Acid Rains of Fortune

Contents

Acknowledgement

Chapter 1.

Chapter 2.

Chapter 3.

Chapter 4.

Chapter 5.

Chapter 6.

Chapter 7.

Chapter 8.

Chapter 9.

Chapter 10.

Chapter 11.

Chapter 12.

Chapter 13.

Chapter 14.

Chapter 15.

Chapter 16.

Chapter 17.

Chapter 18.

Chapter 19.

Chapter 20.

Chapter 21.

Chapter 22.

Chapter 23.

Chapter 24.

Chapter 25.

Chapter 26.

Chapter 27.

Chapter 28.

Chapter 29.

Chapter 30.

Chapter 31.

Chapter 32.

Chapter 33.

Chapter 34.

Chapter 35.

Chapter 36.

Chapter 37.

Chapter 38.

Chapter 39.

Chapter 40.

Chapter 41.

Chapter 42.

Chapter 43.

Chapter 44.

Chapter 45.

Chapter 46.

Chapter 47.

Chapter 48.

Chapter 49.

Chapter 50.

Chapter 51.

Chapter 52.

Chapter 53.

Chapter 54.

Chapter 55.

Chapter 56.

Chapter 57.

Chapter 58.

Chapter 59.

Chapter 60.

Chapter 61.

Chapter 62.

Chapter 63.

Chapter 64.

Chapter 65.

Chapter 66.

Chapter 67.

Chapter 68.

Chapter 69.

Chapter 70.

Chapter 71.

Chapter 72.

Chapter 73.

Chapter 74.

Chapter 75.

Chapter 76.

Chapter 77.

Chapter 78.

Chapter 79.

Chapter 80.

Chapter 81.

Chapter 82.

Chapter 83.

Chapter 84.

Chapter 85.

Chapter 86.

Chapter 87.

Chapter 88.

Chapter 89.

Chapter 90.

Chapter 91.

Chapter 92.

Chapter 93.

Chapter 94.

Chapter 95.

Chapter 96.

Chapter 97.

Chapter 98.

Chapter 99.

Chapter 100.

Chapter 101.

Chapter 102.

Chapter 103.

Chapter 104.

Chapter 105.

Chapter 106.

Chapter 107.

Chapter 108.

Chapter 109.

Chapter 110.

Chapter 111.

Chapter 112.

Epilogue.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Constance Woo

for her help in proofreading the novel.

Chapter 1.

Angela Santiago Hart went into labor on the day her husband, Andrew, was sentenced for fraud, embezzlement, stock manipulation, lying to a grand jury and a host of other offenses. He received 25-40 years in a federal penitentiary and fines amounting to nearly $300,000,000.

Angela had disliked Andrew almost from the beginning of their relationship and she had no illusions about her own moral status. Although she had little education and a rather tough face, she had a genius for attracting men, channeling their desires into everything from expensive jewelry to marriage proposals. Andrew Hart was merely the richest in a long line of men — not clients exactly, as she never exchanged money for sex on an hourly or short-term basis — but not really boyfriends either, as she had never experienced the slightest sentiment of affection or friendship towards any of them, even the two she had married.

Realizing that she could not keep Andrew on her string forever, Angela’s pregnancy was designed to keep a large amount of money flowing in after he had disposed of her, as he had his other two families. But here, Andrew defrauded her, along with several hundred thousand investors. Angela’s pre-nuptial agreement had guaranteed her several million dollars in HartCom stock, now worthless. The fines and penalties took everything else. Try as she and her lawyers might, they could find no hidden assets or legal loopholes through which a few million or even thousand dollars could worm through. Angela was penniless.

Aside from the nurses and a doctor she didn’t know, she was on her own in the labor room. She had cut herself off from her family and friends when she set out on her man-hunting career and had made no friends who were not part of Andrew’s now shattered circle.

"Give me a C-section now," she told the doctor.

But there’s no need, it’s doing beautifully, he said.

She was about to curse out the doctor but the thought of a scar from the C-section came to mind. No matter how small it was, it would still be visible and lower her status in the marketplace. Probably best to go through with it.

Just shoot me up with painkillers, she said.

We can give you something to take the edge off, but we don’t want to harm the baby, do we?

I don’t give a fuck about the baby, just give me the shots.

A beautiful, healthy baby boy finally emerged after a labor fueled by anger and a voluble hatred of men.

Take it away, she said, as they presented her son to her. I don’t want to see it.

You want it adopted? asked a nurse.

You can throw it in the river for all I care, said Angela.

You have to give him a name before we can let him leave the hospital.

