Fragments Of Yesterday, chapter 26
It was the night before the court date, and Katie felt like her insides were going to squirm right out and become her outsides. She hadn't been sleeping right ever since she had discovered just how torn she was, often waking up in the middle of the night and staring at the plaster swirls in the ceiling.
Katie was sitting on her bed, wringing her hands with The Doors turned up to the loudest setting without someone coming in and complaining. When in doubt, she always listened to Jim Morrison's soothing voice, letting him lull her into a state of mental peace, and then she would think about what was bothering her. As long as she could remember, this remedy had worked. Now, it just seemed to be background noise to her maddening thoughts.
Katie stretched across her bed and grabbed for her picture of her father, running her fingers over the glass and smiling at her father's own frozen smile. What should I do? Katie thought to him blearily. Wish for adoption, or hope that the state says no? When the photo didn't answer her back, Katie placed it back on her nightstand. She wracked her brains, trying to think of exactly what her father would have said as the answer.
She seemed to drift a half sleep half dreamlike state for a moment, memories flooding her mind, good and bad. It had become easier ever since moving in with Billie to ward off the bad ones, and she did so now. Katie remembered a conversation with her dad, back when she had been six years old. She knew he had probably thought that she wouldn't understand him, or even remember the conversation.
They were in the small house that they had lived in when Katie was a child, and she was sitting on the floor, playing with her Raggedy Anne doll. Her father was watching her with a small smile while cutting out a magazine article about The Doors from his Rolling Stone.
"Daddy?" Katie asked without looking up as she took the ties out of the doll's hair, smoothing down the yarn the hair was made of.
"Mmmhmm?" he answered, acknowledging her but still cutting along the edges of the page.
"Sammy said that she wanted to be a doctor when she grew up," Katie answered in her high pitched voice. "And I said I wanna be a singer like Jim Morrison. And she told me I was dumb and threw my doll in the mud." Only then did Katie look up, showing her father her doll. He could see dried mud still clinging to the fabric of the doll's dress, and the tears that were welling up in Katie's eyes.
"Come here," he said, holding his arms out and gesturing to his daughter. She sniffled and climbed into his lap after he had cleared the magazine and scissors away.
"Sammy's my friend and I don't want her to think I'm stupid," Katie warbled softly. Her father smoothed out her long, red hair out of her face and wiped the tears away with his thumb.
"A real friend wouldn't throw your doll in the mud," he reasoned. Katie shook her head.
"If I wasn't stupid and wanted... to... to... be a singer... "
"Hey now," he cut her off softly, hugging her lightly and then pulling away to look into her eyes. "Having your own dreams doesn't make you stupid." He paused, watching Katie's face for a moment, which was nothing but rapt with attention. "No matter what anyone says, follow you heart and your dreams. There will always be someone in this world wanting to throw all that you have in the mud just because you have your own mind about you."
"Then what do I do?" Katie sniffled again.
"You do what you feel is right, and you do what you want to do," he said. "Just make sure that what you choose will make you the happiest, and that you aren't doing something just because someone else wants it that way."
A knock on the door brought Katie out of her thoughts. She glanced over at the clock and realized that an hour had gone by. She knew she hadn't been asleep, but she hadn't been awake either. Weird, Katie observed. She hoisted herself off her bed and opened the door.
Her stomach almost lurched out of control when she saw Joey standing there. "Uhh... yeah?" Katie managed, wondering why it was so hard all of a sudden to talk to him.
"Mom wants me to tell you that you should get some rest," Joey relayed. Her ran a hand through his hair, again mimicking his father. "And Dad wanted me to tell you that you have your radio up loud enough to wake the dead. And then something else about how your subliminally trying to get him hooked on The Doors."
Katie rolled her eyes and walked over, shutting her radio off. "Sure... " Katie said sarcastically. "That's been my master plan all along."
"Knew it," Joey muttered jokingly, walking over to her dresser. She had pictures slid in place between the glass of the mirror and the wood frame. There were some of her and Billie, Mike, others of her and Adrienne. His eyes stopped on one of himself and her laughing about something that he couldn't remember now. His own stomach tingled happily, making the knot of dread double.
He knew they were going to go in front of a judge tomorrow for Katie's adoption, and he couldn't think of anyplace he wanted to be any less. He had decidedly figured out that he didn't want her to be adopted, despite what he told himself about the evils of being selfish. He figured that it didn't matter, just so long as he didn't say anything out loud about it.
