The Emperor's Men 3: Passage. Dirk van den Boom

and strong, clean-cut military, handsome and self-assured, a hero—my hero. To have my grandchildren rescued after an eternity of suffering and helplessness at the hands of their mother was a culmination of years of walking on eggs just to get to see them once in a while, to try to keep at least a small particle of communication going because to be separated from them and not know what they were going through was pushing me to the edge of insanity. How much do they have to endure?

      Through tears, I tell the officer, “Thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you. You’ll never know…”

      He just keeps murmuring, “I know, I know. You’ll hear from me soon.”

      Click. The line goes dead.

      It’s really true. They are finally being rescued. I don’t know how long I stood there holding the receiver. I was just hanging on. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Now we just have to wait until they find Jackie.

      The agent is in Tulsa, Oklahoma, under direction of California Child Protective Services. He and the two agents with him are there to take Laurene, age seven; JR, age six; and Jackie, age four from their mother by court order and bring them here to California to their father.

      *****

      My daughter Andrea was in violation of a custody order that provided that neither parent was allowed to take the children out of state. The date was September 3, 1993.

      It was a long time coming while we watched in horror as their mother put her children in peril almost every day. The feeling of helplessness was heart-wrenching. It seemed that motherhood is sacred in the state of California, and she walked around with a bubble of law protecting her while her children were at her mercy. She was this great immovable object that was not negotiable. She spewed hatred toward me, and I didn’t know why. I, as a grandmother, was looked on as some sort of pest or nuisance when I tried to get anyone to listen to me. To watch her walk away with the little ones in tow each and every time she hurt them—with all the rights of parenthood, with the authorities protecting her rights, always, even in the face of multiple trips to the emergency room—was demoralizing. How can people look the other way when even the hospital personnel stated the Smith children had been admitted to the ER more than any other children in town?

      I pace. I cannot rest until every one of my babies is safe. Burk tries to be supportive, but he knows I have to see their faces. He tries to get me to eat something.

      He says, “You heard the man. The kids are okay. They are coming home. You can eat now.”

      I say, “Maybe later.”

      Burk has seen me like this before. Like last Christmas, after watching me hurt over my helplessness and inability to rescue the three little ones I love so much, he said, “Let’s take a trip. You need to look at some product back East, and when we’re driving through, we can stop so you can spend Christmas with the kids.” I was a merchant at the time and bought and brokered truckloads of merchandise. “We won’t have to worry about mailing their presents. We’ll drive them out there.” This, of course, was wonderful to hear, and I immediately set about shopping for Christmas gifts and wrapping paper. We packed the car and drove to Tulsa.

      Burk mapped out our trip with several stops in different states, a perfect opportunity to mix business with pleasure. But we both knew that Tulsa would have to be our first stop.

      When we arrived, the kids were glad to see us, but I can’t say that about my daughter. She was distant and subdued and barely said hello to us, acting wary and suspicious. When we walked into the house, she backed in, not offering any welcome at all. So I decided to focus on the kids as they rushed to me, and I leaned down to hug all three at once. The joyful reunion was marred by only one thing. The whole side of Laurene’s face was swollen from the top of her head all the way down and including jaw and neck. She was the saddest little girl I had ever seen. She tried to smile at me but could only manage a painful, one-sided grin. I held her at arm’s length and said, “Baby, what happened?” She immediately looked toward her mother, which was hard to do. She had trouble lifting her face upward and seemed to be in pain, and her neck was stiff. Andrea was waiting for me to say it. “Oh honey, what’s wrong?” With Andrea’s hands on her hips, glaring at me, you could hear a pin drop. She finally says in a deadpan voice.

      “She has an ear infection. She’ll be okay.” I stumble over my words as I tried to choose what to say that won’t set my daughter off.

      I held my sweet Laurene as close as I could without hurting her and I said very quietly, “Have you taken her to a doctor? Does she have antibiotics? You have medical cards for the kids.”

      Andrea backed up and said, “Mom, I’ll handle it,” with a tone that warned me to stop.

      We had barely arrived and were hardly in the front door, and already my daughter and DI were at odds. She told Laurene to go in the other room and play. She reluctantly left my embrace and did as her mother said. She felt feverish, so I asked if there were any baby aspirins. Andrea heard part of this as she was leaving the room and turned back toward me. My ex-husband, Andrea’s father, stepped in and said he’ll get aspirin for Laurene. He turned Andrea’s shoulders to direct her to the next room. He obviously wanted to keep peace. It seemed Andrea and I can’t even be in the same room.

      As a way of changing the subject, Roger told us that this was his cousin’s house and that he rented one just down the street and that Andrea and the kids had been staying at one house or the other since they arrived in Oklahoma. And that between them, they had been looking out after the kids. He saw the concern on my face and offered to be the one to take Laurene to the doctor himself. He said he didn’t realize how bad the swelling had gotten. Roger was not all that responsible himself, but I had to believe he would not see any of the kids hurt.

      The tension was thick in the atmosphere of that little house, and I knew all too well how easily my daughter would forbid me to see my grandchildren. And I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad this time if I knew other people were looking out for them. But I didn’t have that. Even though Roger made promises to look out for the kids’ well-being, I knew his character. He struggled with drugs and had spent ten years in Soledad State Prison for selling drugs to elementary school children. So I had to ask myself whether he would have any stronger feelings for his own flesh and blood. That, with the unsettling feeling of knowing my daughter was abusive and neglectful of her three children and from what I had seen, Laurene as the eldest child took the brunt. Laurene had told me in secret that her mother doubled up her fist and hit her in the head with rings on. To look into the beautiful green eyes of a child you love so much and listen to tales of hate, hurt, and hunger was more than I could bear. How could I tell this child that I want so much to help but I am helpless? How do I explain to a six- year-old that even though I love her with all my heart, I cannot stop the beatings from her mother or the hitting her with rings on her fingers? This little soul knows nothing of the times I’ve begged Andrea to stop this, to try to get help for her behavior, or the times I’ve called Child Protection to report huge bruised black eyes, starvation, drug use in front of the kids, and neglect. Andrea punished me greatly even though I told her it wasn’t me who called them. She would say, “Oh, yeah? Well, you’re the only one who comes over here. No one else has been here but you, so now you can’t see the kids anymore.” And with that, the door would slam in my face. She would tell the investigator the kids fell, and the kids knew to agree with whatever she said or suffer her anger later.

      She had a long wooden spoon, and she would walk through the house hitting it against her leg, and all three would scramble to the sofa. Jackie, as the youngest and still in diapers, would need help from the other two to get onto the sofa before Mom came. They would sit close to each other, legs out in front, hands on their knees, and not move or speak. I witnessed this more than once and cringed at the number of times she must have hit them with that spoon to train them to behave this way. She never hit any of them in front of me. I only saw the results in the form of swollen lips, cuts, and bruises. They fell, was her standard answer. Laurene confided in me the most. JR was so rambunctious; it was hard to get him to focus very long, and Jackie was a baby. I was hoping the hospital staff would get involved with protecting these defenseless children from their mother, and even though ER nurses confided