Mairin remembered that advice as she slogged through the next month. The juvenile court judge turned down her motion for a continuance. By standing on her head, she was able to get a psychologist friend to see the mother as soon as possible.

In the meantime Bob Jeffries had called her in about a couple of his domestic relations cases. Kate was right. One of the women called her twice a day to ventilate about how her spouse was treating her. Every little thing he did, she called about. "He was two hours late to pick up the kids on Saturday." Mairin tried to explain that the courts had larger issues to worry about than someone’s being two hours late.

"You just have to teach yourself not to let that bother you," Mairin told her. "Otherwise you’re going to die of a coronary."

In another case, Bob had sent Mairin out to talk to a child who was caught between two parents. The father was Bob’s client, and the child was a daughter who was old enough to make an election as to which parent she wanted to live with. The court could overrule an election, though it rarely ever did. One Friday afternoon, Bob called Mairin in to talk about the two cases.

"Mrs. Walsh needs to see her own private social worker or her own psychologist," said Mairin. "She’s got a lot of problems to work out, and they’ll just keep being problems. He’s going to aggravate her every way be can. He’ll be late every week about picking up the kids. He’ll be late sending child support. She’s got to accept that and learn how to deal with it."

"Can’t you help her out?" asked Bob.

"Social work isn’t that simple," said Mairin. She’d had so many of these conversations. She didn’t particularly feel up to a long dissertation on what counseling involved. "If I were her social worker, I’d have to see her on those terms. She’d have to understand that I am a professional social worker, and she’d have to be interested in changing her style. She doesn’t want to change her style. She just wants a shoulder to cry on."

‘Well, do the best you can with her. She sure drives me nuts. It’s great to know that Denise can refer her calls to you. So how’s Carol Evans doing?"

"She’s in a real quandry. Both of the parents are putting a lot of pressure on her to choose them. I feel sorry for her. Here she is, a fourteen year-old girl, and each parent is giving her the message ‘Choose me or I won’t love you.’"

"Who do you think she’ll choose?"

"It’s really hard to say, but I think she’ll choose the mother."

"Why?"

"It’s just the feeling I get. She has a pretty good rapport with her mother."

"But look at the mother’s lifestyle! She sleeps around. That’s documented, it’s not an issue. Do you think that’s a good example for a fourteen year-old girl?"

"It depends on how the mother handles it."

"The key thing is that the court won’t like it."

"What do you mean?"

"The court isn’t going to think it’s great for a fourteen-year-old girl to be exposed to that life style."

"But she has an election."

"Which the court can set aside."

"Then why have an election?"

"Because sometimes it makes sense. Ron Evans does not want to see his daughter exposed to that kind of lifestyle."

"What is Ron Evans’ lifestyle? From the file it looks as though he gets around, too."

"The judge will understand that," said Bob. "He’s a man, too. If Carol makes an election to live with her mother, we'll ask that it be set aside. We’ll have the grounds to do it."

"But what about Carol? What if she wants to live with her mother?"

Mairin sat quietly for a few minutes. Nothing that ran through her mind lent itself to words. It was all images and pictures of a fourteen year-old girl.

"What about juvenile?" said Bob.

"That looks like a disaster," said Mairin. "The psychologist’s report, our psychologist’s report, is enough to send the mother down the tubes. I don’t believe it myself, but the mother took the little boy along for the appointment with the psychologist. The little boy hadn’t had lunch. He was hungry and tired, and he screamed so much they had to end the session early. You try to help someone, but they won’t help themselves."

"Don’t worry about it, Mair. You did all you could. You gave the mother a shot at testing. You couldn’t have done any more."

"Yeah, I guess I’ll understand when the judge awards custody to Children’s Services."

"Beyer told me that you insisted on going to talk with the mother. He thought you were crazy, but he admired you. He said he’d never have gone down in those projects. But you did your best. Maybe next time you’ll take Beyer’s advice and just call the social worker."

Mairin looked puzzled. "You think Children’s Services is always right?"

"Often enough," said Bob. "It costs us money to handle these cases, remember."

"But how do I know unless I check it out? Checking it out takes time, but that’s why we’re appointed."

"I know, I know," said Bob. "Just don’t overdo it."

Mairin sat through the tax class, trying to digest the discussion of the afternoon. "Stick to contracts," she could hear Kate saying. She got home, cooked a TV dinner since Bea and Harry were visiting Lisa, and was proceeding to eat it when the phone rang.

It was Sandra Guilford. "Where have you been?" she asked. "Michael said he told you two weeks ago to call me."