"Uh, Joe, you're staring off into space," Katie pointed out, almost making him jump. Joey just shook his head.
"Yeah, sorry about that," he mumbled, turning to her. "Nice pictures."
"They're been up there forever," Katie laughed. Had Joey been less emerged in thoughts, he would have recognized that nervousness in that laugh.
He shrugged. "Never noticed them before," he admitted. He walked over to the door. "Get some sleep for your big day."
"Yes, Father," Katie retorted with a half grin, shutting the door as he left. She listened for his own bedroom door to shut before leaning against her own, her forehead against the cool wood.
What did she really want? She thought long and hard until she had thought that her forehead had a significant red mark on her forehead. She loved Billie and Adie as her own parents, and she loved Jakob as her own brother. But Joey... she didn't want him as a brother. Or is it my hormones talking? Katie wondered hesitantly.
She moved away from the door and changed into her pajamas, thinking on this the whole while. Sliding under her covers she glanced at the clock. Seven hours until the court would reach a decision that could change her life forever. She closed her eyes, trying to force herself to sleep.
No, it wasn't just hormones. Hormones didn't make you feel this good around someone. Hormones didn't make you second guess everything that you ever thought before. Hormones were something that was more often than not sexual, and that wasn't even what she was feeling towards Joey at the moment.
Deep down inside, Katie wanted the court to say no.
***
"Ready?" Billie asked, anxiety building between he and Katie the most. Katie nodded slowly, remaining silent. She had decided that everything was in the court's hands now, and that it was too late to turn back after Billie had gone through so many pains to make this happen.
Adrienne was trying to keep Billie calm, whispering things to him periodically and words of soothing and comfort. They would be called before the judge soon, and their entire lives could change forever. Joey sat away from his parents and Katie, keeping silent himself. He refused to will the judge to turn down the adoption, and he refused to think of what would happen if they approved it.
Finally, they were beckoned into the room, which was fairly small for the case. Katie found it to be one of the most uncomfortable rooms she had ever been in, and the smell was entirely too sterile for her liking. It was almost suffocating, but there was nothing that she could do. That, she supposed, was the hardest part. Everything was out of her hands.
The judge rattled off some case number before getting to anything that Katie could make any sense out of. "Mr. Armstrong, I've reviewed your application for adoption," the judge continued. "Before filing for the adoption with the state, did you go to Katie's surviving parent to try and persuade her to relinquish parental rights?"
"Yes," Billie answered, all the anxiety and the nervousness out of his voice.
"And she turned you down?"
"Yes," Billie answered again, wondering what all this was about.
"Formalities," the judge answered, almost having read Billie's mind as she peered over her glasses. She rifled down through the adoption papers. "Mr. Armstrong, it has been how many months that Katie has been in your care?"
"About nine or ten," Billie estimated. He glanced over at Adrienne, who gave him an encouraging smile.
"And after nine or ten months," the judge continued, "you believe that you want to adopt Katie as your own?"
"Yes," Billie responded, almost a little too quickly for his own liking. He paused. "I wouldn't be here if I was sure."
The judge sighed and took her glasses off, rubbing her eyes before replacing them and looking back up at Billie with her dark eyes. "I can clearly see that you care very much for this child," the judge said finally. "But before the state can even seriously consider the adoption of a foster child, we prefer that the child has been in care of the family for two years, and in a bare minimum, one."
"We really want this," Billie said, unable to contain this. "All of us, Katie included. And we're more than capable of providing for her--"
"There's no doubt about that," the judge agreed. "However, the fact still remains that you have barely known the child. And though you may have connected with her or bonded in this short period of time, we have had cases to where the family has changed their minds in the middle of processes or after the processes have finished, which does the entire system a great disservice."
"I wouldn't have filed if I would end up doing the system a disservice," Billie shot back, a little bit of anger coming out in his tone. The judge frowned, and Billie shook his head, rubbing his face momentarily, fighting to keep himself in control. "Look, we love Katie. And we're all more than sure that we want this." He looked up at her, pleadingly, his green eyes begging for this to happen. Katie stood there uncomfortably, seeing how much that Billie wanted this to happen, and she felt bad for not wanting it as much anymore as she had in the beginning.
