I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate (25 page)

Before being placed in the Levy home, Alicia had been in shelter care for several weeks. She and another girl had run away and hitched a ride to the beach, where they met two guys who were all too happy to share a hotel room with them. Alicia giggled as she recalled the “nonstop fucking” and said she’d done it with a black man they had met at a bar while the others watched. When the boys started to bring their friends around, though, she had had enough and called HRS to report her whereabouts. Mitzi recalled finding her in a filthy room, wearing sexy, punk clothes, bleached hair, and heavy makeup that made her “look like a whore.” She had sores on her legs and arms and some wounds cut into her ankles in an attempt at primitive tattoos. At the Levys’, Alicia’s hair had grown back into its natural wheat color and she had a small wardrobe of more modest clothing. Still, she had not altered her highly sexualized approach to life.

And why should she have? Here was a child whose mother had abandoned her. Alicia remembers that around the age of five there was an incident in a tool shed when Red sat on a mower-tractor seat and asked if she wanted to drive. She climbed on his lap and he kissed her neck and hair and told her how much he loved her. While she held on to the mower’s wheel, he reached up and slipped his hand inside her panties. He explained that this was her secret place and only her daddy knew about it. She said it had felt peculiar, but not terrible, and he had patted her there for a long time until he squirmed around and made “a funny noise like he was feeling sick.” After that, he would come to her when she was in bed at night and rub her the same way. Sometimes he stuck his finger in her “rear end,” sometimes in her “front end.” When she told him she didn’t want him to do it, he promised to buy her something if she would let him. “It wasn’t so bad,” she said, “and besides, I got everything I wanted.”

Over many years Alicia had been groomed by her father to be his sexual companion. After I had known Alicia for many months, the real horror of this incestuous relationship came into focus. Alicia’s self-esteem was bundled with her sexuality. For years she had been rewarded with love, privileges, and material goods for allowing her father to molest her. Most of the time the sex had been gentle, and to his twisted mind, consensual. Alicia had found sex with her father to be pleasurable and something she may even have initiated once in a while. Eventually, as she matured and began to become interested in boys her age, she started to realize that her relationship with her father was taboo. Even so, she never tried to resist him, nor did she voluntarily confide in anyone because by then, she found a perverse pleasure in defying the rules of society, being some sort of a romantic outlaw.

Nevertheless, others in the community had noticed that Red Stevenson behaved oddly toward his daughter. In middle school, Alicia began to hang out at a convenience store close to the school bus stop, which was managed by Dee Smiley. Mrs. Smiley had told investigators that she had heard Red shouting at Alicia to get into the pickup truck by saying, “C’mon, you cunt.” According to the report, a few weeks later, Red had a beer bottle in his hand when he came to fetch Alicia. As he prodded her outside the store, he shoved the bottle between her legs and kept poking her until she got into the truck. Then he told her to clasp it between her thighs.

“The odd thing about it,” Dee Smiley explained, “was that Alicia took it as the normal way to act.”

Not long after that, when Red didn’t come for Alicia when expected, Dee Smiley gave Alicia a ride home from the store. “I made some comments about not liking the way her father treated her, and I guess the moment was right because she was angry at him for not coming on time. She said he was punishing her because she wanted to go out with a boy her father called a piece of trash. I told Alicia that if she ever wanted to talk to me about anything, I would be there. Before we got to the grove, she started crying and told me what her father had done.”

I realized that this must be the same Mrs. Smiley who turned up in the police files and was the person who probably reported Alicia’s problem to the abuse hotline, which then led to her removal from the home.

Repulsion is a common reaction to incest, especially of the father-daughter variety, and yet I never had an intensely negative reaction to Alicia’s situation, perhaps because my role was to understand the child’s perceptions, as well as to figure out how she might overcome her past. To me, it wasn’t the sexual act that was ugly, but rather the father’s corruption of love and nurturing into sexual performance. Was it any wonder that Alicia had no self-worth other than her sexual prowess? Or that she had difficulty trusting anyone because the person who had been her sole emotional support had betrayed her? Although Alicia wanted the foundation of her existence to be formed from the concrete her father said it was, when she grew up she realized it was made of jelly.

