Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren #9)(44)

Manny nods vigorously. He likes the pansies, but mostly the opportunity to play in the dirt. Lola and I don’t care. We just want to stand next to our baby brother. Memorize every move he makes. Record in our minds every hiccup, laugh, giggle. My ribs hurt. I move carefully, so no one will notice. Lola seems equally stiff, though like me, she doesn’t talk about it.

Manny appears perfect. We focus on Manny, everything we have loved and missed about him.

Behind us stands Susan Howe. She’s our CASA volunteer. Her job is independent of the state, she tells us, as if we understand what that means. She sits with us in the courtroom during these hearings. Does her best to answer our questions. “When will I see Mommy?” is always Manny’s question. “Why can’t I go home again?”

Mrs. Howe is also our advocate. “When can we see Manny?” is the question Lola and I always ask her. She’s in charge of coordinating such things. But she also observes us, writes up her own report on how we’re progressing in foster care, how we’re handling the rare times we see our mom, etc. Her role is not to be confused with that of the pinch-faced lady, Mrs. McInnis, our caseworker from DCF, who started this mess.

Last month, we were at this same courthouse with the same judge for something called an Adjudicatory Hearing. Basically, Mrs. McInnis presented all the ways our mother had done us wrong. Reports from the school that we consistently lacked food or money for lunch. Landlord saying we were six months behind on rent and he’d started eviction proceedings. Mom’s car being repo’d. The job she no longer had. The number of times the police had been called to the house due to her and Hector’s drunken rages.

My mom had a seat at her own table next to her lawyer. Public defender, I’d guess, except he looked like a skinny, pimply-faced kid, dressed up in his father’s best suit and hoping no one would notice. His hands shook uncontrollably as he read off counterarguments he’d scribbled on a sheet of paper. A couple of times, his voice cracked. My mother wouldn’t look at us.

She sat and cried.

Manny reached out his arms for her. “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom.”

She bowed her head. Cried harder.

Manny stayed on my lap for the rest of the hearing, my arms tight around his trembling shoulders, Lola pressed up on the other side. Our CASA lady, Mrs. Howe, sat with us. She patted my arm a couple of times. But we didn’t respond. She wasn’t one of us. She wasn’t family.

Today is the Dispositional Hearing. We plant our flowers with the judge like good children. Smile, nod, and appear grateful. In this new world order there are many adults to please. They all claim to have our best interests at heart. Lola and I are learning to be careful. Very careful.

Back inside the courthouse we go. I carry Manny. At four, he’s too big for this, but he hates the courthouse. He already knows who we’ll see inside, and his little body is trembling. For a moment, looking down the long corridor, I see the outline of a man against the sun-bright glass. Big guy. Hector, I think. They’ve found Hector and he will take Manny and keep him safe. Maybe, if I ask nicely, he’ll take Lola and me, too.

I hear a hitch of breath beside me. Lola has seen the same silhouette. But then the man turns. The light from the corridor windows strikes his face. Not Hector at all. Just some other big dude going about his business today. My shoulders slump. I press my cheek against the top of Manny’s head, grateful I didn’t say anything.

The judge leaves us for his chambers. We follow Mrs. Howe into the courtroom, filing in from the back. Pinch-faced Mrs. McInnis is already there, sitting to the right with her stack of paperwork. She glances up briefly, looks away. She knows we hate her, blame her for everything. And yet, last month, as she read off the long list of neglect charges, I felt embarrassed for us, not her. Because my mom, myself, Hector, we hadn’t done any better. So this lady had to come and tear our family apart.

I know the moment Manny sees our mom because he stiffens in my arms. He doesn’t cry out for her. He whimpers low in his throat, which is worse. My ribs ache. I’m having a hard time drawing a breath. It’s good we’re almost to our table, the one in the middle, where we sit with Mrs. Howe.

Lola pulls out a seat for me. I take it, settling Manny on my lap. He stares at our mom’s table, so I do, too. Same pimply-faced lawyer from last month, wearing the same too-big suit. But my mother . . . She looks better than before. Her face is fuller. She has washed her hair, put it back in a thick ponytail that gleams beneath the courthouse lights. She’s wearing a blouse I’ve never seen before. A soft peach. It’s pretty against her skin.

She looks over at us. Manny rocking on my lap. Lola biting her nails. Me, just sitting there. She smiles. Tentative. Hopeful. And my heart breaks into a thousand pieces. I want to run to her and cry. I want to stand up and scream. I want to shred that new blouse. I want to put all the pieces back together.

I’ve never loved and hated someone so much. I don’t know if I can take the strain. I avert my eyes, look down at the top of Manny’s head. When I glance over at Lola, she is simply sitting there, perfectly still, tears streaming down her face.

The judge walks into the courtroom and the hearing gets under way.

More lists. If the Adjudicatory Hearing was the compilation of everything my mother had done wrong, this is the list of everything that has to happen next. Mandatory drug and alcohol counseling. Safe and stable housing. Steady employment. Parenting classes. Therapy. Random drug testing. My mother nods along to each requirement. If thirty days ago she was a drunken mess, this month she is the repentant mother, willing to do anything to get her children back. I wonder how long this latest spell will last.