"Just make sure that what you choose will make you the happiest, and that you aren't doing something just because someone else wants it that way."
Her father's words came back to her now, echoing inside her head. She wouldn't let herself feel bad, no matter what happened. She had always had a small belief in fate, even if it had been compromised from time to time.
"Give me ten minutes to review your application in my chambers," the judge said, standing from her leather chair. "Then I'll be back with my decision." Billie nodded, and the judge walked behind her chair and through a door leading into her own chambers.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath, sitting in the chair beside Adrienne. She rubbed his back in comfort.
"I'm sure she'll turn out," Adrienne assured. "She'll see that we really want Katie." Billie didn't respond but nodded impatiently, bouncing his leg. He looked over at Katie, who was sitting beside him, staring off into space. He reached and hand over and grabbed her own, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Katie looked over and offered a small smile, which Billie returned.
Ten minutes later, the judge came back out, and Billie took to standing behind the podium once more. Sitting in the leather chair, the judge cleared her throat.
"After a few phone calls and a lot of consideration," the judge began slowly. Billie was almost sure that she was drawing this out purposefully to torture him. "I stick by my word and say that it's entirely too soon for you to be adopting Katie." Billie felt a part of him grow angry, and another part of him grow sad. He felt that he had let Katie down, after the confident words that he said about adoption. The rest of what the judge said came out muffled because he wasn't even paying attention.
He glanced over at Katie, who surprisingly, didn't have a look of disappointment on her face. He couldn't read what the look was, but it wasn't disappointment. He had feared that disappointed look, and he felt relieved that it wasn't there. But now he was filled with a curiosity, a pondering of what the expression on her face was.
He turned back to the judge, who had just finished saying that in a couple of years, he could file for adoption once more and the likeliness of it happening would rise considerably. He only nodded, and afterward the entire family filed out of the court room. As they walked out of the building, Billie held Katie back right outside the doors and gestured for the rest of them to head out to the cars. He turned his attention to Katie.
"I'm sorry," he said, his eyes sad. Katie only smiled slightly, hugging him warmly.
"No matter what some damn papers say," she said softly as they embraced, "you will always be my second father." Billie grinned as they pulled away, his heart feeling larger and the bad mood that had threatened to take over vanishing. Together, they walked out to the car. In the eyes of the court, foster parent and foster child. In their own eyes:
Father and daughter.
Katie was sitting on her bed, wringing her hands with The Doors turned up to the loudest setting without someone coming in and complaining. When in doubt, she always listened to Jim Morrison's soothing voice, letting him lull her into a state of mental peace, and then she would think about what was bothering her. As long as she could remember, this remedy had worked. Now, it just seemed to be background noise to her maddening thoughts.
Katie stretched across her bed and grabbed for her picture of her father, running her fingers over the glass and smiling at her father's own frozen smile. What should I do? Katie thought to him blearily. Wish for adoption, or hope that the state says no? When the photo didn't answer her back, Katie placed it back on her nightstand. She wracked her brains, trying to think of exactly what her father would have said as the answer.
She seemed to drift a half sleep half dreamlike state for a moment, memories flooding her mind, good and bad. It had become easier ever since moving in with Billie to ward off the bad ones, and she did so now. Katie remembered a conversation with her dad, back when she had been six years old. She knew he had probably thought that she wouldn't understand him, or even remember the conversation.
They were in the small house that they had lived in when Katie was a child, and she was sitting on the floor, playing with her Raggedy Anne doll. Her father was watching her with a small smile while cutting out a magazine article about The Doors from his Rolling Stone.
"Daddy?" Katie asked without looking up as she took the ties out of the doll's hair, smoothing down the yarn the hair was made of.
"Mmmhmm?" he answered, acknowledging her but still cutting along the edges of the page.
"Sammy said that she wanted to be a doctor when she grew up," Katie answered in her high pitched voice. "And I said I wanna be a singer like Jim Morrison. And she told me I was dumb and threw my doll in the mud." Only then did Katie look up, showing her father her doll. He could see dried mud still clinging to the fabric of the doll's dress, and the tears that were welling up in Katie's eyes.
"Come here," he said, holding his arms out and gesturing to his daughter. She sniffled and climbed into his lap after he had cleared the magazine and scissors away.
"Sammy's my friend and I don't want her to think I'm stupid," Katie warbled softly. Her father smoothed out her long, red hair out of her face and wiped the tears away with his thumb.
