Up Jumps the Devil

The young mother swore that Collins was the only man she’d been with for six months before the baby was conceived.

Collins admitted that he’d lived with Ms. Beecham during the pertinent time period, “But I’m not the first guy she ever slept with and I certainly wasn’t the last. That’s why we broke up. She was seeing the same guy she’d been with before me.”

As is not unusual in proceedings like this, both parties had insisted on blood tests and I’d agreed to the postponement. My good friend Portland Brewer was representing Timothy Collins and from that kitten-in-cream look in her eye this morning, I didn’t really have to hear the testimony to know that the blood test had turned out well for her client. She stepped forward now to question the witness, a qualified technician from one of the medical labs in the Research Triangle who had taken the stand with a thin manila folder.

Mrs. Diana Henderson was in her early forties. She wore a black skirt and a white silk blouse that was neatly knotted at the neck. Despite her businesslike air of competence as the clerk swore her in, Mrs. Henderson hadn’t entirely forgotten she was a woman. Her blouse was demurely styled, but so sheer that when she twisted around to retrieve a dropped document, I could clearly see the lace on her slip and even a dark mole on her left shoulder blade. That plain black skirt did nothing to disguise her slender hips, and her black patent T-straps had three-inch heels that drew attention to her slender ankles. Ash blond hair fell softly around her thin face.

Not the most attractive face, unfortunately. She had nice eyes, but her nose was too long and her chin was almost nonexistent.

Her voice was music though—soft, yet every word distinct and deliberate as she told in measured tones how she’d taken blood samples from Mr. Collins and Ms. Beecham and the baby girl. She described the tests she’d performed and explained how the results proved conclusively that Mr. Collins could not possibly be this baby’s father.

Ms. Beecham’s attorney gamely tried to get the technician to admit that the tests weren’t absolutely positively one hundred percent accurate, but Mrs. Henderson wasn’t having it “While they can’t prove conclusively who the father is,” she said authoritatively, “they do prove who the father isn’t. There is no way that the man who provided this blood sample could have fathered this particular child.”

As I thanked Mrs. Henderson and dismissed the case, young Timothy Collins triumphantly kissed his new girlfriend—at least I assume from the length of the kiss that she was not his sister.

And judging by the baffled yet grimly determined expression on Clea Beecham’s face, I had a feeling I’d be seeing her back in court as soon as her attorney could serve papers on her other ex-lover.

They left my courtroom and a social worker came forward to petition for the termination of parental rights to two young half-brothers barely out of diapers. The mother was a seventeen-year-old crack addict who left the boys alone for hours at a time. They had been in foster care several times. The final straw for Social Services was when she left them locked in a closed car on a hot September day and they nearly suffocated before someone noticed and broke open the door.

Several witnesses, including her own aunt, took the stand to testify as to her unfitness to care for the boys.

“I’d take ’em myself,” said the aunt, as tears cut new furrows in her cheeks, “ ’cepting I’m already raising one for my boy and two for my girls and I just can’t do no more.”

Both fathers were unknown.

The mother had not bothered to come to court.

The woman who had fostered the boys almost from birth wanted to adopt them permanently. After testifying on the sorry state of the boys’ health and physical dirtiness each time they were returned to her care, she took a seat on the front row and watched me anxiously.

I went back through both case jackets and still saw nothing to indicate that the natural mother had half the maternal instincts of the average alley cat. Carrying a child in her womb for nine months doesn’t automatically turn any female into a mother; and much as we’d like to think every baby’s wanted and loved, wishing’s never made anything so.

The foster mother had only a grade-school education, but Social Services called her a decent, caring person. God knows those boys could use some decency and caring.

I signed the termination forms and called for the next case.

Shoveling smoke.

5

« ^ » Upon their arrival among their friends and countrymen in North Carolina, Highlanders are kindly received and sumptuously entertained...“Scotus Americanus,” 1773

Homemade music permeated all layers of my childhood—Daddy’s fiddle, Mother’s piano, Aunt Sister’s dulcimer, my brothers and cousins and their children, each with banjo, guitar, or mouth organ. “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” “Golden Bells” and “Golden Slippers,” and “Shall We Gather at the River?” Those that couldn’t play could always clap and sing.

They rollicked me out of bed on Saturday mornings with “Hell Broke Loose in Georgia” and lullabyed me to sleep with “Whispering Hope.” I can never hear Soft as the voice of an angel... without getting a warm snugly feeling of peace and utter security.

Mother and Aunt Ida’s daughters had high, clear soprano voices; Aunt Rachel sang alto; Daddy half-talked, half-hummed; and the boys ranged from bass to tenor.

Mother, Aunt Ida and some of the older cousins are gone now, Aunt Rachel lives with her middle daughter over near Durham, four of my brothers live out of state, nieces and nephews are scattered from Manteo to Murphy, and Daddy doesn’t like to leave the farm much anymore.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of us that didn’t roll far from the tree and on Wednesday nights, after choir