When I was in college I had a job working at a group home for troubled teenage boys. One of the kids threatened a counselor, “You’ll hear two things—me hitting you, and you hitting the floor.”
The counselor replied, “The only thing you’re gonna hear is the surgery that takes place when they remove my foot from your…”
We swore not to allow our foster child, Augusta, to go back to her biological family.
After the birth mother died, my wife, Mary, and I decided to adopt baby Augusta. Linda, Augusta’s maternal grandmother, had been married to an accused child molester and hiding that fact while Augusta’s two older siblings had been living in the house, so Linda was no longer in the running to take the child.
The social worker called us one day to tell us that one of Augusta’s cousins decided she wanted to adopt the baby. The cousin had never met Augusta.
Devastating news, but Mary and I had something in common. Neither of us had any common sense about knowing when we were beat.
The social worker set up meetings as precursors to turning over the baby to the cousin. For the first meeting, our relatives watched Augusta while Mary and I went to meet the couple—the future parents—in a coffee house, halfway between our place in San Meradino and their place in Banning. Mary and I got there first. We sat down with our drinks.
They were late but not too late. We were uneasy, but Becky was nervous. Her husband, Harry, was a mechanic and amateur church rock and roll guitarist. Becky rapidly started stammering out her resume. She went to church and named the megachurch that they attended. She helped teach Sunday school too. Then she added, “Did I mention I go to church?”
Harry shook his head in disbelief a lot—usually whenever his wife was describing her relatives, especially Linda, Augusta’s grandmother, who had worked as a stripper in a totally nude nightclub. That was not damning evidence in my eyes, nothing compared to covering up for a potential molester. I lived next door to a stripper for a while and helped her escape from a psycho boyfriend once. She swears I saved her life, but I think she exaggerated a bit. And she returned the favor by sending me cash when I was stalled in a small Texas town with two prisons and a huge roadrunner statue. The owner of the auto shop there told me he came to this area because UFO’s liked the climate. He assured me the terrain was similar to their home planet.
Linda liked to sleep with the spouses of her relatives. Maybe it’s an ancient fertility cult ritual passed on through the generations. She not only had sex with her daughter’s boyfriend; she also slept with Becky’s first husband.
Harry, meanwhile, had been staying pretty quiet but he shook his head from side to side and said, “As the world turns.”
I had another question. “Why didn’t you try to adopt Augusta earlier?
“Linda told us to back off,” said Becky. “She told everybody in the family she was going to get her.”
Why she would want to listen to Linda after Linda fooled around with her ex was a mystery, but I kept quiet about that.
Harry shook his head again, once more muttering as the world turns, and I finally got what he meant: This was his stock expression when Becky described her relatives: As the world turns was a reference to an old soap opera.
“What made you change your mind?” I asked.
“Linda told us we had to step up to the plate and take care of the kids. Otherwise, she might never see them again.”
Becky was taking marching orders from the grandmother. That made my insides squirm.
A few minutes later we hurried our goodbyes. Becky mumbled something about how she knew that Augusta had been with us for a year and a half, but she still wanted her. After all she was going to adopt her two older sisters.
The first few minutes back in the car was all smoldering non-verbal communication. We didn’t hate these people, but we sure as hell didn’t want to trust Augusta with them, especially if it meant Linda would be a part of Augusta’s life. Hell no!
That night after we put Augusta to sleep Mary and I had a quick conversation.
“We’re going to hire a lawyer,” I said. “The best local family law attorney we can find, and one who knows the system.” Mary had already made some calls and had a name. She called the next morning.
He charged a five thousand dollar retainer, a flat fee that would take us all the way to adoption.
We agreed, and he went into his spiel about preferential treatment. A cousin like Becky does not have it under California law. We had more legal clout because we had taken care of Augusta for eighteen months.
Preferential treatment is how relatives get custody. Let’s say a child’s father is in jail, and the mother was arrested for selling drugs. A grandmother or sister or an aunt gets first dibs on the child because they have preferential treatment, but a cousin has bupkis.
A few days later our lawyer got a strange phone call.
Someone called him claiming to be the paternal aunt of a child. They described how their niece was in foster care and they wanted her. In the middle of their explanation, the lawyer thought something about this situation sounded familiar. The attorney asked, “Wait! What is the name of this child?”
“Augusta Doubletree.”
“For ethical reasons I cannot continue this conversation.”
CLICK. Hang-up. End of discussion.
The paternal aunt was a fictitious being, but who made the call?
As the world turns…
The judge decided in our favor. Neither Becky nor Linda would ever get custody. Apparently Linda didn’t think she had done anything wrong in letting an accused child molester live with her and hang out with the kids. Women like that give totally nude strippers a bad name.
We became the concurrent planning family. That meant we were in line to adopt Augusta.
We kept in touch with Becky, in spite of the legal hassles. Who knows when somebody will need a bone marrow transplant? Becky still planned to adopt Augusta’s two older sisters, Jill and Felicia.
The two older sisters were sent to live with her.
Becky’s family and our family met one day at Ford Park, the “duck pond” park in Redlands. Augusta loved Ford Park.
Becky brought her fourteen-year old daughter and only one of Augusta’s siblings.
We were expecting both girls. Where was Felicia?
We spoke in hushed tones about Augusta’s sisters. Becky had tried her best, but the black haired girl, a four-year old named Felicia, was no longer with them. The four-year old had been sexually acting out. She mimicked sex acts in front of the other children, and Becky didn’t know how to handle it.
This behavior is pretty common among little children who have endured sexual abuse.
Becky relinquished Felicia who was now with a different foster family, non-relatives.
I came up with some nicknames for the redheaded sister, and she told me all about her kindergarten class. Mary talked a great deal with Becky. I was busy herding the kids so I missed most of their exchange.
Becky became melancholy and cast her eyes to the ground, trying unsuccessfully to fight back tears.
Finally, we all packed up and left. When we said our goodbyes, the moody clouds were still hovering over Becky. She wished us well.
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