"That’s right," said Mairin, aghast at the way that time had flown. "I'm sorry. I’ve been so busy that I've lost all track of time."

"Michael said you’re working at Hadleigh," said Sandra. "He thinks Bob Jeffries must have cast a spell over you."

"That’s silly," snapped Mairin. "I was getting a little tired of doing social work anyway, and I figured that I might as well take a direct flyer at law before I made an absolute decision to forego it."
 
 
 
 
 
 

On her juvenile court morning, Mairin awoke reluctantly. She’d tried to prepare the mother for the probability that the judge would award permanent custody of the three oldest children to Children's Services. She’d also sat down with Jeff Beyer to go over the case.

"Where are we with this, Mair?" he’d asked.

"We don’t really have a case," she said. "Our psychological report could be used to prove that the mother is a mess. Children's Services will call some caseworkers to show that the mother doesn’t keep a clean house, leaves the kids with neighbors, runs around, doesn’t cooperate with the caseworkers, etc. What can you do about that?"

"Well," said Jeff, "based on the cases that I’ve had over there, all I can do is to make the caseworker’s statements look like opinions, like value judgments. Lots of their statements fall into that category. I’ll want you to sit at the counsel table with me. Listen to the testimony and write down questions that you think I should ask on cross."

There was a long wait at the court that morning. Mairin paced up and down the corridors. She small-talked with the mother, who was a little, child-sized person herself. In fact, Mairin remembered a worker saying to her that the oldest child mothered the mother. At one point a very well-dressed woman arrived. The mother went up to her, saying, "I’m so glad you could come, Mrs. Lewis." Later Mairin whispered to the mother, asking who the visitor was.

"Oh, that’s my mother," exclaimed the woman.

No wonder, Mairin thought. No wonder you need mothering when you need to call your own mother by her last name. Then they were in the courtroom. Jeff sat first at the table, with the mother beside him. Mairin sat directly behind Jeff. The Children's Services attorney sat on the other side of the table. One caseworker sat behind him, and there were three others, including a supervisor, in the back of the room.

"OK," whispered Jeff as the first caseworker took the stand. "Write down any questions that you want me to ask."

My god, thought Mairin, it is all done on your feet. There’s no way to know what they’re going to say. You just listen and react. There has to be a better way. But she also found that she was thinking of questions. When the caseworker stated that one of the children seemed too obedient and was therefore afraid, Mairin scribbled on her notepad: Q - did the child show any sign of fear? What sign of fear did the child show?

There was a parade of witnesses. Two caseworkers who had been assigned to the mother told of her unwillingness to cooperate. A psychologist at the county hospital related that the mother had been referred to the hospital’s parenting program, but had seldom come and was uncooperative when she did come. A worker from a group home where one of the children stayed told of how the child deliberately broke her own arm, probably to gain sympathy from the mother. She told how the mother came to visit with a man she said was the child’s father but who wasn’t, according to the child. All during the testimony there were muttering of "Lies!" from the mother.

When Children’s Services rested its case, Jeff put the mother on the stand. He asked her about a couple of incidents that the other witnesses had related, to get her side of the story on the record. Then he asked her, "Do you want those children back home with you?"

"Oh, yes!" she said, and the look of happiness was genuine.

"That’s all," Jeff said.

Each side then did a closing argument. Jeff showed a good deal of emotion, surprising Mairin. He said that the caseworkers were entitled to their opinions but that this case couldn’t be decided on opinions. "And did you see that mother" he asked the judge, "when I asked her if she wanted those children back home? She lit up like a Christmas tree."

Then he sat down. The judge looked through his papers. Then he said, "The court grants the motion of Children’s Services."

"Please leave the courtroom," said the bailiff, and the participants began filing out.

"Did you understand what the judge said?" asked Jeff as the three of them walked out.

"No," said the mother.

"He gave custody of the kids to Children’s Services."

The mother turned. Then she began to scream and threw herself on the floor. Jeff and the bailiff picked her up and carried her across the hall into the bailiff’s office. Jeff looked at Mairin as if to say, "Do social work."

Mairin pulled up a chair beside the one in which the mother was sitting. She let her cry. Eventually she put her hand on the mother’s arm. "I tried to warn you," she said, "but I know you couldn’t really believe that this was going to happen."

The woman looked straight ahead, eyes stony. Then she said, "What about my little boy?"

"Okay," said Mairin. "They’re not going to take him now, but they already have temporary custody of him. You go home, and you love him. And you cooperate with those workers. If they ask you to stand on your head, you do it. It’s not fair, but you do it anyway. Otherwise they’ll ask for permanent custody of him, too."

