My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem (11 page)

Marshall was so upset he called the courthouse to try to get his name added. It broke my heart hearing him getting angrier by the minute.

“Look, I’m going to pay child support. I’m her father, I’m bringing up this child,” I heard him shout on the phone.

I took the phone from him and tried to explain to the court official that he wanted to be a responsible parent. The official just said it was up to the mother whether or not she named the father.

Like Marshall, I too fell in love with Hailie the moment I saw her. It was impossible not to. She was so beautiful and just like my son. And I had no qualms about being a young, glamorous granny!

Needless to say, motherhood did not mellow Kim. She got worse. Now she used Hailie to goad Marshall and me, threatening constantly to stop us from seeing her. Marshall would go to get Hailie, and many times the police would be called on him, or he’d be told he couldn’t see her, but just as he was driving away, Kim would say he could after all.

But Marshall still wasn’t allowed across the threshold of her parents’ home, and many times I would drive over to pick Hailie up for him. Kim’s twin sister, Dawn, had a two-year-old daughter, Alaina, whom Marshall also doted on. He wanted to be a father figure to both of them, but Kim’s family just laughed at him.

Marshall was determined to prove himself. He started putting in more than forty hours a week at Gilbert’s Lodge. Every penny he earned went to Kim and the baby. When he wasn’t working, he was changing Hailie’s diapers, playing with her, or singing her to sleep, and working on lyrics.

Kim surprised everyone by getting a job as a receptionist in a health spa. Except, as is often the way with Kim, the job wasn’t quite what she said it was. She’d once again refused to let Marshall see Hailie. He begged me to try reasoning with her. He stayed in the car while Nathan and I went inside. It didn’t look like the sort of health spas I knew. There was a menu of services available. Manicures, pedicures, and facials were not on the list.

Marshall suspected she was seeing a guy who ran the spa. She was always out in clubs, drinking and doing God-only-knows what. Yet still he stood by her. I encouraged him to get back with Amy from Gilbert’s Lodge, but I think she was too nice for him. He was used to being abused by Kim.

While the chaos between Kim and Marshall remained, I continued to care for Hailie off and on. She was the sweetest little thing, and I spoiled her rotten. No one was prouder than I was of being a grandmother.

February 3, 1996, was Nathan’s tenth birthday. Three days later he started at a new school. I kissed him goodbye with great trepidation. Just like Marshall at the same age, Nate was being bullied.

He’d been in class just twenty minutes when the social workers swooped in and took him away. They took him off to a youth home, and I was charged with an array of offenses, including Munchausen syndrome by proxy, or MSP. I didn’t know what that was then, but I’ll explain it very shortly. It was every mother’s nightmare.

Four months earlier, Nathan had come home from school at 3 p.m. with a large gash on the back of his head. He’d been beaten up at the bus stop at 7 a.m. by two cousins. They’d got into a disagreement about the O. J. Simpson murder verdict. The footballer had been cleared of killing his wife, Nicole, and her friend Ron Goldman but, like many people, I thought he was guilty. When the cousins asked Nathan what he thought, he’d parroted my comments. They proceeded to beat him over the head with their fists and a computer key ring, throwing him down onto the pavement before his bus arrived. Nate got up and boarded the bus, and at school he tried to tell staff. He was put in a computer room and ice was applied to the back of his head where he was hurt. He was given a sandwich at lunchtime and then sent home by bus.

Nathan begged me not to send him back to school. It wasn’t just the kids who were picking on him; the teachers didn’t like him either. He has a form of dyslexia—the educational specialists said he sees words backwards—and he was put in a special-education class. The teachers sat him at the very front, facing the blackboard with his back to the other kids. When Nate complained that he was being hit by stuff thrown from behind, or prodded with sharp pencils while the teacher wasn’t looking, he would be put in the corner with a dunce’s hat on.

