Kiss Me Hello (Sweetest Kisses) (30 page)

“I’m not sure,” Trent said. “But the recommendation to transfer Luis’s case back to Baltimore will be easy for the court to approve. Moving the case gets a teenager out of Damson County’s hair, one who has no ties to speak of to the community.”

Trent’s tone was detached, while Mac wanted to start throwing chairs.

“For God’s sake, Trent. Luis has two jobs here, friends, his foster mom, a physician, and a dentist, and he’s enrolled full-time in merit and advanced placement classes at the local high school. What kind of ties does DSS want?”

Trent snatched the document back and jammed it in a briefcase. “DSS wants to see
family
. Luis’s sisters are in Baltimore County, his mother is locked up over near the city, and he might have some cousins over there. His case history is there.”

“Right, but the Baltimore County courts tossed him up here to keep him with the same foster mom. The kid is thriving. Something else is going on.”

Something rotten, and Sid had had enough rotten lately.

“I can ask,” Trent said, “but I’ve left two messages for Ms. Snyder between cases this morning. I get voice mail.”

“Call her supervisor, and if that doesn’t work, the supervisor’s supervisor. Call the damned head of the agency. This isn’t right, Trent.”

Trent snapped his briefcase shut, both locks in the same instant. “What if moving back to Baltimore is what Luis told the worker he wanted in those private tête-à-têtes they’re supposed to have with each kid?”

Trent playing devil’s advocate would result in something close to fratricide.

“Luis told
me
he wants to stay with Sid,” Mac said. “They’re a family, regardless of the legal labels, and that kid is thriving in Sid’s care. He hasn’t changed his mind about this, Trent. I know that kid.”

Knew him and loved him.

“I need to meet with him,” Trent said. “Get my marching orders. The hearing is next Tuesday, and I don’t think anybody will let Sid know what the Department is recommending, unless Luis tells her.”

“If Luis even knows. I’ll tell her. She won’t like it, but she’ll listen to me. What aren’t you telling me, Trent?”

Trent set his briefcase on the table and busied himself fussing his cuff links—gold unicorns.

“MacKenzie, when we enter our appearance counsel for the client, we enter as a firm, not only as an individual attorney. You could represent Luis.”

No, he could not. In this situation, for Mac to be a lawyer would be no help to anybody and a conflict of interest even if the strict letter of the law didn’t see it that way.

“If I lose, Trent, and Luis is sent back down the road, where does that leave me? Sid’s holding on by a thread and has been for too long.” Which even she admitted, an aspect of the situation that gave Mac hope.

Why in the name of all that was stupid had he tried to confront her on Mother’s Day?

“This isn’t a divorce, Mac. When it comes to contested litigation, you’re a better litigation strategist than I am. We won’t lose.”

Not true, also not worth arguing over. “With those recommendations, somebody has to lose.”

Mac hoped the somebody wasn’t Luis, or Sid—or
him
.

“Land, Katie Scarlett,
” Sid muttered, taking a swig of lemonade.

Gardening was good for her soul. She’d realized this when she was making her fourth trip to the Farmers’ Co-op, buying yet another flat of impatiens for the beds she’d dug in the shade of her oaks. Between the flowers, the vegetable garden, the weed whacking, and the occasional can of paint, her property was looking more and more like a home, and feeling more like one too.

Which didn’t make sense. When the money came through, she and Luis would probably pull up stakes and find somewhere near some good colleges.

Except DC and Baltimore both had excellent colleges in abundance. Hood was in Frederick County, along with Mount St. Mary’s. Frostburg had a campus over in Hagerstown.

And Mac was in Damson County.

Mac, from whom she’d run in a teary swivet.

Sid sat back on her heels and swiped her hair from her eyes with a gloved hand. Instead of hanging baskets on her front porch, she’d settled for big pots of petunias on the steps, purple ones, while the beds she labored over were full of red, white, and pink. The fragrance soothed, the colors cheered, and the sense of having planted something of her own to grow and beautify the house—

Wheels.
His
wheels, and because Luis wasn’t home from school yet, Sid made a silent vow not to go inside the house with Mac. Though they’d certainly been intimate out-of-doors too. She stood, pulled off her gloves, and tossed them in her tool basket.

“MacKenzie.”

His expression was more unreadable than ever, and the fact that he was still in his lawyer togs reassured Sid not one bit.

“We need to talk, Sid, preferably where Luis can’t overhear us.”

Foreboding congealed into outright dread. “We can talk here, and we can talk now.”

“On the porch.”

A compromise. Sid sat on the swing, surprised and perversely pleased when Mac sat beside her. He did not reach for her hand, and she did not reach for his.

“Luis’s hearing has been scheduled, and Trent has been assigned to represent him.”

Relief washed over her. “I appreciate your telling me. I’m pretty sure Luis will ask for sibling visits, because he hasn’t seen his sisters in months.” That Mac would bring this news to her in person boded well.

Mac’s hand twitched, as if he might have reached for Sid, or for her hand, then thought better of it.

