the decision

I couldn't believe it.  My daughter--gone.  How could the judge have decided that I am unfit as a parent?  I thought it through--my husband had more money, better lawyers, and a private detective that was not above falsifying evidence to show me in the worst possible light.  Put all that together, and, really, what chance did I have?

I tried to reason my way around the problem.  I called my ex--I should have known better.  "You wounded me, Marlene.  You knew that I wanted custody.  You knew that I would fight.  And I did.  You only have yourself to blame.  You do realize that, don't you?  Shania is never going to see you again, and it's all your fault."

Next, I tried to speak to my lawyer.  He reminded me that I still owed him money.  It's pretty hard to pay up when your ex-husband has made it impossible for you to use any funds in common--and he made sure that all our funds were held in common.  Somehow those funds conveniently disappeared, and the only funds that he says we have are a savings and checking account with less than $2000 total. Yes, I have half of that, but that won't even pay for rent and food for the month.  The rest of the money--the money that I earned while he went to school, the money that he made while I stayed home with Shania, the money that he had assured us would more than take care of our needs when he retires--all gone.  Not a penny in sight.  Anywhere.

So I made a decision.  I went to school to bring Shania home with me.  I figured it would be easy.  As far as I knew, I was still on the emergency card, so I thought I would just come to school and sign her out, then I would take her away--somewhere.

Things started going wrong right away.  I'd forgotten that I had to be buzzed in, and it scared me.  Then, when I got into the main office, it wasn't as easy to see my daughter as I thought it would be.  The secretary, friendly and smiling as always, told me to hold on just a minute while she looked up Shania's schedule.  When she did, I could see the smile freeze on her face.  She told me to hold on just a minute while she took care of something.  Already scared, that made it even worse.  I took out the knife I'd brought with me "just in case" and--hardly believing what I was saying myself--told her that she wouldn't talk with anyone.  She would tell me where my daughter was--now!  I decided that the smartest thing was to get her and run.

The secretary begged me to wait for Shania to be brought to her, but I didn't want to hear it.  I looked over her shoulder at Shania's student profile--it said that her homeroom was room 210.  I wasn't sure where that was, but I ran out of the building to look.  As I ran, I heard an announcement "This is a lockdown!  Please go to a safe area immediately! This is not a drill!"  I thought that was sort of odd--I didn't see any children anywhere--but I figured that I'd better get on with it.  Next thing I saw was a group of teachers going out of their rooms and locking the doors.  I went to the nearest teacher and forced my way into the door before she could lock it.

I felt the tears running down my face.  "Please, I don't want to hurt anyone; I just want to see my little girl."  The teacher put herself between me and the class.  "Who is your daughter, Ma'am?"  "Shania Wilson."  "I'm sorry, Ma'am.  Shania isn't in here.  Do you want me to call the office and see where she is?"  "No! I just want to see my daughter!"  I thought about it for a minute, then I pulled my knife.  Children began to scream.  "Let me see my daughter!"

The teacher went to her computer.  She told me that she would try to find out what class Shania was in right now, and I let her.  After a minute, she looked at me and said, "She's in room 315.  Do you know where that is?"  I told her that I didn't, and she took me to a map of the school and showed me where her classroom was and how to get to the other.  I thanked her and left.

I didn't get to 315.  I didn't get past the hallway.  When I left the room, there were two security guards waiting for me.  They tackled me and threw me to the ground.  The police arrived soon after.  I realized that I had made a gigantic mistake, and I looked for my knife--I wanted nothing more than to end it all right then.  But the security guard had already found it and taken it.  The police handcuffed me and walked me down the hallway.  In my mind's eye I saw Shania looking at me through a window that wasn't there.  Goodbye, Shannie.  I'm so sorry.  All I wanted was for us to be together.  Just one more in a series of bad decisions.