Basura, said Angela, never suspecting what a major role he would play in her later life.

What kind of a name is that?

Just write it down.

It means ‘garbage,’ said a nurse’s assistant. Choose another.

Chapter 2.

Somehow, it had come down to a particularly difficult passage in the nocturne, on which his parents’ happiness depended. The boy’s parents had been unhappy for years, as long as he could remember. It seemed to have something to do with money – his mother spent more than his father earned – but he knew it was more than that. Words had been tossed about that were not meant for his ears – failure, weakness, ambition, snobbery – words he understood but not in the context of his parents.

Ethan had pondered how to make them happy. His younger sister, Abby, thought it was by being good, in a parental sense. He noticed that this didn’t work. His was a more subtle approach that depended on a single event, rather than a pattern of behavior. If he could play the nocturne exceptionally well, and if everybody applauded wildly, his parents’ pride in him would bring them together, perhaps only for a moment, but that moment would be enough to make them realize that shared happiness was possible. It would generate more happiness. They would look at each other and remember how they felt years ago, before they had children.

The problem, of course, was mastering the passage in the nocturne, the D flat, opus 27, number 2, of Chopin. It was a transitional passage between two parts of the melody that consisted of a trill, an easy run up the scale to a 48-note passage that was labeled con forza, but required a light, feathery touch as well as a technical brilliance that was beyond him. The passage was in the miniature notation that allowed flexibility of timing, against an inflexible 12 notes in 6/8 time in the base. The first 24 notes of the run, six quartets of notes descending chromatically, gave the passage its brilliance. Easy to play slowly, they were impossible for him to play at the proper speed. He had practiced them constantly, always breaking down when he increased the speed. He practiced the fingering without the piano, in school, on his lap at dinner. He thought of the fingering before he went to sleep and actually played it perfectly in a dream. Although there were other difficult passages in the nocturne, he had mastered all of those. He felt comfortable with everything but this, the one passage in the piece that would make everyone gasp, including his parents. As he waited in the wings for his turn to perform, his fingers traced the irregular pattern – first finger, third finger, second finger, fifth finger, then second, third, second, fifth, then first, third, second, fifth … over and over again, as if there were no other notes in the piece, well aware of this however, and of the other passages that could trip him up. A seven-year old was playing a march from the little book of Anna Magdalena Bach, then two other children, then his turn.

This really is tiresome, Julia Phillips whispered to her husband, sitting in the back of the school auditorium. We should have told him ahead of time.

And ruin his concert? her husband whispered back.

It’s so remote.

Still.

I suppose you’re right.

Lt. Colonel Nathan Phillips found his wife essentially intolerable. He tended to cringe in her company and thought, if he had more time, he might have an affair, although in fifteen years of marriage, he had never found the time. He was certain that once Ethan and Abby were grown, a divorce was inevitable. He could never fathom why she had married him in the first place. She didn’t seem to like him particularly, nor did her family. Maybe it was to spite them. That was more in her character.

All of this was true. Julia didn’t like him particularly, nor did her family. She wasn’t sure why she had married him, but spiting her family was certainly a part of it. Of course, he was a handsome captain at the time, with two rows of ribbons on his chest, although none of them for bravery, or for any military action whatsoever, but she didn’t know that at the time. To her mother, the military was the moral equivalent of the KKK, a collection of Southern Baptist bigots armed with nuclear weapons. To her father, who had actually served during the Korean War (though not, fortunately, in Korea), Captain Phillips was a career officer who was clearly going nowhere. Marrying Julia, and therefore the Beekman family, was probably good for a promotion on social grounds, but he would not get much farther. He didn’t have the stuff.

At the moment, she was not thinking of Nathan, however. She was impatient to get this concert over and done with, so she could concentrate on the problems ahead, the search for the appropriate lawyer, the legal ramifications, what strings to pull. She wondered if Nathan had any pull whatsoever. As a public relations officer, he had access to generals and the media, but whether he could get them on his side was another matter. He was potentially useful but she couldn’t count on him. Her mind was running through the possibilities.

Ethan was next. He peered out from the side of the wings and saw his parents and Abby sitting together but separately, as if they didn’t know one another. Abby was bored, but that was to be expected. She was ten, deeply committed to horses and cats, and would rather be anywhere but here. His father was listening politely but seemed worried. His mother was barely in the auditorium. She wasn’t even looking at little Meredith, who was playing a Schubert march with great élan, if not technique. He was next. But now he wasn’t sure if he could bring his parents together, no matter how well he played.

