Authors: Brent Coffey
Bruce did his homework to a fault. He knew August’s “disturbing background” was a finessed way of saying, “When August was three, he watched his father burst through the Middletons’ apartment door in Dorchester, one of Boston’s oldest neighborhoods, in a vomiting drunken stupor and (after Larry Middleton woke up on the kitchen floor) rape, beat, and strangle June Middleton to death. Oh! And then, August had a front row ticket to see good old pop finish things off on the family’s Rent-A-Lot sofa with dad’s last six shots of Wild Turkey and a 120mg of methadone.” Yes, such a homicide-suicide was “Boston tough” on the attentive little guy hiding, peeking around the kitchen wall. Disturbing background was putting it mildly. Little wonder that two years later August was having trouble in school. Little wonder as well that he was shy and withdrawn. “What kid wouldn’t be?” Bruce wondered aloud. Over the years, Bruce had studied many homicide-suicides, but this was the first time that he recalled an orphan being the result of one. When a father went nuts or got blitzed, he usually killed the entire family before knocking himself off. No one knew why August was spared that tragic night, because dearest dad wasn’t around to explain.
As Bruce drove away from 3 Pemberton Square, the location of the Suffolk County Courthouse, his rearview mirror confirmed that Gabe still held the media’s rapt attention. No matter. He had other concerns on his mind.
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Martha’s embrace and the smell of chicken pot pies greeted Bruce from his long day of losing. A few hours earlier, Martha had heard about Gabe’s acquittal on the radio. She knew the loss was heartbreaking. Her husband dedicated every second of his nine-to-five to the pursuit of justice, which is why many of his nine-to-five’s stretched into nine-to-nine’s, and sometimes nine-to-twelve’s. Sixty to 80 hour workweeks, countless of bottles of Excedrin, and unresolved muscle tension in his back and neck all came with the territory of being the most committed D.A. the city had seen in years. A salary larger than other attorneys’ income wasn’t part of that territory. Personal injury lawyers made more money than Bruce did in his pursuit of justice. Corporate lawyers made more than them both. No, cash didn’t fuel Bruce. This evening, Martha and pot pie did.
They ate quietly, with the disappointing verdict still fresh on their minds. Both wanted to gripe about the jury, the judge, and the press, but each worried the other was sick of discussing all three. Finished, Bruce started to push away from the table, thinking that it was best not to tell Martha about Gabe’s threat to
get him his boy
, until he knew that it wasn’t unnecessary information that she would only worry about. Eventually, she spoke, deciding that one of them had to address today’s loss in court, so that they could move on with their lives.
“Well, that’s why God created hell. The Adelaides will get what’s coming to them eventually, dear,” Martha assured him. “I’ll put on the coffee.”
“You know,” Bruce interrupted, “I’d rather have another pot pie.”
“I’m out of carrots and potatoes. But if you give me about an hour, I can make you one with just chicken and gravy.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll grab one from the freezer at Stop and Run.”
Bruce intended no disrespect, but few acts of treachery hurt Martha as much as having her homemade meals spurned in favor of frozen crap. Cooking was one of her many talents, and she enjoyed showcasing her culinary skills. With a cold gaze, she watched her husband walk through the breaker room adjacent to the kitchen and open the door to the garage. Irritated, she began washing dishes in the kitchen sink and tuned the room’s radio to her parish’s broadcast of WOCC, the Wisdom of Christ’s Church Network. Like most middle class Bostonians, she was Catholic. Unlike most middle class Bostonians, she practiced Catholicism. WOCC’s broadcast of Father Mack’s sermons had inspired her to investigate the possibility of adoption.
Adoption is more than just an alternative to abortion,
Father Mack had explained.
It’s also the birth of a new family,
Martha had learned. Bruce was Catholic in heritage, but he had little interest in religion. He had no patience for Martha’s constant radio sermons. The Sox’s daily stats were radio enough for him. He had to be threatened with an indefinite suspension of their sex life before he agreed to listen to the CD copy of Father Mack’s sermon on the merits of adoption. But, once he heard it, something in Bruce’s 55-year-old heart tore.
