looking for money or one of the McDermotts trying to make his life miserable. Bill collectors never waited longer than five minutes. Liz’s parents might stay for twenty. But the person bonging the bell had been there for a half-hour, which is why Jeffrey finally looked out the window and saw Noreen standing on the stoop. He opened the door.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t hear the bell.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Noreen pushed past Jeffrey into the living room. “I warned you! I said keep it up and you’ll land in jail, but you’re too bullheaded to listen!”
“I don’t know what—”
“Don’t give me any of that crap! You violated the court order, and Judge Brill is pissed! He wants us there tomorrow morning at nine-thirty. Don’t show this time, and there’ll be a cop on your doorstep!” Noreen jabbed her finger into Jeffrey’s chest. “And trust me, he’s not gonna stand there ringing the damn doorbell!”
“I missed one lousy Sunday,” Jeffrey said. “For that they’re gonna crucify me?”
Noreen turned and leaned into his face. “Shut up! I may have to defend your stupidity, but don’t for one minute think I believe your lies. It’s all here.” She waved the petition in his face. “Twenty-seven counts of failure to comply with court ordered visitation. Twenty-seven counts!”
“I couldn’t possibly—”
“Oh, but you did!” Noreen snapped. “Now we’ve both got to answer for it. I’m tempted to tell Judge Brill you were thinking of kidnapping those kids and let him toss your miserable ass in jail!”
“You can’t do that, you’re my lawyer.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“There were extenuating circumstances—”
“I’ll bet.”
“I was sick.”
“Unless you had two broken legs and were in the critical care ward at the hospital, nobody, including Judge Brill, is gonna believe you.”
For the first time Jeffrey sounded concerned. “Okay, okay. So what do we do to fix this?”
“Not we,” Noreen replied, “you. Judge Brill isn’t going to send me to jail, but he’s likely to send you.”
“I can’t go to jail. I’ve got kids to take care of.”
“You should’ve thought of that sooner.”
“You’re my lawyer, you’ve gotta do something!”
“No, I don’t. I don’t have to defend somebody who blatantly defies a court order. But I want to get this thing over, so I’ll tell you this. Your story might be more believable if you said the kids were sick.”
“Well, they were,” he said immediately.
Noreen rolled her eyes. “And do you have a reason for missing the phone calls?”
“Uh, yeah.” Jeffrey waited for Noreen to give him a good excuse.
“Well, what is it?”
“Um, the kids were too sick to talk. So I unplugged the telephone because I didn’t want it to disturb their sleep.”
“If Judge Brill goes along with that lame-brained excuse, he’s gonna want some sort of assurance that this is not going to happen again.”
“I’ll give him my word it won’t.”
Noreen gave a cynical sneer. “Your word?”
“Yeah. What else can I do?”
“Your word is as good as nothing.”
“If you say that, for sure he’s not gonna believe me.”
“I’m not going to repeat it in front of Judge Brill, but let me give you fair warning. You’d better be on time, and you’d better look extremely contrite.”
“Oh, I will. I will.”
The following morning Jeffrey was already at the courthouse when Noreen arrived. He wore the same suit and tie he’d worn at the trial. “How do I look?”
“Fine,” Noreen answered. “I hope you’ve given some thought to what you’re going to say.”
Before he had the chance to run through it, they were called into the judge’s chambers.
Judge Brill’s eyes were narrow and he impatiently shuffled papers from one side of his desk to the other. Almost three minutes passed before he looked at Jeffrey.
“You have willfully defied the court order pertaining to your wife’s visitation rights. Is there any reason why I should not remove those children from your custody and have you incarcerated for the next thirty days?”
Jeffrey swallowed hard, and his voice came out high-pitched and squeaky. “I’m sorry. My children were all sick with colds, and I was beside myself. I had thought about calling Elizabeth earlier in the day, but with David throwing up and Kimberly running a fever, I got busy taking care of them and forgot. By the time I got all three kids in bed, I figured it was rather late to be telephoning.”
Judge Brill shook his head. “Mister Caruthers, you are a test of a man’s patience. I find it extremely difficult to believe that in each of these twenty-seven instances you experienced such dire circumstances that you could not perform your court-ordered responsibilities.”
“Judge, you’ve gotta believe me, that’s exactly what happened. And Elizabeth, she’s just looking for me to do something wrong so that she—”
“Stop right there. I would suggest you carefully consider what you say, since I already have affidavits attesting to the negative aspects of your behavior.”
“Your Honor,” Noreen said sweetly, “I apologize for my client’s behavior. Unfortunately, he sometimes allows his emotions to cloud his judgment. But he does earnestly care for his children and has given his word that going forward he will comply with all aspects of the court’s ruling.”
Jeffrey simply nodded.
“Very well, Counselor. I will allow Mister Caruthers one more chance. But be advised, if I am forced to address this issue again, he will go to jail regardless of what hardships it causes his family.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
~ ~ ~
Once outside the courthouse, Jeffrey grinned at Noreen. “Good work.”