To add to his problems, a few months earlier we were on our way back from Missouri when Nathan tripped on a motel carpet and knocked himself out. He crashed down so hard that one of his teeth fell out. He was rushed to the hospital by ambulance and treated for a concussion. But the effects were lasting. He was suffering memory lapses, and the teachers said he was no longer reading properly. At the request of the school, he was placed in a special-education class, and he was diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Now, bearing in mind that Marshall’s doctors wanted him institutionalized after DeAngelo Bailey had attacked him, I was overprotective with Nathan. I’d almost lost one son, so I watched Nathan like a hawk. After the O. J. Simpson beating, I took him to our doctor, who gave me a note to keep Nathan home until he recovered.

Nathan begged me not to send him back to that school. I agreed. Saint Clair Shores was now really rough. I wanted to get him out of the education district. I found a cute little place to buy in Casco Township and rented a temporary apartment nearby while I waited for the mortgage to come through. I told Marshall that he, Kim, and Hailie could have the Saint Clair Shores place as long as they promised to pay the bills. They moved in once the drama with Nathan’s school was over.

Then Nathan’s school accused me of truancy. I was given a court date in January, only to have it postponed the three times I went to court. The judge advised me to return with a lawyer. In the meantime a social worker knocked on my door. I had called protective services’ attention to the abuse I felt Nathan was experiencing from kids at his school, but it fell back on me when the kids refused to admit to hurting my son. At first I was relieved to see her, though later I would come to regret that feeling. She checked over the house, noting that it was clean and full of food. It didn’t matter that I had a doctor’s note for Nathan; the school wanted him back in class.

I decided maybe we needed to move out of the state. I sent Nate ahead to Missouri, and got my sister Tanya to enroll him in school there while I waited in Michigan for the truancy hearing in January. Sadly, my case kept being adjourned, and I would have to go and pick up my son.

I spoke to Nathan four times a day, and he begged me to come home. He’d never even gone to sleepovers at friends’ houses, let alone been parted from me for weeks on end. So I drove back to Missouri to collect him. My family refused to let him leave, so I called the police. It wasn’t a big deal, just par for the course with my family. After a cursory check, the officers let Nathan and me go on our way.

We arrived home in the early hours of the morning and barely had a chance to unpack before it was time for him to go to school. It was just after his birthday and he really didn’t want to go, but I said he’d soon make new friends.

After I’d dropped him off, I had a weird feeling that something was wrong, so I called just to double-check. I used the excuse of asking if he had his lunch money. The phone was passed to a child-protective services official, the same one who had visited our house. She told me that Nathan had been taken into state custody and that I had to be in court in thirty minutes. They even sent a policeman to my house to make sure I went.

Once at court, I met a longtime friend of mine, Pat, and her son there, and the officials allowed her into the room with me. It was packed with people. Some were squashed around a big circular table, while others lined the walls.

I kept asking, “Where’s my son?” But the court official ordered me to be quiet.

As the charges were read out I wanted to scream. I was accused of keeping Nathan away from school; of striking him with a belt or hairbrush; and of chasing him out of the house for listening to rap music.

I’d never raised a finger to Nathan, and he grew up listening to Marshall’s rap music. In shock, I stated that the charges were all lies. Again, I was told to shut up.

Then came the oddest charge: I was suffering from Munchausen by proxy. I looked at Betsy Mellos, my lawyer, to see if she knew what that was. She shrugged. I’m tiny, and so was Nathan’s father. I guess I was thinking of the Munchkins in
The Wizard of Oz
—that our genes had also made Nathan small for his age at the time. It had to be some form of dwarfism, I thought.

The case was adjourned. I begged that I wanted to be with my son, but the case workers refused to tell me where he was. I was only told that I was to go next door and sign some papers in case Nathan ever needed medical treatment while away from me. I wondered at how bizarre this situation was.

Betsy and I sat in her office for hours going through the paperwork, trying to decide what to do next. We also looked up Munchausen by proxy. It did not make for pleasant reading. Munchausen syndrome itself is a psychological disorder. Sufferers deliberately harm themselves for attention. Munchausen by proxy is rare and far more serious. It is one of the most harmful forms of child abuse. Sufferers are usually female and have probably been abused themselves as kids.

