A Theory of Relativity

by Jacquelyn Mitchard

  Katt said, “We do, Your Honor, but the record should reflect that we only got this fax at almost six o’clock at night.”

  “Well,” said Judge Sayward, “that was late. But there we have it. Mr. Katt, what position are you putting forward here, on the motion for a separate hearing and to bar participation?”

  “Your Honor, it’s simply this. It’s obvious. Under Wisconsin law, and here we’re referring to forty-eight-oh-two in conjunction with forty-eight-ninety, the Cadys do not fall under any of the classifications referred to in the statute for a relative who may file an adoption petition at any time.”

  “Which are, yes, a parent, grandparent—”

  “A stepparent, brother, sister, nephew, niece, aunt or uncle, or a first cousin. A petition can be filed for adoption at any time if one of the petitioners is a relative of the child by blood, without the customary six-month waiting period, because presumably that child has an already existent bond with the relative in question.”

  “Correct.”

  “And Delia Cady is a first cousin . . . ?”

  “Not of Keefer Nye, Your Honor,” Katt interjected smoothly, “of Keefer Nye’s father, Raymond Nye, Jr., which makes her a second cousin.”

  “Yes,” Judge Sayward said, glancing at Gordon, “I know that.”

  “And we refer to the case attached, in which the court ruled that the three children’s grandparents lacked standing to object.”

  “But the parental rights had been terminated in that case,” the judge said, “and the children subsequently were to be adopted, so the grandparents’ connection to the children was through the parents whose rights had been terminated. That’s not at all what we’re talking about here.”

  “Well,” Katt said, “our point is, why are the Cadys here? As second cousins, they do not meet the test of relatives.”

  Judge Sayward leaned back in her chair, and seemed to Gordon to square herself, to increase in stature. “So you’re saying they’re not relatives by blood, as defined by the statute. That is the basis of your motion.”

  “That’s right,” said Katt, but he glanced behind him hurriedly, uncomfortably, as if sensing an approach. “To quote from this case, only those who have a legally protectible interest in the adoption have standing to object to another person’s petition to adopt.”

  “Miz Wentworth?”

  “Judge, in our motion, which was in response, we indicated what is true, that Gordon McKenna does not have standing here because he is not a blood relative. There’s the relative definition in forty-eight-oh-three but then under forty-eight-eighty-five, the statute specifies a blood relative. And my clients do have a legally protected interest, contrary to what Mr. Katt says, because they’ve filed under the guardianship code. And, if you will permit me, they filed at least two weeks prior to Mr. McKenna, so if the two proceedings were going to be segregated, I believe ours would come first, because we filed first.”

  “All right. Miss Linquist?” the judge turned to the guardian.

  “Well, as I am here to protect the interests of Keefer Nye, I have an interest in the court’s ruling on whether Gordon McKenna is a relative by blood. He is adopted. So there is no biological connection between Mr. McKenna and Keefer Nye. His sister, the child’s deceased mother, was also adopted. I think it is a question of law that needs to be cleared up.”

  “On that issue, Mr. Katt?”

  “Miss Kane is going to speak to that issue. I . . . I didn’t know we were going to plunge into both of them at the same time. But . . . only people who have standing to adopt a child also have standing to object to someone else adopting that child. As per the case we cited . . . the Cadys have no right to petition.”

  “And they are not trying to petition—to adopt. Only your client is trying to do that. Miz Wentworth, the Cadys were aware that Mr. McKenna was adopted?” the judge asked.

  “They were, Your Honor, but they did not choose to bring up that fact until they were forced to do so in order to respond to the appellant’s wish to get them out of the case altogether.”

  Judge Sayward lowered her glasses and studied first Gordon, then the Cadys. “And so each side is challenging, by the same definition no less, the other side’s standing. The wisdom of Solomon is strained.”

  Katt spoke up, “And they’re trying to use a case in which children who’d been adopted tried to inherit money from their biological grandfather, but Your Honor, even then, the decision said adoption is intended to effect a complete substitution of all rights and other legal consequences . . .” He cleared his throat and continued, in a lower register. “It’s an insult, is what it is. To cook this up the night before a trial. It goes against everything in our code where they define minors’ families; all those sections referred to adopted children in the same way as natural.”

