Episode 3, Chapter 2: A Shared Shadow

Forty-Nine Dollars a Month

On December 21, 1977, just before Christmas, Eric and I were released from Hillcrest Receiving Home and placed with our maternal grandparents, William and June Jones.

After months of neglect, sickness, court hearings, and temporary placements, their home offered something we had rarely known.

Family.

A chance, maybe, to belong somewhere.

But even that small measure of security would not last.

Douglas, Arizona

In February 1978, Grandpa received a job transfer. He had been hired as an immigration inspector in Douglas, Arizona, and was expected to begin work on February 21.

The move had to happen quickly. Because Eric and I were dependent children of the San Diego County Juvenile Court, Grandma and Grandpa could not simply take us across state lines. They needed the court’s permission.

Social worker Tim Farley evaluated how we were doing in their home. According to his report, Eric and I had initially struggled with sleeping and showed other signs of stress from the upheaval we had experienced. But those problems had nearly disappeared.

We were adjusting.

We had spent time with our grandparents before, so their faces were familiar. Their home was filled with family. My aunts and uncles Tina, Franky, Timmy, Steven, and Pam were still living there, and they had surrounded us with love and attention.

For perhaps the first time in our young lives, Eric and I were beginning to feel fully accepted.

Our mother acknowledged that she had made little progress toward changing her lifestyle or working with the welfare department to have us returned. Although she said it was difficult to let us go, she admitted that she could not properly care for us. She believed we would be happier with her parents and promised to remain in contact through letters, telephone calls, and occasional visits.

With the support of the Department of Public Welfare and our attorney, Robert Walwick, the court approved the move.

Grandma and Grandpa packed up their household, gathered their children, and took two more little boys with them.

Eric and I were leaving California.

We were going to Douglas, Arizona.

My First Memories

Douglas is where some of my earliest memories begin.

I remember the tumbleweeds.

They were enormous at least they seemed enormous to a three-year-old boy. I watched them roll across the open ground while the wind pushed them faster and faster, as if even the bushes in Arizona could not stay in one place.

One day, an emergency siren began screaming through town. A tornado was nearby.

Aunt Pam grabbed me and rushed me inside the house. Then the electricity went out.

Everything became dark.

The wind roared outside, the house creaked, and the emergency horn continued to wail through town. I remember the darkness and the noise more than anything else. I was frightened, but the storm eventually passed us.

That memory exists only in pieces the siren, Aunt Pam’s hand, the blackness of the house, and the terrible sound of the wind.

I also remember Aunt Pam taking us up the street to see some horses.

I was excited. I wanted to pet one of them, so I pulled away from her and ran toward it.

The horse kicked me in the head.

Somehow, I was all right—or at least I assume I was. In my childhood, frightening things happened, I survived them, and then life simply continued. There was rarely time for anyone to stop and explain what had happened.

Those are my first memories of Douglas: giant tumbleweeds, a tornado warning, a darkened house, Aunt Pam trying to protect me, and a horse’s hoof coming toward my head.

The court records tell me why we were there.

My memories tell me what it felt like.

California Kept Watching

Because we were now living safely with relatives in another state, California considered closing our dependency case.

At a hearing on February 7, 1978, the referee announced that he intended to terminate the court’s jurisdiction over us. As far as the court was concerned, Eric and I were living with family in Arizona and no longer needed to remain under California’s supervision.

The Department of Public Welfare disagreed.

They asked the court to keep our case open for another ninety days to make sure the placement remained stable.

The court agreed.

So even though we were hundreds of miles away, California continued watching us.

Somewhere in San Diego County, there was still a file bearing my name:

BENJAMIN RAYMOND JONES

AGE: 3 YEARS

PETITION NO. 105289

I knew nothing about that file.

I did not know adults were discussing jurisdiction, custody, placement, or financial assistance. I did not know that every decision about my future had to be written, recommended, reviewed, and approved.

I was three years old.

Eric was even younger.

We were simply learning the rooms of another house and hoping we would be allowed to stay.

Forty-Nine Dollars

Grandma and Grandpa had moved to Arizona believing they would receive financial assistance to help care for us.

They were not wealthy people. They still had children of their own living at home, and Grandpa had just started his new job. Bringing Eric and me into the family meant feeding, clothing, and caring for two additional young children.

After arriving in Arizona, they applied for assistance.

Then they learned how much the state would give them.

Forty-nine dollars per child, per month.

That was supposed to help feed us.

Clothe us.

House us.

And provide everything two little boys needed.

Eric and I had arrived carrying almost nothing except the consequences of everything that had already happened to us. We needed food, clothes, shoes, medical care, and the ordinary necessities every child requires.

Forty-nine dollars a month was not enough.

Douglas was a small town with few stores. According to the report, prices there were extremely high. Grandma and Grandpa told the social worker they could not continue supporting us on the amount Arizona offered.

