When it was over and we lay in a decadent heap, he said, still short of breath but in a verbal eruption not unlike the physical one he’d just had, “We can’t go back, Claire. Can’t be just friends again. I can’t be with you without wanting this. So if I stay in the picture, we’re hooked up. It’s out of my hands. Christ, it all is. Here, this. In that bastard’s office. I want to do something, baby. Want to make things right for you, only I don’t know what in the hell will help.”
“This,” I whispered. “You. Incredible help.”
“But the kids—”
I pressed his mouth. “Help keep this part of my life on track, and I’ll take care of the kids. I’ll get them. So help me God, I will.”
Often in the darkest hours of the night I awoke feeling empty inside. When Brody was there, the emptiness was little more than a shadow in a corner of the room. When he wasn’t, the shadow closed in. Part of it had to do with Connie, with the number of times in the course of a day that I reached for the phone, wanting to tell her something I had seen or thought or felt. The rest had to do with the kids, with the fact that they were surviving without me and the fear that I would never get them back.
During one of those night awakenings, I imagined squirreling them away on one of the days when they were in my care. I imagined hiding out with them in Argentina, changing their names, and raising them without the interference of Dennis or the court.
Would I do it? Seriously?
So help me, I wasn’t sure. I was a law-abiding citizen. But the law hadn’t treated me well. In that sense, what had started for me as a simple case of regaining custody of my children had become something more. I needed to right the wrong of the court. It was a matter of principle.
“What are our options?” I asked Carmen. I had driven into Boston, as much to feel I was doing something as to brainstorm.
“Legally? We can file another Motion for Reconsideration, but without new evidence, it’ll be turned right down. Same with another Motion to Recuse. There’s the federal angle, a gender discrimination suit, but that’ll take time. You want custody back before that.”
“What about suing Dennis? You mentioned that once.”
“It’s definitely an option. We could sue for malicious prosecution, and for intentional infliction of emotional stress.”
“That sounds about right,” I said, nodding. “I’ve been on the up-and-up through all this, trying to be honest and agreeable. I’ve tried to be positive. Tried to talk about my strengths. Tried to tell Jenovitz what I’ve done for my children in the past and what I can do for them in the future, and all the while Dennis is out there on the hustings slinging mud. So Jenovitz listens to the mudslinger. The good guys lose. I think I’ve had it with that. Let’s threaten a suit.”
“It’ll take time.”
“What if the threat does the job? What if that’s my lever in negotiating a settlement?”
“Dennis may rethink his position. Then again, he may decide to hold out. Make you squirm. Count on Selwey saving his neck.”
“If we went to trial, when would it be?”
“Late spring.”
“If we lost that round and appealed, when would that happen?”
“Anywhere from six to eighteen months after the first.”
I couldn’t begin to imagine waiting that long to regain custody of Johnny and Kikit, and cursed—for the hundredth time—the system that had worked so well against me. I rose from my chair and went to the window. Behind me, Carmen’s phone buzzed. I heard her pick it up and deliberately tuned out to give her privacy, concentrating instead on the narrow alleyway lined with shops. People came and went, pulling scarves tighter and overcoats closer. For an instant, I imagined I saw Dennis. Then whoever it was was gone.
Dennis. I had to hand it to him. I had expected he would have thrown in the towel on full-time parent-hood by now, but he was hanging in there. For the children’s sake, I wanted to think it was love. Selfishly, I wanted to think it was stubbornness. Stubbornness would wear itself out. Love wasn’t about to.
An arm circled my shoulder. Something in its tension spoke of a change. I looked at Carmen. Her face held bridled excitement, her voice the same.
“Morgan’s on his way over.”
“He found something?”
She grinned and nodded.
“What?” I asked. I told myself not to hope. Too many of my recent hopes had been quashed. Still, that look on her face wasn’t going away. “Carmen?”
“He’s on his way over. Come on. Let’s get coffee while we wait.”
The wait was worth it this time.
“There was meat behind Adrienne’s threat,” Morgan said. “The deal between them wasn’t just for sex. It was sex in exchange for inside stock tips. Dennis wanted the stock tips, Adrienne wanted the sex. She knew her husband would be furious—that part of the story was right—but she liked that, daring the devil. And she had the tips. She got them eaves-dropping on conversations her husband had. Easy enough to pass them to Dennis.”
I was torn between wanting to believe and wanting to argue. “Who told you this?”
“Three people, so it’s corroborated. That’s what took the time. One was an old friend of Adrienne’s, another a colleague of Dennis’s, the third a cellmate of Adrienne’s husband.”
I swallowed. “Cellmate?”
“Soon after Dennis’s rise, Lee Hadley was indicted for trading irregularities. Dennis was one of many in the firm who were interviewed by the government. He was one of several who were spared indictment in exchange for testifying against Lee. Lee did time in Allenwood, cushy enough, but his income flow stopped. Adrienne kept herself in the style to which she was accustomed in part by blackmailing Dennis with the threat of exposure.”
Carmen asked, “Then he didn’t tell the Feds everything?”
