Roberta had warned Julia of this very fact herself. But she’d understood why the girl wasn’t deterred. She wanted to fight for this.And she couldn’t change her age. “I share those same concerns. What have you come up with to make your case?”
“Well, the guardian ad litem has already interviewed Candace Lancaster and Wendell. She’s meeting with the girls next.”
“Have you any sense of her reports thus far?” Roberta knew they’d go to the judge, but sometimes attorneys communicated with the GALs and could discern some sense of their findings or leanings during those interactions.
“Not really. I wanted to get your sense about Mr. Combs.”
Roberta had thought Jamie would be focused on Candace and making a case for the tensions at home. The lack of a former relationship. The woman’s residence overseas. Courts liked to keep the children in circumstances as close to their normal lives as possible, assuming those were safe and fit surroundings. “What do you need to know about Wendell?”
“This is personal. Please know that I plan to reach out to him directly, but I wanted to get your sense first. If the emancipation request is denied, do you think he has any interest in custody of the girls? Because from what I’ve heard from Julia, it’s been successful so far. And that was her initial wish.”
Roberta sucked in her breath. She could not speak for Wendell, of course. But she knew what Jamie was asking: she wanted to know if following this trail would be a waste of their precious time or if there was hope. “You think the children would do best with him?”
Jamie paused. “Let me put it to you this way: I think he is their best shot at staying here in Saybrook.”
Roberta had to be careful. Wendell was sacred ground. She’d known him almost his whole life. She was all he had for what might constitute family. And she’d made promises to his mother. He was not like everyone else. Wendell was as strong as they came on the outside. But on the inside, he was as fragile as Charlotte had been.And she often felt that she had to protect him from himself. What Wendell might be willing to do out of duty might not be what was best for him.
Roberta understood the intricacies of this case Julia Lancaster had looped them all into. She knew that time was critical and that the children’s options were limited. And despite her wish to remain neutral, she felt for those two girls, more than she’d ever wanted to. But her loyalties were to Wendell. “There is something you need to know.”
“What’s that?” Jamie asked.
Roberta hesitated. Wendell’s losses were his business. Just as the way he handled them was. Over the years, he’d made that very clear to her. If they were to stay friends, she had to respect his privacy, and he respected hers. For many years, this approach had served them both well. She would not trespass against him now. But she did need to share one thing. “Wendell is a veteran, as you already know. And he has suffered more loss than most in his thirty-nine years. His involvement with these girls is a surprise. But his loyalty runs deep. Whatever you ask of him, be aware that every man has his limitations.”
Jamie listened without interruption and took a moment after, when Roberta finished. “I understand,” she said. “Let me please clarify one thing. Do you think any of that makes him unfit?”
Roberta held her breath. She thought of the old medical doctrine: “First, do no harm.” And then she thought of Wendell. Of his losses and the years of therapy he’d undergone. The deep circles under his eyes and the sleepless nights that she knew he endured to this day. “That’s not for me to decide,” she said finally. “But I ask you to weigh it against any requests that are made of him on behalf of the Lancasters.”
When she hung up the phone, Roberta’s head throbbed. What had she just done?
She took two pills from the ibuprofen bottle in her medicine cabinet, tossed them back, and lay on the couch with a cold washcloth across her forehead. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help Jamie Aldeen, a lawyer she both admired and trusted. Or those poor Lancaster girls, who deserved every bit they could get. As a judge, she’d taken an oath: “To faithfully and impartially discharge all the duties incumbent upon me under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.” And in her mind, she’d failed.
It had been almost a decade since Roberta had walked away from her appointment as judge of the Housatonic Valley probate court but when she allowed her mind to drift back to the painful months leading up to her retirement, it seemed like yesterday.
Edith Warren’s application for sole custody of her two grandchildren had brought Jenny Bruzi, her daughter, Layla, and her son, Dominic, to Roberta’s court. But it was Austin Hicks, the biological father of little Dominic, who had held her attention.
There had been incidents of domestic disturbance between the adults, and Roberta had explored all evidence and findings from reports related to those events. But the matter at hand for her to hear was the custody of the children, and removing two children from the custody of a parent was no small matter. There had to be a compelling reason to do so.