I shook as I read the diagnosis. It said that the mainly female sufferers exaggerated, fabricated, and even induced illnesses in their children, often fooling doctors into carrying out unnecessary tests and surgeries on the child. There were instances of mothers scrubbing a child with cleaning fluids to create rashes, or deliberately reopening wounds so they would not heal. It was said that sufferers wanted attention from doctors.

A British doctor, Sir Richard Asher, father of the actress Jane, named the self-harming disease in 1951, after the seventeenth-century pathological liar, Baron von Munchausen. In 1977 the British pediatrician Sir Roy Meadow added the words “by proxy” to include parents who hurt—and even killed—their children.

“I’ve never hurt a child,” I sobbed to Betsy. “The school’s just saying this because they’ve been abusing Nathan.” Betsy was so sweet and supportive. She had twins herself and knew I would never hurt my son.

I knew the Munchausen by proxy charge was a trumped-up one—an easy way of taking Nathan away into foster care—but I had to prove it.

After I left the court building, I went into the youth home to sign the papers. As I started to sign, I ripped through the paperwork when making a large X on it; I was screaming for Nathan. The staff refused to let me see him. I ran out of there in shock. My friend Pat, who’d been with me throughout the day, and her son yanked me into their car.

Pat had just lost her husband. In the courtroom, as the charges were being read, she had said, “I thought my husband dying after fifty years of marriage was bad, but it’s nothing compared with this.” She was told to keep quiet.

On the way back I couldn’t even talk, I was sobbing so hard. Back at the house, it was even worse. Nathan’s bike was propped up in the kitchen. His toys were on the floor. I could only imagine what he was going through. He’d be trying to sleep in some stranger’s house or the jail-like youth home. I couldn’t even phone him. I had no idea where he was. Questions kept filling my head: was he really at a youth home? Did he know I was trying to help him? Dear God, how could they do this to me and my son? I thought I was on the verge of a breakdown. I hoped and prayed for my son to come home. So did he.

The next month went past in a blur. I continued working, studying at pharmacy-tech school, and looking after Hailie whenever I could. She was blossoming into a beautiful little girl, but my heart ached for Nathan. Finally, it was agreed I could have a supervised visit at a youth home.

It was freezing cold, but Nathan was dressed in short-sleeved pajamas. I’d been warned I couldn’t hug him, but I reached out to touch his arm. A social worker shouted at me. He was blue with cold. I couldn’t stop crying. Nathan begged me over and over to take him home. It was heartbreaking. I had to explain to him that the authorities wouldn’t even tell me where he was living.

A few days later, I received a letter saying I could not see Nathan again. Betsy and I fought for two weeks until I was allowed another supervised visit. It wasn’t any easier, but at least I saw him.

For the next four months, I was allowed to visit every other week, then once a week, and finally I was allowed to see him alone. We sat in a little cubicle, surrounded by other parents and kids in identical cubicles. Several social workers stood nearby, listening to everything we said. They hovered menacingly every time Nathan tried to tell me about his foster parents being cruel to him. He drew pictures of himself and wrote the word
help
in speech bubbles. I knew I had to get him away from foster care, whatever it took.

Nathan’s father was asked if he wanted to see his son. I ran into him in the parking lot and he asked me if I’d sever his rights to Nathan. I couldn’t believe it. How dare he say that? I would have run him over if I could have gotten away with it. I told him no, and to leave us alone. I asked the assigned social worker to please allow Marshall to see Nathan in place of Nate’s dad. She talked to Marshall and finally agreed.

So Marshall was allowed visits. Now he was almost twenty-four and a father himself. He was busy, but felt obliged to spend time with his little brother.

I had a hunch: I’d read somewhere that Native American children weren’t allowed to be taken into foster care. They had to go to extended-family members. Through my father’s family, I was part Cherokee. I’d grown up hearing stories from Nan about our famous ancestor Betsy Webb on the Trail of Tears. I went to the library and also made several phone calls to investigate further. Sure enough, I found the proof I needed.

The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 was designed to stop Native American families from being broken up and children adopted by non-Indians. The law decreed that if a child was a tribe member or eligible for membership, he or she could not just be taken away into foster care. The child had to be placed with relatives or tribe leaders.