“Tomorrow is Christina’s eighteenth birthday. Are you aware of that Ms. Cummings? Have you found a half-way house or a group home for her yet? You’ve run out of time, and so has Christina. As you know, the state doesn’t support kids in the foster system after the age of eighteen.”
Toot and Tell Restaurant- Garner, NC Google Image
“I’m well aware of that, Miss Bartram. And I have spent the last four months looking for placement for Christina with no luck. You know her history of non-compliance. She’s missed half of her classes this year. She may not graduate. She had a pregnancy scare, and she was out after curfew twice in the last month. No one is exactly knocking down the door, begging to take Christina.”
A cell phone starts ringing, just before the phone takes the message Miss Bartram says, “Answer it, answer it. I have spoken to the supervisors in every group home in this county.”
“Hello, yes this is Emily Cummings. Can I help you? Excuse me, whose mother did you say you are? What that isn’t possible, her mother passed away years ago. And she doesn’t have any other family. You can prove it. How? Do you have her birth certificate? Will you take a maternity test? Alright, can I call you back at this number, I’m in my boss’ office right now. And I’ll have to inform her about this turn of events. Yes, I will call you back within the hour. You have my number. My name is Emily Cummings I have handled Christina’s case for the past ten years. I assure you I ‘ll call back within the hour. Goodbye.”
“You will not believe who I just spoke to just now.”
“Ok, I give. who called you?”
“Get this, Christina’s mother called.”
“Christina Mc Gregor’s mother called? How is that possible? Our records indicate that her mother died of a drug overdose. Christina has been in the state foster care system for ten years, no family. Nothing. Where has her so-called mother been all these years? While this poor girl has been bounced around from one foster care home to another like a tennis ball?”
“She didn’t want to say on the phone. She asks to meet in person. And she says she’ll explain everything then. She wants to see Christina. I think we have to interview this woman first without Christina present, check out her story. I’m sure she’s some kind of con artist or freak. Maybe, I’m just jaded. I don’t know. But, after twenty-five years of working in social services, it has been my experience that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. And then there’s the freak or predator angle. Sometimes I can’t help but think not if they’re a freak, but what kind of freak they are?
“I don’t want to give Christina false hope. She’s been hurt, rejected, and neglected too many times. If this is some kind of scam, I can’t even imagine the long-lasting harm this would do to Christina.”
“You’re right, Ms. Cummings. We will have to take baby steps here. Check out this “mother” to see if she is legit. And even if it turns out, she is Christina’s mother, that doesn’t mean she isn’t up to no good. Give her a call back tell her we want to meet her tomorrow morning at County General at 8 am for a blood test, she needs to bring any ID plus birth certificate for Christina and any other proof she may have.
And then after we take a look at the blood test results and paperwork, we’ll have a sit down just the three of us and see if we can sus out any funny business she may be up to. After that, we’ll have our shrink have a go at her to see if he can detect if she is copesetic or so kind of nut job. And even if she can prove she is Christina is her biological child, that doesn’t mean she isn’t up to no good. We will have to wait and see. And then and only then will we consider letting Christina meet up with this late in the day, mother.”
Early the next morning, Sarah calls her boss to update her. “Hello, Ms. Bartram, Sarah Cummings here. I just wanted to update you with the latest news on Christina Billings’s case after calling her “mother’s” cell phone number four times and I finally got a return call from the “mother.” She wouldn’t give me any specifics about her current location. Nor, would she tell me where she has been for the past ten years. And why she hasn’t contacted Christina. However, she did agree to meet me but not here at my office. She wants to meet me at the Toot and Tell Restaurant in Gardner for lunch tomorrow at 11:00 am. She said she will have the blood test today. “
“She didn’t give you any information at all? This whole situation is really hard to swallow. Where could she have been that she couldn’t have kept contact with Christina in some way? Did you ask her to bring ID and the birth certificate? Did she mention any other relatives? Did she ask about Christina at all?”
“She did ask about Christina, she asked how she was and where she is living. She wants to see her as soon as we can arrange it. She told me that she would explain the situation to me, when we meet. She said she has proof that she is Christina’s mother.”
