From the previous section:
She’d have a family again, something she hadn’t had in three years. Someone special to love and be loved by. She hadn’t known how much she needed it until she lost her sister. But her sister was gone. She wanted a family, someone to love. Abby would be her family.
Just a few weeks. A meeting with Rachel Greene next week, and then two weeks until Abby could live with her.
She smiled and once again began to concentrate on the instructor.
*
“Hello, this is Laurie…Hi, Shina…Really? She got it through? That’s great!…Monday, five o’clock… I’ll tell Ruth Ann I need a sub for the afternoon…Oh, that’s right, you’re going on vacation till the eighth of July. Have fun!…Thanks so much! All righty, bye bye.”
Laurie let out a small whoop of joy, startling Maya under the bed.
And now....
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In these next few sections, you’ll note I have taken a little liberty with the HoL timeline, etc. I’ve also taken a bit of liberty with Jimmy and Lucy.
Chapter IV- Disappearing Acts
*** Monday, June 16th, 1997 ***
This was it. The one final day. The last barrier before Abby would be hers, not legally, but in spirit. One last meeting before Abby could come live with Laurie. That was all. Everything was perfect at Laurie’s house, everything absolutely clean. Abby’s room was decorated and filled with toys and clothes. She knew it would be two more weeks before Abby would be living there, but it didn’t matter. Only one more barrier.
Her voice quavered slightly. “I’m Laurie Smith,” she addressed the secretary behind the desk. Although young and inexperienced, the secretary already had the “don’t-bother-me-I’m-busy” look of every government worker. “I’m here to see Rachel Greene.” The woman still seemed to ignore her.
Finally she looked up. “Third door on the right.”
“Thank you.” Laurie moved towards the hallway, a mass of people, files, and assorted bins. All the doors were open; shouting, also known as government discussion, filled the air. She passed another hall that branched off to the left, and two that forked right. Did those count as doors?
Bewildered, she stood in the middle of the hallway, the river of confusion fighting past either side of her. She didn’t particularly want to go back to the front desk and ask directions again, but she also was about as lost as a zebra in the rainforest. A woman in a lime green business suit ran past her, chasing someone else at the distant end of the hall.
“Rachel? Rachel! I have the files on the Thayer case.” Laurie followed her. The lime green woman caught the person she was chasing passing off the files. “Here. Good riddance.”
Just as “Rachel” was about to rush off again, Laurie worked up her courage. “Are you Rachel Greene?”
The woman turned to face Laurie, her blonde hair swinging as she did so. “That’d be me.”
Laurie stretched out her hand. “I’m Laurie Smith.”
Ms. Greene took it. “Pleased to meet you. You’re here about Abby Martin, right?”
Laurie nodded her affirmative.
“Okay, give me two seconds to race these files upstairs. My office is,” she pointed down the hectic aisle way, “that one.” Laurie nodded again and moved towards it.
The inside of the office was more chaotic, if that was possible, than the outside. Evidently Rachel Greene shared the space with two other women. All three desks were piled high with paperwork and Laurie truly wondered how they could find their keyboards. She found a chair and sat down, letting out some of the tightness in her shoulders as she did so.
Ms. Greene breezed into the room a few minutes later, settling herself behind the desk and moving a stack of post-it note covered papers to the floor. She scrabbled around her desk, looking for a file, and then turned to the stack she had just moved. Extracting a dog-eared case-file from the mess she sat back up.
She set it on the table and opened it up. Laurie began to get the impression that Rachel Greene was stalling.
“Ms. Greene?” The social worker on the other side of the desk looked up briefly. “I was told that today we could finalize Abby Martin’s move to my house.”
Across the desk, Ms. Greene cleared her throat. “I’m terribly sorry, Miss Smith, but that won’t be possible.”
“Won’t be possible?” Laurie echoed.
“I’m truly sorry, but Abby Martin’s case was transferred to another social worker this morning.”
Incredulously, Laurie asked, “this morning?”
“Yes.” She pulled a sheet of paper out of the file she was holding and slid it across the table. “My supervisor informed me this morning that Abby’s mother, Lissa Martin, had petitioned to have her child placed in the home of a friend. Apparently the petition went through last Friday.”
“Why wasn’t I told about this?” Laurie demanded, well on the way to becoming irate.
Ms. Greene shrugged. “I’m sorry, but even I wasn’t told about it. My supervisor dealt with it – she usually deals with petitions about custody – and she forgot to tell me about it. The case has been transferred to another social worker specialized in family and friend placements.”
“Is there any chance that I will get custody of Abby?” She had to know.
“Not much, I’m sorry. The petition has been agreed to, they just have to finalize the adoption now. It’s as set in stone as it’s going to be without the final signature.”
Laurie collapsed backwards into her chair. “When will it be official?”
“Within the next couple of weeks, I suppose. The petition has been on file for over ten months.”
“Ten months?”
“Yes, and they’ve covered all their steps legally. They only need to see a judge now.”
