Custody of the State (2 page)

“How about your work in setting a good example for Joshua?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Eating habits. Children pick up bad eating patterns by watching the parents.”

“Whether I finish my plate or not has nothing to do with Joshua not eating.”

“Then what
is
the reason? The doctor doesn't know. I can't figure it out. And when he does eat, sometimes he throws up. That isn't normal. He's not gaining weight. I think there's something serious going on.”

“Look,” Joe said, “you're the medical expert—”

“I'm a nurse. That doesn't make me an expert.”

“I've got a farm here that doesn't take care of itself. Soybean prices are going down. Weather reports don't look good. I'm not trying to blow you off, honey, but I've got a lot going on.”

“Your family is your first priority,” Mary Sue replied sharply.

“You want my two cents' worth?” Joe said. “I don't think that Dr. What's-his-name knows what he's doing with Joshua.”

“What
is
his name?” Mary Sue asked, her eyes narrowed and her arms folded across her chest.

“I don't know…” Joe searched his memory for a minute, “Dr.…What's-his-name. I can't remember. What's the difference?”

“When was Joshua's last checkup?” Mary Sue asked.

Joe gestured as if he were going to answer, then stopped. After a second he said, “Last week.”

“Wrong.
This
week. Two days ago,” Mary Sue replied. Then she added, “No further questions, Your Honor. Mr. Fellows is found guilty of being too busy for his family.”

Joe sauntered over to his wife with a stern expression of his own. Mary Sue gazed into Joe's blue eyes, looking over his square jaw and the dark blond hair that framed his face with an unkempt swatch that hung down to one side. They stared into each other's eyes until a smile began turning up the sides of Joe's mouth.

He quickly touched his index fingers to the tickle spots on her rib cage until she started laughing and pushing him away.

“Making me laugh is not an answer,” Mary Sue protested.

“I know that, darlin',” he said. “Look, I'm worried about Josh just like you.”

“And when are we going to talk about what the social worker said?” Mary Sue added.

“Okay, now you're moving onto subject number two. We have to talk about that later.”

“It's all related. That Liz Luden woman from Social Services said that if we were insisting on getting a second opinion, then they wanted us to get it done by today.”

“Today—or what?” Joe said, his voice rising slightly.
“Or what?
You told her a couple of weeks ago that you were going to get a second opinion about Josh from another doctor. That's it. That is the end of it. No Miss Social Worker What's-her-name is going to meddle with our right to decide what's best for our son.”

“It's too late. They're already meddling, Joe. Besides, the two of us have to talk about where I'm going to get the money for the second opinion.”

“This is all that doctor's fault.”

“Maybe Dr. Wilson meant well,” Sue countered.

“By calling Social Services? Just because you wouldn't agree with everything he was saying? This doctor has tried how many tests on Josh? He's grabbing for straws. We tell him that we want
a second opinion, and then the next thing we know he calls a social worker from the county on us.”

“We've got a decision to make,” Mary Sue pleaded, grabbing Joe's arm as he tried to pull on his coat. “The social worker said if we don't cooperate with everything they're asking, they might actually try to get a court order. Joe, I don't want anyone coming after my baby.”

“This is really ridiculous,” Joe fumed. “Just think about it. Why are they picking on us? We're your normal, average parents. You must have done something to tick off that Dr. Wilson. I bet it was the way you stopped following his orders.”

“Josh was getting
worse!”
Mary Sue cried out.

“I thought you just said you
weren't
the medical expert!”

“Please, just give me five more minutes so we can decide this right now,” Mary Sue pleaded.

“I'll give you my decision,” Joe shot back. “We don't check in with the Department of Social Services on medical treatment for our son. Period. We'll get a second opinion
when we have the time, and when we have the money, and not a minute before that
.
”
He put his cap on, but before he swung the door open his face softened slightly. “Besides, if they take us to court, you'd whop them all bare-handed. You could wrestle wildcats, baby doll.”

As he was walking through the door, he turned, pulled something from his coat pocket, showed it to Mary Sue, and shouted back to her, “I've got the walkie-talkie with me if you need to get ahold of me.”

Joe closed the door behind him. As he buttoned up his coat he glanced at the familiar little plaque at the side of the porch. It bore a Bible verse from the book of Joshua:

“…As for me and my house, we will serve the L
ORD
.”

In the kitchen Mary Sue sighed and tried to smile. She gazed over at little Joshua, who was leaning sideways in his chair. His eyes were closing and his head was nodding as he started to doze off.

“You are so tired all the time, aren't you, precious one?” Mary Sue said.

She walked over to the counter to retrieve Joshua's sippy cup. After hunting for it for a few seconds, she found it behind the toaster and gave it to Joshua. But after a sip, he made a face and spit it out. Then he rubbed his eyes.

“No, momma, no…”

“Don't you want any more?” Mary Sue asked, moving her hand along his baby-soft cheek.

Outside, Joe fired up his tractor and drove out along the track that led to the barns and outbuildings. He was already past the buildings and beside the back forty acres when something caught the corner of his eye.

He put the tractor into neutral and studied the horizon.

Off in the distance along the road leading to their house, he saw a cloud of dust spiraling up into the air from three cars that were approaching. He could see the squad lights on top of the first two. As he looked closer, he could see they were from the sheriff's department. The third car was plain brown, and it looked like it was one of the Juda County government vehicles.

