“Would you please?” Julia looked grateful.
“Yes, but in the meantime, you need to share this with Jamie as soon as you hear from her. What you need is legal counsel. Not talking to a retired judge in her living room.”
“While she’s in the middle of baking a pie.”
Roberta glanced over her shoulder into the kitchen, where the pie crust waited on the counter.
Julia shrugged. “I saw the blueberries. And the dough. Pippa loves blueberry pie.”
For a terrifying second, Roberta almost invited her back to the kitchen. It would not kill her to hear this girl out further. To weigh in. Toget involved,as she’d told Wendell.
Instead, she smiled tightly and ushered Julia to the door. “Yes. There is the matter of the pie.”
With Julia gone, she returned to the kitchen. As she’d feared, the darn dough was warm. When she balled it up to roll it out again, she dropped it. It wasn’t the slipperiness of the dough so much as the shaking of her hands. The last thing Julia had said before leaving: “I knew you’d know what to do.”
There was a time when Roberta was foolish enough to think so, too. But no longer. The truth was, Julia Lancaster was calling up old memories. Memories she’d rather not allow back in the corners of her mind.
The Layla Bruzi case had been complicated from the beginning. Jenny Bruzi was a twenty-three-year-old single mother of two children, Layla, age five, and Dominic, age two. The children were fathered by different men, neither of whom married Jenny, but she lived with Dominic’s father, Austin Hicks, with both kids. At age seventeen, Jenny had dropped out of high school, just one semester before she would have graduated, to have Layla. She’d never gone back. Layla’s biological father was not in the picture, at least when Jenny Bruzi had been brought to the probate court’s attention by Layla’s maternal grandmother, Edith Warren.
From the start, Roberta had seen red flares. Edith Warren was appealing for custody of both her grandchildren, but it was her claims about Layla’s physical well-being that concerned Roberta most. Edith felt that Layla was in some kind of danger being around Austin Hicks, though there was never any evidence of that.
In documents obtained by the Department of Children and Families and the New Milford Police Department, there were two domestic violence calls made, one by Jenny in September 2012 and one in November by her mother, Edith, against Austin Hicks. Austin was arrested on each incident and later let go. Charges were filed and then dropped both times by Jenny.
Sadly, it was not uncommon for women in situations of domestic abuse to bravely make the call for help, and file a charge, but later drop it. The reasons were many: financial strain, lack of stability and support, fear for their personal safety or the safety of their children. At the end of the day, Roberta knew the ugly truth: no restraining order was going to provide any real protection for a woman and her children if someone was determined to cause them harm. There were shortcomings in the law, just as there were shortcomings in people. As much as she believed in the law, and some might say loved it, it was on a judge to make case-by-case determinations to provide the real protections needed for those most vulnerable, in this case, a five-year-old girl.
At the first custody hearing in Roberta’s courtroom, Edith Warren claimed that Austin had a nasty temper, and though he and Jenny fought often, it was Layla who she felt was most vulnerable. “He’s real jealous. It’s not good for either child to be around him when he and Jenny get into it, believe me. But Dominic is Austin’s biological son. He treats him different.”
Roberta wanted to hear more. In her experience, third-party witnesses were often reliable and made sound contributions to completing the picture she was trying to piece together. “Pleasegive the court some examples of your concerns if you can, Mrs. Warren.”
“Well, I haven’t seen him hit her or nothing. At least not in front of me. But when he gets fired up, he looks at her funny.” Her voice broke then, and she paused, looking as if she might cry. Roberta felt for Mrs. Warren. It was not easy for families to show up and testify under oath, even if they were doing it for what they thought was the right reason. She waited as Mrs. Warren collected herself.
“Layla reminds him of Jenny’s ex and the life she had before him. He doesn’t like having Layla around, I can tell.”