“You will not appreciate this: the Department is recommending that Luis’s case be transferred back to Baltimore, Sid. Trent’s digging, and he’ll fight it if that’s what Luis wants, but we can’t figure out where this is coming from.”

So
much
for
going
home
to
Tara
. “You mean, did I ask for it? No, I did not.”

Sid resisted the urge to turn her face into Mac’s shoulder and scream. Barely. Luis, uprooted again, probably for the last time before he simply beat feet and told the foster care system where to shove it. She tried to focus on what Mac was saying, on the unhurried cadence of his voice.

“I never thought you’d ask for him to be moved. Did you get anything in writing about your license being in good standing?”

“I never got anything in writing that it wasn’t or that it was.”

Sid sorted through the possibilities: that Luis had asked for this, that his sisters’ social worker had asked for this, that his sisters’ foster family wanted to adopt Luis.

That family had had months to make overtures, and they’d been as possessive about the girls and as selfish and close-minded toward Luis as possible.

“Amy Snyder does not like me,” Sid said slowly. “That sounds petty, but she’s one of those by-the-book, clueless social workers. Luis was lucky in Baltimore, his worker was a gem, and she never gave up on finding him a placement that was a good fit, never blamed him, never took the dips and twists in his case personally.”

Mac did take her hand, and Sid let him, closing her fingers around his. “We can’t all be gems, Sidonie.”

They sat in silence while Sid’s awareness split, as it often had immediately after Tony’s death. In one part of her mind, she considered all of the roots Luis had put down in the past few weeks.

All of the roots
she’d
put down, despite intentions to the contrary. The other part of her brain purely and selfishly savored the pleasure of holding Mac’s hand while her world tried to reel off its axis.

She hadn’t comported herself like a gem where he was concerned. Amid the fragrance of petunias, and with the breeze blowing softly through the oaks, she could admit that to herself.

And try to admit it to him. “I’m scared, Mac. Scared about this too.” The words were out before she could swallow them back. “If Luis wants to go, I’ll live with it, but if they’re jerking him around to gratify some bureaucratic agenda, I will not stand for it.”

“Nor will I, nor will Trent. James has dated a few of the ladies at DSS, he’s collecting what information he can, and Trent is papering the hell out of the file.”

In a game of rock, paper, scissors, paper often lost. “What does that mean?”

Mac gave the swing a push with his toe. “Trent’s requesting in writing the Department’s reasons for moving Luis again when the kid’s barely getting settled here in Damson County. He’s inquiring into why sibling visits have not been maintained per the Baltimore court order. He’s requesting discovery—demanding to see documents, reports, letters associated with the case—though the Department won’t have time to comply.”

The rhythm of the swing was soothing, and so was Mac’s voice, despite the circumstances.

“You’re telling me that Trent’s lawyering up.” Thank God.

“With a vengeance,” Mac assured her. “He’ll meet Luis at school, and if Luis doesn’t want to move back to a Baltimore placement, then Trent will stop at nothing to keep him here.”

“Luis won’t fight it. The fight went out of that kid about four placements ago.” The “kid” was now as tall as his foster mother.

“Then we’ll fight for him.”

Mac spoke calmly, with utter conviction. When he gently pushed Sid’s head to his shoulder, she resisted, peering around to see his eyes.

More conviction.

She rested her head on his shoulder and wished like hell she’d done a better job of accepting Mac’s apology when she’d had the chance.

* * *

Trent Knightley closed the door to the world’s plainest conference room, and set his briefcase on the floor.

“It’s like this, Luis. The Department is in charge of licensing foster homes. They can move you from one to the other without so much as waving at the judge, but when they move you to a more restrictive placement—treatment foster care, a residential treatment facility—then they have to get the judge involved.”

Luis gave the guy credit for holding eye contact when he delivered bad news. Terrible news, really. Sid wouldn’t like this one bit.

“Mac told me that,” Luis said, folding into a bright orange plastic school chair that was probably sized for a fifth grader. “Isn’t moving me out of county something a judge needs to do?”

Trent took one of the other chairs—blue, which went with his shark suit. “A judge has to be the one to order your case transferred. Do you know when your last permanency planning hearing was?”

Plans, plans, plans. Luis’s last social worker had explained to him that the feds got tired of paying for kids to grow up in foster care, so the local jurisdictions had to do a creditable job of moving kids to some final destination, as if a kid’s life was a game of Chutes and Ladders.

The state had to come up with a plan to situate a kid somewhere permanently, and then had to get a judge to sign off on the plan at a hearing. Across the room, etched in red on a square whiteboard were the words: “I have a dream.”

“I was fourteen the last time the permanency planning came up at court,” Luis said. Sid had dreams. “Why?” The hearing had lasted a whole five minutes longer than usual too.

“The Department isn’t recommending any change to your permanency plan. In fact, DSS isn’t even putting your plan before the judge to consider. They’re treating this as a routine case review, when you’re way overdue for a change of plan to adoption or even independent living, which they call Another Planned Permanent Living Arrangement, or APPLA. You can read their recommendations on the last page of this document.”

Trent slid the usual ration of crap across the table, though at each hearing, the social worker’s update was a few pages longer.