But one part of that report matters deeply to me now.

My grandparents did not say they did not want us.

They said they wanted to keep us.

They simply could not take food, clothing, and other necessities away from their own children to provide for two more children without help.

There is an important difference between saying:

“We do not want these boys.”

And saying:

“We want these boys, but we need help caring for them.”

For a child who would spend years struggling with abandonment, that difference means everything.

My grandparents turned back to San Diego County and asked for assistance.

The social worker recommended that the county provide $150 per month for each of us. He also recommended that we remain dependent children of the San Diego County Juvenile Court, that custody remain removed from our mother, and that we continue living with our grandparents.

On April 13, 1978, the matter returned to court.

The referee was reluctant to approve the recommended amount. Instead of $150, he authorized ninety dollars per month for each of us, believing that should be enough to cover the basic needs of young children. If extraordinary expenses arose, Grandma and Grandpa could bring the matter back before the court.

Ninety dollars.

That was the number the court placed beside my childhood.

I did not know any of this was happening.

I was not sitting at the kitchen table while Grandma and Grandpa worried about groceries. I did not understand that social workers were writing reports about how much it cost to keep us. I did not know attorneys and judges were deciding how many dollars should be enough to feed and clothe a child.

Eric and I were just two little boys trying to understand where we were going to sleep and whether the adults around us would still be there when we woke up.

Years later, when I finally read those reports, I found something buried beneath the hearings, recommendations, and dollar amounts that I desperately needed to know:

Someone had fought to keep us.

My grandparents did not have much, but they wanted my brother and me anyway.

In a childhood filled with people leaving, failing us, or treating us like a responsibility that could simply be handed to someone else, knowing my grandparents wanted us reminds me that not every goodbye meant we were not loved.

That matters.

It matters more than I can put into words.

Something Changed

For a while, Grandma and Grandpa’s home remained our refuge.

But by October 1978, something had changed.

Another report was written.

Another group of adults began deciding what would happen to us.

This time, the words were painful.

My grandparents were asking the county to remove Eric and me from their home as soon as possible.

They were experiencing serious problems with their own children, and caring for two additional young boys had become more than they could handle. They had believed our mother would change her life sooner and that eventually we would be returned to her.

That had not happened.

They had tried to keep us. They had moved us across state lines, welcomed us into an already crowded home, and fought for enough money to provide for us.

But they had reached their limit.

They did not throw us out. They agreed to care for us until transportation could be arranged.

Still, the result was the same.

Our time with them was over.

Once again, Eric and I were going somewhere else.

Once again, we were not the ones making the decision.

Our Mother Wanted Us Back

While our grandparents were telling the county they could no longer keep us, our mother was telling the social worker something very different.

She wanted her boys back.

Her circumstances appeared to be changing. She had moved into a two-bedroom house in Chula Vista with her boyfriend, Ray Petrosky. He owned the house, had a job, and told the social worker that he supported her request to have us returned.

Our mother claimed she was ready and willing to care for us.

She did not want Eric and me sent to another foster home. She believed another placement would be too difficult for us.

For once, the adults seemed to recognize that repeatedly moving two small children might actually hurt them.

But wanting us back was not enough.

The county had heard promises before.

Our mother had been asked to participate in counseling. According to the report, she initially failed to do so because she said there was no therapist available near the Forestry Conservation Corps camp in the Laguna Mountains where she had been staying.

By October, she had completed an intake interview and attended one session at the Family Stress Center.

The social worker acknowledged that she was beginning to make progress.

She had housing.

She had begun counseling.

She was maintaining contact with the welfare department.

And she was asking for her children.

Then came the sentence that decided everything:

Her efforts had begun so recently that the county could not know whether she would sustain them.

They were not ready to trust her.

Not yet.

Grandma and Grandpa could no longer keep us.

The county would not return us to our mother.

That left only one question:

Where do you put two little boys when nobody knows what to do with them?

The answer was painfully familiar.

Hillcrest Receiving Home.

We Did Not Understand

There is one sentence in the October 13, 1978 report that stops me every time I read it.

It does not contain a court order.

It does not describe neglect.

It does not even explain where we were going.

It simply says:

“Both boys miss their mother but have no concept of what is going on.”

There it is.

Our entire world captured in one sentence.

We missed our mother.

And we did not understand.

We did not understand dependency court, social workers, or reunification plans. We did not understand why Grandma and Grandpa had taken us hundreds of miles away or why they could not keep us anymore.

We did not know our mother was sitting in California telling people she wanted us back. We did not know the adults were questioning whether she had changed enough. We did not know someone was arranging transportation to take us away from the family and home we had begun to know.

Children do not understand jurisdiction.

They understand absence.

They understand when someone who was there yesterday is gone today.

They understand when their belongings are packed.

