Chapter 11: Decision
"Are you the ones waiting for news on the girl?"
Ororo almost flew out of the chair she had been slumped in for an hour waiting for news. Xavier pushed his own chair up to the tired-looking doctor and said, "How is she?"
The doctor sighed. "You want the good news or the bad news first?"
"Bad," Ororo said softly, bracing herself for the worst.
"She's dehydrated, terribly bruised, malnourished, and suffering from such severe vitamin deficiencies I'm surprised that her bones didn't break during that extensive beating she received. She's also got an exotic cocktail of drugs in her system, more than the dosage one would ordinarily use on an adult twice her age and weight. Animal tranquilizer, sodium pentathol, multiple injections of liquid magnesium, even the date-rape drug Rohypnol, which I assume was used to keep her from fighting them while they…" he sighed. "There's no easy way to say this. Her lower intestines have shut down due to the trauma inflicted on it. She's going to need muscle stimulator shots in order to get them working again."
"Wait a minute. You're saying…" The doctor nodded, slowly, and Ororo covered her open mouth with her hand as tears filled her eyes.
Xavier was silent for a long minute. "What's the good news, Doctor?" he asked finally.
"She wasn't raped. Not in the traditional sense, anyway." The doctor sighed. "Not that its any consolation for the poor girl. If you don't mind, could I ask you a few questions too?"
"Go ahead," Xavier said gently.
The doctor sat down. "I realize you run a boarding school, and you doubtless have a lot of students to supervise, but did anyone take special note of what she ate, when, and how much?"
Ororo shook her head. 'She has only been with us for a week prior to her…removal…form the school by Dr. Hebron," she said. "And I'm afraid we were all somewhat lazy. It is the summer holidays."
The doctor shook his head. "Then her parents have a lot to answer for," he said. "Her condition would have begun to be evident at least six months ago. Her activity level would have dropped noticeably; she would have had trouble concentrating; she would have started forgetting things like what she ate for dinner the previous night, the name of the book she'd just read, so on and so forth. Little things like that." He sighed, and consulted the chart in his hand. "Then her clothes would have started not fitting; she would have started throwing up spicy or any heavily-seasoned foods. She probably dropped about twenty pounds in one month. She would have stopped getting her periods. If her parents had been monitoring her condition, she would have looked emaciated by about two months ago. She wouldn't have shown any noticeable symptoms after that, except chronic shortness of breath and an inability to perform any sustained physical activities. Then one day she would simply have collapsed in a coma and died shortly thereafter if the doctor who had her in his care didn't realize she needed calcium and vitamin C shots. Ordinarily I wouldn't have put anything else into this girl's system until she had flushed out the rest of the drugs in her, but this time I made an exception. I had to in order to keep her alive." He hesitated. "The papers and the police officer who came in said she was under the care of Dr. Hebron and an 'assistant'. Who is this man?"
"Dr. Hebron," and Xavier 's voice became noticeably harder, "is a former psychiatrist who had his license revoked because he was performing experiments using electroshock on autistic patients. The police found out that the assistant's name is Preston Childs."
The doctor sat up as if he'd been electrocuted. "Preston Childs? Is he in his mid-forties, kind of heavyset, blond hair, brown eyes? Has one gold tooth in the front?"
Xavier hadn't noticed much about the man, but Ororo nodded. "I do not know about the tooth," she said quietly, "but the rest of his appearance is as you described."
The doctor said, "Did the police arrest him?"
"I do not know," Ororo said. "Why, Doctor?"
"I have been a pediatrician here for twenty years," the doctor said. "About fifteen years ago this man was convicted of molesting a number of young boys who were my patients. He pled guilty, and was sentenced to a psychiatric facility. He just got out a year ago. They said he was cured." He got up. "Excuse me; I need to call the police and have them arrest Preston Childs. In the meantime," he said, smiling at them sadly, "If you want to go in and see her, you can. I don't expect she's going to wake up, but she might respond to the sympathetic presence. I understand she's an empath." He smiled and vanished.
Ororo was left with mixed feelings. Xavier said quietly, "I will call someone from the mansion to come and pick me up. Stay here with her, Ororo. I need to make sure Childs is arrested." He wheeled himself off down the hall, taking the cell phone from his jacket pocket as he did so.
Ororo slipped quietly into Andi's room and opened her purse. She took Ali out and tucked it into the crook of the arm that didn't have an IV in it, and sat down. "Andi," she started, and then stopped. "I don't know what to say. Child, I am sorry. I should never have let them take you away. Charles doesn't say anything, but I know he's sorry too. Can you forgive us?" she reached out and squeezed the unresponsive hand.
Maybe it was just her imagination, but she thought she felt a weak squeeze back.
