Cracks in the Sidewalk(63)

“They can’t take my kids away from me, I’m their father.”

“The court can and will if you even think about kidnapping those children.”

“So I’m supposed to just march myself over there every Sunday and hand my kids over to that bunch of crazies? Who’s to say they won’t take off with the kids?”

“Judge Brill ordered supervised visits,” Noreen reasoned. “You can stay there with the kids, or you can obtain a court-approved guardian to accompany them on visits.”

JT snorted. “Some concession that is.”

“It’s better than nothing.”

“What if the kids don’t want to go? What if they’re sick or something?”

“If the kids are sick, you call your wife, explain the situation, and arrange an alternate time for visitation.”

“How am I supposed to deal with this?” JT asked, desperation permeating his voice.

“It’s once a week,” Noreen said unsympathetically. “Just do what the court ordered so you don’t risk losing your kids altogether.”

“What about after Liz dies, do Claire and Charlie still get to see the kids?”

“No, the court order only applies to the children’s mother.”

“Then I’m off the hook? I don’t have to bring the kids over there anymore?”

“Not unless the McDermotts bring another lawsuit to request their own visitation.”

“Can they do that?”

“They can, but I doubt it would be successful. New Jersey has no real statute governing visitation for grandparents.”

“So this is only until Liz dies?” JT said.

After that Jeffrey tried to talk Noreen into giving him a reduction on her fee since she didn’t get him the decision he wanted. When she told him that he had a better chance of seeing pigs fly, he slammed the telephone down.

Noreen Sarnoff sat behind her desk shaking her head in amazement. Not much surprised her, because she’d seen the worst of them—knife-wielding gang members, sleazy crooks, swindlers of every sort, wife beaters even—but never anyone as callous and unyielding as JT Caruthers. She knew she had to watch her step with him, cover all bases. Noreen Xeroxed Judge Brill’s court order and attached a letter detailing what was expected. At the bottom of her letter she wrote in bold-face type, “This visitation schedule is effective immediately, and you have been instructed to bring the three minor children to visit their mother, Elizabeth, starting on Sunday, October fifteenth.”



Elizabeth could hardly wait to talk to the children, and for all of Monday afternoon she could do little but think and rethink what she might say to them. It had been almost a year. A year was forever in the life of a child. In a year a baby learns to stand and walk, a toddler becomes a little girl, and a boy goes from Robin Hood to race cars. What would they be like now, these babies of hers? Would they remember the things they’d once done together? Would they ask questions she couldn’t answer? Did they know of her illness and did they understand what was happening? How much, if anything, had Jeffrey told them? After the long months of wondering whether she would ever see her babies, it would finally happen. The joy of it made her heart feel light as the flutter of angel wings.

Elizabeth closed her eyes and pictured David, her first-born. With dark hair and eyes the color of a Hershey Bar, he looked like his father and in some ways he had Jeffrey’s mannerisms. David was still a little boy but already knew how to flash a smile that got him most anything he wanted.

And then there was Kimberly with her constant calling of “ommy, ommy.” While learning to talk, Kimberly lopped off the first letter of almost every word. Now she was three, no longer a toddler but a little girl. Elizabeth pictured her a bit taller, perhaps more wiry, but still blessed with silky blond curls. Kimberly loved stories about a prince and princess who marry and live happily ever after. Elizabeth recalled when she herself loved those stories. She’d believed in them until—

A wave of sadness emerged but Elizabeth turned her thoughts to Christian, the child she had never really known. She’d last seen or held him five weeks after he was born. Now his first birthday had come and gone along with those baby experiences—the first peals of laughter, tiny hands grappling for whatever they could reach, a first tooth, a first word, learning to sit, to stand, to trust, precious moments every one of them, but regretfully not hers to share.

How would he react, this child who had never known her? To him she was a stranger. That thought struck hard. Christian would need time, and she had to allow him that. She would have to hold back the desire to snuggle his face to hers. She would have to wait until he felt ready to come to her.

In time it will happen, Elizabeth assured herself. In God’s own time, it will happen.

~

Although it took all the willpower she could muster, Elizabeth waited until three-thirty Tuesday afternoon to telephone the children. She dialed Jeffrey’s number and listened as it rang and rang. For a full eight minutes she sat there listening to the hollow echo of that ring before she finally hung up.

“It’s fairly warm today,” Claire suggested. “Maybe JT’s taken them to the park.”

“Sure, that must be it,” Elizabeth said.

At six o’clock she tried again, but still no answer. She tried again at seven and then at eight. There was still no answer.