Izzie stared at them with wide eyes, with no idea what to say in response. How awful? How could you? Why? Don’t you love each other? What’s going to happen to me now? A thousand thoughts raced through her mind, but nothing came out of her mouth. She wanted to scream or cry, but she couldn’t do either. All she could do was stare from one to the other, and finally her mother dragged her eyes to hers.
“Whose idea was it?” was the only thing Izzie could think of to say. But she was sure it was her mother’s. She always acted like she didn’t really want to be there.
“Both of ours,” her father answered as Katherine looked at her husband and daughter like strangers. She had felt like a stranger in their midst for years. She had never wanted children and had told Jeff that when they married. They had met when they were both in law school, and he had had big corporate ambitions then, but he later changed his mind and fell in love with the work he was doing for the ACLU. He took a summer job with them and never left, and turned it into an internship while he continued school.
Katherine’s ambitions and goals had never changed, but Jeff had become a different person over the years. He had thought that having a baby would help their marriage and be good for them, and had promised to do everything he could to help her, and he had. He had been far more attentive to Izzie than she was, and Katherine knew it. But even after Izzie was born, much to her own horror, she had never warmed up to the idea. As far as she was concerned, it was a terrible mistake. And there was a human being involved. Izzie was a wonderful little girl, but Katherine didn’t feel like a mother, never had, and still didn’t now. She knew it was some important piece missing in her. She couldn’t bond. She felt guilty about it, and she hated Jeff for forcing her to do it, or talking her into it. He had been so convincing. Katherine’s own parents had always been cold with her, and nothing in her background had taught her how to be a mother, and in her heart of hearts she didn’t want to learn. She felt like a monster every time she looked at her own child, and she knew that Izzie knew it too. Jeff had denied it for as long as he could, but although he hadn’t admitted it to Izzie, he had asked for the divorce, and Katherine had been relieved.
“Your mother has a very important new job,” Jeff explained. “She’s going to be the senior counsel for a very large corporation, and she’s going to be traveling a lot of the time. That’s not the way that either of us want to be married. Sometimes things change between two people,” he said, looking at his daughter. “Our marriage no longer makes sense with your mother’s work.”
“So you’re dumping us for your new job?” Izzie said to her mother with an anguished expression, and Katherine felt a knife slice through her heart. She had always known that she shouldn’t have children, and Izzie was paying the price for it now. Even she knew how wrong that was, but it didn’t change how she felt about it, or the maternal instincts she didn’t have. And Izzie knew that most of all. She had never been able to win her mother’s affection, or even more than a small slice of her time. She had grown up feeling like an imposition, and in many ways, in her mother’s life, she was. Jeff tried to make up for it, but he was her father, not her mother, and Izzie had been starved all her life for a mother’s love. And now she was leaving. For a job.
“I’m not dumping you,” Katherine said, looking at her daughter, knowing she should hold her arms out to her, but she couldn’t. “Your father and I have drafted a very fair agreement. You’ll be spending three days with him every week, followed by three days with me, when I’m in town. And you can spend Sundays with whichever of us is available. Or we can just do three days straight and three days on a revolving schedule, whichever you prefer.” It sounded sensible to her, for a business deal, but not for a child.
“Are you serious?” Izzie asked with a look of horror. “You expect me to bounce between the two of you, like some kind of ball you’re throwing at each other, or a dog? How am I supposed to live any kind of life like that? I’ll be packing my suitcase every three days. I’d rather be an orphan and live in an institution. I can’t live like that. It’s insane.”
Katherine looked surprised, and Jeff didn’t say anything. The difficulties for Izzie had occurred to him too, but Katherine thought it was “fair.” “I suppose we could alternate weeks, if that works better for you,” she said to Izzie, like a client she was trying to satisfy.
“I don’t want to go back and forth between the two of you,” Izzie said as tears sprang to her eyes. They were destroying her life. “You’re both crazy. I can’t live like that. It’s not my fault you don’t love each other, and you got a new job. Why are you taking it out on me?”
