The Castaway Hotel - 5 - 31. Chapter 31 - My Day In Court

Steve arranged for a meeting with Ms. Van Cott and her lawyer, so we could discuss a compromise. I’m not sure if they saw the report the same way Steve did, so he was going to make sure they understood his take on it before we were through.

“After reading the DSS report,” Steve began, “it is my impression that we don’t have many options here. If we are not careful and don’t settle this disagreement on our own, there’s a very good chance that neither side will see Cole or Graham again. I don’t think any of us wants that, do we?” He paused and looked at Ms. Van Cott and her lawyer.

“My client will agree to letting Mr. Currie have some visitation rights, after she gets her sons back,” her lawyer announced.

“Aren’t we being a little presumptuous here?” Steve asked them. “There is no way she’ll ever get custody, so we’re offering visitation rights for her. It seems like either she accepts this or gives up all hope of ever seeing her sons again.”

“Now I think you’re the one being presumptuous,” her lawyer responded, sarcastically. “They are her children, after all.”

“Not legally, and nothing will change that, unless the judge takes them away from Mr. Currie too,” Steve countered. “However, if that should happen, the chances are virtually nonexistent that she’d get custody after the judge looks at the report. Let’s face it, the only hope she has of spending ANY time with her boys is if she agrees to accept the visitation arrangement we are offering.”

Her lawyer got ready to speak, but I interrupted him. “Look, I know you think I’m the problem here,” I said directly to Ms. Van Cott, “but I did nothing to poison your boys against you. Cole has stated very plainly that he can’t, and won’t, forgive you letting them go hungry like you did or for abandoning them the way you did in the end. He has made it very clear that he’ll never live with you and that he’d run away first, even though I’ve tried to discourage that attitude.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’ve tried really hard,” she hissed, sarcastically. “Let’s face facts here. You just want my boys with you. You’ve got all those other boys to keep you company, so I don’t understand why you still won’t give me back my sons. What do you need them for?”

“Look, my family is not like a coin or stamp collection,” I responded, mocking her assertion. “I took each of them in because they needed someone to take care of them and I’ve worked through many tough times with them and tried to set them up with some sort of a future. Cole and Graham are my sons and I don’t care how many other children I have, I’d never give any of them up. I do what’s best for them, not what’s best for me, and they don’t feel that being with you would be best for them. However, if you’d like to be able to see them, so you can make amends for what you did to them and get to know them better, I’d be willing to do that for you, but I won’t just turn them over to you.”

After a period of silence and some whispering back and forth between her and her attorney, her lawyer responded. “Well, I think we’re at an impasse here and there is nothing more for us to talk about.” With that they got up and exited the room.

After they left, I waited a few seconds before I spoke to Steve, so there wouldn’t be any chance of them hearing what we said. “So, what do we do next?”

“I don’t think we have any other options,” he stated, quite bluntly, “unless you want to give the boys back to her.”

“No, I couldn’t do that to Cole,” I explained. “I’m not sure what he’d do if that actually happened. I can go home and try to talk to him about it again, but I really don’t see that as an option.”

“Well, then we’ll just have to wait and see how the judge rules,” Steve offered, while shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders, to let me know he had no idea what that might be. I wasn’t encouraged, but I didn’t have many alternatives, so we parted company and I started searching for my next alternative.

When I got home, I spoke to Cole and Graham again, in an effort to work this out satisfactorily for all of us. After I told them what happened at our meeting with their mother and her lawyer, we discussed the alternatives. When I broached the subject of them possibly going to live with her, Cole got extremely upset.

“Look, I’ve told you over and over again that I won’t go to live with her, no matter what,” he announced, in a rather loud voice. “I don’t want to leave you or my other brothers, but I’d rather try to live on the streets than go with her.” At this point I thought it might be best to deflect some of his hostility, by focusing on his brother.

“What about you, Graham, how do you feel about all of this?” I asked.

“Well, I always wanted to get to know her,” he admitted, “but I’m just not sure about living with her. I’ll do wherever Cole does, even if it means we have to run away. He’s the only one I won’t leave.” After he said this, he looked up at me, with a shocked look on his face, like he didn’t word it exactly as he had. “That doesn’t mean I want to leave you,” he quickly corrected, “it’s just that if we have to choose, I’ll go with Cole.”

“I understand, and I’m glad you feel that way,” I agreed, reassuringly. “You two should always stick together, no matter what else happens.”

After hearing what I had to say, the boys looked at each other and nodded, and then they came over to give me a hug. “Dad, we’re still hoping it works out so we can stay here with you, though,” Graham added.