After interviewing the family members during the initial hearings, Roberta had concerns. She addressed those concerns using every tool available to her.
She’d ordered that DCF visit the family weekly and that Austin Hicks and Jenny Bruzi apply for jobs; another hearing was scheduled for four weeks later to hear updates.
Austin had found and maintained a job at a local auto partscenter, where he worked the cash register and stocked shelves. He had taken only two sick days. He made his rent payments on time. According to DCF, there were groceries in the refrigerator, if not all the healthiest kinds. Layla was in a special program called Head Start, and her attendance was intermittent. Jenny was quick to blame the lack of a car: there was one vehicle for the household, and she claimed Austin needed it to work. When asked why she could not drop him off at work, since it was often for eight-hour shifts, then pick him up, thereby allowing her use of the car, she would look to him and remain silent. This was where Roberta’s red flares began to spark. She didn’t like it when a person questioned in her courtroom deferred to another, often woman to man. It was a sign of a power struggle, of a person’s fear to speak freely for herself. Roberta made note of these, and many other details, in her file. She watched Austin Hicks like a hawk, but she watched Jenny Bruzi even more closely. It was what Jenny did not say that caught her attention.
Edith Warren had a lot to say. But none of it was proving useful to Roberta’s attempt to build any kind of case for what the grandmother was requesting of the court. Mrs. Warren was convinced Austin Hicks was a threat to her daughter and grandchildren, and as the judge presiding over the matter, Roberta made every effort to delve into those concerns and determine their warrant. During the final hearing, she pressed Mrs. Warren for details.
“To your knowledge, has Mr. Hicks ever physically or verbally caused distress to either child?” She waited as Edith Warren considered this. Even if it was something as seemingly benign as taking a child’s hand too roughly or yelling, as she knew many parents did at some point, Roberta wanted to hear it. In her position, she counted on the people who came through her courthouse doors to provide the details, no matter how small. That was their job. Hers was to sift through them all and decide whether or not they wererelevant. And right now, if what Mrs. Warren was claiming held any water, Roberta needed something to go on.
But Edith Warren could not produce any evidence of distress. “No, ma’am.” She shook her head sadly. “All’s I can tell you is that he don’t like little Layla. And if he’s around her when he gets angry, like he does more and more, I can see him going for her. Something real bad will happen. I can feel it in my bones.”
DCF was ordered to maintain their weekly visits to the house. Eventually, with those reports showing no change in status quo, they became twice monthly. By January 2013, with no new incidents reported or charges filed, and the children appearing at doctor appointments in good health, Roberta felt she had no reason to deny them from their mother. Both Layla and Dominic were returned to their mother in full custody. At the hearing, Edith Warren wept. When Roberta asked if there were any changes or any evidence to support her concerns for the children’s well-being with their mother and Austin Hicks in their apartment, Edith Warren said simply, “I know him, Your Honor. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
Roberta Blythe loved the law. While there were cracks in the system, and loopholes where areas became gray, she believed that was where a judge’s role came into play. It was her job to examine those cracks and fill them. To provide safety nets when needed. To support, to protect, and ultimately, to keep families together. And so she did. She extended the DCF visits and reiterated her concerns and hopes for the Bruzi-Hicks family arrangement. Beyond that, with no new evidence to present to the court, she could not under the law remove Layla Bruzi or Dominic Hicks from the custody of their mother and award guardianship to Edith Warren.
Before she stood to deliver her verdict, she felt the ominous weight of Edith Warren’s stare. “I feel it in my bones,” Edith had warned.
As Judge Roberta Blythe made her ruling that Jenny Bruzi should maintain full custody of both her children on April 13, 2013, she believed inherbones that she had done her due diligence.
Three weeks later, on May 2, Roberta received a phone call in the early morning. The night before, Austin Hicks had taken his son, Dominic, from his crib, poured a gallon of gasoline around the bed he shared with Jenny, and lit the apartment on fire. Paramedics and rescue volunteers responded to a 911 call shortly after two a.m. Jenny Hicks was pulled to safety from a second-story window, suffering from smoke inhalation but pronounced alert and conscious on the scene. Minutes later, five-year-old Layla Bruzi was also pulled from a window. She was unconscious. She had suffered third-degree burns on 40 percent of her body.