The woman nodded.

"Are you all right?" asked Mairin.

"Yes," she said.

"I’ll walk you to the door," Mairin said.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Jeff was standing in the hall when she came back.

"I could use a drink," she said.

"So could I," he said. "Let’s have a two-martini lunch."

They walked into one of the nicest restaurants in town.

"Far superior to my usual hamburger," said Mairin.

"Mine, too," said Jeff. "We associates don’t eat at the Club like the partners."

"At least you male associates can eat at the Club if you’re invited," said Mairin.

"Well, male superiority and all that."

"Sure. Anyway, I’m puzzled about a lot of things. How did you know what to ask?"

"That’s just experience. And I’m just a beginner. Get Bob Jeffries to let you watch one of his trials. He's superb. Each man develops a little different style. At the moment mine is based on ‘Make no assumptions.’ Remember when the caseworker said she’d been at the apartment on a cold winter day and that the baby didn’t have a sweater? I asked her ‘Was the baby shivering? Did the baby have goose-bumps?’ You can’t assume that just because one person thinks it’s cold, another will feel cold."

"Think small," mused Mairin. "That’s what I’m learning, if you want to boil it all down. That’s what you’re saying, in a way."

"Yes," he said. "You try to show that someone’s ‘fact’ is an opinion. Take nothing for granted. Don’t assume the truth of anything you’re told. You’ll be able to do that. You could do it now. You wrote down a couple of good questions."

"Another thing. You gave such an impassioned closing statement. You never met the woman before, and you knew as well as I did that with the evidence that was presented, the judge wasn’t going to give her the kids no matter what you said."

"That was for the mother. Sure, you’re right. No way she was going to get the kids. But it’s her day in court. If she’d been educated and articulate, that’s what she would have said--just what I said."

"Oh," said Mairin. It seemed clear.

"You handled her very well," said Jeff.

"Thanks,’ said Mairin. "I’m much better at building people up rather than tearing them down."

"You’re not comfortable with the adversary relationship. A lot of women aren’t."

"I wish I were more like Kate."

"Ahhh, don’t be too hasty. Kate overdoes it sometimes. Some women do. They’re so afraid that they’ll be perceived as weak that they come on double strong. Kate makes me feel that I’d better wear a steel cup,"

"She seems extremely reasonable to me," said Mairin surprised.

"She doesn’t have to prove anything to you."

"In fact, she impressed me as just the opposite. Not weak. No, relaxed. Relaxed but firm. I get upset when people are snotty. Kate seems not to."

"Hmmm," said Jeff. "Look, we’d better stagger back."
 
 
 
 
 
 

Later that afternoon, Bob Jeffries dropped by Jeff Beyer’s office. Jeff was a bit surprised, but Bob settled comfortably into a chair. "How did it go this morning?"

"It was a circus, sir, a real circus. Our lady didn’t have a chance, and she went bananas when she got it through her head that she’d lost the children. The bailiff and I hauled her out. Mairin settled her down."

"How’d Mairin do?"

"Very well. She certainly knew the case. She’d tried to give the woman the best shot. The woman just wouldn’t take it. Or couldn’t, I guess."

"It would be good experience for Mairin to handle some of the courtroom work on these cases. Let’s get her qualified as a legal intern--if you think she could handle it."

"Sure she can. She seems to have a little problem with self-confidence, though."

"True. But what a refreshing change from a Kate Regent, no?"

Jeff was clearly surprised. "We were just talking about Kate this noon," he said. "Mairin hasn’t seen her tough act yet. She thinks Kate is all sweet reason."

"Sweet. That’s what we have to knock out of Mairin. She’s too nice." He got to his feet. "Thanks, Jeff." On the way back to his office he thought, yes, she is sweet. I wouldn’t want to knock all that out. There’s something about Mairin that makes you want to hold her. Kate you could belt in the chops.
 
 
 
 
 
 

The next day Bob buzzed Mairin to come to his office. "I heard your Juvenile appearance went well--that you prepared well."

Mairin grimaced. "Do you know, the mother just called me? She wanted to know if this meant she couldn’t visit the kids anymore. Do you believe that? I feel so sorry for her."

"I’d like to have you qualified as a legal intern. You can do your own representation in juvenile then."

"Okay," said Mairin.

Bob was a little surprised, pleasantly so. "You’ll make a trial lawyer yet, he said.

"I don’t know about that, but that much of it I can do. It’s funny, isn’t it. What’s more important than a mother losing her kids? Just about anything."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing."