The Life You Longed For (24 page)

G
race borrowed her mother's suit again for the hearing. It fit differently now, loose. Her father, also in a suit, drove. Stephen would meet them at the courthouse. Rebecca was on duty and would watch Jack. Her mother was taking the kids to a movie. Grace didn't want them anywhere CPS could find them. Logistics. She couldn't think beyond this simple plotting of who would be where and when. She stared out the window, her hands in her lap, her mouth dry. Bennett had warned her not to pin her hopes on the evidentiary hearing. It was a formality, he said. All CPS had to do was show a preponderance of evidence
suggesting
abuse.

At a red light, the woman in the car next to them was putting on lipstick in the rearview mirror. Someone honked.
Unless there's a compelling reason not to, the court will err on the side of the child.
They passed a McDonald's, car dealerships with colorful flags gusting in the wind. Planes lifted off from Philadelphia International Airport. The sky seemed transparent.

“If we can't get full custody reinstated, and it's not likely, Grace, we'll push to have the dispositional hearing moved up. The standard is thirty days, but we'll shoot for ten with liberal visitation.”

 

The courtroom was on the second floor, a dingy space with dirty beige curtains closed over the high windows, straight-backed wooden chairs at scratched wooden desks, black-and-white tile floors. Bennett shook her father's hand, then led Grace and an exhausted-looking Stephen to a table up front. It wasn't a jury trial. Aside from the social worker and the county lawyer, there was only Jenn, dressed in nurse's scrubs and running shoes, and Stephen's brother, Jeff, along with his girlfriend, Mandy. Anju hurried in a few minutes later with Brian Steckler, the head of cardiology.

Grace didn't know what to do with her eyes, her hands. She focused on the judge, an attractive woman with coffee-colored skin and curly hair pulled from her face by a thick headband. A lilac-colored turtleneck showed above her black robe.

Are you a mother? Grace wanted to ask. Nothing else seemed relevant.

 

“Now tell me again why the county is recommending visiting restrictions for
all
family members?” the judge asked. “The father's stayed in the hospital with the child the last two days, has he not?”

“Yes, Your Honor, he has,” Bennett said.

“And the child's doing well?”

“Yes, he is.”

The judge smiled, her white teeth seeming to glow in the dark oval of her face. She directed her gaze to Kate. “Well, Ms. Halverson?”

Kate stood. She was wearing an ill-fitting beige suit with boxy shoulders and a frilly white blouse. A girl trying to look older than she was. “We believe that the child remains in danger.” Her voice quavered. For a moment, Grace almost felt sorry for her. She couldn't have been more than twenty-five. And she didn't wear a wedding band, so in all likelihood she wasn't married and didn't have children. How could she possibly be an expert in assessing families at risk? What did she have to go on, really, besides the horrifying statistics that been drilled into her?

Child fatalities have risen by 30 percent in the last decade.

About 35–55 percent of those kids had already come under the CPS radar.

Every eleven minutes a child is reported abused or neglected.

 

“Several experts on Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome have noted that attempts on the mother's part to prove that her child really
is
ill typically escalate when the child is hospitalized.” Kate was saying. “My—the county's—concern is that Mrs. Connolly will try to orchestrate some sort of relapse in the child through the father.”

Bennett only smiled at this and stood, buttoning his suit jacket calmly as he did. “This is pure conjecture, Your Honor,” he said.

“I agree, Mr. Marsh, so why don't you go ahead? The sooner we clear this up, the sooner you can all return to your lives and to ensuring the health of the child.”

Grace jerked her head up, the force of her longing for just that, to
return to your lives,
like an electric shock.

And then Bennett was speaking, his tone measured and sure. He talked about the mercurial and often confusing nature of mitochondrial disease. He read statements attesting to Grace's character from half a dozen doctors and nurses. His voice was steady and lulling. “Many of the county's concerns,” he said, “appear to be based on something my client either said or didn't say.” He casually picked up the report. “If I can just quote a few of the things that CPS apparently found alarming?” He glanced over the edges of his eyeglasses at the judge, who made a motion with her hand to hurry it along.

Bennett adjusted his glasses “First example,” he said, and began to read: “ ‘Following a routine catheterization, mother-perpetrator expressed displeasure when son was dismissed from the hospital before mother felt he was ready.'” Bennett paused. “Second example: ‘Mom refers to hospital as “home away from home.” Third, ‘Mother expressed relief upon learning of child's diagnosis.'” Bennett glanced up, arms spread as if to suggest how at a loss he was. “
Relief
, Your Honor.”

“My hearing is just fine, Mr. Marsh.”

“My point is that feeling relief is not a crime and, in fact—” He picked up a xeroxed article. “I quote: Relief is a normal reaction in parents of sick children when given a diagnosis, no matter how bad, for what was previously an unknown or unnamed condition.” He set the paper down, and picked up the CPS report again. “My fourth example,” he continued. “ ‘Mother seems to enjoy hospital atmosphere,
befriending
several nurses and
going so far
as to ask about their personal lives.'” His tone turned angry, and Grace wondered if he was really upset or if this was just for effect. She found herself again watching the judge, whose eyes met hers, briefly, before shifting back to Bennett. “Fifth: ‘Mom enjoys peppering conversations with medical vocabulary.'” He looked up. “She has a master's degree in epidemiology, for God's sake!” He tossed the report onto the desk and took off his glasses. “I could go on. And on. But the bottom line is that none of these statements suggests that Grace is a danger to her child or that her child is at risk or even that she is a less-than-adequate parent. Not one of them! And the last time I checked, this was not Iran or Chile or some other country where people are penalized for what they say.”