When had the Department’s damned plans ever done Luis a bit of good? “So what will happen?” Luis would read Amy Snyder’s immortal prose later.

“First, tell me what you want to have happen.”

As a lawyer, Trent Knightley was different from his predecessors. He’d scheduled this meeting at school, during gym class no less, and he hadn’t let the guidance counselors leave them in the guidance suite’s waiting area to meet. Trent had insisted on privacy.

So Luis studied a Rorschach butterfly-shaped stain on the industrial tan carpet and chose his words.

“I want to stay with Sid.”

“You’re positive about that? I work for you. My job is to make sure the judge knows what you want, and to advocate for that if it’s reasonable. If you want to be placed with your sisters…?”

Sid had been babbling, apparently. The stain also looked like pelvic bones, sorta.

“Don’t insult me, Trent. Ozzie and Harriet would no more take me in than you’d leave your kids alone with a starving wolf.” A starving, rabid wolf with deviant sexual tendencies and bad body odor.

“If they’d take you in, would you go?”

“No, I would not. They’ll take good care of the girls. My sisters look more Anglo than I do.”

Meeting Trent’s eyes when that truth saw the light of day was hard, but not impossible. The guy knew better than to let his pity show.

“You want to stay with Sid. Anything else? You want regularly scheduled visits with your mom? Visits with your sisters?” Trent wasn’t taking notes, he was
listening
. Grown-ups who listened were a damned pain in the ass.

Grown-ups who didn’t were worse.

“Visit with my sisters, yes, though that won’t happen. Mom—I write to her.”

“She might be at the hearing.”

Huh?
“They never transported her to my hearings before, not after the first couple. I thought that meant she didn’t want to come.”

Trent withdrew a business card from a gold case with a rearing horse on it, and tossed the card in Luis’s direction. The white rectangle settled immediately before him, as if that toss had been one of the skills taught along with evidence, divorce law, and how to look sharp in a three-piece suit.

“Sometimes,” Trent said as Luis picked up the card, “failure to transport an incarcerated parent means nobody gets the writ for transportation submitted in time, or the Division of Corrections loses it, or their van is in the shop, or there’s traffic on the interstate. If she’s there, you have to ask permission to hug her, though talking to her is usually OK, as long as nobody gets upset.”

Luis would deal with Mama if she was there; he’d deal with it if she wasn’t. “We’re going to lose, aren’t we?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the Department has legal and physical custody of me. It’s their ball and their bat.” A Louisville Slugger, aimed at Sid’s happiness.

Trent’s smile was reassuring and not at all nice. “But not their rule book. The gold standard for making decisions in these cases is the best interests of the child, and your interests are in no way served by moving you out of county.” Trent took the card and wrote on the back—even this guy’s pen was gold. “This is my number, my cell’s on the back. If I’m in court, I can’t pick up, but I answer all messages usually within the same business day. You think of anything, you call me, and, Luis?”

Luis stood and picked up the eraser at the bottom of the whiteboard. “I know: No screwing up the night before court. No shoplifting. No putting my hands on some girl. No getting into a pushy-shovey with Sid. No hooking school. No getting high or partying. No AWOLing. No nothing. I’m not stupid.”

“You’re human,” Trent said, rising. “If you’re tempted to misbehave, just think of how much fun you’ll have when DSS bounce-passes you to juvie. Lotsa smart guys have ended up in juvie. Don’t you be one of them.”

“I won’t.”

Trent smiled at him, a brief flash of teeth that reminded Luis of Mac, and of that wolf he’d mentioned earlier. Not a guy to mess with, this one. The image of Luis on his knees before a bucket popped into his head.

“You saw me drunk.”

“I did.”

Luis tossed the eraser just high enough to kiss the drop-ceiling tile but not leave an imprint.

“Why would you go to bat for me when you know I don’t deserve to stay with Sid?”

Trent flipped his tie, some abstract design in blue and white. “If you think one tipsy morning makes you worthless, you need to reexamine your priorities. Everybody stumbles—me, Mac, Sid, everybody. The difference is that some of us acknowledge our mistakes and try to do better, and others pretend they never screw up. Mac is meeting with Sid to go over the Department’s recommendations—informally, of course, because a foster parent has no standing in the court case.”

Trent extended a hand. “I’m trying to get hold of your worker, and James is checking his traplines for random intelligence. We’ll meet with Hannah before court, because she has foster care expertise that goes beyond the courtroom. Your job is to not screw up between now and court.”

Trent had a good handshake. Nothing pansy or reluctant about it.

“I can do that.”

With four lawyers circling the wagons on Luis’s behalf, screwing up wasn’t an option, no matter how badly he might be tempted. Trent left, and Luis followed him out, but took a minute first to erase Dr. King’s inspiring words from the whiteboard.

* * *

Luis reported to Sid that Miss Amy Snyder had met with him at school—he’d missed lunch to hear her out—and she’d patiently explained to him that being nearer his sisters was in his best interests, even if the girls’ foster family treated him like dirt and thumbed their noses at court-ordered visits.