The march was over. A cheer went up from Meredith’s numerous family, a whistle from her older brother and polite applause from the rest of the audience. Mr. Panicotis, his teacher, thanked Meredith and announced that Ethan Phillips, age eleven, would play a Chopin nocturne. As Ethan walked up to the piano and adjusted the seat, all thought of his parents left his mind. He was concentrating on the 24-note sequence one last time - first finger, third finger, second finger, fifth finger, then second, third, second, fifth, then first, third, second, fifth …

He had played this piano only once before, at the rehearsal this afternoon. The action was slightly harder than Mr. Panicotis’ piano, or the upright he used at home. It would require a little more pressure on the keys than he was used to. But the tone was slightly softer, which might make the sequence seem smoother and more feathery. It was the right piano for a nocturne, he felt.

Abby was all attention now. It took a lot of courage to get in front of an audience like this and she was aware he expected his performance to unite their parents somehow. There wasn’t much hope of that, she thought, but she had to admire her brother anyway, even though he wasn’t her real brother, since he was adopted a year before she was born. Still, she was proud of him. He was popular and athletic but never treated her as if she was a nuisance, like the older brothers of so many of her friends.

The start of the nocturne went better than expected. The twelve-note introduction in the bass had the right feel to it, soft, metronomically precise, without any ragged edges. And when the melody came in, and then more and more elaborate ornamentations of the melody, he became utterly immersed in the music and forgot to be afraid of the difficult passages. Even more than that, he felt the music as never before, he got it, which was a totally novel sensation.

He’s really playing quite well, thought Julia, now attentive.

He had almost perfectly executed a difficult transitional passage of thirteen thirty-second notes, marked leggierissimo, which had always caused him trouble in his practice sessions. Next came irregular timings, ornamentations in thirds and sixths, and a huge crescendo leading back to the main theme. Now the moment was at hand.

Nathan was on the edge of his seat, so apprehensive of disaster that he could scarcely appreciate the beauty of his son’s playing.

Ethan had reached the final series of sixteenth notes leading up to the passage. He was no longer thinking. His fingers went into the trill that opened the passage and his fingers literally flew off the keys. First finger, third finger, second finger, fifth finger, then second, third, second, fifth, then first, third, second, fifth … He was playing them perfectly, prestissimo, with a brilliance he had never imagined himself capable of, the feathery touch, the bell-like resonance …

Except that his fingers never touched the keys. The notes, the brilliance, the flawless execution, were entirely in Ethan’s head. To the audience, it seemed like a gigantic mistake, as if he had lost his way.

Ethan snapped out of his reverie on the final note of the passage and realized immediately what he had done. And the force of the realization made him miss the next passage entirely. He forgot the fingering of the ornamentations that followed and only got back on track in the final coda. The last run of the nocturne was an exercise in timing, with six notes in the left hand playing against seven in the right. Here Ethan fell apart and omitted the left hand entirely. The worst of it was that he couldn’t find the chord that ended the piece and changed an e to an e flat, which obliterated any beauty that remained.

They put in a brief, mandatory appearance at the celebratory party afterwards and drove home in silence. Abby was sent to bed and Ethan stopped in the kitchen for a milk before turning in.

Ethan, could you come in the livingroom for a moment? said his mother.

His parents looked as if they were about to announce a death in the family.

I’m sorry, mom, dad, he started. I practiced over and over …

It has nothing to do with that, said his mother. She took out a letter and handed it to Ethan. We received this in the mail this morning.

He skimmed the letter, which was some sort of a legal notice, in language he couldn’t understand without concentrating. What is this?

Nathan tried to soften the blow. You know you’re adopted, of course. When we took you from the hospital, you were only a few days old. It was one of the great days of our life.

Ethan acknowledged this without comprehending.

You’re our son and we love you very much, he went on, haltingly. But sometimes legal matters get in the way.

I don’t understand, said Ethan.

Your birth mother wants you back, said Julia.

Chapter 3.

The law stipulates that, no matter what their crime, prisoners sentenced to twenty years or more must be kept in a maximum-security facility. So even though Andrew Hart was a white collar criminal, convicted of stock manipulation and the like, he was placed with murderers, rapists, gangsters and terrorists in a huge, concrete city ruled by gangs in Vernon, New York. As the warden had lost nearly half his savings through Andrew’s fraudulent accounting system, he was not inclined to offer an iota of protection or a prison job suitable for a financial genius.

Andrew did hard time. Although he was tall, fairly muscular and in excellent shape for a man of forty-three, he was no match for the monsters inside. Not being black, Hispanic or Arab, the only group he could align himself with was the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist group responsible for more murders inside the prison than any other gang.