“Me too,” I agreed.

Later that afternoon, I received a call from Steve, telling me that Ms. Van Cott and her lawyer had contacted him and wanted to have another meeting, but this time they also wanted me to bring the boys along. I asked him why they would make that request, and Steve suggested it might be to verify what I had told them earlier. Maybe she just needed to hear it from the boys themselves. I agreed to attend the meeting, and then went to inform the boys. They were anxious to get involved, so they could make sure their opinions were also heard.

After I told Steve they had agreed and to make the arrangements, we waited to hear back from him. While we waited, I went to get the mail and was surprised to see that Kevin had received a letter. When I gave it to him, he opened it quickly and then got very excited. It was a letter notifying him that he was a finalist for a scholarship granted by the Pennsylvania Association of Pharmacists. At first he didn’t even remember having applied for it, but now he felt it didn’t matter. It said he was a finalist and he and his parents were invited to attend the banquet where the announcements would be made.

After thinking about it later, however, he concluded this was something his guidance counselor had submitted his name for, and all he had done was write a short essay about why he wanted to become a pharmacist. That essay must have done the trick, because now he was a finalist for the scholarship. The banquet was going to be held on the last weekend in May, and that’s when they would announce the winners. I was very proud of Kevin and told him so, no matter the final outcome, and he thanked me for being there for him again.

At that moment, the phone rang. It was Steve and he told me Ms. Van Cott had agreed to meet with us in an hour. I told him the boys and I would be there and then hung up. Before going to get Cole and Graham, I apologized to Kevin and told him we’d discuss this in more detail later, but now I had to get ready for another meeting with Cole and Graham’s mother. He said he understood, so I went to find the other boys.

We went to the meeting, but I told the boys we were going to remain silent and wait for their mother or her lawyer to make the first offer, since they were the ones who asked us to attend this time. As it turned out, we didn’t have long to wait before Ms. Van Cott made her intent known.

“Thank you for coming and for bringing the boys,” she began, with more sweetness than I had ever heard in her voice before. “I just needed to hear from Cole and Graham, to see if what you told me about them was true.” Now, she focused on her sons. “Cole, honey, is it true you said you’d run away, if you had to come live with me?”

“Yep, and I will too.” He was looking very defiant.

“Who suggested that you do that?” she asked him, point blank.

“No one told me to do that, it’s just the way I feel.” Cole was beginning to look mad now.

“But I’m your mother, why would you run away from me?” she pressed, still not comprehending how much he despised her.

“You’re not my mother, not since you left Graham and me all alone,” he challenged. “Why would I want anything to do with you now?”

“But I AM your mother,” she repeated, as if that were all he needed to know.

“NO, YOU’RE NOT!” Cole screamed. “Can’t you get that through your head? I hate what you did, so that means I also hate you. Why don’t you just go away again and leave us alone.” Cole was standing now, getting right in her face, and she was visibly shaken by his outburst. She was starting to break down and cry, but she turned to Graham and spoke to him next.

“Do you feel the same way?” she sobbed.

He looked at her, saw the tears rolling down her cheeks, and I knew he felt her pain. “After you left us, I would think about you a lot and wonder where you were, but I also wondered why you just left us like you did,” he explained. “I thought I might want to talk to you some time, and maybe get to know you again, but I don’t want to come live with you either. We have a home and a dad now. We’re happy there and I don’t want that to change.”

“And what if the judge were to say that you had to come live with me?” she asked, hoping that would sway his decision.

“I don’t know,” he answered, sincerely, “but if Cole left, I’d go with him.”

Now she looked at me, and I could easily read the pain in her face. “Okay, I’ll go along with your offer,” she confirmed, “but do my visits need to be supervised?”

“I think that might be best to start, at least until the boys feel comfortable with you again,” I replied, honestly. “After you all become reacquainted and more relaxed in each other’s company, maybe we could work something else out, if the boys agree to it.” Both Cole and Graham grinned at me, knowing I had made sure to include them in the decision-making process, so now they’d have some say over what would happen in the future. This pleased them to a point, but Cole still didn’t look very happy.

“Okay, I guess I can accept that,” their mother stated. “Is that okay with you, Cole and Graham?” Both boys nodded, but Cole felt he had to say something more.

“I want you to know, I’m only doing this is to let Graham get to know you, and so we can stay with Dad,” he told her, “but don’t expect me to be real happy to see you when you come to visit.” Although his mother seemed very hurt by his comments, she forced a smile on her face and responded.

