I'll Let You Go

CHAPTER 27. For the Child Who Is Not Present

“I want everyone to look for the mosasaur, OK?”

The teenage docent held a shark fin in his hand. The children reached out carefully, as if the fossil might still cause mayhem.

“And when you find the mosasaur — you’ll see how really huge it is — when you find the mosasaur, just remember: this very huge creature was eaten by the much smaller shark.”

He stroked the hooked piece of cartilage to emphasize its role as David to the mosasaur’s Goliath. Then he held it in front of Amaryllis, cuing her to touch. She wouldn’t, a fact not lost on Dézhiree. The fin wound up at the wheelchair, in Cindra’s lap; the disabled girl squirmed and rolled her eyes in delight.

There were two MacLaren field trips that summer — the mosasaur having been encountered on a sweaty, bus-rattled fiesta to Exposition Park’s stately Natural History Museum. Though nearly ruined, the coliseum abutting that place was far from Rome; a newly minted IMAX behemoth had infected adjacent buildings with its garish pastels and multiplex aesthetic. “Dancing Waters,” those cheap public-space ejaculations that soak the kids during parental cigarette breaks, added to the sprucing up — all this part of the rankly meretricious, cheesily stimulating great American playground, arty and self-aggrandizing, thrilled with itself no end. The whole chain-linked grid, surrounded by a flatland of jaundiced soccer-trodden crabgrass, was supposed to be a free-spirited architectural tribute to the putative joys of Science and Learning yet was in fact an ugly hodgepodge of loading zones and dented dumpsters that no one, not even the brightest design intern, had thought to conceal from general view. But the children of MacLaren weren’t critics — they were just happy to be in the “outs,” roaming the cool halls of glassed-in bison and saber-tooth. The dioramas were as calming as meds.

In the three months since Amaryllis became a Pixie, she had been taken to children’s court on the occasions that her stay at Mac exceeded the amount of time prescribed by law; in those same three months, two suitable placements had been found that were quickly deemed otherwise (though not at all in the league of the perilous Canyon klatch of E. Woolery).

For example, on the weekend of her arrival at the well-kept, super-stuccoed home of the Barnard Tofflers of Rosemead, she was sent packing due to an allergic reaction to the family cat — severe enough to require a trip to the emergency room at the ungodly hour such trips typically demand. Rosemead was not big enough for both of them, but Mrs. Toffler would not part with her beloved. This standoff, coupled with the girl’s habitual under-sheet flashlight explorations of the machinery of martyrdom, had the effect of making the whippet-size, already skittish Mrs. Toffler more skittish still. After a day or so of relative segregation from the pet, Amaryllis was remanded to Mac. To be fair, the Tofflers bought her a dress in consolation.

In the second instance, she remained with the Alfredo Quiñoneses of Diamond Bar for a relatively carefree three weeks. The rural home had a big backyard with swings, barbecue and aboveground pool. Besides Amaryllis, five children lived there, all told; two were “real” Quiñoneses, while three were adopted (a palsied one among the latter, the disabled being a sacrosanct — and lucrative — cliché of Adoption World). A few weekends in, before school began, the mellow Mr. Quiñones, aged fifty, had a coronary and died. Soon after, a wet-eyed Quiñones aunt dutifully returned Amaryllis to MacLaren, along with Palsy Girl, who barked and wept the whole ride back.

Yet the vicissitudes of an adoptee’s life were nothing compared to Amaryllis’s wrenching separation from the babies. Their initial reunion was short-lived; knowing the inevitable, the Mac staff was more lenient than usual in providing the star-crossed family with “together time.” (Only once did Saffron ask where her mother was. “Heaven,” said Amaryllis, and her sister seemed satisfied. When she inquired if it would be possible to visit that place for a picnic, Amaryllis wished her nominated to the Congregation for the Causes right then.) The age and adorableness of the babies made them “bull’s-eyes”: within five days of their arrival at the center, they were placed in a private home. Amaryllis dehydrated herself with tears. Lani Mott showed up to reassure that “family lawful visits” would be arranged — as the girl’s official CASA (the court paperwork had just gone through), the baker’s wife informed that she was “launching a third world war” to find a single placement for the three siblings so they could remain together. Everyone knew the chances of that were almost nil. But each time Amaryllis returned to Mac, she futilely asked for her Saffron and Cody, awaiting word that never came. No one would tell her where they were; she couldn’t even call them on the phone.

