"Now she's going to fly bombers!" Mrs. Eaton almost shouted at Judge Calvin R. Collins in Family Court during the pretrial custody hearing. She had spent three hours in a beauty parlor the day before and was wearing a mink coat. "They call them 'Flying Fortresses!'"
The judge, short and thin, looking to Barbara to be in his mid or late seventies and probably having been called from retirement back to the bench, studied her skeptically over the rim of half-frame reading glasses. She wore a conservative gray skirt suit, but made sure it looked expensive.
"The documents say you are part-owner of a successful airport and that your previous land sale made you a very wealthy woman.
Do you have to fly bombers? Isn't that dangerous?"
Barbara weighed her words, so as not to imply to the judge anything that would turn the hearing into something that would threaten his masculinity.
"I don't have to fly bombers, but have been assigned to. And I won't be flying them in combat. But since our country is at war, I just think everyone should try to be as useful as they can. I happen to be a pilot, so I'm delivering planes to bases stateside so as to relieve men to fly them in combat."
The judge's thick gray eyebrows lifted as he studied her anew. "Very interesting," was his only response to her.
"Combat or not," Mrs. Eaton interjected. "Flying bombers is dangerous work for a mother whose duty to her child is to be with him... To guide and nurture him during the difficult years of adolescence, especially since both his real parents are deceased."
"Which reminds me of the will," the judge said. "According to the preliminary custody report, the boy's mother left a will requesting that Miss Markey adopt her son."
Mrs. Eaton repeated her position about Gail's emotional state of mind at the time.
The judge began re-reading the social worker's report, then closed the manila folder on the case and looked up.
"The purpose of a pretrial hearing is to determine if any of the contesting parties changes his mind about demanding the custody of a child. Since I see that is not the wish of either party here, and no compromise can be reached, the case will go forward to trial. Meanwhile, the court will continue to be the boy's guardian and he will remain at the school he is attending and living at in Wisconsin."
When Mrs. Eaton impatiently asked when the trial would be held, Judge Collins replied, "It might be some lengthy time in the future. The court's caseload is staggering, and too few of us are left on the bench to hear it. There is another war going on, after all, and it is outside this building."