“No. He hid the extent of his own use of those tips. So he paid Adrienne.”
I let out a long, shaky breath. Oh, yes, we had needed something like this, but the victory was bittersweet. What an awful disappointment. I remembered how I had felt learning about Adrienne alone. The disillusionment now was nearly as strong. “Then he wasn’t a wunderkind at all.”
“No.”
Carmen touched my hand. “Are you all right?”
I pulled myself up and took a breath. “I’m fine.”
“We could go to Selwey with this, but since it’s untriable, he’ll pass the buck. You’ll have to raise it as a character issue with Jenovitz.”
I nodded.
“Claire?”
“I will.”
“You’re having second thoughts. You’re thinking of Dennis as your husband and feeling sad, even disloyal. Don’t, Claire. This may be the strongest weapon you have in your fight for the kids.”
With a conscious effort, I shrugged off those feelings of sadness, even disloyalty. It wouldn’t do to think of what I had lost with Morgan’s discovery, since so much of that had been illusory. I preferred to think of what I had gained. The more I thought about it, the better I felt.
Jenovitz didn’t want to meet with me. I left message after message on his answering machine, but he didn’t return my calls. Finally, after three days of calling, my perseverance paid off. He inadvertently picked up the phone when I was at the other end, and even then it took a whale of convincing.
“I don’t know, Mrs. Raphael. My schedule is jammed.”
“One more hour. That’s all I want.”
“To what end? I’ve already asked what I needed to ask. Time you take now is time taken from my writing up the final report. I thought you wanted this done quickly.”
Oh, I had I had also wanted it done in my favor. “I’ve just learned some things that I think you should know.”
“The holiday is coming up. This is a bad time.”
“One hour. You can bill me for three.”
“Money is not the issue,” he stated primly.
“I know. I’m sorry. But I’m a little desperate here. Thi
s is my life.”
Whether he feared I would harm myself and thereby condemn him to a life of guilt, I didn’t know, but he gave in with a marked lack of grace.
That lack of grace carried over to our meeting. He looked awkward and impatient. He was back to popping sourballs, and didn’t sit for longer than ten minutes at a stretch before jumping up and leaving the office. I didn’t know whether he was dashing out for illicit smokes, or whether he had the runs. Not that I cared, as long as he heard me out.
In an effort to be as gracious as I could, I thanked him profusely for giving me his time. Then I told him what Morgan had learned. I took time with the telling, tried to be as detailed as I could. I had read Morgan’s report so thoroughly and often that I knew dates, places, and times by heart. When I was done, I set a copy of the report on his desk.
He looked at it, held up a hand to signal a break, and left the room. He was gone for several minutes. When he returned, he slid into his chair, sat back, and stared at me.
“So, what do you think?” I finally asked.
“I’m wondering why you hired an investigator. Why you didn’t just ask your husband about this?”
“He’s my estranged husband, and I did ask him. Fourteen years ago. He lied.”
“Did you always suspect that?”
“I did at first. That was when I had the abortion. Then I put my suspicions aside for the sake of the marriage.”
Jenovitz tapped a finger on the desk, nodded, stared.
“I’m surprised you aren’t shocked,” I said.
“Shocked? About what?”
“What Dennis did back then. He didn’t tell you about it himself, did he?”
“No. We’ve been talking about his fathering abilities.”
“And about my shortcomings. Like the abortion I had. You said it had direct relevance to the kind of person I was. Well, doesn’t this?”
“Doesn’t what?”
“Morgan Houser’s report,” I said with dwindling patience. “My husband is guilty of things that could have put him behind bars, if they’d come out at the time. But he hid it. He lied. Under oath. Doesn’t that bother you? Won’t you think twice about giving custody of two young children to a man capable of breaking laws that way?”
“Is he breaking laws now?”
“No. But this shows he has in the past. What’s to say he won’t again?”
“He’s older now. More mature. He has more to lose. Back then he didn’t have children. Now he does. Having custody of them gives him good reason to walk the straight and narrow.”
His defense of Dennis left me dumbfounded. “But…but what about me?” I asked.
Jenovitz took a deep breath. His chair rocked every so slightly. No doubt about it, he did look bored.
Steadying my voice, I took a different tack. “Historically, the mother was considered the more appropriate parent to have custody. Why is my case any different?”
“You work, but your husband is free. He has the time, desire, and ability to parent the children.”
“Did he tell you about his new business prospect? He’s hoping to buy a vice-presidency in an up-and-coming company. It’s in Springfield, halfway across the state. Between work time and travel time, how free will he be? I live ten minutes from my office, ten minutes from the kids—home, school, you name it. I have a second-in-command who runs the company for me when I’m not around. I’m the boss, so I don’t have to ask permission to take time off. I have more flexibility than most working women, certainly than most working men.”
Jenovitz swiveled in his seat, extracted a file from the pile on the credenza behind him, and tossed it open on the desk. He gestured toward it with a dismissive hand. “It’s right there in black and white, the number of hours you work, the number of days you travel. It’s also right there, the toll that takes—the missed rides and canceled appointments.”
