I’m sitting in a hard chair in a large noisy waiting room, holding my tablet, pretending to read.  With my eyes on electronics, no one will bother me.

A stodgy man wanders into the area and speaks to the woman behind the bullet-proof glass.  He’s one of the people for whom I wait, and I rise as he turns away from the receptionist.  We exchange information in low voices.  I ask a question; he nods thoughtfully.  I gesture vaguely with my hand; he shrugs.  We reach an impasse and smile at one another just as a slim woman walks into the area wearing a harried look and a coat two sizes too large.

She sits next to me and spares the man such a chilling glance that he moves beyond her to talk to someone else.

I put my tablet away and start questioning the woman, my client.  A half-dozen people involved in the case cluster on the far side of the room.  The other group consists of well-dressed folks who occasionally send daggers across the empty chairs between us.  I pay no attention but my client begins to mutter about them in louder and louder tones.  I shush her.

I explain that I’ve filed a motion to withdraw.  I’m doing you no good and you can’t afford to pay me, I tell her.  You seem to have completely surrendered; you act as though you don’t care what happens to your children.  I feel her agitation rise.  She tells me about the summer; about why she stopped going to AA; about her surgery, her depression, her job.  Her new friends.

Same story, third act.  I don’t comment but I do smile at her.

An hour late, the clerk calls us into the courtroom.  I make my pitch to be released.  The judge denies my motion and appoints me to serve pro bono.  This possibility had occurred to me; I had even predicted it to my client.  I am neither surprised nor disappointed.  My heart told me that my client would fare no better for my remaining on the case but would fare much worse without me.  I have no control over the outcome.  I can only protect her due process rights.  The rest falls in her lap.

The judge lectures my client and her children’s father for thirty minutes.  She questions the caseworker, the man with whom I had conversed.  He tells her the same things he shared with me.  Neither parent has complied.  Neither parent has contacted him. Neither parent has had alcohol screening for months.

She’s heard enough. She suspends visitation and orders the case to move towards termination of parental rights and adoption. She puts more services in place for the parents, just in case.  She tells them these are not suggestions, but their lawyers have already explained that, as has the judge before this one.  They know.  Their choices dictate the outcome. They know this but make the same choices, month after month.  Their children move from size to size, grade to grade, in the home of their grandmother.

At one point, that grandmother speaks out from the courtroom.  None of the lawyers turn.  The judge silences her.  You are not a party to this case and this is not a community forum.  Later she says, What you — motioning — tell these children about their parents might well be hurting them; stop it.  Put aside your anger.  Then she tells the parents: And what you are choosing is hurting them; you have to start making choices that help these children.  Her arm takes in both groups, everyone except the professionals. None of you are helping the emotional state of these children. Get it together people.

She looks disgusted.  She’s only had the case for a month, since the other judge retired, but she’s already fed up, though with both factions.  That’s a refreshing change.  It’s true, what she says: everyone knows that the placement provider badmouths the children’s parents, openly, often, viciously.  We’ve resigned ourselves; at least she’s sober; at least she feeds them.

The hearing ends, and we leave.  My client huddles with the caseworker, something she does after every hearing.  It’s the one time that I know she will talk to him.  He knows that, too, and listens intently, taking notes.  He has no illusions.  None of us do.

I head out of the building and trudge to the car.  I feel every ounce of my five extra pounds as I climb the hill, but I do not complain.  My client’s face looms before me.  I have only one thought:  There, but for the grace, go I.

On the way home, I call my son.