I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate (14 page)

I held my breath during the pause until she said she had gone to the doctor and was on the pill.

I held my breath when she called because she had been in an accident on the way to school. The school bus had been hit, but everyone was all right. She had missed her shuttle to the vo-tech from the high school and was stranded. I was happy to come to her rescue and catch up on the latest news.

“Guess who I heard from last week?” she asked teasingly.

I made a few guesses, but all were wrong. Then she told me that she had received a call from one of her friends at the Tabernacle Home, who reported the facility had closed its doors.

“I guess you would have had to leave there anyway,” I said.

“Yes, but they were good people and they did a lot for me,” Lydia replied in their defense.

I did not comment further, but I no longer regretted any of my actions that brought the brief upheaval in Lydia’s life.

On one occasion there was nobody to take Lydia to a doctor’s appointment. She had been losing weight for no apparent reason and needed some testing. I held my breath while anorexia and bulimia, thyroid disease, pregnancy, and sexually-transmitted diseases were systematically eliminated. She was treated for mild anemia and a sensitive stomach.

I sighed with relief when an early morning call from June Fowler was only a glowing report about how well Lydia had adjusted to their family. “She’s a teenager, of course, with highs and lows, but Lydia is really special to us.”

On Lydia’s eighteenth birthday we went to the best restaurant in the county together. “What’s
escargots?”
she asked, mangling the word.

“Snails, but if you are daring and like garlic, go ahead. Tell the waiter you want ‘ess-car-go.’ “

She practiced a few times and giggled. “May I also have lobster tail?”

“Sure,” I replied.

Immediately her eyes clouded with tears. I asked what was wrong.

“Last week I went to see the twins in a school play. Nobody told me that my brother also was appearing on stage, so I was surprised to see my parents sitting a few rows in front with my sister. At the end of the performance, I went up to my mother, who said a few words, and gave my sister a hug, but my dad turned his back to me and started to walk away. I followed him and said, ‘Please talk to me, Dad. Please.’ I told him, ‘I still love you, why won’t you even look at me?’ I reached out and tried to tug on his arm, but he shoved me away and I fell back into the edge of a seat.” She gulped, then continued, “Everybody saw me crying, but nobody even stopped—except my foster mother.” Her face hardened. “I’ve made a decision. I’m not going to try to see him anymore.”

Our drinks were served and I toasted her birthday by clinking my ginger ale glass against her cola. I then took out three gifts. “You can open one with each course.”

The first was a tape she had wanted, Berlioz’s
Symphonie Fantastique.

“I heard it in music class and I’m going to play this at Halloween,” she said, then told me the story behind the score, something even I had not known.

The snails were served and she fumbled with the unusual utensils. After a few tentative chews, she decided the snails were terrific. As I admired Lydia’s shining hair and flushed cheeks and bright, luminous eyes, and the way she flung her arms expressively as she talked and tossed her head when she laughed, I recalled the withdrawn sprite in the plaid uniform and could see beyond that to the waxen waif who had hung out with unsavory characters and had taken drugs to assuage her inner anguish. How far she had come from those days!

After eating her lobster tail, Lydia opened her next present, an appointment book similar to my own, which she had admired. “Wow! This is great!” She studied it page by page, planning on how to enter her schoolwork, church work, job, and other categories.

I told her the date to mark for her next six-month judicial review. “After that, I will no longer be your guardian, but while they might be able to get rid of me on paper, you’ll always be in my heart, Lydia. And I’ll be here to help you, no matter what.”

“I know that,” she said, shaking her finger at me as though I were a silly child.

The waiter brought a small birthday cake. Lydia blew out the candle and I handed her the last gift.

“Robert Frost! My own copy!” She thumbed through the index, then selected a particular poem. “Would you read it to me?”

I did as she requested, although my voice faltered as I read the last few lines of “Acceptance.”

“Now let the night be dark for all of me.

Let the night be too dark for me to see

Into the future. Let what will be, be.”