They understand when an unfamiliar adult appears at the door.

They understand the fear of being taken somewhere without being told why.

We had learned Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

Now we had to leave it.

We had learned their faces.

Now those faces would disappear.

And once again, we were expected to adjust.

Bring the Boys Back

The recommendation became official.

Eric and I would remain dependent children of the San Diego County Juvenile Court. Custody would remain removed from our mother. We would be transported from Douglas back to San Diego and detained at Hillcrest Receiving Home until another hearing determined what happened next.

The county agreed to pay for a social worker to travel from San Diego to Douglas and escort us back.

It was all there.

Numbered.

Typed.

Filed.

Approved.

To the court, it was a placement decision.

To the Department of Public Welfare, it was transportation that needed to be arranged.

To the social worker, it was another assignment.

To Eric and me, it was our lives being packed into bags again.

Reading the documents now, I can see that everybody involved seemed to have a reason.

My grandparents had reached their limit.

My mother said she wanted us back.

The social worker wanted proof that her changes would last.

The court said it wanted to protect us.

On paper, everyone had a reason.

But Eric and I were the ones who had to live with the consequences.

The Flight Back

A social worker from San Diego met us at the airport in Arizona.

Eric and I boarded an airplane and flew back toward California.

I remember looking down as we approached San Diego and seeing the ocean and beaches below us. For a small child, the world beneath that airplane must have seemed impossibly large.

Somewhere below was our mother.

Somewhere below was the court controlling our lives.

And somewhere below was Hillcrest Receiving Home, waiting for us again.

When the plane landed at San Diego Airport, we were handed over to county child-protection workers. They placed us in a car and drove us directly to Hillcrest.

We were back.

Back in San Diego.

Back inside the institution.

Back in the system.

Back in uncertainty.

This time, we remained at Hillcrest for approximately two months.

Then another family came and took us home.

The Winterbergs

Their name was Mr. and Mrs. Winterberg.

Once again, we entered an unfamiliar house and began the work expected of children like us.

Learn the rooms.

Learn the rules.

Learn the adults.

Learn what made them angry.

Learn whether it was safe to speak.

Learn where to stand when they fought.

The Winterbergs argued frequently, often about us children.

Then one morning, Mrs. Winterberg was gone.

No one explained it in a way two little boys could understand. We only knew that she had left.

A babysitter helped Mr. Winterberg care for us for a couple of weeks. But without his wife, he could not manage the household.

Then, one day, a caseworker appeared.

By then, perhaps we already understood what the arrival of a caseworker meant.

We were leaving.

Again.

The paperwork later described the situation as a change in foster placement resulting from the breakup of the Winterbergs’ marriage. Mrs. Winterberg had left the state, and Mr. Winterberg could no longer manage.

To an adult reading the file, it was a failed foster placement.

To a four-year-old boy, another woman had disappeared.

Another house had vanished.

Another place we had begun to recognize was no longer ours.

The caseworker took us back to Hillcrest Receiving Home.

Again.

From This Age On, I Remember

The court documents say I was four years old.

Cold ink trying to summarize the shifting ground beneath my feet.

But around this age, something changes in my story.

The records no longer have to carry all of it for me.

From this age on, I remember.

I remember the changing houses.

I remember the strangers.

I remember the feeling of never knowing how long we would be allowed to stay.

I remember Eric beside me.

My little brother was the only part of my life that remained constant. Houses changed. Adults disappeared. Social workers came and went. But Eric was there, experiencing it all with me.

We were never asked where we wanted to live.

We were never told how long we would stay.

Adults made decisions behind closed doors, and then someone arrived to move us.

Our mother was still working at the Forestry Conservation Corps camp in the Laguna Mountains, trying to find her footing. She continued to say she wanted us back. She promised she was saving enough money for an apartment.

But she was not ready.

So while adults shuffled papers and signed new orders in January 1979, Eric’s belongings and mine were packed once more.

The Next House

This time, the system chose the licensed foster home of Mr. and Mrs. Moanale.

The house had a large yard and the promise of temporary stability.

Temporary.

That word seemed to follow us everywhere, even when no one said it aloud.

Sitting here now, reading the formal recommendation that “said minor be placed in the licensed foster home,” I can still feel what it was like to be a little boy whose entire life was decided by strangers meeting behind closed doors.

To them, the Moanale home was another approved placement.

To Eric and me, it was another strange doorway.

Another unfamiliar bedroom.

Another set of rules we did not know.

Another family we were expected to trust.

Our childhood had already taught us a lesson we would come to know far too well:

Do not get too comfortable.

Do not assume you are staying.

Do not believe that because someone tucked you into bed tonight, they will still be there tomorrow.

Because at any moment, another adult might appear at the door.

Another bag might be packed.

Another paper might be signed.

And somebody might decide it was time for you to go.