Heinous, Heinous, Heinous

Naively, yesterday, in addition to dressing in my finest black suit, tan shirt, and tan and red tie, I also took along blue jeans and my favorite sneakers. Lillian looked at me with the same look she reserves for the insane and those who kick small puppies on their way to work:

“What are you doing?”

“If we get done early, maybe we can go to Disneyland.”

She laughed. It’s a laugh that has caused grown trolls to breakdown in sobs and admit that they miss their mothers loving embrace.

Cave-trolls.

Not those sissy Mountain-trolls.

Thus began, at 7:30 am a day that would not end until roughly 7:30 pm when we would wearily wend our way back to the homestead, exhausted beyond most mortal’s capacity.

I understand that our court systems are overloaded beyond almost any conceivable measure. By most reports, even after Jesus the Christ has made his triumphant Second Coming, and sent his flocks to Heaven and the evil-doers to Hell, the courts will still be running at full capacity for an additional fifteen years.

What I don’t understand is why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why we have to be present and accounted for beginning at 8:00 am if we aren’t even going to be called into the court room for its five minutes of quiet explanation until 4:30 pm when even the bailiffs are looking at us with a, “You fools, why are you still here?” look.

It might also be the “Kick Me, I’m Irish” signs that I put on one bailiff’s back.

Well, she was Irish.

Note to the Wise: Bailiffs do not enjoy high school-level pranks and are armed with authority to shoot out your kneecaps.

Around 3:00, Justice’s attorney came out and saw us. She was apparently called to assist with three young lads who had taken to riding the elevators and singing “Ring-Around the Rosies” with some of the court officials and a couple of convicts.

Hey, they were minor felons and no one was permanently injured in the ensuing shoot out. Mostly flesh wounds.

When the attorney saw us, she told us to wait (yeah, I thought that was funny too) and when she had finished, she took us into a cubby with semi-privacy and then proceeded to drop a bomb on us:

“His (the biological father’s) attorney is offering a settlement.”

No, seriously, that’s what she said. My first thought was, we get money out of this? That’s odd. How much?

“They’re offering legal guardianship where the father will retain rights.”

What’s this?

As you know, Lillian and I were only prepared for two realistic outcomes: custody is given immediately to Justice’s father or custody is transitioned in a few months to Justice’s father. We hadn’t considered that there would be a third option.

Then the attorney dropped another bomb:

“Or, I can keep fighting for adoption, which is what I want, and what I think we should do.”

What what what what what what?

It boiled down to this: the attorney did not know where bio-dad (as she calls him) has been, where he is now, what he’s doing or who he’s doing it with. As far as she was concerned, almost everyone involved in these kinds of cases from a biological side are playing an angle and rotten to the core. She’s a child advocate, and I’m certain she sees more retched hives of scum and villainy than Luke and Obi-wan did at Mos Eisley space port. So she advocates in the best interest of the child.

What a country!

But this did take us by storm. Shock and awe were mostly what we felt. We now know what most of China felt when Genghis Khan started shopping for "a summer cottage near the coast, something with a view” . . . of the rest of China.

So, the options were we can pursue adoption, we can settle, or we can fold, take our ball and go home.

I voted take our ball, because if you don’t, then someone is going to pick it up and ignore all the writing that stipulates your name, defunct previous address and an old phone number you thought would never change but did.

But in the matter of Justice, we decided this is an all or nothing kind of deal. Justice needs stability and everyone, everyone, everyone needs closure. No half-measures. We’ve seen what that did for Iraq.

The attorney was in agreement, and so we proceeded and lost. We didn’t think we would win, but there it is. A visit was granted to the father with a trial (yes an honest to God trial) set for December 4th. Paternity was established for the father, which was never much in doubt. You look at his eyes and you can see Justice staring back.

Immediately afterward, though, Justice’s attorney asked us if we wanted to talk to the father and his fiancée. We, of course, wanted to, as this would give a HUGE clue why he’s doing what he’s doing. Let me just say, without many details, that it was probably the most positive thing to come out this hearing. Even Justice’s attorney, as we were walking away, said, “Ok, I feel better about him.”

So did we.