Writing fiction is so much tidier than real life. If this had been one of my novels, this chapter would have ended on the high and hopeful note of Lydia’s birthday celebration. Just a week after the lobster dinner, though, Lillian phoned me.

“Next week’s court docket has Lydia Ryan down for a status conference on a criminal indictment of some sort.”

“Lydia! Nobody told me!” My temple pounded painfully. “She’s been perfect. I don’t understand …”

“Better check on it.”

“She’s eighteen. Am I still her guardian?”

“Because she is still in school and remains in foster care, you haven’t been officially discharged yet.”

“Would she be tried as an adult?”

“Yes.” Lillian sensed my anxiety. “Don’t get all worked up until you find out what this is about.”

I dialed the state prosecutor’s office. “Yes, she is on the docket,” the clerk said, “but it is an old case that is up for review.”

“What was the offense?”

“Aggravated battery.” The clerk read me the criminal case number. “You know, the microwave oven case.”

“But that was to be expunged when she was eighteen. Why is it still active?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Mr. Harmon, the new assistant state attorney.”

“Could you connect me?” I had met Merv Harmon once before when he had taken a deposition from a child who had been raped. He had been gentle and considerate, so I felt comfortable calling him.

“Hello, Mrs. Courter, what can I do for you?” I explained that I was Lydia Ryan’s guardian and asked what was going on. “It’s a status conference to determine the final disposition of her two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon,” he continued.

“Frankly, I don’t understand why this is even coming to court,” I began. “The last person I spoke to in your office assured me that this would be wiped from her files when she was eighteen.”

“It might have been if the delinquency caseworker at HRS had filled out the required paperwork, but he didn’t, so it has remained in the active file. This status conference will determine if probation should be continued or if the case should be disposed of in another way.”

“Have you read the file?”

“Briefly.”

“I know it is confusing, but the bottom line is that the entire charge is baloney. There never was any baby or any microwave oven.”

“That’s not what my papers say.”

“The supposed ‘baby’ was her eighty-pound sister, and the only time a microwave was involved was in a verbal threat by her boyfriend.”

“It says right here she pled nolo contendere, Latin for ‘I do not wish to contest,’ which essentially is a guilty plea,” he said condescendingly.

“Lydia is a casualty of a misunderstanding.”

“She was represented by an attorney and then served time in juvenile detention.”

“If you will read further, you will realize those are not the correct facts of the case.”

“What do you want to do, retry the case on the phone?” His voice had taken on a nasty edge.

“Look, this is a young girl who absolutely did not commit any crime. Since I was not her guardian at that time, I am not certain why she pled as she did, but I know she was set up for reasons that have nothing to do with this case. We’ve worked together before, Mr. Harmon, and we were both on the same side, the side of the victim. Lydia is the victim in this case, and if you want I can prove it to you.”

“Are you a lawyer?”

I was taken aback. “No. I am a Guardian ad Litem.”

“Well, you sure sound like a lawyer.”

Was this a compliment or a complaint? I wondered.

Mr. Harmon continued, “Nevertheless, I suggest you talk to a lawyer because as far as I am concerned this case is going to remain on the books as a serious offense.”

“Why aren’t you willing to give a kid a break?”

“I have stated my position,” he said, then hung up.

My next call was to the public defender’s office. Jules Gervais had been assigned the case, but he was not in. His secretary explained that Lydia’s original attorney at the time of the alleged offense had been someone else, who was now in private practice. She would give Mr. Gervais the file and my message.

Even though I had not heard anything by the end of the day, I drove to Lydia’s house on my way home from my office to discuss the latest turn of events.

“You promised me it was over!” Lydia said, her face turning to chalk.

“I thought it was. I gave you copies of the HRS computer expungement and I took the former assistant state attorney’s word that the files would automatically be sealed when you were eighteen. The problem seems to be that the delinquency officer at HRS didn’t file the necessary paperwork to wipe the conviction from your records.”

“They keep lying to me,” Lydia said with a strangled groan.

“In what way?” I asked.

“When it happened, my lawyer said I wouldn’t have to go to jail, and I did.”