“Wipe that stupid smile off your face and listen up,” she replied. “You may think because I’m a woman I’m a pushover, but you’d better think again. You remember Walt Petrecca, the criminal lawyer who suggested you call me?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Walt owes me, and he’s got some pretty rough friends. If I have any more trouble with you, one of Walt’s friends is gonna pay you a visit, and trust me, his friend won’t stand on the stoop waiting until you get ready to open the door.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Warning,” Noreen replied. “I’m warning you.”
December 1985
Four weeks passed without incident. Jeffrey came every Sunday, sometimes at nine, sometimes nine-thirty, but never later. Every week he brought all three children. In the fifth week, he showed up with only Kimberly and Christian. Dav
id, he claimed, was attending a playmate’s birthday party.
“If this is gonna cause you to go off the deep end,” he told Charlie, “I’ll get him and drag him over here.”
Charlie told Jeffrey not to bother but to make certain David telephoned Elizabeth the next day.
The living room floor became Elizabeth’s playground. Whenever the children arrived she’d be settled in place, her back braced against the sofa and a collection of books and toys within easy reach. The floor acted as a level playing field, where she did not have to rise or stand or walk. The children scooted back and forth across her stretched out legs, vying for the closest position but not questioning the strange arrangement.
The two weeks before Christmas filled Elizabeth with such great happiness that she could almost forget the pounding in her head and the constant ache in her lower back. Although she could no longer make trips to the toy store, she made a list and allowed either Claire or Charlie to do the shopping.
Christmas appeared everywhere. Red candles surrounded by pinecones became centerpieces, candied fruit appeared in glass dishes, and gaily-wrapped presents crowded the hall closet. On the seventeenth a chunky chair disappeared from the living room and a Frasier Fir replaced it, sweetening the room with the scent of a forest. That evening Claire made a pot of hot chocolate and Charlie carried six boxes of decorations up from the basement. Elizabeth, in her wheelchair, joined the tree-trimming party and sang along as Bing Crosby wished for a white Christmas.
Using only her right hand, she wrapped most of her own presents. For Claire, there was the crystal perfume bottle that she’d had Charlie buy and for him the briarwood pipe Claire bought. For the children there was any number of books and toys. She’d gotten almost everything they’d asked for, except the one thing Kimberly wanted most.
“Mommy,” she’d said, “would you help me write a letter to Santa? I want a Cabbage Patch baby with yellow hair.”
“Okay,” Elizabeth answered. “But do you think maybe Daddy is going to buy you a Cabbage Patch Doll?”
“He’s not.” Kimberly’s face had a knowing look far too grown-up for any four-year-old. “Daddy said they’re ugly.”
“Even the ones with yellow hair?”
Kimberly nodded.
“Well, then, we’d better hurry up and write a letter to Santa!”
“Thank you, Mommy!” Kimberly cried and threw herself onto Elizabeth’s lap. With her tiny little arms hugging as hard as possible, she added, “You’re the best mommy in the whole world.”
As it turned out, finding a Cabbage Patch baby became an impossible task.
“Have you tried Toy Mart?” Liz asked.
Claire nodded. “Yesterday.”
“What about Steiner’s Toys?”
“They don’t have it either.”
“The Drug Emporium?”
“Sold out.”
Elizabeth began to telephone stores—somebody had to have a yellow-haired Cabbage Patch doll. She called toy stores, variety stores, department stores, discount stores, and drug stores, but every store had sold out weeks earlier. She began to pray for a miracle.
Ten days before Christmas Elizabeth called all the stores back. “I thought maybe there was a chance you’d gotten more in,” she said.
“Don’t I wish,” one shop owner replied. “I could sell another fifty!”
Elizabeth began leaving her name and telephone number. “If you get one with yellow hair, please call me,” she said. But no one called.
Two days before Christmas, when the stores were crowded to bursting, Elizabeth had Claire load her and her wheelchair into the car and head for Tykes N’ Teens in Westfield. After a painstaking ninety minutes, Elizabeth emerged with three dolls—a stand-up little girl nearly as tall as Kimberly, a baby with painted yellow hair, and a bald-headed baby wrapped in a pink bunting—none of which resembled the full-cheeked Cabbage Patch Kids.
That year Christmas fell on a Wednesday, and Elizabeth had hoped to give the children their gifts the Sunday before, but Jeffrey called and said he wouldn’t bring them. “They’re all sick,” he said. “Some kind of flu, they’re puking all over the place.”
“Sick, huh?” Charlie said.
“Yeah, sick. If you don’t believe me, I can bring over a bucket of puke and prove it!”