That
longing.
That
buried and forgotten longing. A boy to carry on his last name, a boy to play catch with, a boy… dare he think it?… could life really be this good?... a boy to accompany him to Sox games. Bruce got in touch with his Catholic roots after that. It was their local priest, Father Bush, who helped the Hudsons find an adoption agency, choose an adoption lawyer, and prepare for their legally required home study.
Still bothered at the thought of Bruce eating frozen crap after her home cooked meal, Martha ignored tonight’s charge from Father Mack to “keep the faith.” The sermon provided the background noise she needed to channel her anger against remembered setbacks. This evening was Father Mack’s turn to be the background noise. This evening was Sara Madison’s turn to be the setback remembered…
“I’m sorry, but ulcerative colitis at your age presents a serious obstacle to adopting a young child,” Sara Madison, August’s social worker, had explained. “I’m sure the two of you would make great parents under ideal circumstances, but these aren’t ideal circumstances.”
“You think bouncing around from one foster home to the next is an ideal circumstance?” Bruce countered through clenched teeth. He tried to stay calm, but his anger, born out of disappointment, was too strong.
Sara took offense at Bruce’s accusation that she was “bouncing” August around to different homes. It hadn’t been her decision to place him in three different homes in the past two years. His previous foster parents had bailed on him when the state cut funding for the foster care program. She responded with forced composure, ignored his comment about August’s background, and returned the conversation to Bruce’s health:
“Look, Mr. Hudson, I’m just doing my job. I’m not passing judgment on you. I’m sure you’re a loving man and your wife is a loving woman. I know you want to provide a home for a child, and I commend you for being compassionate. I also know how much this means to you, and I hate to be the one who stands in your way, but August needs healthy parents.”
“I work! I work all the time. I work longer hours than you do. I work longer hours than any social worker in this city. Reconcile that with your perception that I’m an invalid,” Bruce spat out.
“I never said you were an invalid, and I don’t doubt that you work long hours. But, with all due respect, Mr. Hudson, your job is mostly a desk job. Raising a young child takes more energy than organizing a file cabinet. It requires a lot of get-up-and-go, not just the occasional standing that you do in court. According to the results of your physical, you suffer from limited mobility because of your ankles’ severe joint pain, you suffer from occasional loss of vision in both eyes, and your life expectancy is years below the average man’s.
“Again,” she held up both hands in a don’t-stone-the-messenger style, “I’m just repeating the facts your doctor provided our office with. You’re already fifty-five and in bad health, and August may find himself one parent short at an early age.”
“So what? At present he’s two parents short at a very early age!”
This was not going well. Home studies were supposed to be warm and friendly meet and greets. You meet the social worker. You greet the social worker. The social worker tells you what wonderful people you are for opening your home to a needy child. This, however, was no home study. This was a bitch named Sara Madison, Bruce would later tell Martha, hastily writing reasons in a notebook why ulcerative colitis, with all its complications, disqualified him from being an adoptive father.
The painful memory of their home study invited itself over and made itself comfy in Martha’s memory tonight, as she began drying dishes. As she waited for her disqualified (
but compassionate!
)
husband to return, her heart hurt for Bruce, while remembering his fight with Sara. Suddenly, she wanted to cry. She wanted Bruce to come home. She wanted to be with him, to hold him, to tell him it wasn’t his fault they couldn’t adopt. She didn’t blame Bruce’s health for the obstacle in their attempted adoption, and she certainly didn’t blame Bruce. Bruce blamed Bruce.
That’s why
, she realized,
he wants away from me. He’s ashamed. He lost August, and today he lost in court.
She resolved not to complain about his trip out for frozen food. He needed his space tonight, and she decided to give it to him.
