“FAMILY COURT!” Dad shouted.

This announcement could halt a scooter obstacle course in motion. It was reasonable cause to pause Shrek or put the Nintendo controller down. Next, Dad would hear footsteps on the stairs, doors opening and closing. We’d all meet downstairs, wondering who did what crime this time.

Family court was how we settled big arguments. Mom was always on the jury, because she was the most reasonable and didn’t accept bribes. Dad was always the judge, since he liked being in charge and banging the makeshift gavel most. 

Our parents liked to joke that having four kids made them honorary members of the Idiots Club. The even number worked out perfectly for family court. Each sibling was assigned another sibling as their lawyer. We’d have five minutes to talk with our lawyer and get the story straight before Dad would call the court into session. 

This particular story I’m about to tell is fuzzy on the details, aside from the fact that it was I who pressed charges against my older brother, Andrew. He was around fifteen at the time, and me about eight years old. 

There are too many court cases that blur together in my memory, so I don’t remember the specific crime committed. It could have been the case when Andrew replaced all my Britney Spears CDs with Led Zeppelin CDs. It might have been the time he helped me with my homework and convinced me that there is a silent “X” in every word, causing me to fail a spelling test. 

“It doesn’t matter where you put the X, because it’s silent. Just know that every word has it,” he told me confidently. 

For the sake of this story, we’ll go with the CD crime.

We gathered for court in what we called The Florida Room, a sunny room with more windows than walls and a high vaulted ceiling. The walls were decorated with pictures of the ocean, hurricanes off the coast of Florida, lighthouses, and pelicans. The sofas were floral and glass end tables displayed weird figurines of sailors drinking pints next to an anchor that Dad loved. 

Mom sat on one couch with a clipboard, ready to take notes. Dad sat in the middle of the room with the siblings on opposite ends of the room facing each other on the couches. 

The youngest kid, Scott, represented Andrew, which was already an advantage for me because he couldn’t control himself. He simply thought fart noises were funnier than responding with words. The judge did not favor farts, but the jury could be swayed into laughing occasionally.

“All rise,” Dad said. We stood, the lawyers excited and the clients usually giving each other the stink eye. Dad decided against making us put our hands on the Bible and swear to tell the truth, because lying was part of the fun. 

“This court is now in session, you may be seated,” Dad said. “Do we have any witnesses in the court today?”

“No, your honor,” Andrew said. 

“Very well then, lawyers present your case,” Dad said. 

My sibling Brennan, two years older than me, represented my case.

“My client was playing dollhouse, minding her own business after dutifully completing her chores-”

“Objection!” Andrew yelled. “Beth didn’t do any chores today or ever.”

“Objection!” I yelled, standing up on the couch.

“Order! Order in the court!” Dad yelled back, banging whatever object on the table he picked up as the gavel that day. 

The lawyers were supposed to do the talking. We lost points for sudden outbursts.

“Like I said, my client was playing dollhouse and wanted to enjoy some background music. When she pressed play on her Hello Kitty boombox, she discovered that Andrew, a thief, stole her Britney CD and replaced it with Led Zeppelin, who my client does not like.”

“Objection, your honor! They have no proof it was me,” Andrew yelled.

“Objection! He can’t be talking!” I yelled, pointing with my pointer finger.

“Order! Order in the court!” Dad said, then turned to my mom. “Take two points from Andrew, and one point from Beth.”

Mom nodded and scribbled on her page.

“Thank you, I will hear from the other lawyer now,” Dad said. “Mr. Scott, what evidence does the prosecution have against the defendant?” 

Scott took another bite of his chocolate Pop-Tart before he stood up to take the floor. He paused, like maybe he forgot the evidence, then made a fart sound with his armpit and cracked himself up. Andrew slapped his hand against his forehead. 

“Objection, your honor! I’m being represented by an idiot!” Andrew said, and we’d all burst out laughing. 

“Sustained. I direct the jury to disregard that statement. Scott, what evidence would you like to present?” Dad asked.

“Beth is lying,” Scott said. 

“I see. Does your client plead guilty or not guilty?”

“Not guilty,” Scott said. 

“No further questions. Thank you, you may be seated,” Dad nodded. “We’ll take a five minute break while the jury decides your fate.”

Running into the kitchen, we’d shove each other out of the way to get a snack from the pantry while Mom and Dad discussed the case.

The punishment of every courtroom was always the same. Whoever lost had to do whatever the person who won wanted. The length of time spent together depended on the severity of the crime. 

We shuffled back into The Florida Room to hear the verdict. 

“The jury has spoken. I hereby declare Andrew guilty of all charges,” Dad said. The room erupted in boos from Andrew and Scott.

“I hereby sentence you to return the Britney CDs by the end of the day and do whatever Beth wants for…” Dad paused, building suspense. “One hour.”

Andrew looked at me as I bounced up and down, clapping my hands together. One hour was a severe punishment.

“Alright, what do you want to do?” Andrew groaned.

“Makeover!” I squealed. Scott giggled while unwrapping another Pop-Tart. 

