Chapter VIII
AS MAE PUSHED open the heavy doors of the Children’s Court, she caught the clerk at the front desk as she was tidying up for the end of the day. “Excuse me, Miss,” Mae rasped out. “My son was brought here earlier today for truancy? I was hoping you could help me locate him?”
The woman looked up from the desk and seemed to recognize Mae. She glanced over her shoulder and then focused her attention on Mae again. “What was his name?” She inquired in a tone just above a whisper.
“Simon Turner.”
“One moment,” she said as she walked away from Mae and over to the docket book.
Mae knew this courthouse. She’d been here many times over the past several years.
It felt strange to her to see the courthouse from this angle at the clerk’s desk.
Rather than a full room of waiting families and lawyers, she saw the empty bench seats along the dimly lit hall.
The usual cacophony of chatter, scuffling, shouting, and children crying was notably absent, and the soft hiss of the radiator was eerily disturbing.
Mae looked past the clerk’s trim figure and toward the courtroom doors.
She had never noticed how cloudy the glass appeared when the doors sat still on their hinges.
Through the filmy windows, she could see the empty judge’s bench and the dock where most defendants stood awaiting their fate.
Simon had stood there today. Had he been scared?
Her breath shuddered out just thinking about her little boy standing all alone, awaiting the pronouncement of the judge.
“Yes,” murmured the clerk. She straightened her finger on one of the lines in the book. “It looks like Simon Turner’s case was brought today and he was remanded to the Foundling House on East 68th due to failure of the parent to provide oversight.”
“What?” Mae's head spun. Failure to provide oversight? For one day of missed school? “When was the case heard? Did he have representation?”
“I’m sorry, Ma’am, all it says here is that custody was granted to the Foundling House pending notice.” The woman slowly raised her eyes to Mae as if Mae were a skittish alley cat ready to pounce.
Mae let the words sink in and tried to make sense of the information.
Her brain couldn’t logically wrap itself around this turn of events.
The radiator let out a loud wheeze while the overhead lighting flickered.
“May I see your docket book?” Mae breathed as she leaned her weight into the heavy wooden desk.
“We don’t usually show these,” the clerk stalled, her fingers gripping the edge of the book.
“Just for a moment. So I can gather the particulars.”
She turned her head slightly to check the door behind her.
“Certainly, Ma’am,” the woman responded softly as she hefted the book around to an angle visible to Mae.
Her thin, manicured finger pointed to the line where Simon's name appeared.
Mae's eyes perused the short entry that told the fate of her son.
Case No.: 80551
Date: February 3, 1905
Child: Simon Turner, age 12
Residence: 111 W. 80th St.
Charge: Truancy
Complainant: Truant Officer P. Donovan, Dist. 6
Parent/Guardian: Unknown
Appearance: Child produced by Truant Officer
Finding: Child found truant. Parent failed to provide oversight. Absent.
Order of Court: Remanded to the New York Foundling House, E. 68th St., pending notice.
Judge: Hon. Darnell
Special Assistant: W. Foster
Notes: Temporary detention pending investigation by probation officer.
Mae's heart skipped a beat. Parent/Guardian: Unknown. But they had come to the house… Then, the words ‘Special Assistant: W. Foster’ glared at her at the end of the clerk’s polished nail.
This was the same assistant who was present in the other cases that she had been working on with Henry.
This couldn’t be a coincidence. She thought of Mrs. Kerr’s pained expression this afternoon, and her stomach clenched.
Mrs. Kerr. Four days ago, she had been a case number.
* * *
Before The Note
The door swung open and almost came off the hinges, jerking Mae's attention upward to see a young, full-figured blonde woman gasping for breath with tears streaming down her apple-cheeked face.
While Mrs. Bonham and her small children sat in the small law office waiting area, gaping at her, Mae breathed through her nose as her lips flattened into a line. This again.
