Free A Father's Love by David Goldman Page B

“Brazil is a signatory to the Hague Convention,” Tricia told me, “but they are a relatively recent signer. Yours would be the first case brought for the return of an American child. What should take six weeks or fewer may take more time.”
    I leaned forward in my chair and dropped my jaw. “More time?” I asked.
    â€œThe average length of time for a contested treaty case and return of an abducted child is, in my experience, eighteen months to two years. But this is clearly a treaty case; the facts are unequivocal. Bruna has only been in Brazil a few weeks, and once you file may voluntarily return. I would predict that at a minimum you should expect six months to secure a return.”
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    LATER, BRUNA’S PARENTS would attempt to use my willingness to abide by the attorney’s advice as an argument against me, saying, “David was more interested in complying with his attorney than coming to visit with his own son.” That was lunacy. Of course I wanted to see Sean, and would have been there at a moment’s notice to bring him home, but my attorney wisely counseled me to stay out of Brazil until orders had been entered by the New Jersey court, and there were assurances that Sean would be returned to me under the rules of the Hague Convention.
    Tricia’s advice both gave me hope and made my stomach turn. Intellectually, I understood when she said it could take months to get Sean home, but emotionally I clung to that lower number. Indeed, even six weeks seemed like an eternity to me. Six weeks without my son? Six weeks without seeing his smile, without tossing him onto my shoulders, without taking him out for breakfast or a ride in our boat? Six weeks without tucking him into bed? How could it possibly take so long? How could we survive six long weeks apart? Six months ? Impossible.
    I recognized, of course, that getting Sean home was just the first of many steps. Bruna had not filed for divorce, and Tricia advised me not to file for divorce unless and until Sean was back on U.S. soil. To do otherwise, she said, would dramatically slow down the effort to have Sean returned expeditiously. An entirely different international legal process has to be employed to litigate divorce, then, to secure the return of an abducted child. Further, it might cause Bruna to solidify her position even further, and hope for getting Sean home anytime soon might evaporate. It might also cause the Brazilian courts to be less inclined to push for Sean’s return.
    Also, the focus was to bring Sean home, not to start any other costly litigation that might muddy the waters or slow the process. But I also knew that in the United States, a former marriage partner is not permitted simply to take a child to another state without the other partner’s permission, much less to another nation. I felt sure that the U.S. court system would be fair.
    Whatever sort of custody arrangement we eventually agreed upon, at least it would be done in the United States, in our home state, the area in which we had lived together, and would be decided by a U.S. judge. All of that seemed so very far in the future. Right now, all I cared about was getting Sean home.
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    TRICIA CAUTIONED ME to be strong, and not to allow Bruna to sway me into doing something stupid. “She will use everything she can to get you into that country,” the attorney warned, “but don’t do it. She may try to woo you there with kindness; she may try to seduce you; she may try to cajole you, threaten, or accuse you. She may do anything to try to trap you into a family court custody case in Brazil. Don’t be fooled.”
    In fact, Tricia was suspicious that I had been set up from the beginning. Although I didn’t know it at the time I hired her, she would later discover that Bruna had already been laying the groundwork. Immediately upon arriving in Brazil, she had filed a cause of action, which she kept