"After careful consideration, it is the decision of this Family Court to award guardianship of the minor child, Katherine West, to her brother, Andrew West. This case is dismissed."
Judge Zacharias Whittaker spared no glance toward the newly appointed guardian and ward before he rose from his seat and exited the room. His job was done, and his only concern was what kind of dinner his wife had prepared for him that evening.
Trenton Danford, however, had paid close attention; not only to the information given verbally throughout the brief affair, but also to the physical behaviors of those involved. As a reporter to Minister Owen Pearse, Danford was one of many assigned to observe court proceedings and other similar events and to relay to the Minister any relevant knowledge he gleaned from them. Danford found the nonverbal behaviors surrounding the subjects of this particular case to be simultaneously enlightening and puzzling.
Andrew West, for example: while not grinning outright, he kept a shadow of a smile on his face throughout nearly the entire hearing. A bit odd, Danford thought, to be so happy just days after the deaths of one’s parents. When discussion arose about the possibility that Katherine may need counseling, Andrew began to rub Katherine’s shoulders and neck with his hand--a gesture of comfort, by anyone’s guess. However, even from his seat across the room, Danford could see that the touches were too light to be comforting and too deliberate to be genuine.
Katherine, on the other hand, seemed to be completely withdrawn throughout the entire affair. While it was an expected response to the events that had taken place, Danford felt a wave of discontent wash over him at the sight of the small girl with her arms wrapped tightly around her middle. She kept her head bowed, and from her profile, Danford noticed her eyelids blinking rapidly, as though fighting back tears. The child did not react to any of the attention bestowed upon her by her brother, except to stiffen slightly when he reached a hand up to the back of her head and trailed his fingers down her hair.
The judge, Danford knew, was one who held no emotional investment whatsoever in his cases. This quality was, quite possibly, the biggest reason for keeping him on the bench, as many people believed that judges’ decisions should be based solely on logic and not at all on feeling or instinct--as if people’s lives were a mathematical equation that had one correct answer based on all the variables involved.
Judge Whittaker took this position to the extreme, as proven by his demeanor during the West hearing. The man’s boredom was obvious to anyone who looked at him. Danford, ever observant, made note of all thirty-two times Whittaker looked at his watch or the clock; his twenty-three yawns; the twelve times he picked up his pencil and began tapping it on the desktop.
To Judge Whittaker, there was, indeed, only one correct answer to this case--and that answer was whatever ended the hearing the quickest. Awarding custody to Andrew West would prevent another hearing for another guardian, giving the judge one less case to deal with. He had no interest in the two young people whose lives he had just changed.
~
As Katherine West sat in the court room, she did not hear anything that was being said by those who would decide her fate. She focused instead on wrapping her arms around herself, clenching her hands into fists so tight that she could feel her fingernails stabbing her palms, and trying to ignore the feather-light touches of her brother’s hand on her skin.
She knew that they would send her to live with Andrew. How could they not? As far as anyone else was concerned, Andrew was the perfect older brother. He had a degree and a job, and he would be able to provide for her, at least for the next eight years. As long as there was no obvious reason why she could not safely live with him, of course they would give him custody. Besides that, there was nobody else to take her.
Knowing what was inevitable did not make Katherine feel any better about the whole situation: her parents were dead, and she was about to be moved from her home to live with her brother, whose touch made her sick to her stomach as her mind tried and failed to suppress memories from the last time he had trailed his fingers along the skin of her neck like this.
"Come on, Katie," she remembered Andrew whispering as he caressed her neck. "You’re a big girl now. It’s time to start doing big-girl things. But don’t tell Mama and Daddy, yeah? They want to pretend you’re still a little girl. They don’t want you to be a grown-up."
She had just turned nine years old, and she wanted no part in the "big-girl things" once she found out what they were. But she had been visiting her big brother at college, and he had been adamant that she act like a grown-up. Mama had said to be sure to do everything Andrew told her to do. She really had no way to say no.
Katherine did everything Andrew said, so that when her mother asked, "Did you listen to your brother?" she was able to answer, "Yes, Mama" before running up to her bedroom, locking the door, and letting her tears fall from her eyes.
Her parents never knew and so, of course, no police officers, social workers, or doctors had any reason to stand up at the hearing and declare Andrew West to be an unfit guardian. With the judge’s decision made, Katherine walked out of the building behind her brother, resigned and dreading the life ahead of her.