“But that’s what joint custody is all about,” Katherine said calmly, trying not to react to the distress in her daughter’s eyes. She would never have asked for the divorce—she had made her peace with the living arrangement they had. But when she told Jeff about the new job, he had asked for the divorce. And when she thought about it, it made sense to her too, and Izzie was old enough to understand.
“I’m not a piece of furniture that you can shove back and forth at each other and expect to move twice a week.”
“You’ll get used to it. It may even have some advantages for you. I just found a very nice apartment downtown, near my office, in a building with a pool.”
“I don’t want a pool. I need a mother and a father and a home. Can’t you work this out, or something?” But the moment she asked the question, they both shook their heads.
“We both deserve a better life than this. Our marriage hasn’t worked for a long time,” Jeff said sadly. “And I’m sorry this is hard on you.”
“A year from now, when you’re fourteen, you can tell the judge what you want. But right now, it’s up to your father and me to come up with an equitable arrangement,” Katherine explained again.
“Equitable for who? Doesn’t it count what I think?” They both stared at her blankly, and didn’t know what to do. “I think joint custody sucks, and so do you,” Izzie said, and ran into her room and slammed the door. She called Gabby and burst into tears and told her what had happened. Gabby couldn’t believe it and told her that she could stay with them as often as she liked. But Izzie didn’t want to stay with Gabby, she wanted her own home. She called Sean and Andy after that, and they were both sorry for her.
Izzie lay in her bed and cried all night, and the next day at breakfast her father told her that they would try to set it up some way that was easier for her.
“Maybe you can do a week at a time with each of us, or two weeks, or a month. You could stay here all the time if it were up to me, but you have to see your mother too.”
“Why? She’s going to be traveling all the time anyway. Why don’t you two alternate, and let me stay here all the time? I’ve heard of parents who do that.”
“I think that would be pretty uncomfortable for us,” Jeff said unhappily, hating what they were putting Izzie through, but the marriage had been over for years. He had been going to group therapy for a year, and he didn’t want to live in a dead marriage anymore, with a woman who didn’t love him, and whom he no longer loved. But Izzie was the casualty of it now too.
“But it’s okay to make me uncomfortable, I guess,” she said bitterly as she pushed her cornflakes around the bowl with a spoon. And then she looked at him unhappily. “Just don’t blame me if I flunk out of school. I can’t get decent grades and be moving three times a week, because you and Mom don’t like each other anymore. And the minute I turn fourteen, I’m going to tell the judge that I won’t go back and forth between the two of you, so you’d better figure out something else.”
“We’ll try,” her father said sadly, but he couldn’t think of anything yet. And a moment later he heard the front door close, as Izzie left for school.
The only thing that comforted her that day, and for the next many months, was her friends. She spent as much time as she could at the O’Haras’, being loved and nurtured by Connie, and she stayed with Gabby now and then, whi
ch helped too. Judy was a warm person, and she had always been very fond of Izzie, and felt sorry for her in the divorce. And Gabby and Michelle were very sympathetic and supportive, as were all her friends.
The custody arrangement with Katherine never really worked. She was out of town almost every time Izzie was supposed to stay with her, and eventually they dropped the plan of having her go back and forth between her parents, like a tennis ball. Instead, she stayed with her father, and went to her mother for a night once in a while on the weekend. Katherine took her to dinner, and let her bring Gabby over to swim in the pool. Sometimes Izzie went for a month without seeing her, or longer, but even when she saw her, Izzie knew that her mother had never really been there. What she had to sustain her was a father who loved her, and four terrific friends. And Connie O’Hara, as a loving adopted aunt. It wasn’t everything you were supposed to have in life, but all put together, it seemed to work for Izzie.
