You should of called us.
He was going to kill us, Luther said.
Did he say that?
Yes sir. That’s what he said. He wasn’t fooling.
But it’s too late now, isn’t it. He’s already abused your children. You have any idea where he’s run off to?
No sir.
No idea?
He was already gone when we got up this morning.
And he never said anything to you about where he might go.
He never told us nothing about what he was fixing to do.
Except for how he was going to kill us, Betty said.
The sheriff’s deputy looked around the room for a moment, then turned back. Was he still here yesterday when somebody from the sheriff’s office came to the door?
He was back in the hall there, Luther said. Waiting and listening.
He was?
Yes sir.
Well, we’ll find him. He can’t disappear forever.
But mister, Betty said, where’s our kids?
The deputy looked at her. She sat slumped in the couch, her hands in the lap of her dress, her eyes red with tears. Mrs. Tyler has taken them to the doctor, he said. We have to see how bad your uncle hurt them.
When do we get to see them?
That’s up to Mrs. Tyler. But they won’t be allowed to come back here. You understand that, don’t you? Not to live anyhow. There’ll be a hearing about this, probably on Wednesday.
What do you mean?
Ma’am, the judge has issued an emergency custody order and your children are going to be placed in a foster home. There’ll be a hearing about this within forty-eight hours.
Betty stared at him. Suddenly she threw her head back and wailed. You’re taking my children! I knew you was going to! She began to pull at her hair and scratch at her face. Luther leaned toward her and tried to catch her hands but she shoved him away. The sheriff’s deputy stepped across the room and bent over her. Here, he said. He took hold of her hands. Stop that now. That’s not going to do you any good. What good is that going to do anybody?
Betty shook her head, her eyes rolling unfocused, and she continued to wail into the rank and odoriferous air.
ROSE TOOK THE CHILDREN OUT OF SCHOOL AND DROVE TO the hospital and the doctor examined them in the emergency room. The lacerations were bad but he could find no broken bones. He applied antiseptic ointment to the cuts and welts and dressed the worst ones with bandages.
Afterward Rose drove them to her house and gave them lunch, then she took them with her to Social Services at the courthouse and sat them at a table in the interview room with magazines to look at while she went next door to her office. She spoke with the deputy on the phone and then called three different foster homes and finally reached one with a vacancy in a house at the west side of Holt that belonged to a fifty-year-old woman who had two children already in her care. Then she went back to the interview room and told Joy Rae and Richie what was going to happen. We’ll go by your house first to get some clothes, she said. You can see your parents for a moment. Do you want to?
The children looked at her out of their grave eyes and said nothing. They appeared to have retreated to some unassailable place.
She drove them to Detroit Street to the trailer and went with them inside. Betty was calmer now but there were the distinct red scratches on her cheeks, like the excoriations after an attack by some animal. The children went back to their rooms and gathered several changes of clothes into a grocery bag, and Betty followed behind and petted and whispered to them and cried over them, while Luther stood in the front room looking up the hall, waiting as if he had been blunted by a sudden blow.
When they went outside to the car Betty and Luther followed them into the street, and when the car started away Betty trotted beside it, her face close to the rear window, crying and moaning, calling: I’ll see you soon. I’ll see you tomorrow sometime.
Mama! Richie called.
Joy Rae covered her face with her hands and Luther lumbered along beside Betty until the car sped up. It disappeared around the corner. They stood out in the empty street then, watching where the car had gone, watching nothing.
ON THE WEST SIDE OF TOWN THE WOMAN LET THEM IN. She was tall and thin in a flowered apron and she had a bright way of talking. I’m going to have to learn your names, she said. I just think you’ll like it here. Won’t you. I hope you will. We’re going to try anyway. Now I’m going to show you around first. I just always think people want to see how things are located the first thing. Then they feel better.
Rose waited in the living room while the woman showed the children through her house, starting with the bedrooms they’d be using, then the bathroom and the other children’s room. Then they came back out and Rose told them what they could expect over the next few days. She hugged them before she left and said they should call her at home if they needed anything at all, and printed out her number and the one at the office on a piece of paper and gave the paper to Joy Rae.
ON TUESDAY THERE WERE MEETINGS AND INTERVIEWS.
Luther and Betty met for an hour at the courthouse with a lawyer assigned to them by the court.
The two children were interviewed at the foster home by the guardian ad litem, a young attorney appointed to act in their behalf and represent their best interests. He listened to their story and took notes and they did not go to school that day but stayed at the woman’s house.
The county attorney met with Rose Tyler and the investigating sheriff’s deputy in Rose’s office and drew up the Petition of Dependency and Neglect, which would be filed with the court.
But no one who met that Tuesday in these various meetings was pleased by what was decided in any instance.
ON WEDNESDAY THE SHELTER HEARING WAS CONDUCTED in the middle of the afternoon on the third floor of the courthouse in the civil court across the wide hall from the criminal court. It was a dark wood-paneled room with a high ceiling and tall mullioned windows and benches arranged in rows behind the two tables left and right that were reserved for the attorneys and other involved parties. In front of the two tables was the judge’s bench raised on a dais. The two children did not attend.
Luther and Betty entered the courtroom that afternoon dressed for the formal proceedings. Betty wore a brown dress and new sheer hose, and she had rouged her cheeks to cover the scratches. Her hair was freshly washed and brushed, held back on the sides by a pair of Joy Rae’s plastic barrettes. She looked peculiarly childlike. Luther wore his blue slacks and a plaid shirt with a red tie wound under the collar that was not drawn tight under his chin since the collar could not be buttoned. The tie reached only to the middle of his stomach. They entered and sat down behind the table on the right.
Their attorney came in and sat in the bench behind them, across the aisle from the guardian ad litem. After a while Rose came in with the sheriff’s deputy. He sat next to the G.A.L. and Rose slid in beside Betty and Luther, and she leaned over and took their hands and said they must speak the truth and do the best they could.
Rose, what’s going to happen? Betty said.
We’ll have to see what the judge decides.
I don’t want to lose my kids, Rose. I couldn’t bear that.
Yes. I know, dear.
Rose stood and moved to the other side of the aisle and sat at the table with the county attorney who’d entered the courtroom while she had talked to Luther and Betty. Everyone sat and waited. Outside the courthouse the wind was blowing, they could hear it in the trees. Somebody went by in the hallway, the footsteps echoing. Still, they waited. Finally the judge came in from a side door and the clerk said: All rise, and they rose. Be seated, the clerk said, and they sat down again.
There was just the one civil case this Wednesday. The courtroom was largely empty, and it was hot and stale, smelling of dust and old furniture polish.