* * *
The judge sat down heavily on his chair and rubbed his face wearily. "This case has been a nightmare," he said to Ororo, Charles, and the Sandersons. "I received the news from the police yesterday evening, and spent the whole night tossing and turning. Mr. Xavier, I understand your frustration with the slowness of the system; I wish I had made the decision to remove her as soon as I received your complaint." He sighed again, and his face became stony as he turned to the Sandersons. "I received the motion from your lawyer to have you reinstated as Alexandra's guardians. And I am going to tell you; no. Absolutely not. You signed your daughter, adopted or not, over to this monster. As a result of that, she is now in the hospital with intestinal failure in a drugged stupor."
"Your Honor, we didn't know he was going to hurt her like that!" Robert Sanderson protested. "We didn't know that Dr. Hebron had a child molester living with him! It shouldn't be held against us!"
The judge frowned sternly at him. "Even if you didn't know, you should have been able to see the condition she was in. The doctor tells me she's been starved. The medical report says that she was on the verge of complete collapse from malnutrition and starvation. If you were any kind of decent parents you would have seen her emaciated state. The administrators of the boarding school you shoved her in were more observant than you were. I don't see how you have the unmitigated gall to insist that you be reinstated as her guardians. The hospital tells me you haven't been to see her; they called you to see if you would pick up the cost of her hospital stay. You hung up on them, they said. Mr. Xavier here offered to cover the cost."
He sighed. "I didn't want to funnel the poor child into the foster care system, especially as she really only has a couple of months left to be a child. And I really can't see you, Mr. Xavier, being able to care for her, given your disability--"
Xavier said tightly, "Your Honor, I fail to see what my disability has to do with being able to care, or not, for Alexandra. I run a boarding school; I can instruct the staff to care for her if there were something that needs to be done that I can't do."
The judge held up a hand. "I understand, Mr. Xavier. That is why I am entrusting Alexandra's care to a member of your staff directly." Ororo almost gasped as the judge looked directly at her for the fist time. "I had a talk with Sergeant Chester of the NYPD. You were there at every turn for her. According to the Sergeant, they had to pry her out of your arms. You were the one who found her; and the hospital said you stayed with her as long as they would permit you to. I will ask her if she has any objections to you assuming guardianship of her until she turns eighteen, but going on the assumption that she will say she has none, I am granting custody of Alexandra Lorraine Sanderson to Miss Ororo Munroe. Miss Munroe, a word for you; too many people have let this child down. Don't do that to her."
"I would never--" Ororo started, then bit her lip. "I will not, your Honor."
Robert Sanderson confronted Xavier and Ororo outside the courtroom. "You can't take my daughter from me!" he hissed. "I'll file an appeal! I'll have your school shut down, your teaching license revoked--"
Xavier said tightly, "Go ahead and waste your paper, your time, and your money, Mr. Sanderson. There is no law that prohibits me from picking up something you cast off. Don't you understand, Robert? You threw Andi away yourself when you signed the papers giving Andi to Dr. Hebron. You don't get a second chance, Robert. Parenthood isn't something you conveniently set aside because you want to go to Europe. A child isn't a trophy you put up on a shelf and take down when you feel it's convenient for you. Parenthood is being there for the child. Parenthood is listening to the child when they have a problem. Parenthood is making sacrifices for the good of the child. That means if you want to go to Europe, you take her with you. And parenthood is about truly loving and caring for the child. Do you know what disgusts me the most about you and your wife, Mr. Sanderson?" Xavier leaned forward. "It's not the fact that you starved her, although that horrifies me too. Not the fact that you leave her wherever its convenient for you. No. It's the fact that, when Alexandra's real mother brought her to your door and you took the child in, there was an implicit contract that you would love her. And you didn't. Infidelity isn't the sin that it used to be, Robert; it wouldn't have caused quite the stir that you thought it would cause. You could have told her you weren't capable of loving a child. You could have told her that you were too busy to care for Andi. Her mother could have put her up for adoption, and even if no one adopted her, she would have grown up happier in an orphanage, being dirt-poor, than she did growing up in your home rich and unloved. She would have been better off starving in the streets than starving in your home." Xavier stopped talking. He couldn't trust himself to speak without getting angry. Instead he finished, "Don't even file an appeal. No court in the country is going to side with you." Ororo pushed his wheelchair past the stunned Robert and out to the parking lot.
Xavier sighed as she helped him into the van. "Ororo, other students will be arriving at the school soon. Until Andi learns to erect shields, she's going to be in the same state she was in when we first met her. Would you be upset if I asked you to take a break from teaching so you can take care of her?"
"Of course not," Ororo said. "What are you thinking?"