It was not a comfortable alliance. He held none of the group’s cherished beliefs, nor did he share their paranoia over the Jewish conspiracy or their concern with the purity of the white race. He had been an equal opportunity defrauder and took the savings of all mankind, regardless of race, creed, color or national origin. His last wife, the mother of a child he had never seen, was Puerto Rican. His mistress at the time was a black model. The circles he moved in made no distinction between Christian and Jew. The Aryan Brotherhood was the last group he would have joined on his own. But after a few beatings and rapes, he was glad to do their bidding and earn their protection.

The place was insane, worse than anything he could have imagined. Somewhere between his fourth and fifth year, living a life of terrified pretence, without a single civilized soul to confide in, he found Jesus. He gave up any pretence of rationality and found solace in the Bible, which he read with an intensity born of desperation, as if he could blot out the prison. He mumbled prayers when his superiors in the Brotherhood threatened or beat him. He recited psalms when he was required to endure sex. He saw himself as a sinner, rightfully punished for his transgressions. In all that time, he had no visitors, except his lawyer, and received no mail, except legal forms. His mother and father were long dead, and his relatives would have nothing to do with him. He was forgotten by everyone except Jesus.

By the time he was up for parole, after eleven years, he longed to see his family, to cherish his wife and raise his children. But which family? He had two children by the first wife, two by the second and the third had been pregnant when he was sent to jail. As far as he knew, he was still married to Angela but she had never contacted him. She could have miscarried and he would never have known. He didn’t lust after any of his wives; prison had cured him of sexual desire, as he equated it with pain and humiliation without an iota of pleasure. He envisioned his three wives and the four children he knew about, all somewhere between five and twelve, singing hymns in a country church.

God answered none of his prayers and this troubled him, because he thought he was being sincere and godly in what he asked for. But it did not shake his essential faith, which was simplistic and pacific. He did not share the Aryan creed of almost universal hatred, nor did he believe in a day of judgment when God would cast impure whites and all others into hell. In fact, he didn’t believe in hell, and the vengeful and bloodthirsty parts of the Bible he regarded as primitive and a misreading of the truth, possibly even a mistranslation of the actual words. His faith was selective and basically a way to eradicate the present.

In the months before his parole hearing and eventual release, he found time to contact his former wives. Evelyn, his first wife, who had two children by Andrew and another two by her second husband, was not delighted to get his phone call.

So you’re out, she said.

Not quite. My parole hearing comes up in April.

I sincerely hope you fail, she said. What do you want from me?

I want to see my children when I get out.

They’re not children anymore. One’s in grad school and the other’s working. Anything else?

I hadn’t realized … Still, I’d like to see them.

They don’t live here but if they did, I wouldn’t let you near them.

Will you tell me their address? I could find it you know.

Andy, you’re a monster. You cheated on me, you neglected your children, when you dumped us, we had to take you to court to support us and then you tried to wriggle out of it. Not to mention defrauding hundreds of thousands of people out of their savings. Why should we have anything to do with you?

I’ve changed.

Get lost, Andy. She hung up.

The call to Brittany, his second wife, went no better. But he did manage to shock her.

Are they enrolled in a Christian college? he asked, without thinking.

You’re not serious, said Brittany.

I am.

Have you forgotten I’m Jewish.

You don’t practice it.

True, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to introduce my children to the Virgin Mary.

Brittany, I’d like to talk to you about this when I get out.

Not a chance in hell.

I’m their father.

You wouldn’t recognize them if you saw them on the street.

No, but I’d like to get to know them. I’ve changed. I’m not the same person I was.

Asking if they’re in a Christian college doesn’t bode well for the change.

Brit, I’ve just spent eleven years in hell.

Andy, if you call me again, or make any attempt to contact my children, I’ll tell your parole board you’ve been harassing me. I’d thoroughly enjoy that.

Of his third wife, Angela, he found no trace whatsoever. He called his lawyer at the time, who contacted a few ex-friends who might have known her, but no one had heard of her. She’d been carrying his child – he seemed to remember it was almost due – perhaps that was why she wasn’t in the court when he was led away by the guards.

When he called the hospital, they had no record of a child born eleven years before to a woman named Angela Hart.

Try Angela Santiago, that was her maiden name, although I don’t know why she’d use it.

Let me see. Yes, a boy born November 7th.

A boy you say? Was there a name on the birth certificate?

We can’t give out that information.

I’m his father.

You’ll have to come in and verify that. We’ll need some form of picture I.D. and your marriage license.

