Back at home, Roberta called Jamie Aldeen’s office. “So I hear you’ve met my young neighbor,” she said.
Jamie chuckled. “We’ve had a phone conversation and a meeting, neither short.”
Roberta began to wonder if she’d made a mistake sending Julia Lancaster to Jamie. Now she was involved. And so was Wendell. “From Julia’s conversation with you, she’s gotten it in her head that she would do best by finding a guardian.”
“That’s true,” Jamie said. “I think a judge would be hard-pressed to give a fifteen-year-old custody of a minor as well as control over her life. She can’t drive. There’s the matter of a residence. It’s complicated, to say the least.”
“But you think she has a chance?”
Jamie sighed. “You know we attorneys don’t like to play theodds or give our clients false hope. If she pursues this officially, I think it’s going to be an uphill battle. But yes. I do think she has a chance. In fact, I filed the motion for a hearing with the court today.”
Roberta sucked in her breath. So things were already in play. “The reason I ask is that the guardian the children have in mind is a family friend of mine.”
“Ah. Small world, that town of Saybrook,” Jamie said.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Roberta said, trying to keep the conversation light.
Jamie said, “I also don’t have to tell you about attorney-client privilege, but I can confirm that a potential guardian is joining us for our meeting tomorrow. I think the best place to start is to make sure everyone wants the same thing and has a firm understanding of what this really involves.”
“Right you are. Well, I wish you luck. And if you’ve any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to reach out. With your clients’ permission, of course.”
“Thanks, Roberta.”
When she hung up, Roberta felt a sudden wave of fatigue. Wendell was right. Whether any of them had wanted to be or not, they were all involved. She wondered about the meeting tomorrow: if Wendell really meant that he was going just to support the girls and set the facts straight. Or if there was some small part of him that was going because he might actually be considering the girls’ request.
It was ridiculous, in so many ways. Wendell was the closest thing Roberta would ever get to having a child of her own to worry over. As such, she felt protective of him, first. He’d lost so much in his young life, and since, he’d worked hard to keep himself from heartbreak. For years, he’d stayed that course, pushingfriends and loved ones away. Forbidding himself any real joy or connection, as if he had to punish himself for something. It had broken her own heart, watching him do that. But she’d come to accept that whatever small way he’d let her in, she would grab ahold of. Wendell had built firm boundaries; he let almost no one through.
But today there were facts that spoke to a break in those boundaries. The fact that Ginny Feldman was at his house. And he’d pulled that crazy stunt and rescued the horse for Julia. No wonder the girl had set her sights on him as a guardian. In her mind, Wendell had acted heroically. Finally, there was the fact that Wendell was going to meet with Julia’s attorney.
But there were other facts, of the commonsense variety, that rang out louder. No one knew better than she how many things could go wrong when shuffling children between custodial relationships. As challenging as their situation might be with their aunt, the best thing that could happen to those girls might be to remain with family. They would be cared for and go to the best of schools, and the subsequent travel and adjustments might just make them more resilient.
Roberta told herself these things as she walked Maisey that afternoon, and later, as she dined outdoors by her garden. People often got notions about what they thought was in the best interest of a child. As a judge, she was armed with more than notions.
But as she got ready for bed that night, staring at her reflection in the mirror, she could not shake the fact that those children had gone to Wendell in the middle of the night. They had sneaked from their house, ridden their bicycles through darkness, and pulled him from his bed to ask such a question.
One thing she knew from all her years as a probate judge inthe district family court: no matter what outsiders or child development experts or even the courts might think, there was one oft-overlooked barometer for determining what might be best for a child that was truer than all the rest. And that was the wish of the child.
Twenty-ThreeJulia
Her gut had been right. Of course it had. She’d felt it the night Wendell had watched her teach Pippa to ride her bike, which was what had led to the two of them sneaking out and going to his house. But the second she saw Raddy in Wendell’s barn, there was no doubt. Wendell Combs was the guardian they needed.
Chloe and Sam, however, had not shared her conviction.
“Are you out of your mind?” Chloe sat cross-legged on Julia’s bedroom rug, braiding Pippa’s hair. “You basically asked a stranger to take you in.”
“Wendell’s not strange,” Pippa whispered.
“You mean he’s not a stranger,” Julia corrected.
Chloe made a face. “He’s probably both.”
Julia ignored this, distracted momentarily by her best friend’s hands moving deftly through Pippa’s fairy-spun hair. Just as her mother had. But what reminded her most of their mother was watching Chloe section off pieces of hair, quickly and expertly. Julia used to howl when she was that age and her mother tried to braid her hair. What she would give to take that back.
“So he’s quiet and kind of serious,” Julia argued. “But he takescare of this place like it’s his own. And let’s not forget he saved Raddy.” She glanced out the window at the empty barn. “You just don’t know him.”
Chloe affixed a sage-green bow to the end of Pippa’s braid and turned to Julia. “Do you? I mean, really, Jules. How well do you know this guy? And let’s remember—he’s aguy.”
Julia couldn’t dismiss that point. No matter how you looked at it, there was a big difference in having a male guardian versus a female, especially when it came to caring for two girls.
