A Scripta

Jacqueline Caskill stepped into the waiting room. One of the few attorneys at her firm who actually kept Saturday hours, she was happy that this was the last appointment of the day. Being that it was a nice day, maybe she could take the Harley out for a cruise around Narragansett. She was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, not her usual lawyerly attire, but hey, it was Saturday.

A man sat in the waiting room, drinking coffee from a Dunkin' Donuts styrofoam cup. He had blond hair, sticking straight up and was in a black trenchcoat. "Mr. LeBonte?"

"Yes." He stood up, looked at his coffee cup and then looked around for a waste basket.

"You can bring that with you." They shook hands.

He followed her down the hall. "Thank you very much for taking me on such short notice."

"I was here anyway, and my last appointment cancelled." She showed him into her office, pretty Spartan compared to her other partners, but she was still recently made partner here, and she would eventually get up to their level of ostentation. She motioned to a chair, and LeBonte sat down. She sat at her desk. "So, what can I do for you?"

"I want to be a legal guardian of a nine-year old child."

"Can you go into more detail?"

"She's the grand daughter of John Starkweather."

Her eyes went wide.

"I see you know him."

"I know of him. One of my partners had him as a client for a short time before he fired him. My partner wasn't ruthless enough, it seems." The partner happened to be the lawyer whose name was on the firm. He called Starkweather "insane", and that was being nice.

"Then you know he's an unfit parent."

She averted her eyes and sat back, her hands making a steeple under her chin. "Tell me how you got involved."

LeBonte then wove a strange and unusual tale about how he worked for Starkweather, how he met Rorri, how Rorri was abused by her grandfather, and how he rescued her. Then how she disappeared, and he thought she was dead, but she came back.

"Now she's starting to exhibit the same symptoms as her grandfather. I want to get her some help, but I can't do it without being her legal guardian."

"You're a hero."

"Yes."

"Some judges believe that you can't be a hero and a parent at the same time. Some believe the opposite. It's a total crapshoot."

LeBonte smiled. "Just tell me who the judges are that are favorable."

"We'll have to involve DCYF."

"Department of Children, Youth and Families? You mean social workers and all that?"

She nodded. "There are some social workers who are receptive, some who aren't."

"Again, just give me names."

"What will you do?"

"Push things in my favor."

She regarded him. "Are you a telepath or something?"

"No, I'm a mage."

She raised an eyebrow. LeBonte looked around the room, and his eye was caught by some fake roses in a vase. He went over to it, made some motions, and then brought the flowers to her. She could smell them as he walked across the room, and set them down in front of her. She touched the soft petals and inhaled the fragrance. "That's...amazing."

He smiled, and sat back down. "I can use magic to put the wheels in motion. I don't want to necessarily control them, but I want them to put a favorable spin on things. Rorri can't go back to her grandfather."

"All right, then, let's look at it from this angle. What makes you a good parent?"

LeBonte sat back. "I care about her."

"You'll have to do better than that."

"Look, to be honest, a monkey in a zoo can be a better parent than that bastard Starkweather. I treat her with respect. I know she's smart, she's very, very smart. The world bores her, it's so dumb, and she can't concentrate on one thing at a time. She needs psychiatric care, both to stop her from sliding down into her grandfather's madness, and to realize her true potential. I really want to help her."

Jacqueline had seen men emotional about their children before. Grown men had cried in her office once they realized they lost the custody battle for their kids. LeBonte didn't express it, but she could tell his depth of caring was similar to those men.

"Well, it's going to be complicated. She has to become a ward of the state first, and we can appoint you her foster guardian until the courts clear it for you to be her legal guardian. Social workers will have to be involved, and, from what you're saying, so will psychiatrists and psychologists from the IMH."

"I would rather involve Bradley than the Institute for Mental Health."

"Bradley Hospital?" She looked thoughtful. "Hm, yes, that would probably be a better choice, since she's a minor and they deal with mentally disabled children exclusively."

"Do you know anybody there?"

"No, but one of my partners does." She picked up the phone and dialed. She waited, and smiled when the voice on the other side said, "GO HOME!"

"I will, I will. Ian, what's the name of that psychiatrist in Bradley that you had see the client with the autistic boy?" She wrote down the name and phone number. "I'm leaving soon. Bye." She hung up and looked at LeBonte. "Doctor Richard Flemming. He specializes in autism."

"That's not what she has. She has ADHD, probably bi-polar disorder, and delusional disorders."

"At least you can start with him, and maybe he can direct you to someone who specializes in ADHD."

LeBonte nodded and took the name. "So you'll take the case?"

"It'll be a challenge, and it could take well over a year before you're her guardian."

"Oh, it'll be a lot shorter than that." He motioned to the roses. "Just tell me what needs to be done and I'll make it work faster."

"I'll need you to fill out a foster family application."

"Do you have one?"

"I might..." She bent to look in the drawers of her desk. "I don't see any..."

"Is that it?"

She looked up, and on her desk was a filled-out Rhode Island Foster Family Application Form. She peered at it, and picked it up. Everything was filled out as necessary. "How did you..."

LeBonte only smiled. "So what happens to that?"

"I send it to DCYF. I'll also have to send a request for Rorri to be made a ward of the state. That could take a few weeks while they assign a social worker."

"I need you to do me a favor. I need you to keep me in the loop at all times. I need names of people who have these forms, people that you speak with." He pointed to the form she still held in her hand. "That's marked, so I can manipulate it, move it up the ladder."

"What about computers? A lot of this stuff's online."

He looked determined. "I'm going to need a little help on that, but I have ways. Do you know any social workers who might be helpful in this case? I can push it toward them."

"I do, but it depends on their caseload."

"Tell me their names."

"We have to get her in the system first."

"I can take care of that, tell me their names."

She gave him a few names that she knew wouldn't mind a male having custody of a female child. She had never worked with heroes looking for custody, so she didn't know any of those. He nodded. "I can use you as my liaison?"

"Yes." She watched as he stood up.

He smiled at her. "This will be the fastest adoption you've ever seen."