Mac’s familiar surroundings, never so wonderful, were now a lonelier haven than she could bear. Except for Cindra, the children Amaryllis had befriended earlier had long since cycled or recycled out — to hospitals, foster families or residential homes (or just plain AWOL); even counselors had moved on, never to be seen again. Favorite volunteer grannies vanished, through attrition born of old age. Against her nature, Amaryllis began to harden. She frowned and sassed through the days, and if our orphan had been a shark, she would surely have eaten a mosasaur with the same consuming indifference that Dézhiree noshed a lunchtime sandwich. Rarely anymore did she seek comfort in the Box of Saints; and went hours without speaking. She huffed air freshener with the new girl, Kristl, and grew antagonistic with staffers. For a few days she proudly sported her very own one-on-one.

At night in her bed, it didn’t take much for Amaryllis to imagine the babies already in Mrs. Woolery’s satanic hatchery, outfitted in his-and-her helmets, rocketing into walls or drooling on urine-soaked futons. More than once, standing before the backdrop of unfinished mural or empty Streisand pool, she came close to enlisting Kristl on a Tunga Canyon search-and-rescue. Her fearless friend was up for anything.

“Did your CASA tell you where they were?”

“She said she would.”

“They’re probably waiting to see if you act out. You know: they’re not quite sure you’re worthy of knowing where those babies are. I could find them — it’s not even legal, keeping you separated.”

“How? How could you?”

“I could find them anytime,” said Kristl smugly, as if talking to a cretin.

Freshly fourteen, blond and sinewy, with nacreous glued-on fingernails and bleachy crosshatched suicide scars at the wrists, she was of the sorority of children of the damned (Crissie Fits of Tunga Canyon, naturally, included) fondly named after Godmother Meth: a veritable Kristallnacht.

“I could find out when we leave.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re getting out,” she whispered.

“When?”

“Field trip on Monday. Huntington Gardens.”

“Where’s that?”

“Don’t ask so many questions. Do you want to go or not?”

“I have court,” Amaryllis said timorously.

“Court is bullshit!”

“Lani said the babies’ll be there. The judge can put us together.”

“That is so much bullshit. You are such a fucking victim! You’re too old. They’re never gonna put you with your brother and sister.”

Amaryllis chewed on a nail. “Are you going to run away by yourself?”

“I don’t know,” said Kristl haughtily. “It looks like it, since you’re such a pussy — and you better not say anything.” Pause. She seemed to be thinking. Then: “If I find out where they are, will you go?”

“If you find out?”

“About your brother and sister! Are you retarded?”

“But how—”

“I’ve done much harder shit. Will you go?”

Amaryllis solemnly nodded her assent. “Did you hear what Dézhiree said at group? ‘Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, and today is a gift — that’s why we call it the “present.” ’ Don’t you love that?”

Amaryllis Kornfeld, albeit in exhausted, febrile state, had first been brought to children’s court for the legally mandated hearing that took place within seventy-two hours of her placement chez Woolery.

Earlymae dressed her up, restoring color to her cheeks with rouge.

Intake and Detention Control had already prepared the petition. Adjudged to be abandoned without provision for support (as the whereabouts of parent or parents was deemed unknown), the girl was thus declared under WIC300(g) to be a dependent child of the Court. Facing the bench, Mrs. Woolery threw a tanned, turquoise-jeweled arm protectively around the shoulder of her “Dillo”—the fact was that she couldn’t be paid until the newbie was formally recognized by the system. So: on a scrubby hill in Monterey Park, hard by the sheriff’s headquarters and impoverished fields of the defunct Sybil Brand Institute for Women, a judicial referee sat on high, surrounded by his partisans: stenographer, attorneys, social workers, dependency investigators, clerks and bailiffs. Counsel and CSW were dutifully assigned — due diligence search for parents ordered — stuffed animals proffered — tears wiped away — beleaguered child swept back to Canyon.

That was then. Now that she has returned to court, the author is compelled to freshly set the scene.

