There was a year and a half that went by that she didn’t see
her kids… didn’t even call them, even though the offer to see them at a public
place still stood. I even (still) pay for a third phone on my cell phone plan
so the kids would have their own phone that they could talk to her on without
her having to call our phones. If they answered, then they were available. If
they didn’t answer, then she could leave a message and they could call her back
once they were done with whatever they were doing. But she didn’t take
advantage of this dedicated phone line often. They have all the different
numbers she’s used saved in their phone (I believe it’s up to 5 or 6 now and
they don’t have her current number saved in there.)
One day towards the beginning of May 2012, we got a letter
in the mail saying that CSEA was taking her back to court to find her in
contempt of her support order because she hadn’t paid anything after CSEA took
the tax return. She had been required to turn in at least 20 applications
either per week or per month to be in accordance with their requirement to get
a job, so she asked for a continuance and cited that she needed to obtain legal
representation beforehand. Right before the hearing, she did end up getting a
job at a gas station. The hearing was postponed for two weeks.
Conveniently a few days after we got the first court
notification, she texted Brian’s phone asking if the kids had gotten her last
couple of messages… after an entire year and a half with no contact. Timothy
had used the cell phone to go to baseball practice and turned it off afterwards
instead of leaving it on, so the phone never rang. I was working at home at the
time and Brian called me to ask if I could check the phone. Once it loaded, it
showed that there were three text messages from her and no voicemails. She
texted her 9 and 6 year olds instead of calling them. They didn’t even know how
to text then… In fact, they still don’t know how to. So I responded to her
texts to let her know the phone had been off and they hadn’t gotten the
messages, but they would get them that night. That evening came and we sat the
kids down and talked to them for about 30 minutes beforehand. We were trying to
prepare them for her to suddenly walk back into their lives. We let them read
the text messages and then let them call her. Timothy went into his room and
talked first but it only five minutes or so before he came out to give the
phone to Thomas. Thomas got on the phone and went to his room. We asked Timothy
why he didn’t talk longer and his response was that he ran out of things to
say. Thomas took about ten minutes and came back out and handed the phone to us
without an active call. He also told us that he ran out of things to say. They
started asking when they could see her again and asking if they could start
calling her every day so we told them that we would talk about it. But then all
hell broke loose. For them, it was like an old injury that had mostly healed
being broken all over again. Timothy was upset but it hit Thomas the hardest.
He went back to his room and cried – not a little sobbing whimper cry, but a
full on, chest heaving, snot dripping, torturous cry. So I went in and laid
down with him and planned on staying in there with him until he fell asleep –
which took a good 2 hours to get accomplished. Meanwhile, Brian went off on
her. He told her that she can’t just go away for such a long time and the pop
back up whenever she wants anymore.
The next day, they wanted to call her again after school. We
waited until after we got practices and everything done and settled for them to
call her. Thomas talked first. He told her that she made him cry the night
before and he didn’t like it and that he didn’t want her to do it again. Mind
you, he was only 6 years old and had the courage to say that. He talked for a
few more minutes and gave the phone to Timothy. They were only on the phone for
around 20-25 minutes total.
Brian and I talked that night about frequency of them
calling her. We decided that if she was going to talk to them again, that the
boys needed to be eased into talking to her again instead of it all being at
once. So we settled on Sundays from noon to 1PM is when they could call her and
if she wasn’t available, then she could call them back during this time. We
figured this way, if they were upset or something after a phone call that it
wouldn’t ruin the rest of their weekend and would give them time to settle down
before going to bed that night. She surprisingly agreed.