  “That’s all well. But my question is this, Mister Katt. Why does forty-eight-ninety not say a relative, but a relative by blood?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I do know. The lawmakers we have elected, that you have elected, are making a distinction. They’re saying that at least in this particular situation, expedited procedure is to apply to a relative by blood. Why didn’t they just say a plain old relative? Do you have an answer, Miz Kane?”

  “Judge,” said Stacey Kane, placing her hand on Gordon’s shoulder. “This is offensive. This is the most offensive motion I have ever encountered and I have been involved with adoption work for nearly all my professional life. Now, presumably, the Cadys want to adopt their . . . godchild, Keefer. How can someone who wants to adopt a child do so by trying to abridge the rights of another adopted child, this child’s very own uncle? After they’ve adopted Keefer, would they turn around and say, well, now we’re not your relatives, because you’re adopted? It’s insane.”

  “No one said Mr. McKenna is not a relative,” Emily Sayward told her. “He’s not a blood relative under the statute he tried to use to adopt this child, which would have given him an advantage over the Cadys.” She pressed her lips together and tapped the papers on her bench.

  “But he is specifically to be treated as if he were a blood relative. All the statutes make it clear. Gordon and Georgia have all the same rights and standing they would have if the McKennas had given birth to them. They were raised from the time they were babies. The reason this statute exists is to get children in situations like Keefer Nye’s quickly and expeditiously into the arms of those who know them best and love them most. And that is Gordon. Gordon, who cared for his sister while she was dying and helped his parents raise this baby and has raised her mostly on his own since then.”

  The judge squinted. “I thought that the grandparents were the principal guardians here.”

  “They are, but for the purposes of getting the child adjusted to the home that everyone believed she would have, she has been spending time with her uncle.”

  “I see,” said the judge. “I see.”

  “And Gordon McKenna has submitted to a home study by a qualified agency and he has been approved as eminently qualified to adopt Keefer.”

  “All right. I think this is clear. If the statute said relative, and didn’t refer back to the relationship being by blood or direct affinity, Mr. McKenna would certainly be a relative. But it doesn’t say that. It says ‘by blood.’ I can’t ignore what the legislature has said. The legislature made that distinction, and I may not like it and you may not like it and certainly the petitioner here before us will not like it, and yet it’s there. The distinction is made between just any relative and a blood relative.” She sighed. “And of course, the Cadys don’t meet that definition under the statute in question, either. And so they would not have standing to file for adoption, either, not at this time.”

  She looked down at her hands. “And so, since neither of the parties has the standing on this adoption, I am going to dismiss Mr. McKenna’s petition at this time. That is denied.”

  Stacey Kane gasped.

  “Judge, Judg
e,” Katt spoke up. “Now, would you consider staying your order so that we can take an interlocutory appeal while this case is pending? Keefer has already been in the care of her grandparents, spending large amounts of her time with both her maternal and paternal grandparents and everything has been going well—”

  “I hear she’s been living with her uncle,” the judge replied.

  “And she has been in the care of the Cadys as well,” Katt snapped. “The Nyes are permanent residents of the state of Florida.”

  “Yes, and?”

  “Well, this is a pretty simple issue,” Katt continued, visibly forcing himself to summon an easy smile, as if they were all old friends who could relax and make short work of this little obstacle. “The Court of Appeals could take it up quickly, and what if you were to grant the Cadys their guardianship and the child went to live with them, and then we were successful on appeal, and we’d be right back here where we started on Gordon’s adoption—”

  “Let’s ask Ms. Wentworth,” the judge suggested.

  “Can Gordon McKenna remain for this?” Katt asked.

  “He can remain, but not participate,” the judge said.

