From 24 to Perry Mason to Law and Order... It all Sucked

Ellie came home one night from visitation visibly upset.  She told me that DP had 2 bags packed.  One for her and one for him.  In those bags were all of her clothes that belonged at his house, a toothbrush and toothpaste, stuffed animals and pull-ups for the nights.  

In his bag were plenty of clothes and toiletries.  

When she asked where they were going, he responded on a trip.  When she asked did her "m-o-m know?" (she was now spelling mom instead of saying it) He said no and it was a secret that she couldn't tell me.  

I, of course, knew nothing of this trip and the very thought of him taking her from me shook me to my core.  A call to my lawyer and of course, nothing that I could do.  We couldn't go in with the threat of him taking her, we couldn't go in with hearsay.  This is the gut-wrenching stuff that was dealt with for about a month.  

From that day on, Ellie would never go to him without my phone number on the inside of her sock, purposefully written in a way that she could pull her sock down and read it the quickest. Though she knew my number, in a state of panic I was worried she would forget it.  She would also have a piece of paper that said, "my dad has taken me please call the police and then my mom at _____ " and my cell number. Ellie understood that if taken to any kind of public transit area she was to go to the bathroom and give that information to anyone.  She could also try to make a break for it and find a person who would call me with the number on her sock.  Or she could also seek out a policeman.  She was not afraid to raise hell by just screaming as well.  We arrived even earlier to each visitation to go over this and make sure the number on the sock wasn't showing, and the paper could not easily be found.  

Every night when she was returned it was if I could breath again.  

*****

As the months went on, the trip was talked about more by DP.  My fear level increased dramatically.  Ellie was positive she would be taken on a certain Wednesday night.  He had been talking about it over and over again.  My lawyer said I could do one of three things.  I could let it go and hope for the best (it was this information that led me to realize I needed another lawyer... coming soon...  stay tuned), I could not show up for the visitation time (this would put ME in contempt of court, and while this sounds funny, it was a fear of mine.  Believe me, I am all for doing anything for my daughter - even going to jail for being in contempt... but was this just putting off the inevitable?).  Or, I could follow them.  

A plan was made and not only did I follow him, but a group of very great people did.  We all met in the parking lot of FM where we did the hand off for Ellie.  One of the followers had even gotten a conference call line and we all called in so we knew where everyone was and no one would lose him.  Or if someone did, hopefully someone else would pick him up.  

You think at this point in the mini series you are changing the channel because I am making this up... I am not.  

It turned from Perry Mason to 24 with me being Jack Bauer.  I didn't tell Ellie we would be there, but did go through the usual prep with her.  She was VERY nervous this night and I tried to reassure her best I could that all would be okay.  A fair amount of eyes would be watching after all and there was no way he was leaving with her.  

DP came in and the two of them left together.  As they did, I ran out to one of the cars waiting, there was no way I was driving, I was a bit too hysterical.  I believe in all we had 4 cars.  We talked back and forth about where he was and what they were doing.  They first stopped at a bakery, then a drive through and then they went to a local high school.  There was a basketball game going on there.  At this point, I felt pretty confident he wasn't leaving with her.  I was terribly appreciative of the followers, the other 24 characters and they all left.  I stayed in the car I was in to see the night through.  

After the game came another restaurant and then him driving around only to show up to FM late.  

The amazing thing, well... several amazing things that night... but one of the amazing things was that Ellie was famished when I got her.  I, of course, knowing they had been to THREE food establishments found that somewhat surprising.  She explained that they went to a bakery and Jack-in-the-box for DP's girlfriend and son, but they did not get Ellie anything.  The last stop was for Ellie but she did not want anything there and there wasn't enough time.  

****

At this point it was time to find another lawyer.  Interestingly enough, my dad made the suggestion.  I was getting no where on a case that seemed open and shut.  

When you look at how Ellie was being treated, it was eating at her.  She was sometimes being seen by DP.  And when she was, it was chaotic hours.  She was never happy.  We were worried about her safety and whereabouts.  And worried about whether would return.  

The breaking point was on Easter when DP showed up an hour and 15 minutes late.  I was waiting the entire time in the FM lobby.  A wreck.  

No phone calls. 

No texts. 

Nothing from him. 

I thought for sure he had taken her. 