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Two weeks ago…
The dog, a gentle giant of a white and light brown St. Bernard, smelled bacon. Not imitation meat processed into a treat, but honest-to-god real bacon. The man had lured the dog upstairs, by giving it a few slices outside of the high-rise and then shoving the rest of the meat into his large overcoat’s pocket so the dog would follow him inside. The dog knew the rest of the nice man’s bacon was in his pocket. The dog didn’t know that the man had a serrated twelve inch carving knife next to the bacon in his pocket, and the dog didn’t know that the man wasn’t so nice.
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Toy blocks
. She had to remember to bring him toy blocks next time. She’d promised him toy blocks two weeks ago and had forgotten to bring them during today’s visit. Sara Madison liked August. In fact, she liked all kids. She’d told her friends in college that she wanted to be a social worker because she understood kids. She’d grown up with seven siblings, three brothers and four sisters. She was the second oldest child in her family, and she had plenty of experience helping her mom care for the younger Madison clan. Glad to be in her line of work, it wasn’t like her to make a promise to a ward of the state (
God!
how she hated that term
… it’s too formal for a little guy
) and not keep it. “Next time, I’m going to bring you a whole bunch of brand new blocks with painted letters and numbers on them, and you’re going to have so much fun stacking them on each other and matching the colored letters with the same colored numbers! You’ll love ‘em, August,” she recalled saying. It was one of the few times she’d seen him smile. Smiling was such a rare occurrence for him that she’d silently applauded herself for a job well done. If she could make him smile after the little man had seen his jackass of a father kill the little tyke’s mother and commit suicide afterwards, then she was doing something right.
Driving home tonight, she felt guilty for not bringing August his blocks. She loved the foster kids in her district’s program, and she kept her promises to them.
All
her promises. This first broken promise of her career as a social worker troubled her. Never before had she promised to bring a child toys and failed to do it. She didn’t want to admit how scared she was after finding the dog in her bed, but the grip of fear that the dead dog held on her was the only cause she could think of for forgetting August’s blocks.
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Two weeks before tonight, and one week after she’d disqualified Bruce Hudson from being an adoptive father, Sara Madison had arrived home from work to her 1,100 square foot condo on the fifth-floor of East Camelot Towers in Back Bay, one of Boston’s 21 neighborhoods. She liked the location of her condo because it was close to the Charles River and within walking distance of a library. Despite living several floors up and despite having just arrived home from a stressful day of work, she took the stairs instead of the elevator.
After all
, she told herself,
you’ll soon be thirty, and you need to stay in the same shape that you were in during college
.
She often motivated herself with small nuggets of wise suggestions. Taking the stairs was one such nugget.
Coming in the Towers’ front entrance and walking up the stairs had been a familiar experience. Passing her neighbors on the stairs had been a familiar experience. Walking down the hall of the fifth-floor to room 5C had been a familiar experience. Digging in her purse for her keys, unlocking the door, and letting herself in… all familiar as well. Finding blood splattered on her living room walls, her flat screen television smashed on the floor below its wall mount, her plants uprooted and dumped out of their containers, well, all of that was very unfamiliar. Eventually, she’d find a dead dog, (
A whole fucking St. Bernard!
she’d tell police) a near two hundred pound fully grown dead dog with the underside of its belly ripped open and its entrails dangling out like tentacles, casually lying in her bed with glossy eyes opened in her direction. That would be unfamiliar too.
As Sara first absorbed the vandalism inflicted on her home, she stood stone still in her condo’s front entrance, unaware that she’d dropped her purse and that she hadn’t removed the keys from her open door. She could only stare. Then, she could only tremble. With fear coursing through her like so many seizures, she took in the horror of her home’s condition, with the sight of everything she owned spread in a wild fashion. There was her silverware, her fine china, her books, empty dresser drawers, and laundry… flung all over the living room floor. She tried to think, to reason, to explain to herself what she was seeing, but her mind couldn’t answer
What happened?
Reluctant to recognize the war zone that was her place, she could only stand in the doorway, taking in the chaos of the room. When she finally allowed herself to acknowledge that she was the victim of a break-in, she willed herself to exorcise the demon of terror possessing her, the trembling stopped, and she decided the safest course of action was to call out before entering.