Chapter 2 - The Grandfather Nobody MentionedThe man waiting outside the courtroom looked nothing like Carter expected.
He had imagined losing his construction business.
He had imagined the mortgage becoming too much.
He had even imagined waking up one morning and realizing every good decision he thought he'd made had somehow been wrong.
He had never imagined sitting outside Family Courtroom 4B with five children under seven holding onto him as if he were the last solid thing left in their world.
Six-year-old Noah sat closest to Carter's right side.
Noah didn't cry anymore.
That worried Carter more than tears would have.
The boy had spent the past three weeks behaving like a forty-year-old trapped inside a first-grader's body. He checked whether his younger siblings had eaten. He tied three-year-old Sophie's shoes. He counted everyone whenever they entered or left a room.
Five.
Always five.
Beside Noah sat five-year-old Eli, chewing the inside of his cheek.
Four-year-old Lucy had both arms wrapped around Carter's forearm.
Three-year-old Sophie leaned against Lucy.
And little Ben, not yet two, slept against Carter's chest with one tiny hand twisted into the collar of his shirt.
Across the hallway, two social workers whispered beside a window.
Carter didn't have to hear them.
He knew what they were discussing.
Three homes.
That was the plan.
Noah and Eli would go together to a foster family in Dayton.
Lucy and Sophie would be placed with another family nearly an hour away.
Ben would be sent alone to a couple licensed specifically for toddlers.
The county called it a practical placement solution.
Carter called it breaking a family that had already been broken once.
Three weeks earlier, the children's parents, Rachel and Michael Bennett, had died when a truck crossed the median during a rainstorm.
Carter hadn't known them well.
Rachel had been his cousin's childhood friend. Years ago, Carter had helped Michael repair a deck. They'd spoken maybe five times.
That was it.
He wasn't an uncle.
He wasn't a godfather.
He wasn't even technically family.
But Rachel had once said something during a neighborhood barbecue that Carter had forgotten until after she died.
She'd been watching all five children run through a sprinkler.
"If anything ever happens to us," she'd laughed, "I just hope somebody keeps these lunatics together."
Everybody had laughed.
Carter had too.
Now nobody was laughing.
"Mr. Hayes?"
He looked up.
Dana Reynolds, the children's caseworker, stood in front of him with a folder against her chest.
"They're ready."
Lucy's fingers tightened around his arm.
"Are we getting separated now?" she whispered.
Carter felt something crack inside him.
He crouched so he could look directly into her frightened brown eyes.
"Not today."
Dana's expression softened.
But Carter knew she'd warned him not to make promises.
He didn't care.
"What about tomorrow?" Noah asked.
That was Noah.
Always thinking one disaster ahead.
Carter looked at him.
"I'm working on tomorrow too."
The courtroom was smaller than Carter expected.
No dramatic jury box.
No television cameras.
Just dark wood, fluorescent lights, lawyers with stacks of paper, and Judge Rebecca Lawson seated behind the bench.
Carter recognized immediately that she had already read everything.
His age.
His income.
His three-bedroom house.
His unmarried status.
His lack of parenting experience.
His application to become an emergency kinship caregiver even though he was not technically kin.
His insane request to take all five children.
Judge Lawson adjusted her glasses.
"Mr. Hayes, I want to make certain I understand what you're asking this court to consider."
"Yes, Your Honor."
"You are twenty-nine years old?"
"Yes."
"Unmarried?"
"Yes."
"No children of your own?"
"No."
"You operate a residential contracting business?"
"Yes."
"And until three weeks ago, you had never cared for these children overnight."
"No, ma'am."
The county attorney shifted in his chair.
Judge Lawson continued.
"Yet you are requesting temporary placement of five children, ages six, five, four, three, and twenty-one months."
"Yes, Your Honor."
"Do you understand the magnitude of that?"
Carter glanced behind him.
All five children sat with Dana.