It had to stop and it had to stop soon.  

We were going to the top with lawyers.  

Step aside Perry Mason, Law and Order, here we come.  

Cursing

As the visits went on and Ellie got older, she was able to tell me more.  I could see Ellie changing.  I am a strong believer in Mother’s Intuition.  I knew something was wrong.  She would fight harder and harder each time we would have to go to visitation.  She didn’t cry as much, but the build-up was such that we started preparing nearly a day early. 

Now this could be hard because DP could easily not show or cancel.  Then Ellie had to question “why doesn’t my dad love me?” “why does he keep doing this?”… But the preparation, as far as just talking about what was going to happen, how short it was going to be, that I would be there when it was over, etc, became part of our weekly lives as well.  When she did go, my talkative Ellie would clam up when she got home.  The question of “what did you do?” was always answered by “nothing.”  I would try to push it a little, “You had to do something.” “I don’t want to talk about it.” … and that would be that. 

DP started to change too.  The once tolerable hand off of Ellie where he would come into Fred Meyers, Ellie would look at me with crocodile tears and ask, “do I really have to go?” And I would say hi to him -  got worse.  He didn’t even walk up to us anymore.  It was literally as if he wanted us to see him walk in the door of the Fred Meyers, and then Ellie to leave me and walk to him.  I refused to play along with this game.  This was teaching Ellie nothing good in the manners department and she was already so reluctant to go, there was no way I would push her to him.  Each time he tried it, I motioned him over.  I would at least be civil with a hello and Ellie would get one last hug in. 

 He also started to push the time.  Now every single time he got her, he was 15 minutes late.  I refused to go late.  I hope at some point this resonates with Ellie, though right now, I don’t know how.  She didn’t understand if we knew he would be late, why we had to be on time.  I was trying to teach her that promptness is good and hope it makes sense sometime.

We used to play a game while waiting for him.  We could see a mirror from the place that we sat and we would try to figure out if it was going to be him or not by looking at the mirror and watching the next person come in.  It seemed to pass the time a little and was just our thing to do. 

As far as returning her, he went well beyond the 15 minutes.  20, 25 minutes was not unreasonable.  I didn’t get texts or phone calls saying he was running late or that he would be there soon or anything.  My fear every night was that he wasn’t coming back with her.  I would sit on the Fred Meyer bench and anxiously await a bobbing little head coming toward me.  It is amazing how slowly 25 minutes can go by.

I found out later, from Ellie, that he did this on purpose.  He wanted to show me who was boss and that he didn’t have to play by the rules.  It makes total sense.  Being late gets to me.  But, to have your child say to you, “Mommy, my daddy says he doesn’t have to be there at 5, because he knows it makes you angry and he doesn’t have to play by the rules.” And not talk bad about him, is a truly tough thing to do. 

The other thing that changed drastically was where the drop-offs happened.  The Fred Meyers that we went to had 2 double-doors that automatically opened.  In the middle of those was a fully-enclosed area where carts were kept as well as a few video games and such.  Originally, DP would walk Ellie into the bench where I would be sitting, beyond the second double doors.  He stopped doing that.  His new thing was to walk her through the first set of double doors, whisper something in her ear and let her walk the rest of the way by herself.  This was every single time.  When I asked what he had whispered, Ellie told me that she couldn’t tell me. 

The feeling in my gut was so strong that something was wrong I wanted to explode.  As much as I tried to explain it to people, and I heard the “yes, that is horrible” it just didn’t settle me. 

Asking my lawyer what we could do did little good.  He had not paid child support, but that would get us nowhere.  We could go back to court and probably get him for contempt for not paying ½ of her medical needs and not paying attention to the times. But, we couldn’t bring any or my feelings in, couldn’t bring in anything that Ellie had said, because that was hearsay.  We were really at in a bad situation. 

It was around this time that Ellie turned 5 and she was diagnosed with precocious puberty.  I felt it my duty to call DP and let him know about this.  We literally had not spoken since that night at Izzy’s.  He answered my call and I tried to explain in a very calm matter what was happening.  He became erratic and insisted that he be at every appointment that I had lined up at Doernbecher’s for the next week.  Well, I remarked, that would not be wise, seeing as the two of us don’t get along and Ellie doesn’t enjoy her time with you, I only saw that as being MORE stressful than what was already happening.  I told him I would keep him informed of everything and practically begged him to be nicer to me when were at Fred Meyer.  I also asked for a check of his watch.  I explained he was teaching Ellie poor habits.  That got a laugh.  I didn’t expect much.