Chapter 4
The first big event of sophomore year in high school was that Billy and Gabby “did it,” the weekend before Thanksgiving. She confided it to Izzie the next day, and to her mother the day after. She assured her mother that they had used a condom, and she admitted to Izzie that it hadn’t been quite as fabulous as she’d hoped. Billy had gone off like fireworks on the Fourth of July, a little faster than either of them had expected, and it had hurt, a lot. They were both virgins, but the best part was the tenderness between them. They had been “going together” for two years, had never cheated on each other or looked at anyone else. They were crazy about each other, and Gabby said that having “done it” strengthened the bond they shared. And her mother was very nice about it. Judy was concerned about the responsibility they’d undertaken, but grateful that Gabby was honest about it, so she knew what was happening in her daughter’s life.
By the end of the weekend, all of the Big Five, as Connie still called them, knew. Billy didn’t brag about it, but something about the way they stood even closer to each other, looked at each other as though they had a secret, let everybody know what had happened. Izzie still thought they were too young to have sex with each other, but Gabby and Billy never doubted for a minute that they loved each other and felt ready to take on the responsibilities that went with it. He was responsible about using condoms, and Gabby told her mother she wanted to go on the Pill, so she didn’t get pregnant. They managed to do it two more times, at Billy’s when his mother was out, his father was at work, and Brian was in school. They had a break in their school schedule over lunchtime, and the second time it was better, and the third time it was great. They were glad they had finally decided to add sex to their relationship.
Judy took Gabby to Planned Parenthood the day before Thanksgiving and she got the Pill, and the others suddenly felt very immature and as though they had been left out. None of the others had a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Andy spent all his time studying, Sean was quiet, not as massive in size as Billy, and he always complained that girls never even looked at him. And Izzie had spent the last two years surviving her parents’ divorce. She hardly ever saw her mother, although Katherine called her frequently from other cities to see how she was, and once in a while they spent a weekend together, but not very often. And in some ways, Izzie missed her. It was weird to no longer have a mother in the house, and one she hardly ever saw. It felt sad sometimes. Jeff tried to make up for her mother’s indifference and absence. But there were times when she really missed having a mom she saw every day, no matter how busy Katherine had been before the divorce.
Jeff hadn’t met anyone he cared about deeply yet, but he’d been dating for about a year. Whenever he brought someone home, he had to live with Izzie’s editorial comments, and she was usually right. He had no desire to get married again, but he would have liked to find a woman he loved enough to live with, particularly when Izzie left for college in two years. He knew just how lonely he would be when she did, and he had no illusions that she would stay in San Francisco. Izzie wanted to see more of the world, even if she came back to the city after that. And Jeff realized that he would have no personal life without her. Everything he did revolved around his daughter.
For the past few months Jeff had been dating a woman at work whom he seemed to like, and he brought her home to have dinner with Izzie. And Izzie hated her. He was fifty-three by then, and the young lawyer he was dating was in her early thirties, and Izzie pointed out to him the next day that she was too young for him, and he looked embarrassed. It had occurred to him too, but it was awkward having it pointed out by his fifteen-year-old daughter, who was closer to her age than he was, though not by much. But women his own age didn’t appeal to him.
“I’m not marrying her. She’s just a date,” he said to Izzie.
“Just keep it that way,” Izzie said sternly. “Besides, she’s not as smart as you are.”
“What makes you think that?” He looked startled.
“She kept asking what things mean, things that she ought to know, as a lawyer. Either she’s playing stupid, or she really is. Either way, you deserve better,” Izzie said as she rinsed their breakfast dishes and put them in the dishwasher. She was very much the woman of the house now, and had a comfortable adult relationship with her father.
“No one is ever going to be as smart as your mother,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m not sure I was either. Probably not.” Or as cold, he thought to himself, but didn’t say it. “I’m not sure I need to be with a genius, or even want to. Just a nice, friendly woman,” he said, and Izzie looked at him from across the kitchen.
“You need a smart one, Dad. A dumb one would get boring.” Her mother was dating someone too, the CEO of the company she worked for. He was recently divorced. Izzie hadn’t met him yet, but her mother had told her. In the two years since her parents’ divorce, she had grown wise beyond her years.
