Custody Read Free Page A

speak here today because in doing so she allows me the opportunity to tell you about my work, the work for which Kelly has for eight years now volunteered innumerable hours and inestimable expertise. I am the head of MASCC, the Massachusetts Adoption of Special Children Center. We specialize in the placement of children eight years and older who have received, through the misfortunes of fate, extreme mental or physical challenges. Many of these children were born to mothers who were permanent drug users or who were HIV-positive. To be blunt, these are the children no one wants. No one even wants to see them. We don’t like to know that they exist. But they do exist, and they are human beings just like the rest of us, with the deep, human need to be loved, treasured, nurtured, taught, and valued.
    “All of these children have been raised in foster homes under less than optimal conditions. There is never enough money to help these children. We have a small committee of generous patrons who financially support us so that we’re able to have an office with a paid secretary. Everyone else who works for MASCC is a volunteer. For eight years now, Kelly MacLeod has spent at least two nights a week helping with the legalities of running a nonprofit organization and preparing the necessary adoption papers.”
Adoption .
In November of her senior year, Kelly had been summoned to Professor Hammond’s office .
He had actually growled. “You haven’t applied to law school!”
“No.”
“Would you be kind enough to tell me why?”
“I can’t afford it.”
“So apply for a fellowship. Get a loan.”
“Professor Hammond, I wish I could, but I’m already deeply in debt. There have been some  …  changes  …  in my situation.” How, Kelly wondered, could the white-haired gentleman sitting before her in his beautiful, ancient tweeds, behind the magnificent desk he’d inherited from his father, comprehend her situation?
She needed to be clear. “I’ve had to get a loan to finish my senior year. I’m working every night as a waitress at Michael’s. I clean houses on weekends. And I can still barely pay the rent on my apartment and buy food and car insurance and gas and health insurance. Oh, yes, and I owe an oral surgeon over a thousand dollars for removing my wisdom teeth!”
“I see.” The professor leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and thought. “Can your family help you, perhaps?”
She flinched. “No.”
“Well. This is a difficult state of affairs, but not an impossible one. Not unique.”
“It’s unique for me.”
“I wish you’d apply, anyway, Kelly,” Professor Hammond urged. “Don’t give up.”
“I have given up,” she told him .
    More applause, appreciative murmurs, and the stirring of the assembly brought Kelly back to the present. Daria Wittington returned to her seat. Judge Steinberg introduced the third and final speaker: Professor George Hammond.
    He made his way to the podium slowly, hampered by his age—he was in his seventies now—and by the crippling effects of Parkinson’s disease. When he began to speak, Judge Steinberg moved to the podium to adjust the microphone for him, for he had trouble projecting his words. Yet when he spoke, the room went still.
    “I knew Kelly MacLeod before she helped Daria Wittington with her organization. I knew Kelly before she met Bettina. I knew her when she was only a junior in college, and I would like to say that way back then I was so insightful I knew that Kelly would one day be standing here before us, about to become a judge for the Middlesex County Probate and Family Court.
    “But I didn’t know that. I didn’t have that kind of foresight. What I saw, all those yearsago, was only a young woman with a mind both quick and profound. A young woman with a skill for words, a talent for judicious reasoning, and a fierce hunger for knowledge.
    “I pride myself on being the person to suggest she choose law for a career. But I could not