Flesh and Blood (15 page)

He shrugged. “Not sure,” he said. “It just seems like you’re goin’ through the motions.”

I nodded. “That’s the way it feels.”

“You don’t seem as open to all possibilities as you usually are.”

“You think she’s Jesus?”

“That’s your thing, not mine,” he said, “but theys a lot of evidence that she’s something extraordinary and you seem to just be looking for ordinary explanations.”

He was right. Had I been feeling better, I’m not sure I would have done anything differently. I’d still try to exhaust all possible explanations, beginning with the most logical, but I’d probably be more open, more amazed, more in wonder at the wonder of what we were witnessing—whatever it was.

“I’m just lost,” I said. “I feel so out of it, so … I honestly don’t know what to do.”

“Why don’t you ask her?” he said. “God knows you’ve done crazier shit.”

In the late afternoon, I led Jakira, (I had to think of her as something other than Little Girl or Jesus) out of the room that had become like a prison cell, across the street to the Gulf. We walked along the shore as the sun began its descent into the sea.

“Could you walk out there on the water?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said, “and so could you.”

I was again amazed at her quick wit and esoteric insight. Why couldn’t she be a reincarnation of Christ? Why wasn’t I even allowing for the possibility? Maybe the reason I wasn’t had far more to do with me than with her. And maybe I had spent so much time investigating temporary mysteries that I was no longer equipped for transcendent ones.

“Do you hear voices?” I asked.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Who do you hear?”

“In my head?” she asked. “Most are my own thoughts— parental programming, social and cultural training. Some are lines from movies I’ve seen and books I’ve read.”

“Does God speak to you?”

“Sure,” she said. “Just like she speaks to everyone. Some listen, others … not so much.”

“What is she trying to say to me?” I asked.

“Only you can truly know,” she said.

“I can’t hear anything,” I said.

“It’s because of how you feel,” she said, “but it will pass.”

She then took my hand, and it did. From the moment her coffee-colored skin touched the pinkishness of my palm, a warmth began to work its way up my arm, into my chest, up into my head, down my other arm and torso, until it reached my toes.

Any depression I had been feeling was gone.

Suddenly, the Gulf was a garden again, a place where God could come down in the cool of the evening and walk along the sandy shore with us. The setting sun emanated warmth that was far more than merely physical, the green waters were a mysterious domain again, the womb of life on earth, God’s womb, my home.

“I can see,” I said. “I can … thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” she said. “Thank God.”

“I am.”

Though still not sure what to do with Jakira, I returned to the retreat, her hand still in mine, much better equipped to figure it out.

“My appetite’s back,” I said. “You hungry?”

She nodded.

“There’s not much left,” I said. “If I can find some bread and fish, can you do something with them?”

She laughed.

It was a spectacular laugh, one that infused her entire face with joy, lighting up her dark eyes and causing the large white teeth she had yet to grow into, to sparkle.

As we neared the dining hall, I heard someone calling me. I turned to see Charles running up behind us.

“Children and Families is here,” he said. “She’s in the front office. Whatta I do?”

I looked over his shoulder to see an overworked social worker standing in his office talking on a cell phone.

“Tell her it was all a misunderstanding,” I said.

“What?”

“That she had just gotten separated from her parents, but they were here after all and found each other.”

“You want me to lie?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Charles, you’re being ridiculous,” I said. “Just—”

“Why don’t you want them to have her?” he asked. “Do you believe she’s—”

“They won’t know what to do with her,” I said.

“And you do?”

“No, but they work with dull, blunt instruments,” I said. “They’ll stick her in some foster home or psychiatric unit somewhere and—”

“It’s okay,” she said.

I turned to see that her face was set toward the front office and the fate that awaited her there.

“I’ll go with her,” she said.

“Just come with me,” I said. “We’ll go somewhere else and—”

“No need to run, John,” she said. “Don’t you realize I could call a legion of angels down right now if I wanted to? I must do this. My powerlessness is the point.”

“Is this her?” the social worker asked, as she walked up to us. “Honey, do you have any idea where your parents might be?”

“My mother’s in heaven,” she said.

“Your mom died? When?”

“No, she’s very much alive,” she said. “In all things. Can’t you feel her? She’s the dancing strings of the cosmos. She’s the wind and she blows where she will.”

“Oh dear,” she said.

“I’d like her to stay here with us,” I said.

“Who are you?”

“John Jordan,” I said. “I’m a chaplain and I’ve been spending some time with her today. We’re really making some headway. I think to snatch her out of here now would be traumatic. She’s feeling better. She’s talked to a counselor, she’s making friends. She’s loved and cared for here.”

“I can’t—”

“Just for a little while longer,” I said. “We’re searching for her parents. They could turn up at any moment.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t.”

“Please,” I said. “Please. It’s what’s best for her.”

She studied me for a moment. “It might actually be,” she said, “but I don’t have the authority. You’ll have to petition the judge. Sometimes in cases like these, if there’s no family around, a judge will grant temporary custody to someone who is already helping the child. That’s the best I can offer you. She’ll have a shelter hearing before a judge in dependency court in the morning. That’s just a few hours. Overnight. It’ll be okay.”