"A real friend wouldn't throw your doll in the mud," he reasoned. Katie shook her head.
"If I wasn't stupid and wanted... to... to... be a singer... "
"Hey now," he cut her off softly, hugging her lightly and then pulling away to look into her eyes. "Having your own dreams doesn't make you stupid." He paused, watching Katie's face for a moment, which was nothing but rapt with attention. "No matter what anyone says, follow you heart and your dreams. There will always be someone in this world wanting to throw all that you have in the mud just because you have your own mind about you."
"Then what do I do?" Katie sniffled again.
"You do what you feel is right, and you do what you want to do," he said. "Just make sure that what you choose will make you the happiest, and that you aren't doing something just because someone else wants it that way."
A knock on the door brought Katie out of her thoughts. She glanced over at the clock and realized that an hour had gone by. She knew she hadn't been asleep, but she hadn't been awake either. Weird, Katie observed. She hoisted herself off her bed and opened the door.
Her stomach almost lurched out of control when she saw Joey standing there. "Uhh... yeah?" Katie managed, wondering why it was so hard all of a sudden to talk to him.
"Mom wants me to tell you that you should get some rest," Joey relayed. Her ran a hand through his hair, again mimicking his father. "And Dad wanted me to tell you that you have your radio up loud enough to wake the dead. And then something else about how your subliminally trying to get him hooked on The Doors."
Katie rolled her eyes and walked over, shutting her radio off. "Sure... " Katie said sarcastically. "That's been my master plan all along."
"Knew it," Joey muttered jokingly, walking over to her dresser. She had pictures slid in place between the glass of the mirror and the wood frame. There were some of her and Billie, Mike, others of her and Adrienne. His eyes stopped on one of himself and her laughing about something that he couldn't remember now. His own stomach tingled happily, making the knot of dread double.
He knew they were going to go in front of a judge tomorrow for Katie's adoption, and he couldn't think of anyplace he wanted to be any less. He had decidedly figured out that he didn't want her to be adopted, despite what he told himself about the evils of being selfish. He figured that it didn't matter, just so long as he didn't say anything out loud about it.
"Uh, Joe, you're staring off into space," Katie pointed out, almost making him jump. Joey just shook his head.
"Yeah, sorry about that," he mumbled, turning to her. "Nice pictures."
"They're been up there forever," Katie laughed. Had Joey been less emerged in thoughts, he would have recognized that nervousness in that laugh.
He shrugged. "Never noticed them before," he admitted. He walked over to the door. "Get some sleep for your big day."
"Yes, Father," Katie retorted with a half grin, shutting the door as he left. She listened for his own bedroom door to shut before leaning against her own, her forehead against the cool wood.
What did she really want? She thought long and hard until she had thought that her forehead had a significant red mark on her forehead. She loved Billie and Adie as her own parents, and she loved Jakob as her own brother. But Joey... she didn't want him as a brother. Or is it my hormones talking? Katie wondered hesitantly.
She moved away from the door and changed into her pajamas, thinking on this the whole while. Sliding under her covers she glanced at the clock. Seven hours until the court would reach a decision that could change her life forever. She closed her eyes, trying to force herself to sleep.
No, it wasn't just hormones. Hormones didn't make you feel this good around someone. Hormones didn't make you second guess everything that you ever thought before. Hormones were something that was more often than not sexual, and that wasn't even what she was feeling towards Joey at the moment.
Deep down inside, Katie wanted the court to say no.
***
"Ready?" Billie asked, anxiety building between he and Katie the most. Katie nodded slowly, remaining silent. She had decided that everything was in the court's hands now, and that it was too late to turn back after Billie had gone through so many pains to make this happen.
Adrienne was trying to keep Billie calm, whispering things to him periodically and words of soothing and comfort. They would be called before the judge soon, and their entire lives could change forever. Joey sat away from his parents and Katie, keeping silent himself. He refused to will the judge to turn down the adoption, and he refused to think of what would happen if they approved it.
Finally, they were beckoned into the room, which was fairly small for the case. Katie found it to be one of the most uncomfortable rooms she had ever been in, and the smell was entirely too sterile for her liking. It was almost suffocating, but there was nothing that she could do. That, she supposed, was the hardest part. Everything was out of her hands.
