The Deepest Blue (22 page)

She shuts her door, and I move to the edge of my bed. I want to believe what Maggie says—that there will be other days that feel “amazing,” but right now, I feel like I'm being sucked under the waves in the deepest, darkest part of the water—and Julia is waiting for me at the bottom.

* * * *

Chuck arrives at eight thirty sharp. I've had about three hours of sleep, and I don't think Maggie has done much better. We ride in silence to the courthouse. Ms. Young meets us at the steps to the rear entrance of the red-brick building. She has on a navy blue dress with large, gold buttons and wears dark shoes. She offers her broad, friendly smile to us.

“You look like a right respectable young man there.” She wraps an arm around my shoulder and holds tight like I might fly away. “Let's get you inside and seated before the opposing counsel arrives.” We walk past the white columns into the air-conditioned, two-story building. Ms. Young steers me down a hallway, our footsteps clicking on the tile floors and echoing off the walls. She pulls open a heavy, dark door to reveal a courtroom like you see on television.

A large desk made of dark cherry wood sits on an elevated platform, dominating the space facing us. Behind it are two flags posted like sentries. The desk is fully enclosed, so you can only see the judge's upper body. I
can see a microphone arching from the top and the back of a computer monitor. To the left is a smaller desk with a high-backed chair behind it and another slim microphone curving toward the chair. To the right is a third desk, then a railing, and behind that are two rows of seats, like in a movie theater. The courtroom is well lit, and there are lots of benches, like polished wooden church pews, to the left and right of where we stand. It has a musty smell, like a library, but there are no books or shelves.

“You get the front row,” Ms. Young says as she motions to a long table at the front of the benches that holds a clear, plastic pitcher of water and low stacks of files and papers. I follow her through a gate in a low fence that separates the rows of seats from the front of the room. She moves to the table, and I stand beside her. Maggie and Chuck sit in the first row behind us.

“Can't they sit with us?” I ask Ms. Young.

She shakes her head. “They have to stay in the spectator seats. But they'll be right here the whole time.”

I know she's trying to reassure me, but my gut rolls and shifts like the boat in the storm.

“Now let's go over a few things.” Ms. Young slides a chair back for me, and then she grabs a yellow notepad that rests on a manila folder. “The judge and the other lawyer are going to ask you a lot of difficult questions—questions about your father that may sound cruel.” She flips a sheet of paper over and scans her notes.

I fold my hands and set my elbows on the armrests of
the chair. They are hard and press against the bones. I shift to one side, then to the other.

“Mrs. Mayers has made some pretty harsh accusations against Mr. Wilson. She accuses him of spousal abuse, kidnapping, and interference with her parental rights.”

“She's a lying bi . . .” I catch myself. “She's lying,” I say. My heart is pounding hard against my chest. “She's the one who said she never wanted me.”

Ms. Young puts a cool hand on my arm. “I wish we'd had more time to prepare you for what may happen today, but we didn't have that luxury. It's critically important that you remain calm, Michael. It doesn't do you any good to get angry, and if you lash out in court, it will hurt your case.” She looks down at her notes again but keeps her hand firmly on my arm. “She's likely to say a lot of things today that will sound ridiculous and even dishonest, but we have no control over what she says.”

That word
control
leaps out at me. I hear Maggie's tired voice from the dark morning telling me that nothing is in my control. But I'm not comforted by it, I'm terrified.

“She's crazy, you know. She used to have to take medication because she was crazy, but she didn't like it and dumped it down the sink. I watched her do it.”

Ms. Young takes her hand from my arm and begins writing. “I don't know that we can introduce that. Do you know what the medication was for?”

I close my eyes.

“Do you know what it was for?” Ms. Young asks again.

My eyelids fly open. “No,” I say, “but I remember my
dad saying that it was like she had diabetes or asthma, that she could manage whatever it was if she took the pills.” A surge of pain crawls up the back of my neck and pounds against the inside of my head. “He said Julia did better when she followed the instructions and that it was easier for all of us when she did.”

“Have you ever heard her use the term bipolar disorder?” Ms. Young asks, scribbling quickly on the pad.

“Maybe. I don't know. It sounds familiar but I'm not sure.”

She pulls a set of papers from under the notepad. “We found some information yesterday on that and on another disorder.”

The pounding in my head continues, threatening to pop my left eye out of its socket. I turn and look at Maggie. “Do you have any aspirin?”

She digs through her pocketbook and pulls out a small plastic bottle. She pops off the lid and shakes two white tablets into her hand and gives them to me. Ms. Young reaches across the table for the clear pitcher that drips condensation. She takes a small plastic cup and fills it, handing it to me. I choke down the tablets.

“Breathe,” Maggie says.

I hate swallowing pills. Big bites of hamburger, huge chunks of Maggie's chicken, I can handle those, but there's something about pills that makes my throat refuse to cooperate. Maggie rubs my shoulder, and I relax a little at her touch.

Ms. Young looks at me squarely. “Let's not pretend this
is going to be easy.”

I nod.

“I'm sorry we have to do this so quickly without the time to work with a therapist or a family counselor. I can only imagine the difficulties you've faced over the course of this week.” Her voice is firm but genuine in its concern. “If you feel like you need a break, you let me know. If you just need to get up and walk outside, let me know. We'll take whatever time we need today, but there are some important decisions to be made by the judge, and we'll need to get as much of it done as we can today.”

The heavy door yawns open, and I turn to see Julia enter with a short, stocky man in a beige suit. Julia smiles at me, but I turn away. Again my pulse speeds up, and my head begins throbbing.

“What if I feel sick?” I ask.

“Tug my sleeve and make a run to the restroom. Halfway down the hall, turn right outside the door.”