  Gordon nodded. The muscles in his legs were quivering, and he could not have stood unsupported even if he had wanted to try. He could think only of . . . blood. Red blood cells were the only cells in the human body that did not contain DNA. Blood? Blood, at least much of blood, was not the storage unit for the entwined chromosomal ladders that matched criminals to crimes or parents to . . . children. Blood. Blood like a painted fan on the windshield of the ruined car. Blood on the shredded sleeve of Georgia’s purple and gold shirt, a shred of fabric bouncing gently on the surface of Lost Tribe Creek. He turned in desperation away from the hubbub in the room. . . . He looked out the huge cathedral window of the courtroom.

  “I believe that my clients should be allowed to proceed. . . . back and forth between grandparents, one family unit here, one in Madison . . . harm in so much discontinuity . . . one home, one family . . .”

  And another voice, the guardian ad litem—the guardian! “I represent Keefer. And while she has been in loving hands, she is not in a healthy situation . . . the venue dispute, that simply took more time . . . this is a little child . . . the appellate level could take months, two, three, more . . . Dr. Bogert’s recommendation is that the Cadys are the more suitable couple. She has spoken with all of the family members, and many friends of both have said the same thing, he’s a single man. He lived with his parents most of last year, and then he has had two separate residences since that time . . . their own home . . . Delia is a stay-home mother . . . a sister of her own . . .”

  There was a beech outside the courtroom window. With their bronze leaves and peculiar trunks, they reminded Gordon somehow of banyan trees. Blood. The trunk. The torso. Carotid artery. Right subclavian. Brachiocephalic. Brachial. Pulmonary artery. Venae cavae. Limbs. Branches. Shoots. Capillaries.

  Stacey Kane was nearly shouting. “This is a serious issue, Your Honor. To say an adoptive brother isn’t as good as a brother by birth undermines the whole foundation of the ideal of adoption.”

  Katt added, “Then we will file a petition for guardianship, Judge. My client will file a petition for guardianship, just as the Cadys have, and proceed with the required—”

  “I would object to that, Your Honor. There would not be appropriate notice under the statute. And they were the ones who objected, when we all came in here, that we hadn’t given them appropriate notice.”

  “I think,” the judge said, “that we are going to proceed with the petition that is now before us, rather than allow any other petitions to be introduced. It is too late for that now. Mr. McKenna had months to decide what he wanted to do, and he chose to proceed with this particular kind of expedited adoption petition, rather than the ordinary kind that this court would have been unable to question.”

  “Judge, to complete the record,” Katt pleaded, “we did not have time, since . . . I was only by coincidence in my office when this motion you have just granted, to dismiss Mr. McKenna’s adoption, was faxed to me.”

  “As was I,” the judge replied dryly.

  “We have not been able to prepare adequately for this motion. We have not been able to find the law we know exists to support our position,” Katt begged.

  “Then you can appeal,” she said.

  “And we will, with all due respect, appeal, and our appeal will clearly state that the Cadys knew since they met Gordon McKenna and his sister that they were adopted . . .”

  “That’s not true,” Wentworth pointed out. “I only became aware of it days ago.”

  “But it was clearly stated, in the report you have from Dr. Bogert!” Katt cried. “It’s all over the place in that document, about my client’s belief that as an adopted child, he would be uniquely qualified to teach Keefer about the meaning and importance of adoption. Your Honor, filing this motion at the eleventh hour was a maneuver.”

  “I’ve heard you and acknowledge your concerns,” Emily Sayward said, gently, “but I’m not granting a stay. This child needs to be home. If you do appeal, and if the Wisconsin Court of Appeals finds me in error, we’ll be back here with the petition again. But that could take too long a time. A very long time. We will proceed with the other matter now, the petition for guardianship by the Cadys.”

  “Will he be here?” asked Mary Ellen Wentworth, “I mean, will Mr. McKenna be present during this action. He’s not a party to it. He has no petition before the court. He’s like any of the other relatives out there in the hallway. It seems, therefore, that he has no reason to be present with counsel.”