Joe snatched the walkie-talkie.

“Mary Sue, listen up—we've got trouble coming down the road.”

“What do you mean?”

“Two squad cars from the sheriff's department—and another car from the county. Heading right toward the house.”

“Joe, we've got to do something.”

“I've got a bad feeling about this. I'd be willing to bet they've got some kind of legal paper for us. That's the way it happened when my uncle's farm got foreclosed. Just like this. Double squads from the sheriff's department.”

“What do they want?”

“I don't know,” Joe said, his voice tense.

“No one's going to take Josh away from me, you hear? No one!” Mary Sue cried out.

“Mary Sue, calm down. Nobody's talking about taking Josh. I'm just going to tell them to get off my property until I can talk to a lawyer.”

“Joe, what if they're coming for my little boy? You don't know—we can't take any chances.”

Joe paused for a second. He knew that this was a defining moment. One of the make-or-break events that jumps into your path like a deer at night, right in front of your car while you're doing sixty. With little warning, and barely time for anything except instinctive reaction.

“Until I find something out…” Joe said—and by now he had his tractor in fourth gear and was heading back to the house at a healthy speed—“you'd better take Josh out the back door. Take the truck, and the two of you get off the property through the back pasture and across the creek. Head out to the state highway. Then call me later to make sure the coast is clear before coming home.”

Mary Sue grabbed Joshua, who already had been startled by the tone of the conversation. She snatched the truck keys and headed for the back door—but thought better of it and ran upstairs.

Sprinting into Joshua's bedroom, she picked up his soft-sider bag and threw in some of his t-shirts, training pants, and jeans. Then, carrying her little boy under one arm and his bag under the other, she hurried down to the master bedroom, where she grabbed her make-up case, some underwear, and a pile of unfolded clothes that lay in a laundry basket and stuffed it all in a laundry bag.

Running to the window, Mary Sue could see the three cars stopped at the fence in their driveway. A deputy was jumping out of his squad car and going to the gate. She could make out two women in the third car, which had the Juda County insignia. She grabbed a pair of yellow child's binoculars that were lying on a dresser. She squinted through them—now she could see the
social worker Liz Luden behind the wheel. Another younger-looking woman was in the passenger seat next to her.

In less than a minute the caravan of cars would be in front of their house.

Bounding down the stairs with Joshua bobbing up and down in one arm, the bags in the other, Mary Sue rushed to the door. With the few fingers that were still free, she snatched her Bible off the kitchen table, ran out the back, strapped Joshua into the car seat in their pickup truck, tossed in the bags and Bible, and jumped behind the wheel.

Fumbling with the pile of keys, Mary Sue nearly jammed the house key into the ignition by mistake.

“Please, God—please, God…” she muttered as she fished for the ignition key.

She found it, started the truck, and lurched forward down the road that led to the back side of the Fellows farm.

She and Joshua bounced from the jolts of the rough road beneath them as she increased speed, the truck tires spitting dirt and gravel.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, Mary Sue looked back at the house she was leaving. Tears were streaming down her face. All she could manage was, “God, protect us…protect us….”

“Why you crying, momma?” Joshua asked.

There was no answer. Mary Sue leaned her head into her left hand, trying to control her sobs as she steered with her other hand and headed the truck toward the creek and the state highway that lay beyond.

All she could think about now was the little creek and whether it had dried up enough for her to cross it without getting stuck in the mud.

2

O
KAY
, I
READ THE STORY
. Then I read it again. The facts are plain enough. A young mother. Scared. She believes she has to save her child. So she flees from the authorities.”

“Is that all there is to it?”

“No. But I'm just sticking to the basics. I'm trying to be objective.”

“That must be the trial lawyer in you talking. So what does your objectivity tell you?”

“That the mother believes in what she is doing. Thinks she has heard the voice of God.”

“What do you think?”

“I'm not sure. Part of me believes it. Most of me. But I'm conflicted.”

“You're trying to resolve the conflict?”

“Exactly.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“That's why I'm talking to you. You're the one with the theological degrees, Len, not to mention that you're my favorite law professor. I'm just a trial lawyer.”

“Look, my degree isn't what's important. Or my teaching credentials. Let me put it to you plainly, Will. Ultimately, it gets down to miracles. Is the Bible God's revealed Word?”

“I accept that. But that doesn't end the debate.”

“Well then, is it just the miraculous birth of Jesus that you're struggling with? Or is there something else?”

“The nativity story. That's what I've been focusing on. The virgin birth. Angels start appearing. Magi traveling from far
away arrive on the scene. King Herod sends out the edict against the children. Visions and dreams. The mother, her husband, and the baby flee to Egypt.

“On the other hand, let me say this. I do know that God does miracles. Look at me—a former agnostic ACLU attorney, now studying the Bible. Going to church. In love with a gospel singer.”

Sitting across the table in the small, silver-sided roadside diner, Len Redgrove chuckled a little at that.

Will Chambers stopped for a second to appreciate the irony in what he had just said.

“But still,” Will continued, “I'm wondering if we have to believe in the mass of supernatural detail that the Bible lays out about these events—that's all. Do we
have
to take it literally? Maybe it was meant to be symbolic.”