Doomsday. Day of reckoning. THE day. It was finally here. The court date. Anna had gotten her wish, and we had to go before a judge to sort out custody. At the moment, Josie was with the Judge in his office after he requested to talk to her in private with a child psychologist there.
I was nervously clutching my bag, sitting outside the door they had disappeared through. Josie had been hesitant about going in there by herself but after a lot of coaxing and the promise of a milkshake, she’d relented. Oma was next to me, muttering in German. I made out something about whistling pigs but was too distracted to pay enough attention to actually be able to understand anything.
Rhett sat next to me, providing unwavering support. He hadn’t left my side since last night, working from our house this morning and then driving us all to the courthouse. Freddie was a wreck, her emotions all over the place. She wondered why Anna never tried to get her back. I hadn’t said anything about the money yet, not sure if that would make the situation better or worse.
She didn’t know how lucky she was to have only spent such a short amount of time with the woman. There was so much I hadn’t told her yet, and I wasn’t sure if I ever would. The hurt she felt at the moment would be nothing compared to what she would feel if she found out what had really happened to make Oma our unofficial guardian.
Rhett squeezed my hand. “You’ll win. There is no way they would give custody to someone like Anna. Not after what happened.” He was there when it all went down, being an island in a sea of uncertainty. I didn’t know what was going to happen. Anna was too sure of her victory. She had an ace up her sleeve, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. Never a good idea to underestimate her.
Oma had calmed down, switching back to English. “She has a bird if she thinks she will ever gain custody of our little treasure.”
I had to agree with Oma. Who in their right mind would give Anna custody of anything? But it wasn’t up to us. It was the Judge’s decision. The door to his office finally opened and the Judge, Josie and the psychologist came out. Josie was looking as happy as ever, skipping over to us and climbing on my lap.
“Hey,Spatz. You good?”
She nodded and snuggled in. I squeezed her to me and kissed her head. I couldn’t lose her. She was my Josie. I couldn’t feel any more love for her if I had given birth to her. If Anna took her away, she would take my entire world with her.
“Ready?” Rhett asked and stood up.
I followed, still holding on to Josie and with a reassuring arm on my back, Freddie and Oma behind us as we walked into the office. The meeting wasn’t held in a courtroom but in the Judge’s office. We all gathered around his desk, Josie, Freddie and Oma on a couch off to the side, Rhett on a chair next to them. I took a seat in front of the judge, my lawyer next to me. Anna and her lawyer weren’t here yet, but they still had five minutes. I prayed she’d forgotten about the appointment. Didn’t care about the money anymore.
The minutes ticked by in excruciating slowness. I watched the hand of the clock turn, my palms getting sweaty. With less than a minute to go, the doors opened and Anna, and no less than two lawyers, entered the room.
The Judge raised a brow but didn’t say anything. She was on time after all. Anna didn’t spare us a glance and sat down. I looked at my own lawyer nervously. He was good, but could he compete with the two sharks Anna had hired?
“Let’s begin, shall we,” the Judge said, officially starting proceedings.
And that’s when things started to go wrong. First the lawyers added additional documents that we hadn’t seen before. Then they asked for full custody, on the basis that I was unfit to be a mother. That’s when my past came back to really kick me where it hurt.
“The evidence suggests that Emmerson McAllister is a young and irresponsible woman, who has gravely endangered another child’s life. We act with Josephine McAllister’s best interests at heart when we say that currently she is not living in a safe environment. Not only is the person who has custody of her a criminal, but her sister who lives with them has been arrested twice just over the last few months, following in her older sister’s footsteps. A child needs a stable environment with responsible adults. Not even her grandmother is fit to be a guardian. She has early stages of dementia and cannot be trusted to look after a child.”
I was speechless. Stunned. Totally blindsided. How had they gotten access to my sealed records? I was a minor when all that stuff went down. And even though it looked bad on paper, it wasn’t at all the way it was described. It was true, Oma did have early stages of dementia but at this stage it was contained to her being forgetful. Not to leaving the stove on or forgetting Josie was in the house. We went to the doctor regularly. We had it all under control. Wasn’t there such a thing as doctor-patient confidentiality?
I shot a pleading look to my lawyer, who gathered his documents. “Your honor, if I may respond to the allegations.”
The Judge nodded and indicated for him to proceed. “My client was a minor at the time of the offense. She made a mistake, one that cost her dearly. But she has been a responsible adult, proving time and again that she is capable of taking care of a child.” He handed notes over from Cassie, Josie’s ballet teacher and our neighbor. “She has a full time job and is able to provide for herself and Josie. Mrs. Meier’s dementia is under control and she is capable of looking after a child. The medical reports prove that. These are statements from teachers in Josie’s life that reiterate what a responsible adult Emmerson is.”
“She barely finished high school. She dropped out of community college after only one semester. There were rumors of her having an affair with one of her teachers. Her full time job is with a friend, who would say anything to get Ms. McAllister custody of Josie. Dementia is a tricky disease that can be a lot more advanced without anyone noticing. We stress again how unsafe the environment is for the child.”
My lawyer didn’t look worried. I thought he really should at this stage. They were making their case, and they were making it well. “Mrs. McAllister has been admitted to rehab no less than four times. She doesn’t have a job. She lives in a public housing development.”
One of Anna’s hot shot lawyers interrupted. “She has enough money to support Josephine. It will be to the child’s benefit that she’s not working as she will be able to spend more time with her. She is her grandmother, a blood relative, who has also brought up three kids of her own. She has a lot of experience.”
“None of the children stayed with her for long when they went to live with their grandmother.”
Another interruption. “Something that was never official. Mrs. McAllister always had custody over her kids. They were never fully living at Mrs. Meier’s. She was always taking care of them. She still has custody over Fredericka, who chose to live with her grandmother because she wanted to be close to Ms. McAllister. Something that turns out to be a bad idea. We will look into moving her back to her mother’s as well.”
They would take my girls. She wasn’t just going after Josie but Freddie as well. God, how I hated her. How could she do this to her own family? She didn’t want them. Never had. Not once had she visited us in the time we had been living with Oma. I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
“She neglected us. The whole time we were living with her, she didn’t care what we did. We were kids, but she made us fend for ourselves. Nate had to find us food, clothes and make sure we got dressed in the mornings. We had to take care of Freddie, made sure her diaper got changed and she went to bed at a decent hour. Anna never took care of us. She only cares about herself. Please don’t give her custody. She is not interested in the kids. She just wants the money that comes with it.”
“And where is your proof for any of this? There are no court records, no police reports, no official requests for custody. This is a desperate attempt at getting back at the mother you thought liked your brother and sister better.”
How dare he. I took a deep breath ready to do battle, but my lawyer shot me an icy look that said shut the fuck up.
“Children wouldn’t just leave their mother if they didn’t absolutely have to. You are putting Josephine’s wellbeing in danger by ripping her out of the environment that she knows best and placing her in the person’s she doesn’t even know. Mrs. McAllister has never shown any interest in meeting her grandchild until now.”
The rest of the meeting went on like that. Anna was grinning like she had already won, and I sank further and further into my chair, like I had already lost. They had access to my court records. All my past mistakes were there to be picked apart and used against me. I was no longer that person. I had my life under control.