The judge rattled off some case number before getting to anything that Katie could make any sense out of. "Mr. Armstrong, I've reviewed your application for adoption," the judge continued. "Before filing for the adoption with the state, did you go to Katie's surviving parent to try and persuade her to relinquish parental rights?"
"Yes," Billie answered, all the anxiety and the nervousness out of his voice.
"And she turned you down?"
"Yes," Billie answered again, wondering what all this was about.
"Formalities," the judge answered, almost having read Billie's mind as she peered over her glasses. She rifled down through the adoption papers. "Mr. Armstrong, it has been how many months that Katie has been in your care?"
"About nine or ten," Billie estimated. He glanced over at Adrienne, who gave him an encouraging smile.
"And after nine or ten months," the judge continued, "you believe that you want to adopt Katie as your own?"
"Yes," Billie responded, almost a little too quickly for his own liking. He paused. "I wouldn't be here if I was sure."
The judge sighed and took her glasses off, rubbing her eyes before replacing them and looking back up at Billie with her dark eyes. "I can clearly see that you care very much for this child," the judge said finally. "But before the state can even seriously consider the adoption of a foster child, we prefer that the child has been in care of the family for two years, and in a bare minimum, one."
"We really want this," Billie said, unable to contain this. "All of us, Katie included. And we're more than capable of providing for her--"
"There's no doubt about that," the judge agreed. "However, the fact still remains that you have barely known the child. And though you may have connected with her or bonded in this short period of time, we have had cases to where the family has changed their minds in the middle of processes or after the processes have finished, which does the entire system a great disservice."
"I wouldn't have filed if I would end up doing the system a disservice," Billie shot back, a little bit of anger coming out in his tone. The judge frowned, and Billie shook his head, rubbing his face momentarily, fighting to keep himself in control. "Look, we love Katie. And we're all more than sure that we want this." He looked up at her, pleadingly, his green eyes begging for this to happen. Katie stood there uncomfortably, seeing how much that Billie wanted this to happen, and she felt bad for not wanting it as much anymore as she had in the beginning.
"Just make sure that what you choose will make you the happiest, and that you aren't doing something just because someone else wants it that way."
Her father's words came back to her now, echoing inside her head. She wouldn't let herself feel bad, no matter what happened. She had always had a small belief in fate, even if it had been compromised from time to time.
"Give me ten minutes to review your application in my chambers," the judge said, standing from her leather chair. "Then I'll be back with my decision." Billie nodded, and the judge walked behind her chair and through a door leading into her own chambers.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath, sitting in the chair beside Adrienne. She rubbed his back in comfort.
"I'm sure she'll turn out," Adrienne assured. "She'll see that we really want Katie." Billie didn't respond but nodded impatiently, bouncing his leg. He looked over at Katie, who was sitting beside him, staring off into space. He reached and hand over and grabbed her own, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Katie looked over and offered a small smile, which Billie returned.
Ten minutes later, the judge came back out, and Billie took to standing behind the podium once more. Sitting in the leather chair, the judge cleared her throat.
"After a few phone calls and a lot of consideration," the judge began slowly. Billie was almost sure that she was drawing this out purposefully to torture him. "I stick by my word and say that it's entirely too soon for you to be adopting Katie." Billie felt a part of him grow angry, and another part of him grow sad. He felt that he had let Katie down, after the confident words that he said about adoption. The rest of what the judge said came out muffled because he wasn't even paying attention.
He glanced over at Katie, who surprisingly, didn't have a look of disappointment on her face. He couldn't read what the look was, but it wasn't disappointment. He had feared that disappointed look, and he felt relieved that it wasn't there. But now he was filled with a curiosity, a pondering of what the expression on her face was.
He turned back to the judge, who had just finished saying that in a couple of years, he could file for adoption once more and the likeliness of it happening would rise considerably. He only nodded, and afterward the entire family filed out of the court room. As they walked out of the building, Billie held Katie back right outside the doors and gestured for the rest of them to head out to the cars. He turned his attention to Katie.
"I'm sorry," he said, his eyes sad. Katie only smiled slightly, hugging him warmly.
"No matter what some damn papers say," she said softly as they embraced, "you will always be my second father." Billie grinned as they pulled away, his heart feeling larger and the bad mood that had threatened to take over vanishing. Together, they walked out to the car. In the eyes of the court, foster parent and foster child. In their own eyes:
Father and daughter.