They had no particular plans for Thanksgiving, so he accepted an invitation for both of them from one of his co-workers at the ACLU, a nice divorced woman with two children roughly the same age as Izzie, and she had invited about a dozen other people. It sounded like an easy invitation and a nice way to spend the day. Katherine was in New York on business, and spending the holiday with friends there.
The O’Haras were planning to entertain relatives and friends and had much to be thankful for this year. Kevin had done well in rehab, and returned as the boy they always hoped he would be. At twenty-two, he was going to City College, getting good grades, and hoping to graduate that year. It was an enormous relief to them, and the two boys were getting on well. Kevin had apologized to Sean in a family therapy session in Arizona for being such a bad brother to him until then. He had been a different person when he got home.
Andy and his parents were visiting relatives of his mother’s in South Carolina. Judy and Adam were going to the Fairmont Hotel with Michelle, and Gabby was spending Thanksgiving with the Nortons. Marilyn had planned a family dinner with Larry, her two boys, and Gabby. It was a meal Marilyn always prepared, and she did it well, and Gabby had promised to help her.
Gabby got to Billy’s house early enough to help Marilyn get things ready. She had taken out her best linen tablecloth, and Billy and Gabby set the table together. They set it with Marilyn’s best china and crystal, and the turkey smelled delicious as she basted it. They were planning to have six o’clock dinner, and Larry had gone to watch football at a friend’s, and said he’d be home in time for dinner. But at six o’clock he still wasn’t back and didn’t answer his cell phone when Marilyn called him. They waited for him until seven. The turkey was getting dry by then, and Marilyn was fiercely upset.
They sat down to dinner at seven-thirty, an hour and a half later than planned. The biscuits were slightly burned, and the turkey and stuffing were undeniably dry. No one mentioned Larry’s absence during dinner, and Marilyn served pumpkin and apple pies for dessert, with homemade vanilla ice cream. And after they got up from the table, the boys and Gabby helped her clean up. By ten-thirty, every
thing was put away, and Gabby pretended not to notice Marilyn crying as she walked upstairs, just as Larry walked in, trying to act as though nothing had happened. The kids disappeared like mice, and went down to the playroom in the basement to watch a movie.
Marilyn turned and looked at him from the stairs. Her voice was flat, but her eyes were blazing. He looked as though he’d been drinking all day.
“Where were you?” She had been worried about it all night.
“I had dinner with a friend,” he said, as though it were any other day and not Thanksgiving. But he wasn’t fooling anyone but himself.
“You missed Thanksgiving dinner,” Marilyn said, as their eyes met.
“Sorry, I had something else to do,” he said brusquely, pushing past her on the stairs, and as he did, she could smell liquor on his breath and see lipstick on his collar, a great smear of it that felt like a slap in her face.
“You’re disgusting,” she said under her breath, and as soon as she did, he grabbed her arm and yanked her toward him.
“I don’t give a damn what you think,” he said, and then pushed her away. She nearly lost her balance and fell down the stairs, but caught herself with the banister before she did.
“Did you have to do that tonight?” she said, as she followed him to their bedroom. He looked disoriented for a minute, and she realized just how drunk he was. He walked across the room unsteadily and sat down on the bed. He had been with another woman all day.
“I’ll do it whenever I damn well want to. I don’t give a damn about Thanksgiving anyway. Or about you,” he added for good measure, and she was grateful that the boys couldn’t hear him. As she looked at him, she wondered why she had stayed for so long, why she had put up with the insults and the degradation, the drinking and the disappointment, and the pain of knowing or suspecting he was cheating on her all the time. She had told herself she did it for the boys, but now she wasn’t sure. Maybe she was just afraid to be alone, or to lose a husband she hadn’t loved in years. There was nothing in Larry to love, and she knew he didn’t love her.
Friends Forever Page 5