At this point the texts started.  DP started texting me at odd hours of the night with blank texts or texts that simply didn’t make sense.  The texts would be 5-10 minutes apart and have things like “8 Her 90 m” on it.  And then 10 minutes later “I can’t” and then 10 minutes later a blank text.  One could say there is the mistaken, misdialed text, but I put this nowhere on the same page.  These came at midnight or after.  And several nights a week. 

Dealing with this, Ellie just getting sick and me trying to figure out how to get him either out of her life or a better father, my head was clouded.  And, I couldn’t get away from the feeling in the pit of my stomach. 

******

I picked Ellie up on a Sunday, 5:20, late as usual and she was as quiet as a mouse.  I asked her what they had done for the weekend and her response was “nothing.”  “Come on, Ellie, you had to do something.” I pushed.  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Came the response. 

It was very quiet in the backseat as we drove home.  I was trying to figure out how to handle it because something obviously had happened.  When we got home, Ellie looked at me and told me she was tired and was going to get ready for bed.  Anyone who knows my daughter, knows that this is the oddest behavior for her.  Sure, she is really good about going to bed when asked, but she certainly will never voluntarily go to bed.  I stopped her right there.

I sat her down on the couch, it was time for a heart to heart. 

“Ellie, remember you can tell me anything.” I started off.

“No, mommy, I can’t. I am just going to go to bed. Okay?”

I didn’t want to make things worse than they obviously were for her, so I offered to help her get ready – asked if she wanted a bath or to have dinner and helped her along the way.  But there was something eating at her. 

Lying down with her, I felt her tiny body start to cry. 

“Ellie, what’s wrong?” I asked. 

“Why is Mommy a bad word?” She asked.

“What?”

“Daddy says that Mommy is a bad word and I can’t use it.  Every time I do, I get in trouble.”

I asked for a deeper explanation trying to keep my head on straight once again.  For “his weekend with Ellie” DP had picked her up and taken her to his friends house.  Ellie didn’t know these people and was left there while DP went to work (odd that he was working and I was seeing no money from that… but I digress and we will get back to that at some point).  When he finally came back that night, Ellie said she wanted to go home, could he text “Mommy” and have me come get her?

At that point, DP declared a new rule.  Mommy was now a bad word and if it came out of Ellie’s mouth again, she would be in trouble.  Anytime around him, it was not to be used.  She asked for clarification but couldn’t figure out how to do it without using “mommy” and got in trouble time after time after time that night.  She said she cried the whole night through.  The next morning she was taken back to these people’s house and left there again.  When it was time to drop her off, DP came and got her and brought her to Fred Meyer. 

That was it.  I was done.  Whether we had enough to go on or not, I wanted to go back to court.  In my mind, this was emotional abuse.  Not being able to talk about the person you are with 98% of the time is ridiculous.  And the fact that she was not willing to tell me what “trouble” meant scared me even more. 

I called my lawyer. 

60 Minutes is Not Nearly Enough

I would bet you have all seen Law and Order or maybe even Perry Mason, back in the day.  Not only do they find the person who did it, put them through the trial, hand them a verdict… but it is all done in 60 minutes and that is including commercials. 

I would like to go on record as saying that is bullshit. 

I had the guy.  I had step one checked off.  It should have been easy.  We now enter the phase of court.  And it is long and grueling.

In Washington County in Oregon State in family court, you are given one Judge and that Judge stays with you through your entire, shall we say, career, in the courts.  Our Judge comes with the following:

“Who do you have?” “I have Judge R.” “Ooooohhhh…”

The “Ooooohhhh”  is not a happy sound. It is a sound of pity.  He has a reputation of being sporadic.  He is very pro-both parents being involved no matter what the case is.  (as is Oregon in general – I have heard possible second only to one other state).  He has a background I have learned (yes, I have done my research) that when he was younger his parents divorced and his younger brother committed suicide.  In the suicide note was written that he did so in part because of his parent’s splitting up.  Through the years of getting to know him, I have learned that he will have his mind made up prior to the people involved in the case even entering the building.  Meaning, testimony doesn’t matter.  He comes with, in my humble opinion, a lot of baggage and I wonder at least weekly where we would be had we gotten another Judge. 