Ms. Young doesn't laugh, doesn't even seem surprised at the question. Weirdly, that makes me feel better.

An African American woman in a police uniform enters the room along with a blonde lady in a green dress, her arms loaded with file folders and papers. The officer walks around the railing and stands by the smaller desk to the right, where the blonde lady sits and begins shuffling papers. The two women smile and talk in quiet voices with each other. The officer turns and comes toward the table where we are sitting.

“This is
Wilson v. Mayers
?” she asks.

“Custodial rights,” Ms. Young says as she nods.

The officer walks back to the blonde lady, then turns and stands up straight. “All rise.”

Everyone stands. “First District Court of Onslow County is about to convene. Judge Elizabeth Rudy Crowther presiding.”

A small, white-haired woman dressed in a long black robe enters through a door behind the large desk and sits in the big chair. She adjusts the microphone and then looks around the room. “You may be seated.” Her voice surprises me. She looks so small, like someone's sweet old granny, but her voice is low and strong, like she could knock you over with a word if it crossed her mind you needed knocking over.

“I understand this is the custody rights case of Mr. Michael R. Wilson. Ms. Young?” Ms. Young stands, resting her long nails on the edge of the table like an eagle about to take off. “You are representing Mr. Wilson in this case.” She makes the statement as if Ms. Young herself wasn't aware of why we were here.

“Yes, Your Honor.” Ms. Young puts her hand lightly on my shoulder. I look up to see if I'm supposed to stand. She nods to me, so I do.

“I understand also that there is a dispute to the plaintiff's desire for adoption and change in custodial care.” The judge looks at the table where Julia and her lawyer are sitting. They both stand at the same time.

“Your Honor, David McIntyre representing Mrs. Julia Hanson Mayers, the plaintiff's mother.”

I flinch at the word, and Ms. Young tightens her grip on my shoulder.

“Please be seated.” The judge slips on a pair of glasses and begins shuffling through some papers the blonde lady has handed her. “These proceedings are being tape recorded. I will assume there are no objections to that.” She looks up from her papers. The two attorneys shake their heads.

“Ms. Young, would you like to begin?”

The judge scribbles on a notepad, flips through the stack of papers, and looks up every once in a while at Ms. Young as she tells the judge about my memories of Julia and my wish to be adopted by Maggie. The beige-clad lawyer next to Julia takes notes, underlining and making marks in loud, scratchy pen strokes. He doesn't look up, doesn't take his eyes off the white, lined paper in front of him.

“Your Honor,” Ms. Young says, and she folds her hands on top of the papers on the podium, resting her elbows on the small surface. “My client is an intelligent young man. He is a young man who uses logic in his approach to problem solving. He is not an emotional or over-reactive teen who makes rash and improper choices. He is a thoughtful person who seeks only to have a stable future, a loving future, and the comfortable future he would have had with his father and Miss Delaney if his father had not been so tragically taken from him.”

An invisible rope tightens around my middle, pulling the air from my lungs. I fight to draw a deep breath and
feel my chest rise and fall as the air slowly escapes through my nostrils.

Damn it, Dad!
I feel my chin twitch, so I grit my teeth hard and turn to look at the sweaty attorney and Julia. I focus all my anger, all my hurt on her. It's her fault I'm in this situation. It's her fault we had to leave, had to run away in the night. It's her fault I'm having to sit here and have complete strangers decide my life for me.
Why couldn't she just drop off the planet and disappear?

Ms. Young sits down next to me as Mr. McIntyre grunts his way out of the chair and waddles to the podium.

“Good morning, Your Honor.” He taps the large stack of papers on the podium, and it makes a loud banging sound in the microphone. Then he grabs the mic and forces it to twist and turn, causing it to squeal and whine as he relocates it almost exactly where it was to start.

“Just over ten years ago, Your Honor, Mr. Wilson took his son out of the family home and spirited him away in the night, abandoning my client and preventing her from seeing her child.”

“What?” I say aloud without realizing it until it's too late.

“Shh,” Ms. Young says. She puts a firm hand on my arm, holding me in place with her grip. I look at her, my eyes wide with disbelief. Mr. McIntyre has turned to look at me. I glare at him, but I stay put.

“Ms. Young?” the judge says.

“Apologies, Your Honor.” She looks at me, her eyes warning.

I sit back in my chair, folding my arms across my chest and bracing for the obvious lies that are about to spring out of the lawyer's mouth.

“Over the years,” McIntyre continues in his drawling voice, “my client made numerous attempts at contacting her son, but she could never be certain that her messages were received. She was concerned that Mr. Wilson, her ex-husband, was brainwashing her son and turning him against her.”

I roll my eyes and try to look back at Maggie. Ms. Young takes hold of my arm again and whispers in my ear, “Keep your eyes straight ahead. Do not make faces, do not roll your eyes, do not look around the courtroom.”

I sit up straight, lean forward on my arms, and glue my eyes to a spot on the front of the judge's desk. The wood is darker in one place, and it looks as though an eyeball is peering out from the center of the desk. I fix my stare at that eyeball, daring it to blink before I do.

“As you can see, Your Honor,” McIntyre continues, “my client had reason to be concerned about the messages her son was being given.”

The eye watches me, and I continue to stare at it as the attorney continues piling on more and more of Julia's crap.

“When Mrs. Mayers remarried, she sent notice to her ex-husband that she would like to have young Mike come for a visit to her new home. Mr. Wilson at first refused the visit, then said it would be all right if certain conditions were met. These conditions were not only unreasonable, they were quite impossible to meet.”

Ms. Young taps my shoulder, and I break my staring match with the desk eye. She slides a notepad to me.
Do you remember that?
I nod at her. She writes another note:
What happened?