Monday, March 7, 2011
District Attorney Mary Katherine "Kit" Vicari-Hightower stepped into the 90th District Court late Monday afternoon. It was "pots and pans day." In other words, child support, child custody, divorce, property settlements and all the messy parts of life which impact families oftentimes in the worst of ways -- especially the children.
Kit took notice it was Andrea Forest. Her daughter Sommer was one of the backup guards on Tiffany and Christina's basketball team. A senior who was best described as "tough nosed" and "fearless" who wasn't the most talented, but probably was the most consistent of all of the players in getting her best each and every play.
At five foot-four and a solid 130 pounds, she would throw her body around diving for loose balls, trying to win every 'fifty-fifty battle' on the court. And she won more than others did. A lot more. Appreciably more.
God didn't give the girl loads and loads of talent. But She gave the child loads and loads of heart -- and it was infectious. The coaches had learned to send her in with the sixth girl, an offensive weapon, knowing the child would 'stir things up' and create havoc on the floor. And her tenacious defense would offset some of the shooter's shortcomings in that part of the game.
"Mrs. Forest," 90th District Judge Gregory Henderson, Kit's mentor and friend, said.
"I am sorry your attorney is not here, but the papers are in order. Your daughter turns 18 a year from March, and by statute the child support stops then."
"The best I can do is order that child support continue through graduation. There's nothing I can do about ordering her father to help with college expenses. I'm sorry," the judge said, glancing up at Kit with tired eyes. Greg had been battling cancer off and on for years. And the latest round of chemo had taken its toll on his body, and his spirit. She, and he, and many others feared the worst -- it was just a matter of time.
"But your honor," Andrea moaned resigned to the fact that once again Life had bitten her child in the butt.
Andrea's ex smirked. Kit knew he had been buying stuff under his wife's name, a new boat, a pickup for him, a car for his current wife's 15-year-old daughter -- the cops were laying in the weeds on her as she drove like a bat out of hell. Both Kit and the county attorney had agreed when that case came before the bench, whichever court it might be, they would be dropping the hammer on the teen before she killed someone else.
Yet the man wouldn't spend one penny more than the court ordered for his own daughter. His own flesh and blood.
Kit got up to walk up to the bench and was passing behind Andrea when her ex hissed, "half-breeds don't deserve college anyway."
Kit reached out and firmly grasped the half-Hispanic woman's shoulder to keep the anger from resulting in something even uglier, more violent.
Andrea had a well-earned reputation for never backing down from a fight. She might have suffered broken ribs at the hand of the bastard, but she kicked in his left knee and broke his jaw with a well-placed right cross and a hard kick during on their donnybrook battles before she finally moved out and filed for divorce.
The bastard had fought her every step of the way until the judge finally laid the law down.
"Don't!" Kit hissed. "He's not worth it."
"And you, get out of this courtroom before I call an exterminator you cockroach," Kit said then glaring at the man's attorney who was just shrugged 'what can I do?'
"Make that two cockroaches," Kit snarled as she stared down the attorney sending him scurrying after his client worrying that representing this ass might cost some of his other clients, his criminal clients. Kit had a well-earned reputation for exacting retribution -- especially if she thought an attorney had needlessly harmed another.
"Andrea, stay! I want to talk to you," Kit said getting the despondent woman to nod her head 'yes' as her shoulders sagged as the stared unseeing at the floor.
"What's up sexy?" Judge Henderson teased.
Judge Greg, as many of the attorneys called him, knew it made Kit livid that judges and attorneys, the worst of Alpha Males, saw her as a sex object and not as a very competent attorney. So, he teased her because she knew that was far down his list of 'what's best about Kit.'
"Just need some bonds approved," she said.
"What just happened there?" the judge asked softly nodding towards Andrea.
"The cockroach told her that 'half-breeds' don't deserve to go to college," Kit said.
"Bastard!" the judge said, not realizing Andrea heard it and wondered whom he was referring to.
"Kit I'm getting cantankerous in my old age. He better pray he doesn't appear before me again," Greg snarled making a mental note to himself that the either/or calls should go against the man. All of them, and judges had a lot of latitude within certain boundaries as long as they stayed away from the things that trigger the appellate jurists.
