Then came family court. If we got caught there I didn’t know what would happen. Still, they were determined to try it—change my legal guardian from Mother to Eleanor. Only Mother would be Eleanor, and Eleanor would be Mother, so we weren’t really changing anything. I was losing track of reality fast.
My confusion was complete. The adults were going to do what they were going to do. They were in complete control and I had no choice but to trust them, dangerous or not.
Eleanor and I wore the matching mother-daughter dresses. That dress I hate to this day. It’s amazing how the wrong clothes can make you feel stupid—I mean awkward. Mother clipped that silly bow in my hair and I let her. I negotiated keeping my boots for that bow. My cowboy boots were getting snug, but I wore them anyway.
Mother put on Eleanor’s nun habit and her big heavy glasses.
We headed out in the blue van first thing in the morning, Mother driving. Eleanor directed us to the court. “Don’t say anything,” they kept peppering me. “Only speak if you are spoken to, only if the judge asks you a direct question. Then keep your answer simple.”
It was like they all thought I was … a child, which I was, but I knew how to handle myself, better than they did. You wouldn’t catch me swapping places and walking into a courtroom, that’s for sure.
We parked.
Joe Brewer wanted us to meet him in the hall outside of family court. It was not the place where Mother’s criminal trial would be held, he said. Another building nearby.
If he knew what they were up to, he never let on.
The adults stood in the hall talking, while I waited near the big window, feeling the sun slanting across my face. I wasn’t afraid, not really. So many things had gone wrong that the edge of fear had slipped from my life.
When it was time for court, the adults pushed through the swinging doors, into the courtroom, and I followed. It was my first courtroom ever. I stopped in the aisle, looking at a huge lady statue in the corner—she was blindfolded, and carried a sword in one hand, and in the other hand she balanced a couple of plates on strings. “Lady Justice” she was called, standing there in court—a place dedicated to finding truth and justice, as Joe Brewer said. I certainly hoped that Lady Justice stayed blindfolded and that she didn’t see our truth that day, because we were telling big fat lies.
We stood up. A judge, who looked like somebody’s grandmother, came in and sat. We sat back down but not for long.
We were first on the docket, Joe Brewer said. A docket is the list of people coming to court. We walked to the judge’s desk and looked up at her. They sit up high, judges do. I stood, with exceptionally good posture, between Eleanor and Mother, holding both of their hands. Joe Brewer talked the talk. Custody, conservatorship, adoption. I don’t know what all they did legally to take me from my mother and give me to Eleanor—only, as I have said, they were giving me to my mother, who had me already.
I kept an eye on Lady Justice, daring her to peek out from behind that blindfold.
But since everybody was in agreement, it was fast and simple. After looking at all the papers and listening to Joe Brewer explain what he called the circumstances, the judge leaned over her desk and spoke.
“I want to commend you, Mrs. Henderson, for this extraordinary step you are taking. Considering your medical and legal problems, you are putting the interests of your child ahead of your own. I must say, we don’t see that very often in family court.”
Eleanor, as Mother, said, “Thank you very much, your honor. I know my sister will love Ruby Clyde as her own.”
And it was done.
* * *
It took me all summer and into the first of school to finally finish reading the original, long version of Oliver Twist. That boy! He’d gotten into more trouble than I had, but he survived. It always annoyed me that Oliver Twist never did much for himself, he just went along with whoever had him: the child farm, the workhouse, the horrible coffin-builder Mrs. Sowerberry, and that criminal pickpocket Fagin.
Well, once he ran away. That was action. But the Maylies and Mr. Brownlow had to rescue him, and Oliver Twist hadn’t done anything himself—they just caught him and took care of him. Oliver Twist was lucky more than anything.
What the book showed me most was that you need to be careful who you fall in with. They can get you in big-time trouble. Fagin was a mastermind criminal with a band of children pickpockets, very funny, but bad. Yet the Artful Dodger (and I admit I’m more of an Artful Dodger than an Oliver Twist) only hurt himself by staying with Fagin. Don’t even get me started on that wicked Bill Sykes! Why would a nice lady like Nancy stay with him? Like Mother staying with the Catfish. Bill Sykes killed Nancy dead, and I’m just glad that didn’t happen to Mother.
Mr. Bumble, Mrs. Sowerberry, Fagin. All bad. You have to find the Maylies and the Brownlows in this life and hang on as best you can.
I had found my people there on Paradise Ranch, and while I had doubted they could fool the family court, they had. And they’d done it for me.
Toward the end of Oliver Twist, I read:
And now, the hand that traces these words, falters, as it approaches the conclusion of its task; and would weave, for a little longer space, the thread of these adventures.
Mr. Charles Dickens didn’t want the story to be over. I must admit that I wanted the Adventures of Oliver Twist to go on. I wanted to read more, and more. But not so for my own adventures. I was ready for the misadventures of Ruby Clyde to fast-forward. I wanted a happy ending of my own and I wanted it fast.