a still life watercolour

I'm nervous about our meeting on Friday with the court appointed counsellor. I really know nothing about this process and how it works, but I suspect there are going to be snags. Although C initially agreed and signed the custody order, since then she has been in panic-mode, running on air to try and scare us into changing our minds somehow. She doesn't understand, of course, that it's too late for any of us to change our minds about this. The papers have already been filed at the courthouse. All we can do now is go forward. And whether that means we have to have some big ugly Kramer vs. Kramer style feud or whether it can be done more simply and with less blood remains to be seen.

I don't have a lot of confidence, in spite of the document she signed, that we will manage to get anything lasting out of this. Nothing to keep Little J safe in any real, long-term way. I think the system is very much biased in favour of mothers, even mothers who neglect their children, allowing them to live in piles of cigarette butts and rotten milk cartons and cat feces. My mother said that after the eviction, the company that came to clean the apartment had their workers in HazMat suits and masks. The law, I think, protects these mothers. Even mothers who don't send their children to school and don't allow them to leave the house in case they should be exposed to the normal world for a brief minute and realise they like it there and might want to come back once in awhile. I still think our justice system is bent in these mothers' favour.

I could be wrong.

But I'm mentally preparing myself for the likelihood that the court will simply return Little J to her custody, allowing her to continue depriving the child of everything childhood is supposed to be. And worse yet, I'm mentally preparing myself for the distinct possibility that if the courts decide to return Little J to her, there's a good chance that she won't allow us to see Little J ever again.

It all scares me so much that I frequently feel nauseated. But there just isn't any other way to proceed. I can't let her go back to that life without at least trying to pull her out of it.




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