Kit patted the judge, her mentor and friend, on the hand and went to collect Andrea taking her into her chambers for a long mother to mother talk while wondering how much was in the Whispering Winds Scholarship Fund.
Sommer was not only a good kid, but levelheaded. A solid student who would have to work hard at it, but would not only survive, but devour college. She, and her mother deserved a break.
"Andrea quit being hard-headed," Kit said the topics of student loans and local scholarships came up.
"I'm not," the brunette, who realized she was really, really tired from fighting the bastard for more than 15 years. "Sommer's got her heart set on college and being a nurse anesthetist. She can probably get some scholarships, but I wanted him to help," Andrea moaned finding a friendly court in Kit to voice her complaints.
"Besides Mrs. Yeager keeps telling Sommer there's no way she'll maintain a 3.0 and keep any scholarships after the first semester and to just go to trade school or enlist!" Andrea said.
"The bitch is telling a lot of the juniors and seniors that," Kit said. "Sometimes I think she pushes that so there will be more scholarship money for her pets, and the children of her friends."
"Guess I need to find some part-time work," Andrea, a lab technician at the hospital and clinic, said as Kit saw the woman visibly deflate.
"You up to doing some house cleaning?" Kit asked, realizing there might be a golden parachute for the woman, and her spunky daughter.
"Yeah, I guess," Andrea replied in a monotone. "Does it pay any good?"
"Well Carroll Henderson's lost his housekeeper. He was telling me at the spring league game Saturday," Kit said.
"What's the deal there? With him anyway? He sure hangs around the gym and the kids a lot," Andrea asked without saying out loud what many of the mothers had wondered as the widower watched the kids, especially the girls, shouting encouragement and gently needling the officials.
Kit explained how the man's late wife was a basketball junkie, having played on an AAU national championship team at Louisiana Tech. And she had taught her husband about the sport as they watched their daughter and son play the sport.
"He told me going to the games it feels like she is there next to him, squeezing his arm and squealing in excitement when some kid has an 'ah ha' moment and accomplishes something new," Kit said softly, a widow herself married to a widower, she understood the holes in a person's heart.
"Well, that makes sense. Some of the mothers, the worrywarts, were wondering if he was a pedophile," Andrea snorted.
"Far from it. He likes his girls, mature and adventurous -- according to some of the hints his wife used to drop," Kit said as the two women snickered.
"And since then?" Andrea asked realizing the man's wife had died more than six years ago; and that Kit would know more about the man than most seeing as he was the judge's baby brother, and Kit was being groomed, appropriately, to step onto the bench when the cancer finally won its battle..
"Honestly, I don't think he's touched a woman since she died of skin cancer. And I'm not positive he's even given any woman 'that look,'" Kit responded. "Just like someone else I know," she said, looking at Andrea who was reputed to be totally celibate.
Kit picked up her phone, scrolling through her contacts and then dialed. "Carroll, Kit.
Don't you start that Kitty Kat shit with me mister!" Kit snarled at his response, but smiling at Andrea confirming that some people, some few, could get away with the intimate nickname. Kit was notorious about how she responded to the casual use of the name.
"You still looking for a housekeeper. Visiting with Andrea Forrest. She's looking for some part-time work that would fit her schedule in the lab so she can have money for Sommer's incidentals at college. Yeah, she's a planner. Okay I'll tell her. Love ya too you ole galoot," the auburn-haired beauty said smiling.
"Carroll said for you come by. Is about 6 okay? He wants to talk to you about it," Kit said.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
"Mr. Henderson, I hope you don't mind. I brought Sommer with me," Andrea said as she arrived at the man's home at 6:30 to clean.
They had reached an agreement. She would come in twice a week, sweep, mop, change the linens, wash clothes, dust, general housework. She would split the work between Monday and Thursday evenings.
After walking through the 4,200-square foot five bedroom, four and a half bath home, Andrea had hesitantly asked for $100 a week.
Carroll growled in response a stern look on his face, "Nope. Too much," he said watching her eyes fall as a hint of a smile graced his lips which rarely smiled except in response to a hustle play on the basketball court -- something Sommer was guaranteed to do at least a dozen times a game.
"Too much work. $200 a week," he said growling when she started to protest. And he paid her cash openly telling her he would provide quarterly statements showing just $100 per week 'for cleaning services' which she would need to report on her income tax.