Why didn’t Alicia tell anyone sooner? Her father had not threatened to harm her if she didn’t comply, and she was free to go to school and see friends. There were stepmothers in the house much of the time. Later I would learn that at least one of these women had strong suspicions and had tried to broach the subject with Alicia. Did Alicia keep silent because she was jealous of her stepmother’s relationship with her father or was she angry at the woman for not offering to protect her? At some point, though, Alicia realized that what her father was doing was wrong, but to protect herself from feeling like a transgressor, she justified it in her mind. If nobody knew about it, it was all right. Much later, she would confide that one of her worst fears was that other people would not understand and would stigmatize her. As it turned out, her grandfather sided with her father, either denying it ever happened or blaming her for seducing her father.

Another grim consequence of this incestuous relationship was the long-term erosion of Alicia’s power to grow and develop. Because she had subjected herself to her father’s will, ignoring her own needs and wishes most of the time, she was suffused with feelings of powerlessness. Instead of believing she could function in the world on her own, she felt that she had to do whatever anyone—particularly any man—asked. As young people develop into functioning adults, they learn step-by-step mastery of skills, how to work toward goals, how to use choices responsibly, and to delay gratification. Alicia’s growth had been stunted by her father, who usurped self-mastery by violating her body with deceit.

Even more distressing, the disclosure of this abuse further undermined Alicia’s control over her life. Immediately she was yanked from her home and placed in shelter care. When she applied some measure of autonomy by running away, she became the criminal, was picked up by the police, and moved to a foster home without her consent. She lost her house, her possessions, her brothers, her friends in the neighborhood, even her school. From then on she became a “case,” both in dependency and criminal court. She had to respond to the summons of attorneys, doctors, caseworkers, even her child advocate. No matter how hard I would try, I knew I continued to represent “them” to Alicia, who sometimes saw “us” as more the enemy than her father.

From our first encounter, Alicia had been open with me about her sexual activity. Because I never condemned her, she continued to confide in me. While I would listen, I usually didn’t ask for details, unless to clarify what she meant. If she said, “I was doing it with him when I got my period,” I might ask, “You mean having sex with him?” Then I would listen to the rest of the story. My comments always focused on her health. Suggestions about birth control or a frank discussion concerning AIDS were common threads in our ongoing dialogue. I brought her books, including the updated
Our Bodies, Ourselves
and
Learning About Sex: The Contemporary Guide for Young Adults,
which was used in the sex education program at our son’s school. This book, by Gary F. Kelly, combined straightforward information with a discussion on ethics. While I showed these books to Ruth Levy, I did not ask her permission to give them to Alicia, because as her guardian, I felt the information was essential to her welfare.

One of my early discussions with Ruth centered around birth control and teenage girls. “Nobody in my house is going to be on the pill,” she announced. “That’s like writing a blank check for them to have sex.”

“But some of them are probably going to be sexually active. Don’t they need protection from disease and pregnancy?”

“I’m willing to give them the information, but not provide assistance. My job is to teach them to respect their bodies, learn how to say ‘no,’ and develop a sense of values.”

Ruth’s theory was lovely, but her values offered no immunity to Alicia, whom I knew to be at great risk. Soon Alicia told me she was using condoms and had tried foam. I brought her statistics about the effectiveness of combining two barrier methods to increase the chance of preventing pregnancy as well as disease. By the spring, when Alicia had a “serious” boyfriend she saw three or four times a week, Ruth faced the fact that they were sexually active. She called me to ask if I would object to Alicia taking the pill, if only to “regulate her periods.” Without wondering why she had changed her mind, I said I thought it was a splendid idea. When Alicia began using an oral contraceptive, she and I discussed the side effects. Six months later Ruth informed me that she had made an appointment for Alicia to have Norplant inserted. Norplant is an implantation of slow-release hormone capsules under the skin of the upper arm that prevents pregnancy for five years, but which may be removed at any time.

