asking her questions. They had already agreed to let the judge handle the questions, and both sides would attempt to be satisfied with that. But she seemed not to hear the judge at first when he spoke to her, and then finally she turned her face up toward where he sat when she heard her name.
“Vanessa?” His voice was gruff but his eyes were kind. He was a big man and he had grandchildren, and he felt for this child with the bleak gray eyes. They looked like dead fields in winter, and he suddenly wanted to take her into his arms. “Do you understand why you're here?” She nodded in silence, her eyes wide. “Can you tell us why?”
“Because Uncle Teddy wants me to come and live with him.” She glanced at him, but she looked more frightened than pleased. She was frightened by the entire proceeding. It reminded her of something else, but she wasn't sure what. She just knew it hadn't been pleasant, and neither was this.
“Are you fond of your uncle Teddy, dear?” She nodded, and this time she smiled.
“He always comes to help me. And we play good games.” The judge nodded.
“When you say that he comes to help you, what do you mean?”
“Like if something bad happens.” She began to look more animated than she had. “Like once, when …” She began to look troubled and very faraway. “… when my mommy was sick … he came to us … I don't remember …” She looked up vaguely, as though she had forgotten the story, and Teddy narrowed his eyes as he watched her. She had been referring to when Serena was giving birth to Charlotte. But had Vanessa really forgotten, or was she afraid to tell the story? He didn't understand. “I don't remember.” She began to look glazed again and sat in the chair staring at her hands.
“It's all right, dear. Do you think you might like living with your uncle Teddy?” She nodded and her eyes searched him out, but there was so little emotion in her face that it was frightening. She looked as though when Serena had died she had died too. “Are you happy in the home of your aunt and uncle now?” She nodded again. “Do they treat you well?”
She nodded and looked at him sadly. “They buy me a lot of dolls.”
“That's nice. Are you close to your aunt, Mrs. Fullerton?”
For a long time Vanessa didn't answer and then she shrugged. “Yes.”
He felt so sorry for the child, she looked so broken and so lonely. It was obvious that she needed a mother to comfort her. A man just wouldn't be enough. “Do you miss your mother and sister very much?” He said it very gently, as though he really cared, but Vanessa looked up at him in surprise.
“I don't have a sister.” She looked blank.
“But you did of course … I meant …” He looked a little confused and Vanessa stared at him.
“I never had a sister. My daddy died in the war when I was three and a half.” She said it as though she were reciting, and where Teddy sat a light dawned in his eyes. He was the first to understand, as Vanessa went on. “And I didn't have any brothers and sisters when he died.”
“But when your mother remarried—” The judge persisted with a puzzled frown, and Vanessa shook her little head.
“My mother never remarried.”
With this, the judge began to look annoyed, and Teddy whispered something to his attorney who signaled the judge, but he was silenced. “Vanessa, your mother remarried a man named —” But before he could continue, Teddy's lawyer hastened toward the bench. The judge was about to reprimand him, when he whispered urgently to the judge, who raised his eyebrows, looked thoughtful for a moment, and then signaled Teddy to the bench. There was a moment's whispered conference, during which the judge looked both chagrined and worried. He nodded then, and Teddy and the attorney went back to their seats. “Vanessa,” the judge went on more slowly, watching the child carefully as he spoke, “I'd like to ask you some questions about your mommy. What do you remember about her?”
“That she was very beautiful.” Vanessa said it softly and looked as though she were in a dream. “And she made me very happy.”
“Where did you live with her?”
“In New York.”
“Did you ever live anywhere else with her?”
Vanessa thought for a moment, began to shake her head, and