No Man's Land
A Father's Fight to Gain and Maintain Sole Custody of his Children
by
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CHAPTER 1
She Left With the Children
Harold Samuels remembers waking up on the morning of June 29 and reaching over to his wife’s side of the bed. It was empty. He sat up suddenly. The lamp was dimly lit. He scanned the room. She was nowhere in sight. The house was very quiet and it felt like he was the only one in it. His heart started racing. He glanced over to the clock on the nightstand it was 6:30am.
He remembers a wave of panic suddenly hitting him. Carla never woke up before him. She was a schoolteacher and being on vacation there was no reason to be up this early. “My children!” He remembers saying in alarm as he stood up and headed towards the bedroom door.
Then he heard movement in the bathroom. He relaxed as he realized that he was not alone in the house after all. He came back in and threw himself on the bed to catch a few more minutes of sleep. Then, suddenly a different concern began to surface. Carla was six-months pregnant with their fourth child. Could something have happened to the baby? “Carla,” he had called out to her, “is everything alright?” She took her time answering but when she did, she answered dismissively, “I’m fine.”
He said that he did not ask any more questions. They had been going through a difficult patch in their marriage. They had grown very distant. There had been a lot of arguing between them in recent weeks. It had gotten so bad that sometimes their arguments took place in the presence of their children.
He remembers being suddenly aware of the time. He sat up in bed in an effort to begin getting ready for work. As he did the bathroom door opened. He turned to face Carla as she entered the bedroom. He was surprised to see that she was well dressed and made up.
He loved seeing her dressed and made up but lately she didn’t seem to care about her appearance. She had stopped wearing make-up altogether. It seemed almost retaliatory to him that she had stopped. Especially since she knew how much he liked her with make-up on but he did not complement her on it. In fact on that particular morning he was suspicious of her make-up. Instead he had asked, “Going somewhere?” He knew that the confusion must have been very evident on his face. If she noticed his confusion she did not try to reassure him, “I’m taking the children to New Jersey for the weekend,” she said bluntly. “My mom is coming down to pick us up.”
He remembers cringing at the mention of New Jersey because he did not want her to go to New Jersey and especially not with the children. “New Jersey?” He had asked her. He said that the alarm was obvious in his voice like it was every time she mentioned New Jersey. Somehow he felt that she did not mind hurting him. He sensed that she enjoyed a silent victory every time he winced from its mention. “Just for the weekend,” she had replied. “We will be back on Monday!”
He pondered on the implications of what she had said. New Jersey held memories for him that was less than fond. Being more than two hours away in Owings Mills, Maryland he couldn’t get to New Jersey fast enough. He would have preferred it if she did not go to New Jersey at all. Or better yet he would feel better about it if she decided to wait until he could accompany her and the children on the trip.
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About the Book
No man’s land explores the issues of custody, gender bias in the court system and the difficulties and issues of single parenting. Central to the book is the true story of a single father. His world as he knew it ceased to exist when his pregnant wife fled to another state with his three minor children. The court system did little to help him and for a while it seemed she got away with it. He was faced with three options. He could just let her have her way with the possibility of never seeing his children again. He could let them remain in the new state and fight for visitation. With great risk to himself, he could fight for his children. He chose the latter. He secured their return and subsequently got custody of them. A few weeks after, he was also raising his newborn baby. Single fatherhood was hard on its own but, as though it was not enough, he faced continual attacks from his estranged wife, a biased justice system and an uncaring supervisor at work. He eventually came to the point of giving up the very thing he had fought so hard for. He found out that when life suddenly becomes chaotic it is hard and sometimes impossible to find the balance in order to continue moving forward. For him balance came when he learnt to give up his expectations and to look for hope in God and faith in areas previously unexplored. As he willingly gave up life as he knew it and settled down to enjoying a new life and experiences with his children and with his faith in God, only then did he begin to take control of his life even if he had to do it in No Man’s Land.
About the Author
Alces Scotland was born on the island of Dominica in the Caribbean. She was a teacher in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for a number of years before moving to Maryland, USA.
The Caribbean is a very diverse region and as such it served to stimulate her imagination and propel her in a direction that ebraces imaginative work. A career in writing and creative expression has always been her lifelong dream. She has written a number of manuscripts over the years but nothing has ever been published. She wrote, directed and produced her first short film, 'The Larouma Reed' in 2006. The film was based on the struggles of the Carib Indian population in her native Dominica.
After a teaching career of more than twelve years she decided to pay some attention to her passion for writing. 'No Man's Land' is her first published work and it hopefully marks the beginning of a writing career.