All the siblings followed us upstairs to the bathroom, where I proceeded to cover Andrew’s face with makeup I got from Limited Too. Dark blue sparkle eyeshadow, strawberry flavored Lip Smackers, and hot pink blush applied to the forehead. His hair was too short to braid or put clips in so I covered it with a shower cap like the girls wear at salons in movies.

Once makeup covered every inch of his face, I took Andrew into Mom’s closet. I tried to get him in a dress but somehow he ended up in Mom’s ruby red robe. His feet barely fit into Mom’s black high heels. We giggled uncontrollably when he pretended to stumble and grab the wall for balance. 

“The hallway is your runway. Work it!” I shouted, snapping photos with the flash on, using the family’s brand new digital camera. 

Andrew worked it down the carpeted hallway, posing for photos and talking in a high pitched voice to make me laugh even harder.

Later that night, Britney Spears blared through my Hello Kitty boombox, and thanks to the justice system, all was well in the Henshaw household once again.

---

These are the kind of memories I hold onto, however vague and jumbled they have become in my brain. I remember being so mad at my siblings, then after court, the tension dissolved into shenanigans. I appreciate both my parent’s creative use of punishments for us kids.

Most of the time punishments from my dad included long lectures about right and wrong. Using elaborate metaphors that would only make sense years later.

I remember when Scott went through a phase of saying “holy crap” one thousand times a day. Dad got so fed up with it, one day he sat Scott down at the kitchen table and put the Bible and the dictionary in front of him.

“What is holy crap? I’ve never heard of crap that is holy. Show me holy crap. Find holy crap in either of these two texts, and you can continue to say it. If you can’t find it, then you have to stop,” Dad told Scott.

I remember pulling up a chair at the kitchen table with a bowl of Fruit Loops to watch Scott sift though the pages, thinking it was hilarious. But it’s never as funny when you’re the one who is in trouble.

Dad liked to joke about the phrase “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.” I used this to my advantage in seventh grade theatre class. We had performances for other classes that day, and when it was my turn to get on stage, I came out and said all my lines like normal but wore a realistic life-like Michael Jackson mask. As if Michael Jackson was supposed to be in a play about the Revolutionary War. My teacher yanked me off that stage, face red, bursting with anger. She called me and my dad into a conference and when she turned to me and asked, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

I proudly responded, “Just like my dad always taught me, it’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”

I thought Dad would smile, nod, agree.

He did not.

My teacher issued me a week’s worth of lunch detention. Dad did not object.

Later, when we were walking down the hallway, I looked at him like what the hell, Dad? and he looked at me like what the hell, Beth?

“Why’d you say that I taught you that?” he asked.

“Because you did,” I said, confused.

“But you don’t tell your teacher that!” he said, exasperated.

“Why not?” I asked, exasperated.

He explained that rule was just a joke and better suited for home. Like when I wanted to put stickers on the walls in my room. Ask for forgiveness, not permission. Because he didn’t really care if I put stickers on the wall, he would just make me scrape them off later.

He would go on to lecture me about consequences the entire drive home. Every action has a consequence, some good, some bad. In life, you have to decide what consequences are worth accepting. Try to make choices that consequences only affect you, not others, yadda yadda yah and so on.

That day, I decided lunch detention was worth the fame of being known as the “Michael Jackson Mask Girl.”

---

This year I attended another February funeral, twelve years later.

My grandma passed away at 94 years old and her funeral was held on the day my dad died twelve years ago. A beautiful coincidence. I flew home to Richmond and spent the day with my siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I haven’t been with my family on that day in many years. Though we didn’t talk about Dad much, it felt right to be with family.

We sat around the kitchen table, cracking up and catching up long after we ate dinner. Like we always did when Dad was alive.

Enough time has passed that I no longer think of the sick, cancer ridden dad who left this world. Now, memories like family court and sitting around the kitchen table for hours come to mind first.

I miss him, though the ache is not as searing and painful as it once was. The ache is more familiar and curious nowadays.

I wonder what Dad would say about the current state of the world and our family. I wonder what books he would be reading. I wonder about the silly things he would teach his grandkids. I wonder if I would even live in Arizona and if I would have done all this travel if he hadn’t passed away when I was seventeen. But I no longer wonder if he would be proud of me.

The years of struggling to find ways to honor and connect with him are largely behind me. I have integrated so many of the life lessons I rolled my eyes at as kid. Reading is a daily practice for me, something we both enjoy and an easy way to feel connected to him. Every time I add a book to my shelf, I smile and think about his dream to have a home library of books he read. One step closer to my home library, I think to him.

Every time I write, I can hear his encouraging voice say, “Now that could be a book!” And instead of hiding my stories in my room and telling him, “No, it’s not good enough yet!” I nod now and I think, “Hell yeah, Dad, this will be a book!”

Much like him, I swerve suddenly off the road to read historical markers and signs. Though I complained as a kid, he passed down a love for history to me. Sometimes when I miss him a whole awful lot, I put on Billy Joel in the car and belt out “Piano Man” at the top of my lungs with the windows rolled down.

And if ever I need to feel close to my dad, I know what to do: prepare the biggest bowl of chocolate ice cream that I can and turn on The Sound of Music.

---

Continue reading last year’s post to my dad:

It’s Been 11 Years Since My Dad Died