When You Go Away (21 page)

     "But what about Graham?"  Noel asked.  "He's going to get the kids."

     "Now wait.  Hold on.  The felony charge is the first item.  We've also got the complaint and the petition filed by Graham's lawyers for custody removal from the home.  That's number two.  A court officer has made a request for removal.  The kids actually are removed already, and that's why they are with your ex-husband right now.  The problem we have is that one and two are all mixed up.  To remove kids permanently from a home on child endangerment charges, the court has to prove one of a few grounds.  The truth is . . . ." Preston trailed off and sighed.  Peri knew that meant she had already proven those grounds, destroying everything as she slid into fear.  What hadn't she covered in the time since Graham had said goodbye?

     "The truth is that the court can prove a number of them: abandonment, desertion, imminent danger, mental illness.  It's not going to be easy for us to fight back from that.  It's not impossible, but it's going to be dicey."

     "So, I've lost them?"  Peri asked, knowing the answer already.  She'd seen it in Carly's eyes yesterday.  Even if she could get them back, her daughter had left her behind.

     "Not yet." 
Preston
cleared his throat.  "So let's move to number three, the custody battle.”

    
There’s that word again
, she thought.

     “They’re related.  They’re all connected,” Noel interrupted.

    “Yes, of course.  But the juvenile court oversees this case."

     "Now we can finally talk about Graham," Noel said.  "I emailed you the timeline of his actions."

     "I received that."

     "So?"

     "He's a deadbeat dad, no question."

     "And?"

     "He's petitioned for custody.  The cou
rt appointed a guardian ad lite
m, whose role is to advocate for the children.  There's also an investigation going on to see what's in the best interest of the children."

     Peri sat up.  "He doesn’t want Brooke.  He doesn't want what's in her best interest.  He'll put her in a home because he can't stand looking at her."

     "Could you?"  Preston asked.  "Isn't that why you left?"

     "Preston!  Seriously!"  Noel said loudly.

     "Noel, I know this is hard.  But we've got to get real here.  That's what the prosecutor will ask.  That's what the judge will know."

     Peri looked at her hands, thin and white and ringless. 
These hands could belong to anyone
, she thought,
but they belong to me, a mother who left
. 

     "She was sick.  Mental illness is just that.  An illness."  Noel slammed his hand on the table and pushed back in his chair, crossing his legs.  “And doesn’t anyone want to know how CCS could have allowed this to happen?  What about Brooke’s nursing case manager?”

    
Preston
shook his head.  “Look, dragging an
underfunded
state agency into this right now isn’t going to help us.  Plain and simple, parents have the final responsibility for their children.”

     “But should they be?” Noel asked.  “Totally?  Always?”

     "Not always.  We could take that tack,"
Preston
said softly, nodding.  "But right now the court is looking to put the children in the home that will be in their best interests.  Think of those words: best interest.  And they won't want to separate them.  We've got that in our favor.  But right now, Peri, you don't have a home that can support them. 
Graham does, and he can swear up and down he's going to keep Brooke with him and later, move her into a facility.  I can argue that even with Graham, Brooke is a child in need of protection or services.  But let's stop speculating.  The arraignment is today.  With luck, you are going to be out of jail by this evening.  You'll stay with your dad, go to the doctor, get well.  The investigation will go on, and I'll keep on it.  After today, nothing is going to happen fast, that's for sure."

     "Will I see them again?” Peri asked.  “Can I see them?  Can I visit Brooke?"

    
Preston
’s eyes were steady and kind.  He was a man like any other, not a slick person with all the answers, who understood complaints and petitions and statutes, simply a man who answered her brother's phone call.  Said yes.  Took the case.

     "We'll have a custody hearing soon to establish visitation.  It will probably be supervised, but yes, you will see them again.  We'll get you to the hospital to see Brooke.  But you have to be patient.  The court was very lenient with you.  They could have had you arrested and then extradited.  You walked yourself in here without a police officer."

     "I know."

     "So your depression and the situation with your family took months, years, to happen.  It's not going to be patched up in a manner of weeks.  Now that the court is in charge, it's going to take time to fix.  You need to go home and get better.  See the doctor.  Take your meds.  Visit your kids."

       She nodded and folded her arms, listening to
Preston
and Noel talk more about doctor and detective reports, supervised visits, judicial actions.  All she could do was
hold this moment to her like a blanket, clutch it as it slipped away.  There wasn't any use looking at tomorrow or the next day or month or year, since everything that happened to her and her children would be decided by other people. 
Oh, I was so stupid
, she thought. 
I made some hor
rible decisions, even though I
thought they were good ones at the time.
  

    
Preston
was right.  She hadn't wanted to see Brooke anymore.  She deserved nothing, not even to get out of this jail and go home to live with her father.  She deserved what Brooke had, a twisted body, bedsores, pneumonia.  If some judge could order that, then the world would be set to biblical rights, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

     "Peri!"  Preston said.

     "What?"

     "Time to go.  Remember.  Be patient."

     The guard led her away from Noel and
Preston
, her county clothes hanging on her like guilt.  She would never be able to forget Preston's words, not one, even if she tried.



She sat in her father's Corvair, clutching a white paper bag full of medicine in her hands.  She wished she had a hair elastic, but then her hair was already such a mess, no amount of wind was going to matter.  And the air felt good on her body, pushing away Sophia's cigarette smoke that still smothered her like a body sock.  Even in the jeans she'd worn to
Phoenix
and the blouse Noel had bought for her there, she felt almost new.  Almost free.  As if when the judge set the bail at thirty thousand and hit the gavel, she'd been released.