  “Are you suggesting that there is some statute that says this man should not be present? Are you suggesting that?” Gordon, catching her tone, sought her eyes and saw the pity there. “It . . . and I’m looking at the forty-eight-two-ninety-nine, the court may allow any person at the proceeding who has a proper interest in the case. He has indeed a proper interest.” She looked down at Gordon. “He is her uncle. Though not by blood. Our family code provides no legal weight for love. It’s not prosecutable. It’s not quantifiable. It’s not concrete. And yet, it is real interest. Now, let us proceed.”

  When the doors with their brass half-moons opened, and the Cadys rushed into the arms of Diane and Big Ray, Gordon reached out and drew his mother by the hand until she stood in front of him; and his father, Church, and the lawyers followed, a circle, a huddle, the natural formation of a herd.

  “It’s not over,” Katt told them, “I want you to know . . .” He removed his wire rims, and scrubbed at his eyes.

  “Gordon, what did she say?” Lorraine laid her cool hand on Gordon’s forehead. “You’re burning. Honey, what did they say?”

  Should he let Katt explain? Let Kane finish? Would the facts speak for themselves, as he had believed his whole adult life? Facts, pressing forward, the uncontrolled variable, obliterating the truth, regardless of harm. He had not counted on the uncontrolled variable.

  Georgia, he thought, his voice and her voice merging, growing faint.

  “They said I’m not Georgia’s brother,” he told his parents. “They said I’m not your son.”

  CHAPTER thirteen

  Nora truly believed sometimes she did have eyes in the back of her head. When Rob was tiny, he’d come creeping into their room to peek under the pink foam rollers she used to sleep in. Nora had first dreamed bugs were crawling on her and then awakened with a jolt. “Did I poke you in the eye?” Rob whispered. He’d been all of four.

  Still, at this minute, Nora could all but see, without turning away from the sink where she was rinsing the supper dishes, that Hayes was only pretending to read the Bountiful Farmer. Their son Marty had him interested in this idea of starting an organic co-op. People would buy shares in the spring, and each week throughout the growing season, someone (her, if she knew how these things went) would bring around fresh produce and jams to the members. They’d have to be certifi
ed organic, though, that was what the richies wanted, but organic wasn’t going to be a problem. Hayes all but powdered his land’s butt every day—as had her father and his father before that.

  It wasn’t that Hayes was reading, jiggering his chair the way he liked it, so he could prop up his big feet in their monkey socks. It was that he was awake at all. That meant something was on his mind. As the days got shorter, Hayes got sleepier and sleepier, just like a bird. By seven o’clock, he’d be snoring at the dinner table. Nora would crack open the farm’s account books across from him and carry on whole conversations with her sleeping spouse. “So what do you think of Barbara Quintero running for governor, Hayes? Think a woman has a chance? You think Robin Yount’s going to take the job as coach? Remember the Brewers back in eighty-two? Or was it eighty-three?”

  Nora washed her hands and wiped them on the back end of her jeans. Bigger every month. She couldn’t get the fourteens zipped anymore. She turned to Hayes. “Want some coffee, honey? I could drink a cup.”

  “I do, Nory,” he said, carefully pleating the page, closing the magazine, setting it to one side. “I’d like a cup.”

  Definitely strange.

  Hayes was not only awake at 8:00 p.m. but agreeing to stimulants and using the name he hadn’t called her since their courtship. Could be feeling frisky. Not that she would mind. She’d never had a child that wasn’t conceived in winter, the only time, it seemed, they ever did more than pass each other on the stairs. Lately, though, she’d been in town more than here. The days since the funeral bled into one another until you lost track entirely.

  November, the short, dark month, was nearly over. Those people would come to take Keefer for good early in December, unless the lawyers figured out a way to stop it.

  She went to Cleveland Avenue now every day, to mind Keefer and to hit the phones like the marines landing at Normandy. It hadn’t taken Mark any time at all to see they needed another phone line. Gordie had taught Nora how to use the e-mail. Wasn’t anything to it, for a woman who’d disked fields and put together bicycles from kits. Gordie and Lorraine got on the computer or the phones as soon as the school day ended, and Lindsay came after the store closed. Even Mike and Debbie were there when the reporter from Newsweek came. The fellow spent three hours, drinking five cups of coffee, asking them every possible question imaginable.