At ll:00 am on the dot, a tall, red-headed woman wearing tight blue jeans and a Grateful Dead T-shirt walks through the doors of the Toot and Tell Restaurant. She walks up to the blond , middle-aged woman at the cash register and asked, “did anyone ask you to let them know when a woman came asking for her?”
“Yes, she’s sitting in the second booth on the left as you go through that door right there straight down through this dining area in front of you. She’s wearing a blue suit and has short, brown hair.”
“Thanks.”
“Hello, are you Ms. Bartram?”
“Yes, sit down, here I ordered you some coffee. Can you tell me your name now before we proceed any further? What’s with all the secrecy? Did you bring the proof I asked you to bring? Otherwise, this meeting is over before it begins.”
“Yes, I brought the proof. I’m sorry for all the secrecy, I guess its habit since I have been in hiding for the last ten years. It’s a hard habit to break. My name is Melissa Hartman. That is my real name, But I have been using a fake name for the past ten years. I called myself Jean Hall.
“I think you’ll have to tell me more about the reason you were in hiding. But first, can you give me Christina’s birth certificate?”
“Here it is. However, you’ll see it’s in a different name. I changed her name to protect her. But I have her finger prints and her baby footprints. I don’t know if the foot prints will, help but I thought I should bring them all the same. Here’s the papers from the hospital, where I gave birth to Christina. Well,l actually at birth, I named her Shannon after my mother, who passed away two years before she was born.”
“Alright, can you please explain why you dumped Christina. I mean Shannon when she was not quite ten years old? And where have you been for the past ten years? Why didn’t you keep in touch with her? Do you know how devastating it is for a child to grow up thinking their own parents didn’t want them and dumped them like garbage on the side of the road?”
“Well, I’ll give you the short version, and then you can ask me any questions you want to after that. I got pregnant in my junior year of highschool. My mother and father were devout Baptists. They went ballistic when they found out I was pregnant. My parents wanted me to have the baby and give it up for adoption. They hated my boyfriend, Joey. They said he was a bad seed and would come to a bad end. They really despised him. And that just made me want him more. My parents were extremely strict. I wanted to have an abortion. But they would not allow that since they’re Baptist like I said before.”
“I ran away with my boyfriend. He was a senior in highschool. We drove to Mississippi and got married. You can get married at sixteen without parental consent there. Joey got a job at a gas station. We rented a room in an old house that someone he knew owned. I still wanted to get an abortion, but Joey said, no way I was going to kill his baby. He hit me and kept hitting me until I agree not to get an abortion. Joey was a big guy. He was a lineman in our highschool football team. He was big, really big. And when he hit me that time, he blackened both my eyes and knocked out my front tooth. I didn’t argue with him after that.”
But after that first time, he didn’t seem to need an excuse to hit me. If he came home in a bad mood, he hit me. If he didn’t like what I cooked for dinner, he hit me. Of course, that was practically every night since I had no clue how to cook. If I didn’t want him to touch me because he hurt me all the time, he really went nuts on me, and one night he broke my arm. And I had to go to the hospital to have it set. They ask me what happened. But I was afraid to tell them because I’m sure he would kill me if I did. They must have known he hit me since I was black and blue all over, and my front tooth was knocked out. They ask me if I felt safe. Joey warned me not to tell anyone, or he would make me sorry. And I believed him.
I told the nurse I was ok. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. She leaned over and whispered in my ear, “squeeze my hand back, and I promised you I will keep you safe.”
I said, “no, I’m alright, thank you. She looked at me again and shook her head. She tucked a card in my shirt pocket. And she said, “if you change your mind, you can call the number on there. And they’ll find a safe house for you to stay. How far along are you in your pregnancy? I looked at her, and a tear ran down my face. “Four months, I didn’t think it showed yet?”
“I have been working in the ER for twenty-five years. I can tell if someone is getting beat up. I recognize pregnant when I see it, please call that number, you don’t have to live like this.”
“Thank you for your concern, I’m alright.”
