Unauthorized Practice

(of baking)

UNAUTHORIZED BAKING by Ruth Tick

I am a nearly silent witness. I listen. People tell me secrets they haven't told their closest friends. They call me on the phone and ask me which form to file; or where to find the form they need. Desperately, they try to crack the mysterious code; try to navigate the labyrinth in the dark. They need the right paper, the magic epistle, that will let them see their kids; prove their paternity; end their marriage; adopt their grandchildren; or simply go on with their lives -- if only they had the right form. I listen to their stories. I am the first to listen.

Hannah Jean

A father has not seen his little girl since before Christmas. His beloved four year old baby girl, Hannah Jean, was whisked away by her mother. He knows that they live in a homeless shelter somewhere on the Gulf Coast. The young father buys minutes for the ex's phone to maintain the one thin thread of contact. She won't say where they've gone. He pays child support to the courthouse weekly, and prays that Hannah Jean will be all right. The government won't tell him where they are.

He wants to go to court and ask the judge to grant him custody – to bring home Hannah Jean. He lives in a house with a big yard and a room for Hannah Jean. He learned through phone calls that they live in a room with three other little girls and one other mother. He wrote a letter to the director of the government child support office and asked for the whereabouts of Hannah Jean. The government official wrote him back, and said that confidentiality laws prevent them from disclosing his daughter's location. Hannah Jean, for whom he pays child support; and for whom there is a pink bedroom waiting.

We might have found her. He knew part of the name of Hannah Jean's daycare. I searched it online and found one that sounded right, and in the right area. He paid his money to the sheriff to have the ex served there. It was the right daycare, but the daycare Director told the Sheriff Hannah Jean no longer attended.

He found the name of a Ministry near the daycare that shelters homeless people. He thinks that is where the ex and Hannah Jean live. The last time I spoke to him he was trying again to serve the ex so that he can schedule a court hearing so that he can ask the judge to bring his baby home.

Wilfred

We have never met in person, we've only spoken on the phone. I imagine that Wilfred's face is wrinkly dark, baked by the sun. He calls me “Miss”, yes Miss, no Miss, thank you Miss. In a scratchy reptilian voice with a thick islander accent, he laments his poverty. A wizened man, a jockey past his prime, small and dark and sad, yearning to see his teenage daughter. Stuck in West Virginia, riding third rate horses at last chance tracks; he has no money. The arrest warrant for contempt for failing to pay child support keeps him away. He calls long distance to explain to the court clerks that he just doesn't have the money to pay; he pays what he can. He just wants to see his daughter.

Denise

Denise called me twice a week for a month. Her 26 year old daughter and son-in-law were strung out on something or other. They were drug addicts in love, using whatever they used, and fighting in between. Denise said she knew they were on marijuana. I thought cocaine or meth or pills, and told her so. Their fights were physical, not arguments.

The first time Denise called, she asked how to petition the court to ask for custody of her daughter's two year old. And she told me that her daughter was eight months pregnant. She wanted to know what form to file and how to file it. I told her to call social services, or the police. I told her that social services could take the newborn straight from the hospital and send her home with grandma. I told Denise to invite social services over for a home study, so she could show the worker her clean home and food in the refrigerator.

Sometimes, when we talked, she would tell me a story, and then laugh. She told me about the time her daughter and son-in-law were fist fighting in the McDonald's parking lot, while police officers watched. The officers waited until Denise's daughter and husband finished fighting and then arrested them both. Denise laughed about it. Her daughter was pregnant when that happened. She laughed when she told me that her daughter hadn't taken any prenatal vitamins, and hadn't brushed her hair, bathed or changed clothes in weeks. Just a chuckle, a small disconcerting laugh. Better to laugh than cry.

George and Samantha

George is an educated man, a professional, a licensed realtor. He thought he could handle things on his own. He and his wife, Samantha, had been separated for eight years, and had stayed on good terms, more or less. He saw his 10 year old son regularly; his son stayed with him on weekends and one evening during the week.

After separating George and Samantha went on with their separate lives. Samantha had two more children with another man, George had a live in girlfriend. When Samantha and the other man decided to marry, she filed for divorce from George. The divorce petition demanded that George pay child support for the two children that had been fathered by the other man.

Since George and Samantha were still married at the time of the children's birth and conception, George was the legal father, until he filed the right paper proclaiming that he wasn't. To George, those two children were nothing more than his ex's children and the half-sisters of his son.

George came very close to being ordered to pay child support for two children that were not his. In court, the judge told him to file the paper; and told Samantha's attorney to explain to George what to do. After court, in the courthouse hallway, George asked Samantha's attorney what to do, what paper to file. Samantha's attorney refused to tell him. If there is no legal dispute, there are no legal fees. Samantha's attorney invented a dispute where there was none. George and Samantha's more or less good terms ended.

When George first found me, he was already past the date to file that paper. He had not filed it, because he didn't know what to file or what it should say. He could not afford an attorney, and could not understand how in the world anyone could claim that he was the father of those children. I prepared the document for him, and he filed it. George narrowly escaped having to pay thousands of dollars just for the lack of the right paper with the right words.