When I walked into the courtroom, I knew something was wrong. It was something I felt more than observed, and I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but I knew it. Jakira, wearing new clothes, was seated at a table between the social worker and her guardian ad litem. Her back was to me, so I couldn’t see her face or read her expressions, but I could tell even in the slumped manner in which she was sitting that something wasn’t quite right.

There were very few people in the courtroom. Because this was a closed, confidential hearing, Charles, Merrill, Lisa, and Anna weren’t allowed to attend, and I was only permitted because of my petition. Everyone in the room was there for a reason, including the bailiff and court reporter, and all of them were dressed professionally. I was wearing my best navy blue suit and a sky blue clerical collar.

A tall, young man in a blue suit of his own was sitting at a table across from Jakira’s, a leather satchel on the table in front of him. Based on what Anna had told me, I guessed he was Children and Families’ attorney.

Much of the previous night, as Children and Families conducted an intake investigation on Jakira, Anna had educated me on dependency court and the process, helped me secure an attorney and file a petition.

At a shelter hearing like this one, the judge typically determines if a child is a dependent of the state or can continue to live with his or her parents or guardian. However, in this situation, with no family present, Jakira is already, at least temporarily, a dependent of the state. The question was what would the judge do with her? He wasn’t deciding between a parental or non-parental home, but which non-parental home. I had petitioned the court for it to be mine.

Depending on what happened here today, and if the judge would even hear my petition at this time, there could be another hearing in about a month or a fact-finding trial within three months— neither of which seemed likely, since this didn’t appear to be a case of neglect or abandonment but the result of a natural disaster.

My attorney, David Clyde Rish, was seated on the front row. He was a well-respected, semi-retired local man who had served in the Florida legislature for several terms. He had a farm in Potter County, where my dad was sheriff, and was doing a family favor. I couldn’t have afforded him otherwise. I sat down beside him.

As Judge Jerry Atkins went through the preliminaries, I began to relax a little. He was a kind, soft-spoken man in his sixties, who ran a very informal courtroom.

As he listened to the facts and circumstances surrounding Jakira, he seemed genuinely concerned for her and saddened by her situation.

During the entire hearing, Jakira never looked in my direction. In fact, she never looked any direction but forward, and before the preliminaries were concluded, I knew why.

As part of the intake investigation, she had undergone a psych evaluation and was deemed to be in need of treatment. Though it wasn’t mentioned in the proceedings, it was obvious that she was on medication.

“Mr. Rish,” the judge said, “I understand your client wishes to be granted temporary custody?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Rish said, standing, adjusting his suit, and stepping between the two counsel tables.

“What’s his connection to the child?”

“He’s been providing care for her since she arrived at the retreat center,” he said, which he knew wasn’t exactly true. “He has developed a rapport with the child and feels it would be in the child’s best interest to have continuity of care.”

“Your Honor,” the young attorney said, rising to his feet. “Not only is Mr. Jordan a single man who lives alone, but he’s had no foster care training and—”

“He’s a highly educated minister who’s conducted endless hours of pastoral counseling,” Rish said, “and he’s—”

“Your Honor,” the young man said again. “With all due respect, I don’t know anyone who would put a child in the home of a priest these days, and it’s not pastoral counseling, but professional treatment the child needs—the court’s own psychologist has said so.”

“He’s right,” the judge said. “While I wouldn’t wish to be as indelicate as Mr. Peavy, I would find it difficult to place a young female dependent in the home of a single man with no foster care training even under the best of circumstances, but when the dependent is in need of psychiatric treatment, it’d be negligent to do so.”

Before I realized what I was doing, I was on my feet. “Your Honor, please,” I said. “Please reconsider. She needs—”

“Mr. Jordan,” the judge said, “I run an informal courtroom, but not that informal. I’m not even going to ask you why you want custody of a child you met just days ago, but—”

“Actually, Your Honor,” Peavy said, “it was just yesterday.”

“I’ll tell you why,” I said. “There’s something very special about her. She’s—”

“Still—” the judge began.

“You’ve heard of child prodigies,” I said. “She’s like a spiritual child prodigy, and my concern is that she’s being treated by people who are at best insensitive to that and who may even see it as something that needs to be medicated.”

“Your Honor—” Peavy began.

“Look at her,” I said to the judge. “This isn’t her. They’ve already got her so drugged, she can hardly hold her head up.”

The judge looked at Jakira. “Young lady,” he said.

She lifted her head slightly and gazed at him.

“How do you feel?”

“Fine,” she said. “How are you?”

“I’m just fine, too,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s best for you. Do you know where your parents are?”

The court-appointed psychiatrist, who was seated in the front row opposite us, stood up.

“Your Honor,” she said, “she doesn’t even know her own name. She’s been through an undoubtedly horrific experience and is now experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome.”

“Do you know who you are?” the judge asked Jakira.

“I am …” she said, but trailed off.

“You are … ,” the judge said.

“I am,” she said, but didn’t say anything else.

“How do you feel?” I asked

She slowly turned from the TV mounted high in the corner to cast her unfocused gaze in my general direction.

It was the next day, and we were in the TV room of Riverdale Charter, the inpatient treatment center that was now Jakira’s home.