“Okay, that sounds fair,” she told him, but it was obvious she felt as though Cole had just stabbed her with a knife. “As long as you’ll be there and are willing to give me a chance to make up for what I did, then I can handle that.”

“I will promise to do that,” Cole confirmed, “so Dad won’t get into any trouble.”

“I guess you really do love him, don’t you?” she asked, almost as if she found it difficult to believe.

“Yes, more than I’ve ever loved anyone else… well, except for Graham,” he added. She nodded in understanding, but was unable to conceal her pain this time. We agreed to let the lawyers work out the details as we prepared to leave, but not before I let Ms. Van Cott have a little more time with her boys. It wasn’t great, but they were able to clear the air a little more and made it slightly easier for the next time they were to meet.

It looked like this was now behind us and we could drop the court case, since we’d worked out our own agreement. Now, we just had to wait to make it official, and that would be done when we went back to court in three more days.

When the court date came up, we all marched into courtroom, confident in what we were about to do. When the case was called, Ms. Van Cott’s lawyer stood up and announced his client was dropping her case, since we had reached an agreement on our own. We thought that would end the matter, except the judge stated it was not going to be that simple or easy. He determined this case was now a question of my fitness as a parent, and whether the adoptions should have been allowed in the first place. He went on to suggest these proceedings would now determine if the adoptions should now be vacated. Steve was incensed.

“The court has no grounds on which to get involved in this case, now that Ms. Van Cott’s suit has been dropped,” he stated in his most firm, yet official voice.

“I’m sorry, but I disagree,” the judge stated. “This report from DSS gives the court the right to intercede at this point.”

“That report is unfounded and filled with inaccuracies,” Steve challenged. “Before you use that report to make any judgments about Mr. Currie’s fitness as a parent, I want a chance to rebut its findings and question its author.”

“This is just a standard investigation report, one that the DSS does all the time,” the judge stated. “We use these reports to recommend the handling of many of our cases. Why should this one be any less valid?”

“Well, primarily because this report is based on innuendo and inaccuracies,” Steve informed him. “For example, it suggests that Mr. Currie has promoted or enticed various boys to become gay or bisexual, once they were in his custody. It has been clearly documented that some of these boys were already gay or bisexual before he took them in, and his only role was that he was willing to accept them for who and what they were.”

“And how did you come by that information?” the judge inquired.

“I was involved with helping him adopt his family,” Steve admitted, “and I know at least three of the boys were kicked out of their home situation because it was discovered they were either gay or bisexual.”

“Interesting, but that’s only part of what’s reported,” the judge countered.

“That may be, but it’s not the only inaccurate statement made in the report,” Steve reiterated. “It also suggests that Mr. Currie has a gay lover. First of all, Mr. Currie was married for many years and has four children as a result of that marriage. The only reason his marriage ended was due to the death of his wife. I assume the investigator made his decision he had a gay lover, only because another man also lives in the house. However, that man is also divorced and raising his own son, and he merely moved in to assist Mr. Currie, after Mr. Currie suffered a heart attack. The two now split the responsibilities of taking care of all of the boys, but that does not make them gay lovers.”

“Well, in light of what you’ve said, I think we’ll need to clear up these facts before I can reach a decision,” the judge announcement, visibly shaken that Steve had so easily punched holes in a report produced by someone he had assigned to the case. “We’ll meet again tomorrow at the same time, but on that occasion I will have the investigator here to defend his report. Will that satisfy you?”

“Yes, your honor,” Steve agreed. “We will be here and prepared to continue at that time.”

After Steve and I left the courtroom, we began to discuss our strategy. We talked about whom we might be able to get to come to the courthouse as character witnesses, especially on such short notice, and then we discussed what other strategies we might use. I could see the fire in Steve’s eyes, the kind he gets when he’s determined to protect a friend or client when they have been unfairly accused, and I knew this meant I was in good hands. Hopefully this judge wouldn’t pull one of his unexpected and unfounded decisions, and we’d finally be able to nip this in the bud, here and now. I didn’t want the insinuations to have time to spread and take root, before we were able to dispel them. There’s nothing harder to defend against than rumors and I didn’t want to be forced to have to do that.

Once we got home, I didn’t mention anything to the boys about what had happened in court, but Jake and I discussed it in private. I suggested that, at least for the short term, it might be best if we did not sleep together, so he said he’d share Shannon’s room until this was over. Of course the boys immediately wanted to know if we’d had a fight or if something was wrong, so we explained it was merely a precautionary measure, until the matter with Cole and Graham’s mother was settled. They seemed to accept that explanation, so no more was said about Jake moving out of the master bedroom.