Dead Wrong

chapter one Oh, sure, I heard the little one crying. And the middle one, too. Only one I never heard was the older one, the boy. They ain't lived here longmaybe a month or so. I never saw much of them. Oh, once in a while, I'd pass the boy on the steps. He never had much to say. No, never saw the mother bring men home. Never saw her much at all, thoughdon't know when she came or went. Heard her sometimes, though. God knows she was loud enough, screaming at them kids the way she done. No, don't know what she was doin' to 'em to make 'em cry like that. No, never saw no social worker come around. Don't know if the kids went to school. Did I what? No, never called nobody about it. Wasn't none of my business, what went on over there. Hey, I got troubles of my own. . . . Mara Douglas rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers, an unconscious gesture she made when steeped in thought or deeply upset. Reading through the notes she'd taken while interviewing the elderly, toothless, across-the-hall neighbor of the Feehan family, she was at once immersed in the children's situation and sick to her stomach. The refrain was all too familiar. The neighbors heard, the neighbors turned a deaf ear rather than get involved. It was none of their business what a woman did to her children, none of their business if the kids had fallen through all the cracks. In neighborhoods as poor as this, all the tenants seemed to live in their own hell. Who could worry about someone else's? Mara rested her elbow on the edge of the dining room table, her chin in the palm of her hand, and marveled how a child could survive such neglect and abuse and so often still defend the parent who had inflicted the physical and emotional pain. Time after time, case after case, she'd seen the bond between parent and child tested, stretched to the very limit. Sometimes even years of the worst kind of abuse and neglect failed to fray that connection. She turned her attention back to the case she was working on now. The mother's rights were being challenged by the paternal grandparents, who'd had custody of the three childrenages four, seven, and ninefor the past seven months. Mara was the court-appointed advocate for the children, the one who would speak on their behalf at all legal proceedings, the one whose primary interestwhose only interestwas the best interests of the children. As their champion, Mara spent many hours reviewing the files provided by the social workers from the county Children and Youth Services department and medical reports from their physicians, and still more hours interviewing the social workers themselves, along with neighbors and teachers, emergency room personnel, family members, and family friends. All in an effort to determine what was best for the children, where their needsall their needsmight best be met, and by whom. Mara approached every case as a sacred trust, an opportunity to stand for that child as she would stand for her own. Tomorrow she would do exactly that, when she presented her report and her testimony to the judge who would determine whether Kelly Feehan's parental rights should be terminated and custody of her three children awarded to their deceased father's parents. It probably wouldn't be too tough a call. Kelly, an admitted prostitute and heroin addict, had watched her world begin to close in on her after her fifth arrest for solicitation. Her nine-year-old had stayed home from school to take care of his siblings until Kelly could make bail. Unfortunately for Kelly, her former in-laws, who had been searching for the children for months while their mother had moved them from one low-rent dive toStewart, Mariah is the author of 'Dead Wrong', published 2004 under ISBN 9780345463920 and ISBN 0345463927.