Lawyer for the Cat by Lee Robinson Read Free Book Online

families—except for adoptions, when everyone is happy—but today the collapse seems total. This is DSS day, when two of the six courtrooms are set aside for the Department of Social Services to prosecute abuse and neglect cases. The waiting rooms are crammed with parents. The best of them are only adolescents themselves, who have no clue how to take care of a child. For a few of these, the system—a warning from the judge, parenting classes, monthly visits from the social worker—may work the way it’s supposed to, but then there are the repeat offenders: the mother who leaves her toddler locked in the closet while she runs out for cigarettes, the father who smacks his kid hard enough to leave bruises. For these there are no easy fixes. Remove the child from the mom, and he’s bounced from foster home to foster home. Give the dad a second chance, and tomorrow’s headline may be a judge’s nightmare.
    Like every lawyer who practices in Family Court, I do my share of these pro bono cases. I’m searching the room for my client when the clerk calls the case: “Department of Social Services vs. Tina White and Alfred Driggers.” It’s a neglect case. Someone called DSS to report that the baby had been left alone. By the time the police arrived the mother had returned, but when DSS sent a social worker in to investigate, he found that the baby was seriously underweight.
    I met with Tina White a week ago. She was an hour late for the appointment. “Missed my ride,” she said. I studied her as she answered my questions: thin, pale hands trembling, her face much older than her eighteen years. I’d seen faces like this before. No, she said, she didn’t use drugs, didn’t drink “except a few beers now and then.” The father “don’t come around much ’cause I bug him about the child support.” She admitted leaving the baby alone “for just half an hour while I walked to the grocery store. I didn’t want to wake him up ’cause he had a bad night, bawling his head off.” No, she had no idea why the baby, three months old, wasn’t gaining weight. “He throws up a lot, though. My mother says I was the same way.” While she sat in my office I called the clinic, made an appointment for her to take the child in the next day, got her to sign a medical release, explained what would happen at the hearing. “They can’t take him away from me,” she said before she left, tears trailing down her cheeks. “They got no right.”
    And now she doesn’t show up for court. I do the best I can. “Your Honor, she lives in McClellanville. She doesn’t have a car or a telephone. I’m sure she’s on her way; if Your Honor could take the next case on the docket until…” But I don’t sound convincing, even to myself. The father hasn’t shown up either—undoubtedly he’s afraid of going to jail for nonpayment of child support. The guardian ad litem for the baby, a young lawyer who’s pro bono like me, has no choice but to agree with the department’s request for temporary custody, and the judge orders DSS to pick up the child immediately and place him in foster care.
    None of this is your fault , I tell myself as I ride the elevator down to the first floor, where I can at least escape the overheated courthouse. It’s almost dark, time to get home to relieve Delores. I’m thinking about what we’ll have for dinner when I hear a familiar voice. “So, you’re not speaking to me?” It’s Joe, my ex.
    â€œSorry, I didn’t see you.”
    â€œBad day?”
    â€œA DSS hearing. The usual. Depressing.”
    â€œYou okay otherwise?”
    â€œNo complaints,” I say. Since the dog case we’ve abided by the terms of an unspoken agreement: We won’t talk about anything personal—his marriage, my relationship with