“Ten months! And no one informed you?”
“No.”
“And that’s not unusual?”
“No, it’s fairly commonplace. Look, Miss Smith, we do our best, but we have a lot of cases to deal with.”
“Right. Cases.” Laurie stood up.
Ms. Greene stood up, too. “I’m sorry that you won’t be able to adopt Abby.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Laurie stalked out of the room, Rachel Greene’s last statement ringing in her ears.
*** Tuesday, June 17th, 1997 ***
It was still ringing in her ears the next morning. Was the foster care system really that unorganized? She immediately discarded the thought. Eighty percent of the students she worked with were foster children. The system was doing just fine with them. So there had been a communication glitch?
It was the only explanation that made any kind of sense. And she supposed it did make sense, in a perverse sort of way. In a very evil and twisted perverse sort of way. In the sort of way that can ruin someone’s dreams. In the sort of way that did ruin someone’s dream.
Why did there have to be a communication glitch about Abby? Why not about someone no one was planning to adopt? It wasn’t fair. At all. Laurie was starting to get her life back together. She was going to have a family, someone special, just for her.
Someone to love, someone who couldn’t hurt her back. Well, Abby could have rebelled and run away at some point, but even that would be better than the life Laurie had left behind. She wanted someone who needed her, she wanted to be needed.
“Miss Laurie?”
She had passed all the tests with flying colors - and the home inspector had given her house the highest safety rating. She’d taken sign language classes, and mothering classes, foster parent classes, and classes coming out her ears. She had wanted Abby so badly she would’ve done anything for her.
“Miss Laurie?” More insistently this time.
Laurie had seen past the quietness into the heart of a little girl who longed to smile and talk with people, but no one had ever talked with her. Most people wouldn’t waste their time learning sign language to converse with a deaf foster child that no one cared about. But Laurie cared. She wanted Abby to be her daughter. Then some stupid supervisor somewhere screwed up.
“MISS LAURIE?” Laurie suddenly came back from her thoughts. Sally stared up at her.
“Yes Sally, you may have more crackers.” With a whoop of excitement the 3 year old dashed for the cracker bowl.
Laurie glanced around the room and reached for the Ibuprofen bottle. Sammie had taken Kate to the bathroom…or something. At any rate, the room was in a chaotic mess. Crackers were being put into the puppets and the crayons were being used to draw masterpieces on the linoleum floor by the door.
“Mine!”
“I had it first!”
“Ouch!”
“MISS LAURIE!” This last exclamation came from both Robert and Emily- each feeling very self-righteous. Emily flung herself at her teacher, bawling the whole time.
“He took my blocks and knocked down my tower and hit me and…”
“Did not! I had the blocks first!”
“Did not!”
“Both of you be quiet!” Silence descended rather rapidly.
“I’ll take the blocks now. Then there’s nothing to fight about.” The children started to protest, but a stern look from Laurie silenced them abruptly. In fact, all her children silenced rather abruptly.
Their teacher was rarely cross with them. She grimaced. It wasn’t their fault that some idiotic state worker somewhere had screwed up her life. They were just being kids. She took a deep breath.
“Emily, you take these blocks and play right there. Robert, you take these blocks and play over here. There, is that better?”
The children continued to stare at her with wide eyes, not moving. Exasperated, she put the blocks down and moved towards the mess being made on the linoleum.
“Time to clean up,” she ordered firmly.
“But dis my pishure!” Protestations came from the three toddlers hunched over their crayons.
“It’s a lovely picture, Jenny. But we’re going to clean it up now.”
“Nooooooo!” It was amazing how long children could scream without taking a breath.
Laurie grabbed a handful of paper towels, wetting them down with cleaning solution. “Here, this is a magic eraser.” Her voice dropped like she was letting them in on a secret. “It magically makes pictures disappear.”
Three pairs of hands grabbed for the paper towels, anxious to try out the magic. Magic was very cool. Disappearing magic was cooler. Unless it was about a certain brunette three year old who was no longer in Laurie’s class. If it was about that child, it most definitely was not cool.
*** Tuesday, June 17th, 1997 ***
Three pictures hung on the wall. One, a photo of a young woman, beaming cheekily at the camera. Her russet hair hung, curling, to her mid-back and her eyes twinkled in amusement.
The middle photo was of a grinning young man, his hair two shades darker than the woman on the right, his dark eyes sparkling with held in laughter.
The photo on the left was of a vivacious, dark haired woman who seemed intent upon something, serious next to the other likenesses, though a small smile played round her lips.
Underneath the simply framed photos were three title plates and a plaque.
Lucy Lane – Killed while on assignment, May 8th, 1994
Jimmy Olsen - Killed while on assignment, May 8th, 1994
Lois Lane – Killed May 9th, 1994
For three wonderful friends the Planet will never forget.
Clark moodily examined each photo in turn, fingering the nameplates below them as he did so.
