Chapter 6 - The Custody Battle Begins
The temporary restraining order was issued at 4:15 PM.
Judge Hollister did not merely grant temporary custody to Mark; he ordered Evelyn Vance removed from the Mill Creek property under sheriff’s escort, barred her from within five hundred yards of the school district grounds, and set her criminal bail on three counts of felony child abuse and two counts of forgery at seventy-five thousand dollars.
When Aunt Clara from Coos Bay posted the bond using timber land as collateral, Evelyn walked out the side door of the courthouse without looking at the reporters from the *Eugene Register-Guard* who were waiting by the steps.
That night, Mark and Ellie did not go back to Mill Creek Road.
Mark had packed two duffle bags with their clothes and taken a room at the Timberline Motel on Highway 99. The room had wood-paneled walls, two double beds covered in brown polyester spreads, and a window that looked out on a gravel lot where the log trucks parked overnight.
Mark sat on the edge of the second bed, holding a pair of heavy shears he had borrowed from the motel manager.
“Sit down on the rug, Ellie,” he said.
Ellie sat. Between her knees lay her school shoes.
Mark picked up her left shoe. The sole had an extra inch and a half of hard vulcanized rubber glued to the bottom—an orthotic lift that Evelyn had insisted was necessary to balance Ellie’s “pelvic tilt.”
Mark wedged the shears between the leather and the rubber. With a hard, grunting heave, he cut through the glue. The rubber peeled away with a wet, tearing sound, smelling of old petroleum. He did the same to the right shoe, then took a wood rasp from his tool roll and filed the leather flat until both shoes sat level on the linoleum floor.
“Try them,” Mark said.
Ellie pulled the shoes on and laced them. When she stood up, the tilt that had made her left hip ache since she was eight was gone. She took three steps across the brown nylon carpet.
Her feet hit the floor at the exact same time.
“Does it hurt?” Mark asked, watching her face with an intensity that made his eyes look wild.
“No,” Ellie said. She took four more steps, turning near the television set. “My knee feels straight.”
Mark dropped the rasp onto the nightstand, buried his face in his hands, and sat there on the edge of the mattress. His back shook once, twice, but he didn't make a sound.
Ellie walked over to him. She didn't hesitate. She climbed onto the edge of the bed and pressed her forehead against the rough wool of his sleeve.
“Dad?”
“I lived in that house, Ellie,” he whispered into his hands. His voice was muffled, thick with phlegm and shame. “I slept thirty feet down the hall from you. Every morning I ate the eggs she fried, and every evening I asked her if you’d taken your medicine. I was so tired... my God, I was so tired from the yarder that I just wanted someone to tell me the house was running right.”
“She told you what to think,” Ellie said. “She did that to everyone.”
“I’m your father,” Mark said, pulling his hands away. His face was blotched red, his eyes rimmed with raw, swollen skin. “A father doesn't get to be tired. A father doesn't get to look the other way because his mother has a church medal and a soft voice.”
He reached out and picked up her hand. His thick, rough fingers closed around hers—not like Evelyn’s fingers, which were always checking for temperature or swelling or signs of rebellion, but loosely, like a shield.
“Tomorrow morning,” Mark said, “we’re going back to the house with a flatbed truck. We’re taking your bed, your mother’s cedar chest, and my tools. The rest of it can rot until the bank sells it for the back taxes. We’re moving into the cabins behind the planer mill at Sweet Home.”
“Away from the church?” Ellie asked.
May you like
“Away from everything,” Mark said. “Just you, me, and the trees. And if Dr. Shepherd says you need a brace, we’re going to the University hospital in Portland to see four different surgeons with gray hair, and every one of them is going to show me the x-rays with their own hands.”
***