Okay, said Andrew. "But can you tell me what happened to them?

It doesn’t give that information.

He now had his life’s work cut out for him. To make contact with his children and win their love - a well-nigh impossible task, but then God helps those who attempt the impossible.

Chapter 4.

The court session that would determine Ethan’s future was two days away. As a public relations officer, Nathan had access to generals and staff officers, city, state and federal officials, members of Congress and the media. It was easy for him to arrange a press conference, field questions, give information and arrange for favorable articles in the press, but when it came to advocating for the child he had raised since infancy, none of his contacts bore anything more than sympathy. The only person of any help at all was Amos Bradley, an old friend and a Captain in the Judge Advocate General’s office, who told him it would be an uphill battle to keep a child from his natural mother.

Unless you can prove that the mother is a drug addict, or insane, judges don’t like to take children away from their birth mothers.

What do you mean, ‘take away?’ said Nathan. She gave him up at birth. She didn’t want to have anything to do with him. How can she all of a sudden decide she wants to take him?

Nat, you’ve got to prepare yourself, said Amos. You may lose Ethan. Maybe you can work some deal where you get to see him.

There’s nothing else I can do?

You can always hope for a sympathetic judge.

Could you find out who it’s going to be?

Easily.

Julia, meanwhile, had discovered that the judge was a fifty-two-year-old woman named Barbara Landau, who had worked on the family court for ten years and was known to be sympathetic to poor mothers. Her sympathy had reverberated on her disastrously at times because, in a few cases, the child she had returned to a mother had been beaten to death by the mother’s boyfriend. This was obviously a sore point, which could be nuanced to their advantage.

Ethan put it out of his mind completely. He had a social studies project on Chile to think about, a school play, a math competition, the school paper, band practice, basketball practice, a full spectrum of pre-adolescent suburban existence. He gave no thought whatsoever to the impending trial, or hearing, or whatever it was, other than its inconvenience in the middle of basketball season.

When, in the middle of the night before the hearing, he found himself awake, listening to the frogs outside his window, nothing came to mind. There were no images to conjure up. He drifted back to sleep.

In the morning, lying in his bed with his eyes open, he wondered if his real mother’s skin was as dark as his, midway between black and white. Was she short or tall, rich or poor? Why did she want him? Why now? Why take him away from his comfortable, happy-ish, albeit imperfect but cherished life?

Did I have a father? he asked at breakfast.

We were told he was not available to take care of you, said Julia.

"What does that mean, not available? That he didn’t want me, either?"

I don’t know, Ethan. Perhaps he was sick or had some incurable disease, perhaps your mother didn’t know who the father was, perhaps you were a test tube baby - we were never told.

Abby, who was intensely curious about the possibilities, suggested that perhaps he was lost in the jungle.

Yes, that’s probably it, agreed Ethan, cheerfully.

Chapter 5.

The Federal Penitentiary at Piñion, Montana, was one of the Supermax prisons, constructed to hold the worst of the worst, prisoners who could not be controlled in a normal, maximum-security prison. This definition was bent arbitrarily to include political prisoners, high profile cases, Moslems who went straight from trial to Supermax, and some prisoners who were not violent at all but somehow slipped through the cracks and were given the ultimate punishment on an administrative whim. For example, one prisoner, a small, rather harmless Jamaican, convicted for credit-card fraud, languished for six years in solitary confinement and emerged insane. The majority, however, were as lethal as they were cracked up to be, members of prison gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood, the Mexican Mafia, the Bloods and Crips, men who had killed frequently and without remorse.

At Piñion, as with all the Supermaxes, no attempt was made to rehabilitate the prisoners – that would have been useless anyway – the program was to keep them from killing other people until they were released or died. While this could have been accomplished with regular injections of powerful drugs, the Supermax idea was to keep them in solitary confinement in tiny cells 23 hours a day, with an hour of solitary exercise in a walled-in yard. Penalties for disobeying even minor rules were, in essence, torture. The beds in the cells were equipped with grommets at the four corners where prisoners could be strapped down spread-eagled and immobilized, beaten, crushed, water-boarded, maced, tased, or whatever else the guards deemed proper and necessary. A few prisoners died from this treatment but, by and large, they were a hardy crew and managed to survive Supermax with most of their faculties and all of their anger intact.