“That’s not necessary,” Charlie said begrudgingly. “Just make sure you get all three of them here next week so Liz can give them their presents.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Christmas morning dawned with a gray sky promising snow and a bitter wind toppling plastic snowmen and whisking outdoor wreaths from their hooks. Elizabeth had listened to the ominous howl of the wind through much of the night and when she finally did fall asleep she dreamt of pudgy-faced Cabbage Patch kids running away from her. She slept right through Claire’s sausage pancakes and didn’t stir until nearly noon. By then the snow had begun to fall.
“It looks so beautiful,” Elizabeth said with melancholy in her voice.
“It’s only three more days until the kids will be here,” Claire said. “Why don’t we wait and celebrate our Christmas with them?”
Elizabeth’s eyes brightened. “What a great idea!”
“I’m all for it,” Charlie added.
Claire set aside the turkey and prepared a meatloaf. At five o’clock that afternoon the McDermott family had a simple family dinner. After they’d eaten, Elizabeth, who’d been nursing a headache for three days, returned to bed.
The Christmas snow had disappeared by Thursday morning, but gray skies hovered overhead.
“It looks like we’ll get more snow,” Elizabeth said apprehensively.
“I doubt it,” Charlie replied. “It’s too cold for snow.”
But late Friday afternoon it began to snow again. By nine o’clock almost two inches had fallen. At ten o’clock Charlie pulled on a parka, tugged a wool cap over his ears, and shoveled the walkway. When he returned to the house stomping snow from his boots he commented, “It’s a light snow, nothing to worry about.”
On Saturday morning Westfield awoke to eighteen inches of snow piled high against doors. It covered walkways and brought travel to a standstill. Walt Berringer, the weather forecaster, explained how an unexpected storm front had drifted down from Canada and stalled overhead.
“That front has finally moved on,” he said, pointing to a glob of gray on the map, “but there’s a mass of cold air following it, so it looks as if this snow will be with us for a while.”
“How long?” Elizabeth said wearily.
As if answering her question, Weatherman Walt said, “By mid-week we should see a warming trend.”
“Oh dear,” Elizabeth murmured. “The kids are supposed to come over tomorrow.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Charlie said. “Not with all this snow on the roads.”
Claire gave him a reproachful glare, a warning to say no more.
~ ~ ~
On ten o’clock Sunday morning the telephone rang. Elizabeth, sitting on the sofa, answered.
“Guess what, Mommy,” David said. “We had a big snowstorm!”
“I know,” she answered. “We had it too.”
“Today Daddy’s gonna take us sleigh-riding.”
“That sounds like such fun. Did you get a sled for Christmas?”
“Yeah,” he answered, then said nothing more about sleigh-riding or that Bobby, and not he, had received the sled. Quickly changing the subject, he parroted, “We can’t come to Grandma’s house today because there’s too much snow.”
“I know,” Elizabeth said. “I miss you and Kimmie and Christian, but I wouldn’t want your Daddy to have an accident driving in the snow.”
“You’re not supposed to call her Kimmie.”
“That’s right, I forgot.”
“Daddy said you forget a lot of things because you’re sick. He said pretty soon you’re gonna forget us. Is that true?”
“It’s true that I forget things. That’s because M
ommy has a boo-boo inside her head. But I could never forget you or Kimberly or Christian. The three of you are not just inside my head, you’re inside my heart. When someone is inside your heart that means you love them so much you’ll never, ever forget them.”
“Daddy,” David yelled, “Mommy said she’s not ever gonna forget us!”
“What else did you expect her to say?” Jeffrey answered, then told David to give the phone to his sister.
Elizabeth wanted to tell David Christmas just didn’t seem like Christmas without seeing him, but before she had the chance Kimberly voiced a sniffling hello.
“What’s the matter?” Elizabeth asked.
“I wanna go to Grandma’s house, and Daddy won’t bring me.”
“Sweetheart, I’m disappointed too,” Elizabeth said tenderly, “but it’s not safe for Daddy to drive the car when there’s so much snow on the road.”
“I don’t care, I wanna come anyway.”
“I know, honey, but I wouldn’t want Daddy to have an accident where you or one of your brothers might be hurt. You be a good girl and mind what Daddy tells you, and then as soon as this darned old snow melts he’ll bring you over and we’ll have a wonderful Christmas together.”
“Did you get me presents?”
“Yes, indeed. Lots of presents.”
“A Cabbage Patch baby with yellow hair?”
“No, Kimberly. Mommy tried to order one from Santa, but he didn’t have any.”
“Grandpa could buy one in the store.”
“Grandpa and Grandma and Mommy tried every store we know of, and nobody had a single Cabbage Patch Baby left.”
“Oh.” Kimberly sighed, her disappointment obvious.
“But do you know what Mommy is gonna do?”
“What?”
“I’m going to keep looking until I can find a yellow-haired Cabbage Patch Baby, and then I’m gonna buy it specially for you.”
“You mean for my birthday?”
“Nope. I mean the very minute I find it, I’m giving it to you.”
“Honest?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Enough, Kimberly!” Jeffrey yelled. “Get off the phone.”
“No!” she answered defiantly.
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