Jade (Wildflowers 3)

"'Difficult,' I said. He'd have to press and pry to get me to say much more. You see, right from the start, I was terrified of my answers, terrified of my words," I explained to the others.

"Why?" Misty asked.

"I was afraid I would give an answer that would make him decide in either my mother's favor or my father's and it would be solely my fault. No matter what my complaints have been about them, I didn't want either to hate me, and I didn't want to hurt either.

"Judge Resnick wasn't a bad judge. He must have had lots of experience with cases like mine because he practically read my thoughts, anticipating my fear.

"'I want you to know,' he said, 'that your comments are very important, but there is testimony from other important people and facts you might not even know yourself. I have other things to consider here.

"'You're old enough for me to cut right to the heart of this, Jade. Do you have any preference or reason to have preference for one of your parents to have full legal custody of you?'

"How do you answer that if you don't hate one or the other? I wondered. Would a judge ask a parent which child he or she prefers?

"Could I erase all the happy moments I had experienced with either of my parents? Did I have to concentrate on the times I was angry at one or the other so I could harden my heart against my father or against my mother? I wished-1 could be cut in half or cloned so each would have what he or she wanted.

" `Do you feel closer in any way with either?' he pursued. 'Or, let me put it this way, do you think one or the other will be more important to you at this stage of your life? I've had girls your age who thought they would need more time with their mothers,' he added, raising those thick eyebrows in anticipation.

"'I'd like more time with both of them,' I said. He nodded, his eyes encouraging. He just wants me to talk, I thought, to talk and talk and talk.

"So I began. I talked about my parents and their precious careers. I talked about the many times neither had been there for me. I guess I talked about my own loneliness. I laughed at his reference to my soon-to-be independence. 'Sometimes,' I told him, 'I feel like I've brought myself up. Independence will be no novelty for me.'

"He listened quietly. I got so into it, I stopped noticing the stenographer's fingers taking down my every word with lightning speed. The judge's eyes gradually turned darker. He even looked angry at times.

"'It's not fair that I'm even here,' I concluded. 'I shouldn't have to do this. It's their problem.'

"When I was finished, he just sat quietly for a moment. His face had become so somber, he looked like a different person. He leaned forward, studied a paper on his desk and then looked up at me and asked, 'What if you lived with neither for the next year? Would that be so upsetting?'

"'With whom would I live? Where would I live?'

"He began by suggesting one of my

grandparents and I laughed aloud then. His eyebrows bounced up and I explained my relationships with my grandparents and how rarely I had spent any time with either my father's or my mother's parents. When he asked about my other relatives, I had the same reply.

"From the way he looked, I imagined I wasn't making it any easier for him. How simple it would be if I would say, 'Oh yes, Judge. I need my mother more now. We have female issues to discuss and my father won't be able to help,' but I had other issues looming before me, and how easy it would be to say I need my father more for them.

"I know what we can do, your honor, I thought, instead of cutting the child in half, cut the parents in half and paste a half of one to a half of the other and give me a new kind of parent, part Daddy, part Mommy, only be sure to cut away the parts full of hate, okay?

"Thinking about that made me laugh and he smiled and asked what struck me funny?

"I decided to tell him and I did. He didn't laugh. He nodded with sadness in his eyes. I glanced at the stenographer whose bland face finally showed some surprise and interest.

'The judge asked me more questions about my daily routine, my ambitions. He talked about my parents' input into any of it, searching, I was sure, for evidence of one being more concerned than the other. I soon began to feel like a witness being crossexamined by a relentless prosecutor.

"Finally, I told him about my parents' recent expressions of repentance and their new promises about all the time each was going to spend with me and how much fun we would have. He seemed interested until I said, 'But in my house promises are lies tied up with pretty ribbons. Every- week our maid vacuums them up and dumps them in the incinerator.'

"I followed that with another nervous little laugh. He asked me if I would like something to drink and I said hemlock. He didn't think that was funny at all."

"What's hemlock?" Star asked.

"Poison. Socrates drank it," I said. Star glanced at Dr. Marlowe and then turned back to me.

"I was tired of all this. The dreariness of the rainy day had moved into my body. I really just wanted to sleep.

" `So,' Judge Resnick concluded, 'if I turn over legal custody to one or the other of your parents, you won't be that upset about it? Is that a fair assessment?'

"'Frankly, your honor,' I said, 'I don't give a damn.' "That's from Gone With the Wind, and actually, it was appropriate. Gone With the Wind took place during the Civil War and that's what was going on in my house.

"Once again, however, the judge didn't laugh. He scowled, made a note and sat back, very pensive.