It is September, though the buildings of which we speak are anything but autumnal. They possess the artificial palette and gallingly “whimsical” tubular outcroppings popular to the aforementioned IMAX aesthetic, and proudly tout their child-friendliness. Yet no stylistic fillip, not even a swooping superimposed Bilbao, might quash the collective misery of its legion of disenfranchised guests. A plethora of female attorneys in black hose and shabby miniskirts pass through the weapons’ detector, pagers vibrating in purses with the subtlety of lawn mowers. Adorning lobby walls are the homespun crayon-drawn murals and bland archival photo histories characteristic of such institutions. A vast downstairs holding pen is for charges bused in from group homes and residential-treatment facilities; nearby cells, hidden from view, are for parents in custody, most of whom attend their doomed progeny’s hearings in plastic cuffs. Not infrequently, a lady lawyer will mistakenly interrupt one of her inmate clients in the middle of a bowel movement. There are no provisions for privacy.

Four floors of courtrooms, each with dockets of, say, forty cases per day. Outside, families await the bailiff’s call — slovenly or nodding off, some incongruously overdressed (white chiffon and wedding lace) and overly made up; young moms’ flaunty tatts peeking from shoulderless black sheaths, the latter being all-purpose “special occasion”-wear donned at funerals, graduations or dance clubs. Before they can be heard, the unfortunates must pass through an anteroom of bustling, indifferent attorneys, then sit themselves down on hard pews. Posters ring the courtroom (102 Dalmatians, Muppets from Space, Toy Story 2), as do fuzzy animals perched on high like in carnival booths waiting to be dispensed. Lawyers pore through the contents of murrey-colored folders bound by industrial-strength rubber bands — no one ever seems to find what they’re looking for. Each towering packet (an eight-year-old in the system since birth might have a 275-page file) is eventually passed to bailiff, clerk, judge. When the music stops, the case is ruminated, then summarily ruled on; the band strikes up, packets again borne aloft and gravely scrutinized before coming to rest. Eager blackboard scrawlings and erasures chart the abbreviated pilgrim’s progress of FA (father), MO (Mother), MI (Minor), PGM (Paternal Grandmother), MGM (Maternal Grandmother) — as “contests” revolve around the room in ragged circles, we note the urgent shuttlecocking of stuffed animals, yapping of translators, wider suppression of tears and the bailiff’s squelching of some would-be guardian’s occasional tacky, tattered outburst. Like bad bones, dates are set, reset and set again, requests brokered and broken, patience lost and sagely regained. With closed eyes we hear the murmur of de facto mothers and decertifications by the FFA; of PRCs, dispos and adjudications; of demands for interviews concerning existence or identity of fathers; of failed grades in parenting classes and noncompliance with court-ordered neurological exams; of pleadings for monitored weekend visits with discretion to liberalize; of termination of parental rights …

The lawyers stand when ordered to identify themselves: “Tom Friedrich for the father, who is not present!” “Lisa Gutierrez for the mother, who is not present!” “Rebekah Levy-Soweto for the child, who is not present!”—either no one is present or everyone is. And because this is America, all parties have the right to counsel: each child and each parent — real, presumed, alleged, de facto or surrogate — has that sacred right, as does even the Department itself. There can be no conflict of interest, because with conflict of interest, justice is not served: if needed, there will be five attorneys present — for the de factos, presumeds, allegeds and illusorys — or seven, or ten, or twenty. Sometimes the child is brought from the pen too late and misses the hearing altogether. He’d been thinking he could go home! But the Court finds by a preponderance of evidence that continued jurisdiction is necessary, because conditions exist which justify jurisdiction under WIC300, WIC364(c); Return of the Minor to the custody of the parent would create a substantial risk of detriment to the physical/emotional well-being of the minor under WIC366.2(e); Court finds reasonable efforts to reunite Minor and parents have been made and such efforts were unsuccessful; Court finds that Minor cannot be returned to the physical custody of the parents and there exists no substantial probability the Minor will be returned in six months; Court finds by clear and convincing evidence that it is not likely that the Minor can or will be adopted and orders DCFS to continue long-term foster care—

Downstairs, Amaryllis watches a scalded boy play a video game. A pudgy volunteer comes to take her up. She follows, past teens and toddlers transfixed by The Tigger Movie on a big-screen TV (the security guard, too, is transfixed). Lani Mott is nowhere to be seen. Amaryllis asks after her, but the volunteer only belches.