“Can you elaborate on your fears, Mrs. Warren?” Roberta needed specifics to point to, as much as she hated to ask and feared the answers. In her experience, there had been cases of domestic abuse that, statistically, the women seemed to absorb the most. But she’d had a case of a child with a broken arm who’d gotten pulled too hard by an angry stepmother. Another, just a six-month-old infant, who’d been shaken but, thank God, survived. In her small country courthouse, it was not common. But it happened everywhere, even in the forested hills of Litchfield County, where the front yards were manicured, the schools were good, and the playgrounds were full of happy, healthy, cared-for children. It happened everywhere. And if Mrs. Warren was suggesting she had good reason to believe it was happening now, that Layla Bruzi might be in some kind of imminent danger, Roberta was going to flesh it out. “If you could give us any examples of something Mr. Hicks has said or done to warrant your fears, that would be helpful.” She watched the conflicted expression on the grandmother’s face as she looked over at her daughter, Jenny. “Anything at all,” Roberta encouraged.
“When he drinks, he goes after Jenny sometimes. Twists her arm. Pushes her down. She tells me these things, but then he gets in her ear afterward, and suddenly, the story changes.”
Roberta looked at the young mother, who stared at her lap.Roberta had seen and heard plenty of disquieting things in her years as judge, but it was often the inanimate details that got her, like now: the aisle of still space between mother and daughter. A grandmother on one side of a courtroom, her daughter on the other. Divided, in this case, by a man. Beside Jenny, as Edith Warren went on, Austin Hicks maintained a calm expression Roberta could not read.
When Jenny Bruzi stood before her, Roberta couldn’t help but feel the nerves beneath an otherwise angry demeanor. “This is all ridiculous,” she protested. “Austin is a real good man, and he’s the only dad Layla has ever known. Her own sure isn’t around.” She glanced at Austin, and Roberta wondered if this had been rehearsed.
In the case of Austin Hicks, it was clear to Roberta the first time he opened his mouth that, despite his limited education, he was intelligent and unswervingly charming. He spoke confidently in her courtroom and with respect. Despite his admission of one incident of physical altercation between him and Jenny, and a subsequent verbal disagreement as reported by their neighbors, there were no reports of any endangerment or neglect to the children.
When questioned, Austin Hicks did not deny his responsibility or try to avoid accountability. Rather, he admitted openly that he had what he referred to as a “complicated” relationship with alcohol, and he had, in fact, lost his temper and his better judgment on occasions around Jenny and the children in their apartment. “I’m not denying it. Our fight got out of hand, but the kids were asleep. I would never do that again. I would never do it in front of the children.”
“Mrs. Warren is concerned about your ability to care for the children, Mr. Hicks. Can you tell the court what your plans are for employment and providing for rent, groceries, and living expenses?”
Austin Hicks shared that he’d recently applied to multiple local businesses, including Walmart, Home Depot, and a restaurant. “Iused to work at my brother’s garage as a mechanic, but it went out of business.”
There were records to support that claim, and Roberta knew these things happened. “I advise you to pursue a new job with vigor,” she told him in no uncertain terms. “And I wonder about anger management classes in the interim.” He did not look pleased, but he did not protest, either.
Roberta questioned Jenny Bruzi methodically and thoroughly. “Ms. Bruzi, do you understand that, statistically speaking, once there is assault in a family home between two partners, it is more likely that the children will eventually be on the receiving end of such?”
Jenny nodded and insisted that was one time and that it had never happened again. Roberta believed it neither then nor for the future, but she repeated the gravity of the situation. “Raising children in a home where the parents are at odds, even verbally, is psychologically damaging to the children. Even at their young ages, they are processing this, whether or not they understand it. Do you wish to raise your children in a home where fear and aggression are being modeled?” It was not her intent to shame Jenny Bruzi, but Roberta was going to drive home the worst-case scenarios to her there and then, in the hope that it might somehow sink in that she was on a very dangerous path if this behavior and this relationship continued. Roberta indicated to Jenny’s mother, across the aisle: “Just appearing here today in front of me, as a family divided, I would argue that damage has already been done.”
There would be another hearing. And more visits from DCF to the apartment, which would result in reports being submitted to the court and recommendations for Roberta, as judge, to consider. But at the end of the day, the decision fell across her shoulders. And to this day, how she ended up ruling on the Bruzi case still weighed on her.
Twenty-SixWendell
