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Silent Cry
My mother waited in the courtroom on the spectator side, an armed bailiff at her side. She was dressed in a red paisley blouse and jeans. She looked tired, I thought. As a deputy nudged me forward, I wondered if my mother would recognize me in my MacLaren clothes -- a stiff white T-shirt and jeans.The attorney for the county began speaking to the judge. "The County of Los Angeles requests the continued detention of the child in accord with California Welfare and Institutions Code," the lawyer said. "The child requires protective services."
As I stared into my mother's desperate eyes, we listened to the county lawyer pound out formalities. "Mrs. Bridge continues to exhibit a resistant attitude toward Children's Services. The County of Los Angeles is better equipped to meet the child's best interests and safety."
Be brave for me, I imagined my mother saying.
Be a big boy. Be still. The judge banged his gavel.
"Objections?" he said, peering at the lawyer standing beside me.
"No, Your Honor," my lawyer responded. "No objections."
"Well then, motion granted. Child's detention is ordered continued."
My mother hadn't interrupted. She hadn't run to me. She was 24 years old, descended from a line of impoverished women, educated to the tenth grade, abandoned by a husband, gripped by mental illness. She could do nothing more than be judged.
Walking back through the corridors, away from her, I felt the world change. Numbness filled me. When I returned to MacLaren Hall, I waited for my mother to rescue me from the angry guards, the locked wards, the scary nights. Eventually I gave up. I did as I was told in silence.
When the county noticed that I had withdrawn completely, alarmed social workers resolved to find a foster home for me as quickly as they could. The placement they came up with was Mrs. Leonard's house in the dry foothills of the San Fernando Valley.
When the social worker delivered me to Mrs. Leonard, in the spring of 1970, by which time I'd turned eight, she glanced down at her young charge. "This is Andy," she said. "He's a little quiet."
She handed Mrs. Leonard a thin folder containing the facts of my life. "Be sure to be a good boy," the social worker said as she departed. My new foster mother, a large and formidable woman, reached over my head and shut the door.
Born in Eastern Europe, Mrs. Leonard had survived a Nazi slave-labor camp and arrived in the United States at age 16. She married Mr. Leonard, an electrical engineer, and ran their home with authority. It was her idea to take in foster children in middle age, after the couple had had their own three children.
That first afternoon, Mrs. Leonard drove me to get some new clothes. Pushing a cart down the aisles of the warehouse store, she shopped more like she was buying groceries than clothes for the frightened little boy trailing behind her. "Three shirts, two pairs of pants, a pack of underwear and some socks should do it." She pulled things out of cardboard crates.
Back at the house, she deposited the bags on the floor of her son's bedroom. "You need to change," she instructed, then waited as I surrendered the last of what I had from my mother. She glanced at the dirty bundle in her hands. "Thank God. You won't need these things anymore."
She rushed off to start dinner and left me waiting in the bedroom for her three children to return from school. I didn't know what else to do, so I just sat there, alone.
Christopher arrived first. He was four years older than I. When he saw me sitting on his bed, his first words were "She didn't tell me another one of you was coming."
Embarrassed for being an intruder, I jumped up and shifted to the far end of the room. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." It was all I could think to say. "I'm sorry."
He locked his eyes on me with a glare that said, Don't look for fairness from me. Spotting the two shopping bags of clothes near the closet door, he reached for them and threw them at my feet. "Keep your s--- away from my stuff," he ordered.
Soon his two siblings, one older than he and one younger, arrived home. They said hello, and finally Mr. Leonard appeared. Round-faced, with glasses and a comb-over, he glanced at me, shook my hand and sat down to his evening paper.
It was clear I could expect nothing more. I was Mrs. Leonard's concern.
Put to bed that night, I lay in the darkened room, shaking, sweating. I tried to remember my mother's voice: Be still. Be still.
Mrs. Leonard quickly set down rules that I was to follow without fail. Anything could provoke her wrath. I might have forgotten to empty a wastebasket or wring out a washcloth. I might have made an odd expression. Or I might have committed no offense at all.
Sometimes she'd dig into my arms or grab at my face, screaming that the foster child in front of her was ungrateful, lazy, obnoxious, stupid and undeserving. With her hand at my ear or at the base of my neck, she pulled me from room to room.
For most of the 11 years I lived there, I felt her anger, contempt and annoyance at my presence. Though I was supposed to stay just temporarily, after the first 18 months, a judge examined my "best interests," then redefined me under the law. I became a permanent resident. Like a survivor on a life raft, not wanting to be there but having nowhere else to go, I stayed. I tried to make it work.
Early on, my mother came to see me a few times, but the visits were short and tension-filled, with Mrs. Leonard hovering nearby. "Be sure to do what they say," my mother would whisper as we sat in the bedroom together. "Promise not to cry. And don't forget we love each other. You're my only boy."
"And you're my only mom," I would whisper back, sealing the pact. She'd kiss me softly on the head and depart. I never knew when I'd see her again.
I became braver at school as time passed. During morning recess, I no longer hid in the bathroom but lingered in the school library. If a teacher let me, I stayed inside my classroom to read or do extra work. I never mentioned the Leonards or my mother to other kids if I could help it; I was ashamed of my needy circumstances. With my secrets carefully secured, school gradually became a haven.
There were a few standout teachers, including Miss O'Malley in fifth grade and others after her. They were genuinely kind and saw my potential, easing my loneliness and helping me succeed. They couldn't change where I lived or what had happened to my mother, but they did what they said they'd do. Day after day, the teachers shared their passion for American history, geometry or English grammar. If the entire world hadn't been safe for me, they showed me that at least a few regions of it might be.
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