Barbara Landau drove the 55 miles from the airport in Butte to Piñion on the first Wednesday of every month. As a judge, she was spared the ordeal of most visitors who were searched, prodded, herded together and ritually harassed. She was required to fill out the visiting forms and have her hand stamped, however. At the prison entrance, she was greeted by the Assistant Warden and conducted through the various checkpoints to a bare concrete vault with two chairs are either side of a glass window. She took her seat and waited while a buzzer sounded, a heavy door on the other side slid opened and two guards emerged leading a rotund, little man in his 60’s who seemed to be entangled in a thrall of chains. Expertly, the guards removed his legs irons and waist irons and guided him to his chair, where his handcuffs were removed and a chain fastened from his waist to a loop next to the window.

Artie Landau had been convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to 5-10 years in a minimum-security prison in Pennsylvania. This was after Barbara had been elected a judge of the New York family court and the embarrassment was acute. Still, he had been a loving husband, paid for law school, supported her financially and spiritually during her long term as a minimally paid Assistant District Attorney, and, up until his incarceration at Piñion, still had the power to amuse her.

At the minimum-security prison, he had been in the vicinity of a violent assault, framed for it, and transferred to maximum security in Vernon, New York, where he met Andrew Hart briefly. One day he was moved to Piñion and placed in the H-Unit – total solitary. He had no idea why he was transferred – he had been at Vernon less than a month – he assumed he was the victim of mistaken identity or an administrative slipup. He complained and was beaten. There was nothing he could do about it. The warden made the decision based on the assessment of the guards. There was no court of appeal. Artie’s only hope was Barbara, and, after two years of trying, she found there were limits to what a New York family court judge could accomplish in a Federal prison system. In a word, nothing.

He had been at Piñion two years, with three more to go on his sentence, which had been increased for his part on the assault at Vernon. Piñion had broken him. The first two times he had seen Barbara, he was at first unable to speak. He cried intermittently between hysterical rants until Barbara couldn’t take it anymore and left, although she could have stayed longer.

Today, he was hyper. He tapped the window as he picked up the phone they used to communicate, as if he wanted to make sure he had her full attention.

Did you talk to the warden? he said, without smiling or even greeting Barbara.

He’s not here, she said, I talked to his assistant.

He won’t see you?

That’s possible.

What else can we do?

In fact, Barbara had done quite a bit. She had discussed Artie’s case with a Supreme Court justice, two other federal judges, a Senator, two Congressmen, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the regional director and several influential reporters who all said they would look into the situation and offered hope. As it turned out, this made everything worse. Prisoners who made too many appeals or who tried to use their connections were viewed as troublemakers and treated accordingly. At one point, Barbara had to tell a Montana judge to stop making inquiries.

"I can make a case in the media. Maybe the Times would send someone to interview you."

They’d kill me.

Barbara nodded. Barbara and Artie both knew there was nothing anyone could do. Supermax prisons and the brutality they embodied were pet government projects, enthusiastically endorsed by both Republicans and Democrats, who wanted to appear hard on crime, and by prison officials and penologists, who viewed them as a way to control intractable prisoners. Once caught in the system, Artie really had two choices: live by the rules, as arbitrary and whimsical as they might be, or die.

Since there was really nothing of substance to discuss, Barbara talked of home, of mutual friends, a new baby in the family, a hospitalized cousin, a play, her women’s book group, her yoga class and even the loneliness of life without him. She got no response. His mind was understandably elsewhere.

I have an interesting case coming up next week, she said, to fill the silence. A mother gave up her son at birth and now, eleven years later, she wants him back. She told him a few details about the case, the boy, Jesus, and the other children involved, Abby, Rosario, Ramon.

She had no idea why this should perk his interest – she had to try something – it looked like he was going to cry again. Getting no response, she made a move to leave.

Has the mother been thinking about the son she gave up all these years? The mistake she made? he said, snapping out of his lethargy.

I suppose so, she said, surprised.

I know all about mistakes.

If we could only take them back, she said.

You can’t do anything for me. Perhaps you can do something for her, he said, sadly.

As she entered the courtroom that Wednesday, and watched the assembly rise, her face lit upon the mother in question, soberly dressed in black, looking lonely and nervous, and Artie’s remark came back to her.

Chapter 6.

The day of the hearing, Ethan went to school as usual, as his case wasn’t due to be heard until that afternoon. Although he was mildly curious what his biological mother looked like, mainly to put a face on the tawny skin that he had inherited, he didn’t think much about the possible consequences of the hearing. He would miss a play rehearsal at lunch, basketball practice that afternoon and a piano lesson before dinner, but that was the extent of the inconvenience. When one of his teammates, a boy called Scooter, asked him why he’d miss practice he just muttered something about it having to do with his mother.

Like what? asked Scooter.

