We spent the next few days going through heartache and unnerving silence. The house was barren. It offered the illusion of life but there was barely a breath in the air.
My sister called. "What are you going to do, Sam?" She asked demandingly.
"I don't know, Ruby. I want crawl under a rock right now. But there's no rock big enough."
Ruby sighed."Well we have to do something about this. Why did they put the kids with that woman?!"
"I don't know. I thought it was within my rights as their mother to dictate where they go in a situation like this."
"Mm-hm. It is. Did you tell her you didn't want them going there?"
"Of course I did. I offered everything I could think of." I accidentally yelled. "I told her I wanted them to go to mom's. NOT Deborah's. I told Nicole that mom would take them. I even offered you. I offered to kick Brad out of the house temporarily. But she said no to everything."
"Hmm." Ruby went silent on the phone.
"I think this whole thing was set up. Deborah's been after my kids since, forever, now. She wanted Hailey, she wanted Eve....This is ridiculous!" I shook my head.
"Hm." Ruby grunted out of her throat.
"What am I supposed to do Rube? This isn't right!"
"Well, you should consider getting a lawyer."
"And then what? Go to court? I don't want to risk my kids."
"You already did, Sam! They're gone. They were taken and given to that woman! They're already at risk!"
"I can't even see them yet. She said this was a 'non-removal removal'. What the hell is that?!" I demanded.
"WHAT?!"
"Exactly. What is it?!"
"A 'non-removal removal'? That doesn't make sense. As far as I know there's no such term. At least, when I worked for the ministry years ago, there wasn't a term like that."
"Awesome! That's just fucking great!! So, not only are they working together, made up a plan to get my kids, set Haley up to make this call, stripping me of my parental rights, now they're making shit up?! How is that legal?!" I screeched.
"I don't know, Sam. But you're going to have to get a lawyer. I'm telling you. It may be the only way to get them home."
"Mm-mm." I shook my head. "Right now I still have some kind of say over the kids. I don't want to risk losing what little rights I've got left."
Ruby was silent on the phone again.
"What else can we do? We're willing to agree to whatever they ask of us."
"That's good! That's the first step. Second step is to do more."
"Right. Cuz if we do more than they ask, they'll have nothing left to make us do. Less hoops to jump through."
"That's right." Ruby sang. "So you're going to have to think ahead. They're probably going to make Brad take Anger Management. That's easy. I'm getting that program set up on Cheam. He can come to that."
"No, no." I said. "WE will go. I'll go with him. MCFD can't disagree to that. I'll go to support Brad. Besides, I'm nosey. I want to know what Anger Management is all about."
"Okay. That's good. Then they can't make you do it to delay giving the kids back. Did they say what you have to do??"
"Yeah. They want Brad to go to some programs they didn't list. They want me to see Miranda again and Alicia. They're going to talk to Brad about the accusation and decide then, I think. Otherwise we know nothing." I sighed.