But, he was and is ours. 

Before meeting him, I’d have to get a lawyer.  I have had 3 now.  Changed for different reasons along the way.  Keep in mind while reading this, I am currently 8 years into this battle.  It just got more serious as the things DP did got more serious. 

So, we will start at the beginning. 

I hired a lawyer named CV (as you have seen no names just yet, hoping after this is settled and the final gavel is hit I can use them).  She was just out of law school, affordable and I figured I wouldn’t need much; just a plan to get him out of my life.  She actually only appeared in trial with me once; but she did help with a couple of other great things.

******

It was October 14.  I remember because it was his birthday.  It had been about 4 days since he and his sister had come by.  I had gotten several blank text messages from which I assumed was his new number.  A few calls with no messages.  I was trying to be okay with life; but knew hell was about to come. 

There was a knock on the door and I immediately knew it was him.  Ellie and I live in a house where there is a gigantic picture window on the second story.  We can see down below and I saw no car.  Ellie, who was walking already started off and I was chasing her, she was oblivious to the danger lurking outside our house.  The knocking persisted, only louder.  I sat Ellie in the kitchen on the floor and tried to quiet her.  I grabbed the phone ready to call 911.  Now came the yelling. 

“I just want to talk to you; I know you are in there.”  Knock, knock, knock. 

The knocking kept going.

I took Ellie to her room. 

I had the phone in my hand and I answered the door, foot at the base as to only be able to open it a little bit (oh, how much I have learned … don’t answer the door, people).  The door came swinging open, knocking me over and he walked past me to Ellie’s room. 

In a panic I rushed after him and started the call, he took the phone out of my hand and threw it, taking Ellie at the same time.  I was in hysterics. 

He picked Ellie up.  She was now in hysterics.  She didn’t know this stranger and he didn’t know how to hold her.  He tried to cradle her as he had done when she was first born.  I finally got her from him. 

“I am going to make your life a living hell; it is about to get very ugly” He said as he left. 

The only saving grace of that night is that I could get a restraining order.  It was granted to me the following day in a matter of seconds.  He, of course, tried to fight it, but there was no fighting that one. 

The other thing the CV helped me with is that some of DP’s stuff was still at my house.  He had left with only one suitcase of clothes the night he left.   I had packed the rest in boxes and he wanted it and that was fine with me.  The funny part is that he had sent a list of other items he thought he should have as well.  I am not making this list up.  Let me stop for a moment and say that his living arrangements at that time were that he was living with his ex-girlfriend and her new husband (yeah, I know).  So, as I share this list, please remember that he did not have a house of his own, nor had he bought any of the things he was asking for. But, here is his list (I won’t share them all… just the ones I find most amusing):

1 King Size Bed

Dresser

Refrigerator

Washing Machine

Dishwasher

Cordless Telephone

Lawn Mower

So, just to get this straight, you would like to take the Fridge that keeps the food cold for your daughter, that you have not spent a penny on, food or fridge, and put it where?

Needless to say, when I got the list, I was beyond… well, I don’t even know.  I’m looking at the list now, which is actually 3 pages, pretty big font, but 3 pages, and just in awe of it all. 

****

The final thing that CV helped with is going to court the first time.

I was terrified.  I had heard some of the things already about Judge R.  I had no idea what to expect.  I didn’t know if DP would have representation or really what he would be asking for.  So many unknowns the first time you go in. 

My hope, of course, was that he would not be allowed to see Ellie.  He had just threatened us.  He was obviously having issues with drugs and/or alcohol.  This list of items he wanted from my house would have to be ironed out. 

I have always attended court with just my lawyer.  I believe that this is a case between DP and me.  I don’t think that it needs to be a circus with many people watching.  He, on the other hand, brings his ex-girlfriend, her husband, her sister and her mom.  I still have yet to understand it.  I was surprised to see them there the first time.  And still am surprised today. 

He was representing himself.  The Judge thought that was admirable. 

Once those words came out, I knew we were in for a long day.