“When she’s eighteen, she won’t qualify for free birth control,” Ruth explained, “but Medicaid will pay for the Norplant now, which costs around eight hundred dollars.”

“I think you made the right decision,” I said. “This will give Alicia the freedom from pregnancy for several years after she is out of foster care so she can get her education and start on a career.”

A few weeks after he settled into the Rose/Perez house Cory had a birthday. I decided to buy him a battery charging system for the radio-controlled truck he had received at Christmas from the MacDougals. When I arrived for the party, the living room resounded with a cacophony of children punctuated by Manuel’s suction machine. Pizzas were served followed by a birthday cake with fourteen candles.

“Show Gay your birthday present to me,” Birdie said coaxingly. Cory looked confused. She handed him an envelope and he passed it to me. I took out his latest report card. “All
A
‘s and
B
‘s,” Cory boasted. “I’m on the honor roll for the first time in my life!”

When it came time to open the presents, Cory unwrapped the battery charger, then looked at it dubiously.

Birdie glanced from him to me. “He doesn’t have that car anymore. Mrs. MacDougal didn’t let him take it with him. In fact, she didn’t give him anything that he acquired at her house, not even most of his clothing.”

“But his Christmas gifts were his!” I put my arm around Cory. “We’ll take the charger back together and you can pick something else out, okay?”

“Yeah, sure, but I’d like my old truck back, and some of my other stuff too.”

How well I remembered Mrs. MacDougal bragging at the HRS meeting about the four hundred dollars she had spent on gifts for each child, then later showing me everything she had given Cory. No … not showing just me, showing
us.
Lillian had been there too.

“How can Renata MacDougal get away with this?” I railed on the phone to Lillian the next day. “First she tells lies about me, then she throws Cory out for nothing, and to top it off, she keeps his gifts and clothing. Here’s a kid with nothing: no parents, no home, no sister, no brother, no money, and he is denied the few objects that belonged to him.”

“It happens all the time,” Lillian responded slowly. “A foster parent gives a kid a bike, but when he leaves to go to another foster home or to return to his natural parents, he is told that the bike was on loan. Then the foster family passes it down to the next one.”

“How can HRS condone that?”

“The ‘official’ policy is that the children’s possessions go with them, nevertheless you rarely can prove to whom something belongs.”

“Maybe not in most cases, Lillian, but remember Renata bragging at the meeting? That was in front of her HRS supervisors as well as Nancy, you, and me. Then, later that day she showed off each item to both of us. Don’t you remember the brown cowboy boots, the pass to Disney, the red radio-controlled car, the Walkman, and the baseball outfit?”

“Sure do. Call Cory and get as accurate a list as you can. Then you write two letters, one to Mrs. MacDougal requesting the items on Cory’s behalf, and the other to Mitzi Keller.”

The response was as unexpected as it was swift. Phyllis Cady phoned Nancy at the guardian office. “Our policy is to back the decision of our foster parents.”

“Phyllis,” Nancy said in her most conciliatory voice, “this is an unusual circumstance. Renata MacDougal listed the gifts to us at the meeting, then flaunted them in front of Gay and Lillian.”

“Come on, Nancy,” Phyllis urged, “don’t you have some really dreadful cases to pursue? I know I do.” She hung up.

Nancy phoned and told me what Phyllis had said.

“Where’s Judge Wapner when you need him?” I asked.

“Exactly!” Nancy replied. “May I have permission to put your name on the civil case in Cory’s behalf?”

“Absolutely!” I said, elated there finally might be an antidote to Renata MacDougal’s venom.

“I haven’t done one of these since law school,” Kit Thorndike said as he described a Writ of Replevin, the method to recover possession of personal property.

A few weeks later the papers arrived in the mail. I felt a jolt as I read the first page of the documents.

IN RE
: The Interest of:

CORY STEVENSON
, a minor child.

Gay Courter, as Guardian ad Litem and next friend of Cory Stevenson, a minor child, petitioner,