“Miss, I need yer help! Me Lily—they took ‘er. Some of the ladies said youse can get ‘er back…” The words tumbled out in a string before she sucked in a deep breath. Mae raised her right eyebrow, but remained stoic otherwise. “Please, ye got to help me!” The rumble of street traffic and the incessant yelling of the dock workers competed with the woman’s strong Scottish lilt, outlasting her frantic pleas and filling the room with the enduring din of city life.
As the woman’s story spilled out, Mae watched the other waiting client tilt her head, her eyes softening their gaze upon this unfortunate woman.
Mae's pen moved without her thinking about it.
Absent parent at time of injury. Neighbor's care — not abandonment.
Burns treated at Bellevue. Commitment entered without notice.
She had seen this configuration before — not this woman, but this shape of the case.
The courts called it neglect. Mae called it poverty wearing the wrong face on the wrong day.
The story was the same. Sometimes Mae thought it was easier to think of the women as cases instead of empathizing with them—the mother did something or didn’t do something.
The child paid the price and was legally removed.
Then the mother wanted the child back. And poof!
Henry would promise to get the child back while she did all the paperwork and research. Her heart could only handle so much.
Family law didn’t exactly lend itself to winning when it came to the women they represented. Henry was always moved by their emotional pleas, always adding another, usually fruitless, case to her overburdened workload.
“Miss, can ye help me?” The woman’s green eyes bore into Mae’s, pleading.
Mae mustered a smile that she couldn’t force to her eyes and responded, “Why don’t you have a seat and we will see if we can fit you in.” She waved toward the empty seat near the ragged woman trying to corral her three toddlers.
The blonde woman opened her mouth to protest her urgency until she saw Mrs. Bonham waiting patiently with her brood.
As she walked mechanically toward the seat and sat down, the comely woman fidgeted in her seat, her toe tapping out a quick staccato.
Green eyes darted around the room as Mae returned to working on the motion suspended in the typewriter.
With the equilibrium now re-established, the two toddlers returned to their disagreement, fighting over a doll while the third one held the chair for support.
Mrs. Bonham tried to discourage the fight between her two eldest, staunchly holding an arm of each and pulling them to either side of her.
After a moment, the third child lost his balance and plopped his padded bottom onto the floor.
At the sudden impact, a shriek erupted from the child.
“Shhh… Shhh…” The blonde woman quieted the third child and helped him back to the chair. She smiled at the struggling mother, who returned an appreciative glance in her direction while whispering something into the older children’s ears.
Mae regarded this probable new client and faltered in her assessment.
She had imagined her not-so-unique story of possible neglect or abuse, but couldn’t land wholly on the judgement after witnessing her patient kindness with the little one.
Upon furtive inspection, Mae noted that she was a comely woman despite her bigger frame, in her early twenties.
She was dressed in a patched tweed skirt with a brown wool shawl held together at the very edges with a pewter shawl pin.
Beneath her shawl, a white blouse peeked out that was yellowed along the seams at her sides.
Mae had to admit that the woman, though obviously of lesser means, was put together as best as could be expected.
* * *
She had written her down as a case. Poverty wearing the wrong face on the wrong day. And now here was her own son in the same column.
Foster. She had heard that name before—not here, but at the courthouse three days ago, from a clerk who had written Henry's name down twice.
* * *
Before The Note
A balding, thin man with a reddish ring of hair around his ears scuttled toward her on the other side of the rail.
She raised her brow slightly at the sight of the older gentleman’s replacement.
His brown suit clashed horribly with his red and black striped tie.
He peered over his small, wire-rimmed glasses and grumbled, “Can I help you?”
“Yes, please. I’m here regarding the commitment of Lily Kerr. I need to review the papers entered yesterday in the matter.” Settling the strap of the satchel back over her shoulder, she pulled herself to full height and saw that, even at her small stature, she was eye to eye with him.
He looked down the hall toward the offices where a man dressed in an impeccable charcoal overcoat stood holding his hat in his hand and talking with a police officer. Pulling back his shoulders, he replied coolly, “Those aren’t available yet.”