“How much time did he spend with you?”

“Maybe fifteen minutes. He told me I could tell the judge I was guilty and then I would get some sort of probation and community service. He said it might be the easiest way, but I wouldn’t give in. Why should I? I didn’t do anything. So then he explained that I could say I was not guilty, but that would mean a trial. He warned me that they would dig up everything about my past, like what happened between me and Teddy. They’d even want to know with whom I had sex and when.”

“So you were afraid that by going to trial your personal life would be exposed.”

Lydia nodded morosely. “Then the lawyer said there was a way out by not saying I either did it or didn’t do it.”

“By pleading no contest?”

“Yeah, but what he didn’t tell me is that I could go to jail for that too.” Lydia’s body shuddered and she broke into sobs. “It will never be over. Never!”

“Oh yes it will!” I vowed. “Even if I have to chain myself to the judge’s bench until this case is wiped clean.”

“Would you really do that?” she asked, her head tilted toward me.

I watched the glistening tears roll down her cheeks and replied, “Absolutely!”

“Where can I get some handcuffs?” I asked Nancy Hastedt, then explained my predicament.

“What is it that you want to accomplish?” Nancy asked seriously.

“I want the charge to go away. It was wrong from the first and Lydia deserves a fresh start, but for some reason the state attorney refuses to cooperate.

“Who’s the judge?”

“I assume it is Judge Donovan.”

“He knows Lydia’s story. Don’t you think he’ll be compassionate with her?”

“Yes, he should be. She’s been a model citizen since he placed her in foster care.”

“Then tell him that. He’s the one with the power to clear her record.”

This time I was not about to be sidelined by some missing paperwork. I contacted the caseworker who handled delinquency cases for HRS.

“Why wasn’t Lydia’s case closed when she was eighteen?” I asked him directly.

“Don’t know. The file never made it to my desk.”

“Weren’t you assigned her case from the beginning?”

“Yes, but there hasn’t been much follow-up since she’s been in foster care,” he admitted.

“That’s because she’s stayed out of trouble, right?”

“Yes, however, she used to run with a very degenerate crowd. You know about her and Teddy Kirby, don’t you?”

The sneer in his voice set me on edge. “And you know that the microwave incident never happened, don’t you?”

“That’s over and done with,” he responded flatly.

“If you had filed the correct papers, it might have been, but now Lydia has to go to court again.”

“What do you want me to do?” the delinquency caseworker asked with a resigned sigh.

“Tell the judge that not only has she not committed any other offenses, but she’s also been on the honor roll and add how terrific, bright, cooperative, helpful, agreeable, and delightful she has been. If you need corroboration, check with her foster family and her foster care caseworker.”

“I’d be delighted,” he said with a warm chuckle. “I’m tired of delivering bad news.”

Jules Gervais finally returned my call. “Good timing, Mrs. Courter, I was just reviewing this case, and frankly, I couldn’t make head nor tails of it. Would you mind filling me in?”

After I told him the microwave tale, he said, “But she pled no contest.” I described the circumstances. “Poor kid, she’s locked in.”

“Can’t the judge just dismiss the charges?”

“Are you a lawyer?”

I laughed. “That’s what the prosecutor asked. Some guardians are lawyers, in fact in the Orlando area that’s all the bar will allow, but I am ignorant of the law, so forgive me if I have said anything out of turn.”

“I like your style. A lawyer wouldn’t dare ask that question.”

“Because a dismissal wouldn’t be legal?”

“On the contrary. It can be done, it just never is.”

“Are you saying that there is a loophole here that nobody uses?”

“Precisely. But there would be hell to pay if I tried it on Judge Donovan. How’s about this? You’re the kid’s guardian and you know the case better than anyone. When we get to court, I’ll introduce the facts, then I’ll turn it over for you to argue.”

“What do I say?”

“Whatever you want.”

“May I ask for a dismissal?”

“You can ask,” he chuckled. “However, it is highly improbable that the judge would agree. But he might offer to seal the file or make some other concession.”