During the first week, I reached out to the Family Liaison at
the boys’ school. He was a social worker at the school and someone that both of
the boys knew. He spent a couple of hours on the phone with me and answered any
and all questions that I had. Our main concerns were how to ease back into
contact, how much was too much, if they should see her again, what to do if she
disappeared again and how long to wait for contact if she did disappear. He
said that as parents, we have a job to protect the kids, not only from physical
things but also from mental things and the way she was treating them was
definitely mentally unhealthy for them. He said once a week would be good for
them in multiple ways…it will show how willing she is to commit to a schedule
and it would be a slow integration back into contact with her. When I asked him
about visitation, he told me to do what we thought would be best… if we thought
they would be ok with it, then do it if the chance presented itself. He also
suggested a two week timeframe… once she missed two Sundays in a row, then her
contact with them needed to be strictly written communication instead of
getting their hopes up every Sunday and then being crushed week after week. But
what kinda caught me off guard was when he asked if she was a drug addict. I
hadn’t mentioned drugs at all, but he proceeded to tell me that his on again
off again behavior is typical for drug addicts. So that told me that this man
really knew what he was talking about.
The time came for the child support contempt hearing and she
asked if she could see the kids since she was coming to town the night before.
Brian told her that we would talk it over and get back to her. We decided
before we made a decision that we would ask Timothy what his opinion was. We
figured Thomas was too little and that Timothy would think about it a little
more. He said he would like to see her, but he also told us that he wanted us
to be there with him. So her and I talked and came up with meeting at Chuck E
Cheese the night before the hearing (we had originally settled on her and her
daughter coming to our house to see the kids but we normally take the kids to
Chuck E Cheese on their birthdays and it was Thomas’s birthday so that’s how we
got to that point). I told her we would be there at a certain time and we would
be leaving at a certain time because they had school the next day. She texted
me every day, including the day of, to confirm plans, give me updates, and
things like that. But at some point, she ended up telling me that she thinks
that I’m a great person and that there’s no reason why there can’t be room for
both of us in the boys’ lives. (If you don’t believe me, I still have the
messages and can show you… but it was definitely not typical behavior from her.)
We got to Chuck E Cheese when we were supposed to and she was running about 30
minutes late, so we went ahead and got the kids some tokens and got the food
ordered. When she finally showed up, she dropped off a present for Thomas at
the table and went to go say hi to the kids. I sat at the table and watched.
Neither of the kids knew her at first. She went up to them and stood there and
both of them had a really confused look on their faces. The only reason they
figured out who she was is when she talked and their sister ran up to them.
(This is even worse because Timothy has a family picture in a frame on his desk
in his room from before their divorce and still didn’t recognize her.) She
asked if she could get more tokens for the kids, asked if she could get Thomas
a cake, and even asked if he could open his present. This was very non-typical
behavior for her. Normally, she would have came in and tried to take over. We
ended up staying about a half hour later than planned so Thomas could have his
cake and left when they started to close. The kids said their goodbyes in the
parking lot and she gave them a blanket with her dad’s name on it and gave them
some pictures. She even hugged me…
Court went as expected the next day. She had managed to get
a job at a gas station just prior to the hearing (which she conveniently got
fired from not long after the hearing so I have no idea how she’s actually
managed to continue to pay any support at all) and was ordered to pay $33.00
per month more to start paying her back support. This brought her total to
$183.00 a month. She was also told that if she didn’t make on time child
support payments for an entire year after the hearing, then a warrant would be
put out for her arrest and she’d have to go to jail for 30 days.
She did good with the phone calls for about a month after
the hearing and then didn’t answer or call back one Sunday. They tried again
the next Sunday and the same thing happened. Someone even texted from the phone
saying that it wasn’t her number anymore. I responded asking if they knew her
or how to get in contact with her but I never got a response. So she had gone
two Sundays without talking to the kids and didn’t bother to contact Brian or
myself during that time, even though she could have sent an email or a message
through Facebook. And even if she didn’t have access to the internet, then she
could have borrowed a phone since she’s never been able to forget Brian’s phone
number or she could have sent the kids a letter. There’s no reasonable excuse
as to why she blew the kids off yet again.
The next day, she texted Brian and told him that she hadn’t
been available for the last two Sundays because her and her boyfriend were
breaking up and she needed to get another phone. He told her that wasn’t a good
enough excuse to leave the kids hanging again so if she wanted to talk to them,
she would need to write them letters for a while. Apparently she didn’t like that
answer from him, so she texted me and tried to get a different answer from me –
which didn’t happen. I told her that no matter what’s going on in her personal
life does not give a reason to do that to the boys again.
......... To be continued...
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