“Well then, I’ll need to see the docket entry.” She met his eyes, which narrowed upon her immediate pivot.
“Which office did you say you were from?”
“I didn’t. I’m from the office of Henry Turner, Esquire.” She responded evenly, keeping eye contact. The obvious snub reminded her that clerks were expected to be invisible—useful hands behind the paper but never the name on the case.
“Hmmm,” he said, pulling out a logbook and pushing his glasses up before skimming a finger along the page.
“That ledger’s still with the magistrate.
” He said too quickly. She stiffened as he leaned on the desk to peer behind her.
As he returned his gaze to her, his patronizing smile burned through her body.
Mae raised her eyebrows. She’d never heard of paperwork taking this long to turn around. “The case was heard yesterday in the late morning. It hasn’t made its way here yet?”
“These things take time. You’ll find we do things by the book here.” His yellowing teeth glinted at her through his thin, jaundiced lips and completed the sallow appearance that turned her stomach.
She persisted, “When do you expect the information to become available?”
“Likely by end of day. Mr. Foster’s cases are always expedited.
Henry Turner… Correct?,” he said, jotting down her husband’s name on a slip of paper in a chicken-scratch fashion.
Mae glanced up at the small wall clock, declaring that it was just past nine o’clock, and stifled a sigh.
“I will make him aware that you have need of it.” She watched as he took out a worn notebook from his pocket, scribbled the name down again.
Her eyebrow furrowed at the double recording of the name, and her fingertips unconsciously fiddled with her collar. Something about it sat wrong—why did he write it twice?
He glanced back toward the charcoal-coated man.
As she focused on the man down the hall, her peripheral vision caught him subtly folding the second slip of paper into his palm.
She filed the strange detail away rather than chasing it.
There was no time. She needed to get to the Foundling House.
" She mentally reorganized her task list, willing her fidgeting fingers to still.
“That would be acceptable. Thank you.” Turning on her heel, she retreated down the corridor to the exit, forcing herself to keep a legitimate tempo to her step.
She could feel his stare on her back until she turned the corner into the foyer.
* * *
She had filed it away. Odd. Just odd. And had moved on to the Foundling.
“Miss, do you know this assistant? Foster?” Her eyes locked onto the clerk, and she observed the clerk shift her weight.
“Oh… him. Things tend to move quickly when he’s involved,” she started before glancing back again behind her. She opened her mouth and paused, clearing her throat. “Not always the proper way, mind you… but quicker.”
Mae saw that she wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Do you have a scratchpad and a pen?” She needed to arm herself with this information.
“Yes, Ma’am,” the clerk said, handing her the notepad. As Mae copied down the details on the paper, the woman shifted her weight back to the first foot in her periphery.
Mae skimmed through the ledger and noticed ‘Foster’ in many of the entries listed for minors, all of which had been remanded to the New York Foundling House.
Then she saw a strange coincidence. The presiding judge always linked with ‘Foster’ was ‘Hon. Darnell.’ “What about this Judge Darnell? Do you know him also?”
The woman sucked in a deep breath before she schooled her features. A loud, rustling sound came from the adjacent office. Jerking her spine straight, the clerk stated loudly, “I’m sorry, Ma’am, but we are closing up for the night.”
Mae watched the woman’s eyes bulge out at her as her chest puffed out as if she was holding her breath.
Her eyes swung toward the office door, and Mae got the sense that she was being told to vacate quickly.
“Thank you for your time, Miss,” Mae said as she glanced up at the clock.
She could make it over to the Foundling House before they closed up if she hurried.
Looking toward the entrance, she could see that the flat light of the street lamps had come on.
She must get to the Foundling House before the evening drew to a close.
She laid her hand flat against her coat, feeling the watch beneath it. Simon's miniature face was there, pressing against her breastbone, keeping time.
Simon needed her.