Free Apart at the Seams by Marie Bostwick

hadn’t we? We’d figure it out.
    When he cut his hair on the night before our flight to New York, I shed a few tears, but a part of me was relieved to be going home. Life on the barge was paradise, but it couldn’t last. Eventually, you’ve got to go over the garden wall and into the real world. The babies forced us to make the leap. You can’t stay in Eden forever. Eventually, you’ve got to wake up from the dream, face the facts, and deal with life as it is instead of how you imagined it to be.
    I thought I already had, all those years ago. Maybe I was wrong.

6
Ivy
    R emembering the advice of Arnie, my attorney, I uncrossed my arms from my chest, deliberately attempting to adopt a less hostile posture.
    â€œSheila Fenton is just doing her job,” he’d told me. Be as cooperative as you can. She’s going to be calling a lot of the shots once Hodge is released, so we want her on our side.”
    â€œWhy? Why does this person who doesn’t know me or my children have that kind of power over us?” I threw up my hands and resumed pacing from one end of Arnie’s office to the other. “I still can’t believe this. After all Hodge has done, why should he be allowed to just waltz in and turn our lives upside down again? Why?”
    Arnie shifted his weight to one side of his desk chair, propped his elbow on the armrest, rested his chin on his fist, and tried to explain it to me yet again. “Because in the eyes of the law, barring extreme circumstances, a father has a right to see his children.”
    I stopped in my tracks and spun around to face Arnie, laying my hands flat on his desk and leaning toward him. “He subjected me to years of emotional and physical abuse, he broke my hand by slamming a car door on it, and he slapped Bethany so hard that he left a bruise on her face! How much more extreme do the circumstances have to be?”
    â€œMore. Look, if you’d been able to document Bethany’s injuries when he hit her, we might have had a chance to terminate his parental rights, but as things stand, there just isn’t enough evidence to do that.”
    â€œBut what if the kids don’t want to see him? What about their rights?”
    â€œThat’s why Sheila is involved,” Arnie said patiently. “She’s supposed to be looking out for everybody’s best interests. I’ve worked with her before, Ivy. Sheila is fair, but she’s tough. She knows all the angles and tricks that parents try to pull. So whatever you do, do not try to coach the kids about what to say during the meeting. She’ll see right through that. If I were you, I wouldn’t say anything to the kids right now. Let Sheila explain the situation to them.”
    I slumped down into one of Arnie’s extra chairs. “Well, Bethany’s not going to want to see him; I can tell you that right now.”
    â€œI’m sure that’s true, but there is no way she’ll be allowed to refuse.”
    â€œWhy? Just because she’s eleven? She knows what her father is, Arnie. She remembers what he’s capable of.”
    â€œI realize that. If it were up to me, Hodge wouldn’t be able to have any contact with any of you ever again. But it isn’t. It’s up to the law and Sheila Fenton. In this instance, Sheila is the law. So when you meet her, be cooperative and noncombative. Remember what I said, Ivy. We want this woman on our side.”
    In the ten days that had passed since I received that first, explosive e-mail, Sheila Fenton and I had exchanged a number of e-mails and had one face-to-face meeting with Arnie present. I still couldn’t tell if she was on our side or not.
    She was pleasant without being exactly warm, giving away nothing, maintaining an even temper even when Bethany shook her head violently from side to side and shouted, “No! I don’t want to see him! And I’m not going to, ever again. I hate him!