The judge turned to Kate, and raised her eyebrows. “Do you want to respond, Ms. Helverson?”

“Yes. We…the…” She looked down at her notes, then said. “The fact that Mr. Marsh refuses to accept the legitimacy of this disease concerns the state—”

“
What?
” Bennett laughed. “Am
I
now on trial for what I've said?” he asked Kate.

Kate's neck and ears turned pink. “This kind of unwillingness to even
acknowledge
the disease is a hallmark of the pathology, Your Honor.”

“Ahh,” Bennett interrupted. “So now trusting someone is part of the disease?”

Kate ignored him. “The mother
fits
the Munchausen's profile,” she said to the judge and rattled off the warning signs that applied to Grace. “This
so-called
disease has a mortality rate of nine percent,” she added when she had finished.

Bennett stood, pushing himself up wearily this time, as if he were bored. “I'm sorry,” he said. “But this accusation borders on silly. Yes, Grace has medical knowledge, and yes, she knows a lot about her son's disease, maybe more than many doctors, and yes, she has ‘doctor-shopped' as the so-called experts want to call it, though others might say this is just being smart. We shop around when looking for houses and cars and washing machines, don't we?” He sighed. “None of the claims made by Child Protective Services suggest a psychiatric illness much less a crime, Your Honor. If anything, these characteristics—intelligence, medical knowledge—only make my client and other women like her that much stronger, that much more willing to ask questions, and yes, that much more willing to complain, and my take, quite frankly”—he tossed his pencil onto the desk—“is that someone just doesn't like this.”

“Your Honor,” Kate said. “All the county is asking for is more time to review the evidence. Statistics from Health and Human Services show that forty-six percent of children who die from abuse have been reported at least once to Child Protective Services, but nothing was done because the evidence wasn't found to be adequate. It is in this case, however. Mrs. Connolly scores high on half of the indices indicating that the child is at high risk of further abuse.” She ticked them off on her fingers: history of depression, previous reports of abuse, a multitude of stresses in dealing with the child's illness, large periods of time when Grace was alone with the child, the child's age—under five—which put him in the group of children who accounted for seventy-eight percent of all deaths due to abuse and neglect in the last year for which there were statistics. “In light of this—”

“Objection.” Bennett stood.

“That's fine, Mr. Marsh,” the judge said evenly, gesturing for him to sit. “I object as well. I object, in fact, to this entire hearing.” Again, her eyes briefly met Grace's before she turned to the county attorney and social worker. Vaguely, Grace was aware of Stephen squeezing her hand, but she was afraid to look at him. She was afraid to hope, afraid to breathe almost, as if to move at all might somehow change the judge's mind. She focused on a scuff mark on the floor just in front of her. Was it possible that this really would be no more than the misunderstanding everyone said it was?

“I'm not one bit pleased that this case is in front of me,” the judge was saying. “The information is conflicting, it
is
based on circumstance”—she nodded at Bennett—“and I'm holding a sheaf of letters”—she held them up—“from friends and family, not to mention doctors and nurses from a
number
of renowned institutions, Ms. Helverson, who not only attest to the severity and unpredictability of the child's illness, but also to Mrs. Connolly's attributes as a devoted mother.” The judge paused. “I am considering this case at all
only
because of the fact that two accusations were made independently of one another within a short time frame.”

Grace glanced hesitantly at Kate, who was leaning towards the county attorney, her cheeks flushed, nodding her head, and in that second, Grace felt a prickling sensation in her chest, and knew something was wrong. It was not going to be
a misunderstanding
. The judge paused to take a breath, and somehow, in that space, the interval between heartbeats, everything changed. The county lawyer, not Kate, was standing, saying that he had hoped he could have avoided this, and the judge, looking irritated, was nodding.

“This
supposedly
devoted mother,” the lawyer was saying, and there was something in the way he said it: s
upposedly
. The rest of the words came in waves, crashing forward, then retreating, pulling her life out from under her. “Might not seem relevant…” and “surely the state has no intention…” and “clearly established pattern of deception,” and Bennett was interjecting that this had nothing to with the case and Stephen's hand in hers was freezing, and Grace felt as if her bones had dissolved, as if nothing was holding her intact.

Adultery.
The word echoed.

“Nobody denies that the child has a serious illness, so serious, in fact, that for all his mother knew, it was to be his last Christmas. And yet…and yet…this
supposedly
devoted mother—” If he said it again, Grace thought, she would scream. “Chose to spend Christmas Eve sneaking off with her lover rather than…”

The room went still. She felt Stephen turn to her.
Christmas Eve?

Stop looking at me, she wanted to sob.

“Clearly, this woman is quite adept at appearing to be one thing when she is actually another.”

The words were like shiny marbles on which she tried to run, but there was nothing to hold on to, nothing to keep her from falling, even though Stephen was still squeezing her hand so hard that her fingers felt bruised.

This isn't my life, Grace was thinking, and nearly choked on the bitter realization that every parent who had ever sat in this room and faced the possibility of losing their child had probably thought the same thing. How quickly it all spins away from you. But when had that really happened? With the first e-mail to Noah—
Is that you?
Or the second or the fourth or the fifteenth—
I've never stopped—
or was it before that, the day they found out about Jack's illness or the summer twenty years ago when she met Noah or the autumn she stopped returning his calls?