“Clark?” Clark didn’t respond as Kyle entered the conference room. “I have the info on – oh.” The young assistant stopped talking, but didn’t exit the room. As Clark’s fingers swept round each simple black frame, he could feel Kyle moving closer behind him.
“I never got to meet them. Not any of them.” The young man was right behind Clark now, looking at each picture slowly. “I’ve heard so many stories, listened to so many rumors. But I never got to meet them.”
Clark’s voice was husky. “You would have liked Jimmy. He loved his job, even though he complained. And no matter what the others said, he was a brilliant photographer. He was always cheerful, always up for anything you set before him. He chased girls around, but it was all in fun, and they knew it.
“Perry was like his dad. Hard on him, but with a heart that would do anything for the boy. Jimmy always wanted to help out and was always ready to cheer you up. He took all the jobs no one else wanted.
“That was how he died, helping someone else. The more senior photographers didn’t want to cover what was a supposedly a routine house fire. So Jimmy went.”
“I wish I could have met him,” Kyle interjected quietly.
“You’d have liked Lucy, too. She was a wild party girl who loved everyone. She was always looking out for Lois, trying to get her to take more time off of work. She loved her, even if she didn’t show it that well.
“She was much more outgoing than Lois was. The whole newsroom loved her. She was with Jimmy when he went to take the photos of the fire. The stupid fire was even out. They let Jimmy into the building to take pictures of the damage.”
Clark’s voice began to crack. “No one knew that Intergang had planted a bomb in the building. No one knew it would explode, killing everyone in the building. No one knew…”
Kyle stood behind Clark awkwardly. Clark was still staring at the pictures and the younger man was unsure what to do.
“Lois…was Lois. She was gorgeous and vivacious, fervent in everything she did. She had very high standards and she always stuck to her guns. She was constantly trying to get herself killed. Her luck just ran out, I guess.”
“She sounds like she was a remarkable lady.”
Clark smiled softly. “She was. I miss her, a lot. And Jimmy and Lucy too. But Lois most of all. She was my best friend and I thought she was my soul mate. But she’s not here anymore…”
*** Wednesday, June 18th, 1997 ***
“We sort of compromised. Pizza, but veggie.”
Laurie groaned and wished she could slam the door in Sarah’s smiling face.
“Laurie, it’s cold out. Can we come in?” Anne barged in regardless of the answer.
Protesting weakly, Laurie shut the door behind them. “Come on, you guys. It’s seventy degrees out. That’s drop dead heat in Washington.”
“Fine, it’s hot out. Either way, we want in.”
“You are in.”
“Ah, so we are.” Anne grinned angelically at Laurie.
Sarah plunked the pizza and soda on the table. “We figured you’d be upset and that fat-soaked pizza and a corny movie would help out.”
Anne popped a tape into the player. Sarah barged around the kitchen, looking for glasses for the cola. Laurie stood, befuddled, in the middle of the living room, watching her friends ransack her house.
“Guys, it’s really great that you’re being so nice and all, but I really don’t want to watch a movie right now. I really don’t want to talk right now.”
“We were just trying to help.” Anne collapsed onto the couch.
“It must be awful, finding out so suddenly.” Dropping the paper plates she had been clutching, Sarah half-fell into a nearby chair.
That left Laurie, still standing in the middle of the floor. “You have no idea,” she exploded suddenly, “what it is like to be told your *daughter* is not going to be coming home with you because some idiot made a stupid mistake.”
She whirled around and snatched a picture off the table. “This is my daughter. Some idiot forgot to tell her underling about a stupid petition. Because of that, I haven’t seen Abby since last Friday. Because of that, I probably won’t ever see her again. Because the CPS gave my daughter to someone else.” The picture was thrown back on the table.
“My daughter is now in some imbecile’s house, because of a stupid mistake. You think I didn’t want her? You think I didn’t love Abby? I worked my rear off, trying to gain custody of her. I took classes, filled out paperwork, paid fees and dealt with government workers. Don’t tell me it must have been awful, finding out like that. I know it was awful!”
Anne broke in softly. “We know what you must be going through - ”
Slamming her fist into the table, Laurie cut her off. “*You’ve* never had a child ripped away from you before you got to give them a proper hug! You’ve never had to deal with the fact that the child you loved is gone. You’ve never even had children, so don’t start telling me you know what it feels like. You don’t!”
“We’re sorry, Laurie.”
“Sorry doesn’t bring back Abby. Sorry doesn’t erase my pain. Sorry doesn’t fix a stupid bureaucratic mistake. Sorry doesn’t do anything. Don’t you get it? Abby is gone. My daughter was stolen from me before we ever had a chance. That’s what’s not fair. We never even got a chance.”
Laurie angrily swatted tears from her eyes. “We never got a chance. It was stolen from us. One mistake ruined two lives. One mistake caused one sentence, which ruined two lives. ‘You won’t be able to adopt Abby.’ One sentence.” She swallowed hard. “One sentence…”
TBC