Noah was staring directly at him.
"I think I'm beginning to."
A few people smiled.
The judge didn't.
"Beginning to isn't enough."
Carter swallowed.
She was right.
Judge Lawson leaned forward.
"Mr. Hayes, sentiment is not a parenting plan."
"I know."
"Good intentions do not get five children to school, preschool, medical appointments, therapy sessions, and bed every evening."
"I know."
"You have three bedrooms."
"I can renovate the basement. I've already drawn plans."
"You work fifty-hour weeks."
"I hired a project manager yesterday."
"You have no spouse."
"No."
"No live-in partner."
"No."
"No substantial savings."
"I have enough for six months, and the business is stable."
The county attorney stood.
"Your Honor, nobody questions Mr. Hayes's intentions. But these children's needs are considerable. The proposed foster placements are licensed, vetted, and prepared."
Prepared.
Carter hated that word.
Prepared to do what?
Separate them efficiently?
Judge Lawson looked toward Carter.
"Why?"
The room became still.
Carter frowned.
"Ma'am?"
"Why are you doing this?"
The question struck harder than any of the others.
Judge Lawson removed her glasses.
"You aren't obligated. Nobody would blame you for walking away. You could volunteer. Visit them. Remain part of their lives."
She gestured toward the paperwork.
"But you're proposing to restructure your career, your home, your finances, and your entire future."
Her eyes settled on him.
"So I'm asking you plainly, Mr. Hayes."
Why?
Carter turned.
Noah immediately looked down.
And then Carter understood.
The children thought this hearing was about whether they were good enough to keep.
Not whether he was capable of keeping them.
He faced the judge again.
"My father left when I was seven."
His voice sounded strange in the quiet courtroom.
"I had a little sister named Anna."
Nobody moved.
"When my mom died four years later, Anna and I went into care."
Carter hadn't spoken about this publicly in years.
"We were supposed to stay together."
His jaw tightened.
"But there weren't enough homes willing to take two kids."
Dana lowered her folder.
"So they separated us."
Judge Lawson's expression changed.
"I got moved six times before I turned eighteen. Anna got moved nine."
He stared at his hands.
"I kept telling her I'd find her when I was old enough."
The silence deepened.
"I didn't."
Carter inhaled shakily.
"She died at sixteen."
Somewhere behind him, someone gasped.
Carter couldn't look back.
"So when people tell me these five will be okay because they'll have good homes..."
His voice broke.
He forced the words through anyway.
"I believe them."
The judge's eyes glistened.
"But I also know that a good home doesn't replace the person who remembers the same bedtime song your mother sang."
Noah began crying behind him.
Quietly.
Carter continued.
"It doesn't replace the brother who knows you're afraid of thunder. Or the sister who remembers what your dad's pancakes tasted like."
Judge Lawson wiped beneath one eye.
Carter looked directly at her.
"I'm not trying to save five children, Your Honor."
His gaze moved toward the kids.
"I'm trying to save one family."
Noah jumped from his chair.
Dana reached for him, but he was already running.
He hit Carter around the waist.
Then Lucy came.
Then Eli.
Then Sophie.
Ben started crying because everyone else was moving, so Dana carried him over too.
Within seconds, Carter stood surrounded.
Five children.
Ten arms.
One terrified family.
Judge Lawson looked down at the paperwork for a long moment.
Then she cleared her throat.
"This court will recess for thirty minutes."
The gavel came down.
Carter closed his eyes.
Thirty minutes.
That was all that stood between five children and three different homes.
Then Dana leaned close.
"Carter."
He looked at her.
Her face had gone pale.
"What?"
She glanced toward the courtroom doors.
"There's a problem."
His stomach dropped.
"What kind of problem?"
"The Bennett children's maternal grandfather just arrived."
Carter stared at her.
"I thought they had no living relatives."
"So did we."
May you like
Dana looked toward the doors.
"And he's demanding custody."
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