Nothing. My birth mother turned up, that’s about it.

He was known to have been adopted and therefore not considered an attractive child by the mothers of his friends, accepted for the impeccable ancestry of his adopted parents but only tolerated by mothers looking for proper companions for their children. His real parents were unknown; his real name certainly wasn’t Ethan, possibly Juan, from the darkish tint of his skin, and he would probably turn out to be untrustworthy.

This view was not shared by his friends, or the fathers of his friends, or his teachers, who generally found him bright, brave, articulate, sportsmanlike and perhaps more honest than most children his age. One of the more popular boys in the 6th Grade at Briarcliff Middle School, he had no obvious faults except a disinclination for junk food. He was teased as a health food freak, not merely because he hated McDonalds but because he actually seemed to like broccoli and lettuce, even Brussels sprouts.

"That’s about it? said Scooter. That’s about the most important thing in your life! You could be taken away and have to live with a whole new family!"

This had no effect on Ethan. It was too far-fetched to contemplate. See you tomorrow at Stupid’s. They shared a preschool accelerated math program run by a teacher who was reputedly a genius – hence, Stupid.

You may not be here tomorrow, said Scooter.

You may not either, replied Ethan, pointedly ignoring the possibility.

Ethan was not being particularly obtuse. His life was so incredibly rich, between classes and clubs, sports and music, a coterie of admiring friends, a star status among his basketball teammates, a quick intelligence appreciated by all, the confidence and self-possession of a boy who felt secure in the world of the suburban privileged, that he might be excused from contemplating the possibility that this could all be gone in the flash of a judicial degree.

Chapter 7.

At the appointed time, Ethan entered the courtroom between both his parents, holding their hands like a small child. Their lawyer, Enders Pierce, met them at the door and escorted them to one of the two tables in front of the judge’s bench.

The room was empty. There was a dark painting of New York harbor in the 18th Century on the wall behind the judge’s seat, which seemed endlessly fascinating to Ethan. There was so much to take in, so many little houses and boats, small farms, tiny figures dotting the land and boats, textures and rhythms that Ethan found himself temporarily mesmerized.

Soon, the court stenographer walked in and took her place, followed by various court officers. A gray-haired man in a rumpled suit walked in with a thin, swarthy, tough-looking woman who chatted with him in a language he didn’t understand. He assumed it was Spanish or Italian. The woman stared at him as she and her lawyer took their places at the second table. That couldn’t possibly be her, thought Ethan.

Nathan and Julia were as nervous as he had ever seen them. They couldn’t stop touching him, hugging him, stroking his shoulder, patting his head, squeezing his hand, and this, more than anything else, convinced him that this hearing was real, serious and something to be feared. His parents conferred with Enders as he watched the woman huddling with her lawyer. She was about 45, scrawny, wearing a black dress which seemed too tight for her despite her thinness, as if it had been made for someone else, possibly a dress she had picked up at a second-hand store. She might have been attractive at one time but her most salient feature was the hardness in her expression, together with a certain wariness. Ethan thought she had the face of a criminal.

All rise, said the court clerk.

Barbara walked in and, without more than a glance at the two parties standing at her entrance, understood the dynamics of the case. The birth mother was poor; the adopted parents were rich. The boy was totally acclimatized to the lifestyle of his adopted parents. Leaving them would be traumatic. Clearly, it was in the best interests of the child to remain with the adoptive parents. But if she ruled against the poor, seemingly underprivileged, birth mother, the media could have a field day with what seemed like an obvious bias. As to whether the birth mother had the right to change her mind, eleven years later, the law was ambiguous on the point, or rather it was clear but could be circumvented. She waved the court back to their seats. Does your client need an interpreter? she said to the birth mother’s lawyer.

No, your honor. Although it’s not her first language, Mrs. Hart is fluent in English.

That establishes her Hispanic heritage, thought Barbara, which would make it doubly difficult politically to deny her custody, and that she was legally married at the time she gave birth, although the name on the petition was Santiago. Also, that she had taken the trouble to learn English fluently, which established a respectable work ethic. Smart lawyer. She wondered how the mother could afford him.

The opening statement of Angela’s lawyer electrified Ethan. The lawyer, Sam Ortega, kept referring to someone named, Jesus, pronounced Hey-Zeus. Who’s that? he asked Julia.

That’s you, she said. The name she gave you at birth.

For the first time, he learned that his father was alive but in jail, that his last name was, Hart, that he was half-Anglo, half-Puerto Rican, that he had a half-brother named Ramon and a half-sister named Rosario, that the language in the Hart/Santiago household was Spanish.