When they finally get to the court’s fluorescent dugout, a lady shoves a stuffed animal into her chest. “Don’t you remember me?” she asks. It’s the emergency CSW who saw her at Mac when she was so sick; but today, another caseworker has been assigned. Amaryllis’s lawyer comes to talk before they enter court—not the one who represented her during the Woolery placement back in Tunga Canyon days (and not that Amaryllis would ever recall). This one sweetly asks the same: “Don’t you remember me?” The lawyer’s perfume and long chestnut hair are familiar, but she looks like she’s going to have a baby and Amaryllis doesn’t remember that. Both attorney and caseworker agree the girl looks so much “prettier” than before; true enough, but what they really mean is undiseased. They fuss over her gorgeous “mane” and say she looks just like a tiger cub. That makes the attorney du jour think to get her another stuffed animal, but the child already is clasping a bear and anyway there aren’t any close at hand. (Shocking as that might seem.) She resolves to get her one after the hearing — a kid can never have enough. Again Amaryllis asks where is Lani. Just then, the CASA enters from the wings, breathlessly apologizing for being late. Amaryllis asks about the babies, but a bailiff interrupts to invite them in. As the child is tugged into court, the pregnant attorney stuffs a business card into her pocket, insisting Amaryllis call collect if she ever needs to talk. “Here — I’ll give you two,” she says profligately, “so you won’t lose them.” She thrusts another devalued note into her tiny client’s vest. In this place (like stuffed animals), such currency is always in circulation.

The judge smiles kindly while ordering the happy-faced bailiff to hand Amaryllis a tiger. He says one grandfatherly thing or another, then: Wouldn’t it be nice to be back in school? Amaryllis nods without really listening. Now the grown-ups talk among themselves and she stares at people in the court. She doesn’t hear anything said except for when the judge snaps that he cannot understand why someone so “adoptable” is still at MacLaren. It seems that it costs a lot of money to stay at MacLaren. Amaryllis struggles to listen for talk of the babies, but everything’s going too fast. Lani starts in about the sibs and her efforts to launch a third world war when a man in a rumpled suit reading from a rumpled file says something about the dependent having a father who’s incarcerated though not a suspect at the current time. A father in Carcerated—what can he mean? And who is the dependent? The father, says the rumpled man, has been “noticed” but declined to be present. But who noticed him? wonders Amaryllis. Declined to be present … the present is a gift — yesterday is history, tomorrow is mys—… the father is incarcerated in Salinas Valley … — talk now of requesting ongoing therapy for the girl (Medi-Cal pays two sessions a month) so a TPR can be implemented. The CSW says that Amaryllis must deal with loss and grief as evidenced by severance of contact with biological mother (deceased) and father (incarcerated), with short- and long-term goals being to engage in the process of recognizing and working through grief-related issues leading toward resolution and reinvestment in life with joy, objectives being, a) to develop a trusting relationship with a therapist as evidenced by open communication of feelings and thoughts; b) to discuss loss(es) and explore and understand how they impact current behavior; c) to identify the feelings connected to the loss(es); and d) increase ability to verbalize and experience the feeling states of loss and grief. So much loss(es) in a life so young!

Backstage again … dazed under full fluorescence, nails bloodily bitten. The women, including the very latest CSW, sagaciously realize that no one has told their client about the FA. Your FA’s in jail, they say, drawing the matriarchal wagons in a circle around her, patting the mane while handing off a zebra. Zebras are a rare commodity; only the very special rate a zebra. They do not tell the child how anxious the police were, Detective Dowling anyway, to find the FA of MI — nor do they reiterate the business about the FA of MI not being a “suspect” at the current time, uneager to open the door to the business of the homicide of the MO of MI, of which the MI still thankfully seems innocent. The MI doesn’t appear aware of much going on around her and rarely speaks, save to compulsively, pathetically mention her sibs (MIs #2 and #3). Nor does the caring coven enumerate how the MO of MI kept photos and letters from the jailed FA of MI in a box not dissimilar to the MI’s Reliquary of Saints and Martyrs, a kind of white wooden drawer with lame little hand-painted seashells that the MO of MI got in Laguna and how the letters, written from prison and never answered, were used to trace the FA of MI, who was and still is serving a term of twenty-to-life for crimes that will remain unreported here, for they are of no relevance. It was further revealed to the MI by said coterie that the FA of MI had been “confined” since the MI was age two and was not, by the way, the FA of MIs #2 and #3 (aka The Babies), whose FA, MGM, MGF, PGM and PGF or any other relatives, abbreviated or not, to this day remain unknown.

As reported by the rumpled man, the barely noticeable FA of MI was noticed by the Court but declined to be present; and the reader may be pleased to learn he will play no further part in our tale.