"There's a small house in the suburbs that has belonged to my family for years. I had been renting it out, but the current tenants have moved, and it's now unoccupied. I wonder if you'd consent to living there with Andi for a while; I think an apartment in the city would be too stressful. She's well above her grade level in her studies; she could take a college entrance exam now and pass easily. She can take a break from her studying. And given the charges levied against Dr. Hebron and Mr. Childs, she will probably compelled to testify. A house in the suburbs will afford her more privacy than something in the city will. What do you think?"
"I think it's a wonderful idea," Ororo said.
"Then it's settled." Xavier said.
* * *
Andi swam slowly up to consciousness. She was lying on something soft and comfortable, and she was warm. I have got to be dreaming, she thought. Please, please don't let me wake up.
But she had to wake up, because her body was insisting it needed to relieve itself. She moaned, and her eyelids fluttered. She was so weak that just doing that took an effort; her eyelids felt like they weighed a ton, and her vision blurred just past her nose.
"Here," said a quiet voice, and a strong arm slid under her neck, helping her sit up so she could take a sip from a cup. Andi took a sip of the fluid, and found it to be sweet, cool fruit juice. Apple. She swallowed hurriedly, tried to drink it all down fast before it was taken away.
"Slowly, Andi," said the voice. "If you drink too fast you'll get cramps. Slowly. There you go. That's enough for now."
Andi lay back on the pillow, exhausted, and tried to blink the blurriness out of her vision. Her eyes were too dry from being taped open; she couldn't blink without pain. A gentle hand rested against her forehead, and touched her eyelid. She erupted into movement, struggling weakly to escape the hands, moaning in terror.
"Andi! Andi, it is all right, child, you are safe. I am trying to put drops in your eyes to lubricate them. Then the blurriness will clear. Can you lie still, Andi?"
She froze. The hand touched her eyes again, and she whimpered in terror, but something cool touched the corner of her eye, and a second later she felt the dampness slide down her cheek. She blinked just as the next drop hit her eye. "That's it, Andi, blink a few times, and it will feel better," said a different voice, a male one. Andi shrieked and struck out indiscriminately, ignoring the hands that tried to hold her down. "Let me go, please let me go, don't hurt me any more, please don't hurt me," she cried.
"Andi! Open your eyes!" came the first voice again, and Andi opened them. Her surroundings snapped into focus, and she saw Miss Munroe in front of her, and the other teacher Mr. LeBeau holding her hands, keeping her from hitting Miss Munroe again. Miss Munroe was holding a bloody nose.
Andi gasped in horror, and tears filled her eyes. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean…please, I didn't mean to oh, no…"
Ororo held a tissue to her nose as she touched Andi's arm gently. "Andi, please, don't blame yourself. I did not mean to scare you. Will you wait until I get myself cleaned up?" Andi nodded, stiff. Mr. LeBeau released her arm, and she relaxed visibly, and nodded. Ororo gave her a reassuring smile and left the room.
She was back only a short time later, and resumed her seat beside Andi's bed. Andi was still frozen in place. As Ororo sat, she said, in a small voice, "I'm so sorry, I thought--"
"Don't worry, child," Ororo said, reaching for a spare pillow and tucking it under the girl's back. "I am not angry."
Andi hesitated, but she had to ask. "Uhm, if you're here, where's…" she trailed off.
"In prison, Andi. And so is Preston Childs. They can't hurt you anymore." Ororo touched her arm as Remy brought over another cup of juice. Andi looked like she wanted to take it, but she didn't reach out to Remy. Her eyes had a haunted, terrified look. Ororo took the cup form Remy and tipped her head imperceptibly toward the door. Remy nodded, gave Andi a small wave, and exited.
She seemed to relax considerably after he was gone. Ororo made a metal note of that; Andi was afraid of men now. Not surprising, after what she had been through, but worrisome. "The judge agreed with Charles that Dr. Hebron wasn't a fit guardian for you. So he--"
Andi shrank back into the bed, her eyes huge. "He gave me back to Mother and Father."
"Oh, no, no," Ororo said gently, with a soft smile. "The judge said until you turn eighteen, I'm responsible for you."
It took a moment for that to sink in. "I…what? I…you're…I'm…" she stopped, and tried again. "You're my mom now?"
"You do not need to call me mom if you are not comfortable with it," Ororo told her. "If you ask me, I really think you should be your own guardian. However the law says that you need to have someone who can be responsible for you until your birthday, so I was chosen. Unless you object, of course; the judge really wants to hear it from you."
Andi was crying and laughing at the same time, tears running down her thin face. "Thank you, oh, Miss Munroe, thank you," she whispered as she hugged Ororo tightly.
"Call me Ororo," said Ororo gently.