     "So," her dad said, his voice carried up and out of the car.  He had one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting in his lap.  With his Ray Bans and his baseball cap, her father could be driving her to high school, college orientation, both of them transported back fifteen, twenty years, except for the fact that she was here next to him, all grown up, arraigned on felony child endangerment charges, penal code 273 a.  In her cell, there had been words to describe her condition--psychotic, depressed, abuser--but not until today in the court room did she know there was a number for her mistakes.  If there was a number for what she’d done, it was real, on-paper real, punishable.  Peri could still see the look in the judge's eye as he read the charge aloud.

     "So," her dad said again, "how do you feel?"  Peri breathed in and was about to answer him, but then they were in the Caldecott Tunnel, the car noise a drum against her ears.  She looked into her lap where she held the drugs tight.  These were her sanity now.  She couldn't let these get away, or she might jump in a car, drive down to
Phoenix
, break another window or worse.

     Her father pulled into his driveway but didn't open the garage door.  He shut off the engine and got out of the car, hurrying over to her side to let her out.  She tried to smile, but her body felt full of jitters.  All she wanted was to go inside and fall asleep, let the sleepy side effects of the drugs take over and get her out of here, for now.

     "You haven't been here in a long time.  I thought I'd show you the work I've done in the yard."

     "Okay," Peri said, holding the bag, letting her father hold her arm as they walked the lawn.  The sun was too bright, the flowers too loud, but she nodded through his discussion of the foul oxalis weeds and evil crab grass, managed to "Ohh" over the Boston Ivy climbing the south wall of the house, the snow ball shrub on the white picket fence.  Now he had a white picket fence?  Wasn't this what she gave her Barbies in her imaginary play, a white picket fence and a lawn for croquet games and picnics?  Did he really think everything could be perfect and controlled--a weed, a lawn, a fence?  He'd never worked at controlling or managing her or Noel once he left.  Or even when he'd been there.  Yards were so much easier to handle than children, and as she looked around, she could see her father’s care in every plant and stepping stone and fence slat, all his loved poured here.  Peri bit her lip, trying to not feel the ache of tears under her ribs.

     When she was a child, he'd been like a special, late night movie that she was lucky to catch, and then the show was shut down forever.  How come he developed into a homebody now, when it was too late?  Too late.

     "Oh, Mr. Randall?"

     Her father sighed and then turned to the corner of the yard where a blonde woman in a white gardening apron stood, holding a basket full of daisies.  "Yes, Mrs. Trimble?"

     "This wouldn't be your daughter, would it?"

     Mrs. Trimble smiled at her.  Peri's body loosened, and she pulled away from her father, answering for herself.  "Yes.  Hi.  I’m Peri Mackenzie."

     "I'm Louise Trimble.  I brought these for you."  She raised the basket, and Peri walked over to her, clutching her crumpled bag of medicine to her chest. 

     "I've met your children, you know.  Very confident children."

     Peri held out her hands and took up the daises, yellow with long green stems and dark black eyes.  "Lovely."

     "My yard has gone wild with this heat.  So unusual for this time of year.  But look at the bounty!"  Louise smiled and patted Peri's arm.  "You're lucky to have such a wonderful father."

     Peri looked back at her dad, who was kicking at an imaginary dandelion in the lawn.  "Oh."

     "He took care of those kids of yours.  I heard a lot of laughter."

     "Oh.  Well.  Thanks for the flowers."

     Louise smiled, and Peri looked into her eyes, light brown and full of green, the perfect eyes for a gardener.  "Good luck to you," Louise said, lifting a gloved hand and disappeared into the deep green of rhododendron bushes.  Peri turned to her father, who shrugged. 

     "Don't ask me."

     She started to smile, but then remembered that this was what he'd always been good at: charming women, all women, secretaries, schoolmates' mothers, colleagues.  She could still feel the flush of embarrassment when she’d watched him talk to her very best
friend Tina's mother at sixth grade open house.  One hand on her sleeve, his earnest nod, his lips turning up in a smile.  Tina had said, "Look.  Your dad is talking to my mom!" And Peri had known what this meant to Tina and her divorced mom.  Her father's moving in toward Tina’s mom as if with interest, his jaunty hand on his suited hip, was a promise that both Tina and her mother would now expect to be fulfilled.  She didn't blame them for it either.  She wanted the same thing.  But he wouldn't keep the promise.  He’d forget Tina's mother's name on the ride home and turn to Peri asking "Who?" 

     Mrs. Trimble’s eager greeting proved that nothing had changed at all.

Her dad had made up the bed in the same room Carly had slept in, and Peri wished he hadn't changed the sheets, wanting to bend down and smell her girl, breathe in what Carly had denied her during their visit.  She ran her hand over the bedspread, and then stood up and walked down the hall to the study where Ryan had slept.  But no, the hideaway bed had been converted back to a sofa, pillows fluffed, blankets folded and put away in the closet.  If she wanted her children, she had to behave.  She had to get well.  Or sneak out of the house and hike to Garnet's late at night, peer into windows, slip through open doors.  But that was the exact behavior that had gotten her here, back with her father, lost to her own life.

     In the kitchen, her father was just hanging up the phone.  "Guess what?  I've been able to arrange a visit with Brooke.  Day after tomorrow.  Of course, Fran will be with you in the room, but you’ll get to see Brooke.  And Fran is going to work on setting up another
visit with Ryan and Carly.  It will probably have to be at her office, though.  Or on some neutral ground."

     Peri sat down, jittery again. "Thanks."