Well, the meeting with the lawyer wasn't really I'd hoped it would be. I came in armed with all kinds of information, history and proof about what's been going on. The lawyer asked my husband and me what it is that we want to accomplish. We said we want something legal that will protect my niece in case her mother chooses to try and take her back before she finishes her recovery program. The lawyer said that if my sister is amenable to that it isn't a problem, but that if she isn't, it would not be likely to help much. He said he might be able to get us a few months of legal custody but that in his experience this was likely to cost a lot of money (he said easily 5K) and that custody would always revert back to her mother in the end. Basically unless she is in immediate physical danger, it seems there's very little we can do.
We are going to go down to the family court and talk to people there for more information.
In other news, I phoned my sister's social worker for her thoughts on where things stand, how likely my sister is to bail out on the treatment program, and she said that she actually advised buying the cigarettes so my sister would stop obsessing about them and actually try to think about recovery for a change. (The reason we said no before was that we were advised by another worker that to placate her by giving in to all her demands was only setting ourselves up to end up having to buy her whatever she wants at any given moment for the rest of her life.)
So we talked it over and decided to buy her the tobacco. I don't really know how long the giant can we bought will last her but I'm hoping we won't have to hear about cigarettes for at least a couple of weeks.
I went inside to talk with her social worker and case worker and was able to give them a little more background about what my sister's life has been like up to this point. (They did not know she has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder but didn't seem surprised to hear it.) I was incredibly relieved to hear that they, at least, were seeing through my sister's manipulative behaviour and weren't buying her performances.
On another note, I spoke with my sister and informed her that her daughter and I will not be visiting this coming Saturday because of last weekend's abusive behaviour and because of her attempts to take her daughter's allowance money. I said that if she could keep her behaviour acceptable for the rest of the week that I would still pick her up to take her to her daughter's play on Friday night (she is performing in a summer camp show) but that she should not expect a Saturday visit, and the only reason I will pick her up on Friday is because it's important to her daughter.
I also told my sister that if she behaved like that again, we would stop visiting completely. I'm not sure if that made the intended impact because she vacillated between saying she would do better, saying that
I needed to do better, and threatening to get a visitation order). But at least it made me feel better to have set up some boundaries and some consequences should she violate them.
So it's been good news and bad news today... I can't do as much as I want to do. And no one cares if I have dozens of photographs of the house or written confessions or blankets filled with cigarette burns as evidence of my fears. All I can do is ask for my sister's compliance in finishing the program and perhaps, bribe her with smokes to get her sign something that says she will.
Heck, maybe I'll take up smoking too. It seems to be providing her with a lot of comfort!