“Ok, you can go now, but I hope you will call that number. I hope I don’t see you again in here. Can’t you go home to your family?”
“No, my family doesn’t want me, because I got married. ”
“All the more reason to call them now. Do you have any money?”
“Yeah, I have some money, maybe I’ll call them. I’ll have to think about it.”
“Don’t wait too long miss, you wouldn’t want anything to happen to your baby.”
“So, what happened did you call your parents?”
“Yeah, I called my parents the next day, after Joey went to work.” “What happened was my father told me it was my choice and he didn’t want any more to do with me. I asked if I could speak to my mother. And then she got on, and she said,” I’m sorry but your dad made up his mind. You know how he is once he’s made up his mind. Try calling back in a couple of weeks. Take care.”
“I called them back every couple of months, but no one ever answered the phone. I left a message and my phone number. But they never called me back. Joey promised me he wouldn’t hit me anymore. But he did, but he never hit me in the stomach. And then I had the baby. And between the baby crying and not enough money, Joey was always in a bad mood.
He didn’t hit the baby, but when she made too much noise, he hit me plenty. But he never let me go to the ER again. Since he didn’t want to get arrested. About the time that Shannon started first grade, Joey started losing his temper around her more. She was always afraid, and she would hide in her room. Joey started drinking. I was afraid all the time then.
I decided to take Shannon and run away. Joey always found us. The last time I packed up all of our stuff and took off. Joey found us in a hotel in Tucson. He beat both of us up at that time. And that’s when I decided to put Shannon to foster care. Not because I didn’t love her. But because I wanted her to be safe and have some chance of a normal life. So, I got a fake birth certificate for her with a different name on it. I never looked back. I didn’t want Joey to find Shannon. I’ve been running ever since then.
I changed my name every time I moved. I worked at any job I could find. About two months ago, I tried calling my parents. My mother answered the phone. She told me that my father had a heart attack and passed away two years before. And that two months ago the police came knocking at her door looking for me. She told them she hadn’t heard from me in years since I was sixteen. They were looking for me because Joey got himself murdered in a bar fight, and they wanted to inform the next of kin.
“So here I am. I want to see my daughter again. I got a job, and an apartment not too far from here. I love her and I want her. Can I see her now?”
“First, we’re going to the hospital to get blood test, and I want to see any proof you have regarding the name change of both you and Christina, I mean Shannon. I need to see the birth certificate.”
“Here it all is in this manilla envelope. I had the blood test done already. I don’t want to waste any more time.”
Let me take a look at the documents. It will take two or three days to get the blood tests results.”
Two days later Ms. Cummings calls Shannon’s mother with the results. “hello Melissa, I have good news. Your blood tested positive in the maternity test. I had to explain to Shannon why we were taking the blood tests. She didn’t believe me at first. But then she started talking about the physical abuse at the hands of her father. And all the spousal abuse she witnessed in her early years. She still feels like you abandoned her, so that is going to take some time for you two to work out.”
The next day Ms. Cummings arrives in front of the Toot and Tell Restaurant with Shannon in tow. As they walk through the front door and then the inner door, Shannon stares at the woman sitting in the first booth on the left. “Is that my mother right there?”
“Yes, that’s her. So, you do recognize her?”
Shannon swallows hard as tears stream down her face; Then she stares at the teenager who stands in front of her. “Shannon, I can’t believe you are standing here in front of me. Can I get a hug?”
“Mom, Mom. they told me you were dead.” Shannon runs up to her mother and throws her arms around her. “oh Mommy, I missed you so much. I didn’t think I would ever see you again. Can I come live with you? Please?”
“Oh, that has been my dream for the past ten years. Sit down and tell me everything.”
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The boarded windows of the house across the street are tagged with graffiti. Broken bottles, beer cans, and trash are strewn across the overgrown, dead lawn in the front yard. The steps are covered with yellowed newspapers in various stages of decay. Unopened mail tumbles out of the rusty mailbox. The sad truth is it isn’t the only house on the block that looks abandoned. This neighborhood is the poster child for urban blight.