She made a terrible mistake, Sam argued. She was young, victimized by a man who thought nothing of defrauding his own family, of betraying the trust of thousands of innocent people. At the moment of birth, she found herself alone, penniless, turned out of her home, without any means of supporting a baby. Did she want to give him up? Of course not. She had no choice …

He went on in this melodramatic fashion until Barbara waved him down and nodded that she understood. What she understood was that he wanted the melodrama written into the court record to be read by a clerk at a possible appeal, and by any reporters who happened to be following the case.

Angela took the stand and confirmed what her lawyer had said in a soft, hesitant voice, rife with emotions, with a trace of an accent. To Barbara, it seemed like a carefully calculated performance building to an undeniably powerful conclusion: Angela had undergone the pain of childbirth, had been forced by circumstances beyond her control to give up her firstborn and now wanted what was the right of any mother, to have full custody of her child.

A social worker testified that she had visited the Hart/Santiago household at East 128th Street and found it clean, neat, appliances in working order, spacious enough to accommodate Jesus as well as the other two children, without any evidence of drug paraphernalia. She had interviewed the 9-year old daughter, Rosario, and found her to be in good health and spirits, Unfortunately, the son, Ramon, 5, was probably autistic and wouldn’t respond to her questions.

Ortega summed up his client’s case by acknowledging the initial uneasiness Jesus might experience fitting into a new, less affluent family, but that the warmth and love of his real mother – something no mere surrogate parent could appreciate - would more than compensate for this. He cited several cases that supported this view, including Barbara’s own opinions in similar cases. He ended by asking for full custody, without the debilitating influence of visiting rights by his adopted parents, which could only emphasize the disparity of their incomes and circumstances and lead to unhappiness.

The case for the Phillips family was predictable. Enders Pierce said that this was the only family that Ethan had ever known, where he was loved, accepted, part of a structured, orderly life, with advantages that he could not get living in Spanish Harlem (a fatal mistake, Barbara thought.) He spoke of Ethan’s achievements at school, his piano recital, his basketball exploits, his love for his sister and adoptive parents. He presented school reports, evidence of immunizations, dental checkups, attendance at Sunday School, articles in the local paper, all attesting to the richness of his life in Briarcliff.

So much was obvious, even Angela’s lawyer conceded the advantages of wealthy, suburban life. Barbara was waiting for Enders to get around to the legal issues and when he did, he didn’t seem particularly well prepared. In fact, both lawyers had ignored several critical matters. She called both lawyers to the bench.

Since you haven’t submitted a termination of parental rights, I assume we have an abandoned baby, she said to Sam.

Here’s the deal, your honor, said Sam. My client was distraught at the time. She left the baby at the hospital without signing the papers.

And the biological father?

He doesn’t even know a baby exists.

So he couldn’t have signed a legal termination of his rights.

It’s a moot point if the biological mother wants him back, isn’t it?

Possibly.

Also, you yourself argued that imprisonment was sufficient grounds for termination of parental rights.

I’m aware of that, said Barbara, irritably. Those were totally different circumstances.

What about the rights of the adoptive parents? asked Enders. "They adopted the baby in good faith, expecting to raise the child without interference from the courts or from a mother who decides one day she doesn’t want the child, one day she does want the child. What if she changes her mind again?"

This is getting more and more complicated by the minute, said Barbara.

Why don’t we hear from the child, offered Enders.

Obviously, he’s going to say how great it is with his adoptive parents, said Sam. What’s the point?

He has a right to be heard.

I’m going to allow that, said Barbara, but it won’t have a bearing on the legal issues. And, Mr. Ortega, I’m going to ask you to establish the mental state of Mrs. Hart at the time of the abandonment. Doctors, nurses …

It’s been eleven years … said Sam.

The case took three days to resolve. Ethan found it difficult to follow – there were so many conferences between the judge and the lawyers and at times he found himself nodding out. He couldn’t get used to the idea that the Hey-Zeus they were talking about was actually him. How could they name him after the head of the Christian religion? It was absurd.

When it was his turn to speak, he surprised no one by answering all of Enders questions with an unequivocal yes. Did he want to stay where he was? Did he love his adopted parents? Did they love him? Was he happy in school? Did he expect to go to college? Did he think his parents brought him up to be honest, moral, reverent, essentially the sum of all the Boy Scout virtues?

Sam didn’t seem interested in questioning him. Reluctantly, lackadaisically, he asked him if there was any difference in the way Nathan and Julia treated him from the way they treated Abby.

No, said Ethan, not sure why the question