I didn’t protest the charges. I had done it once too often. Instead, bluntly, I asked, “Do you think I’m a bad mother?”
“Do you think your husband is a bad father?”
“Bad?”
I barely had the word out, when Jenovitz signaled another break. He pushed himself up and left the room. By the time he returned, I had given his question some thought.
“Dennis isn’t a bad father. I’m sure he loves the children. Do I think he’s a better parent than I am? No. Do I think he understands what full-time parenting entails? I think he’s beginning to, but two months is nothing.”
“You think his patience will exhaust itself.”
“I think his desire will, once the settlement is decided.”
“He claims it won’t.”
“What else would he claim?” I asked. “If he admitted the truth at this stage, he would lose his edge in the negotiations.”
“You make this sound like a game.”
“Me?” My laugh was brittle. “I’ve taken this seriously from the start. It’s everyone else who treats it like a game—this one feints, that one parries. Believe me, Dr. Jenovitz, the thought that the future of my children depends on bartering makes me sick, but that’s the lesson I’m being taught. If regaining custody of them means playing a game, I’ll play. My children mean more to me than anything in the world. That’s one of the biggest differences between my husband and me.”
“What means more to him than his children?”
“His image.”
Jenovitz looked at the open file and shrugged. “It wasn’t my impression that he cares much if he’s viewed as a househusband.”
Dennis had about as much intention of being a househusband as Valentino did. Jenovitz either hadn’t heard a word I’d said, or was dense, or hopelessly biased. “Are you aware of what he’s asking by way of a divorce settlement?”
“Children are my concern, not things.”
“But one goes with the other in this case,” I argued. “He’s asking that I sell my business. He claims he wants the money, but that’s only part of it. He wants me to lose WickerWise. Its success is a thorn in his side. It emasculates him.”
“Emasculates?” Jenovitz asked dryly. “I doubt that.” He frowned. “Right there is one of the reasons the children might be better off with their father. You’re an angry woman. That kind of anger isn’t good for children to see.”
He was definitely stonewalling. It was the only explanation for the absurdity of his argument. I tried to let it go but couldn’t. “My husband feels anger and more. He feels jealousy, he feels embarrassment, he feels the need for revenge. How healthy is that for the kids—not to mention a history of infidelity and dishonesty, not to mention a new top management position with new responsibilities and new pressures? If you think I’m gone a lot, how much will he be around?”
“He has his parents to fill in,” Jenovitz said quietly.
I chose to think that the quietness was in deference to my mother’s loss, but before I could see if it would linger, he was out of his chair and slipping out the door.
I fingered my watch. Time was running out. It was only then starting to hit me that I had played my ace and failed. Jenovitz didn’t care about Dennis’s past misdeeds. I half-suspected that if I could show him to be a pedophile, Jenovitz would simply pop in another sourball and sigh.
Brody was right. Something was very weird.
A sweet deal. That had to be it. A sweet deal between Selwey and Jenovitz.
After several minutes, I heard footsteps on the stairs. Soon after, the door opened. Jenovitz returned to his chair, looking freshened. This was my last, best chance.
“Can I talk about anger for a minute?” I asked.
He gave an indifferent wave. “Talk about anything you want.”
I spoke from the heart. My appeal was personal, one human being to another. “When this all started, I was angry at Dennis. But the anger has shifted. Dennis wouldn’t have been able to do what he did if the system hadn’t allowed it. If the system was fair, I would have regained at least partial custody of my chil
dren after that first weekend, while Dennis and I reached a settlement. Please believe me, Dr. Jenovitz. I’ve never been a rebel. I’ve conformed. I’ve worked within the system. All my life I’ve done that. But I’ve never been—screwed, I’m sorry, that’s the only word to describe it—by the system before. So, yes, I’m angry. I’m angry at a system—a system of justice, no less—that has made me be and do things that I don’t want to be and do. It’s made me fight people and suspect people and distrust people.”
I wanted to think he was listening, wanted to think he was hearing. He was looking at me, and he didn’t seem bored. Softly, I pleaded, “Injustice makes me angry. Unfairness infuriates me. You people are the ones who’ve created those conditions. Correct them, and there’s no anger.”
Jenovitz frowned. He gave a spasmodic shake of his head. “Give you what you want, let you have your way, and there’s no anger. Is that what you mean?”
I sat forward. “It isn’t.” I held up a hand. “Okay. Here’s the thing. I need your help. You’re a psychologist. You deal in rationality. So please help me understand what’s going on here. Nothing about this case rings true. There’s no logic. There’s no open-mindedness. I’m being viewed as a stereotype, but I’m not one. I’ve tried to convey that, but I’m not getting through.”
“This case is about choices,” he said. “We all have to make them in life. We get up in the morning and have to decide which shoes we’re going to wear. We can’t possibly wear three pairs at once. Same with jobs. We can’t be everything at once, but that’s what you want. Not only that, but you want us to tell you you’re doing a great job. Choices, Claire, choices. Surely, that makes sense.”
“Actually, no,” I reasoned. “My children aren’t babies. They spend most of the day in school. Afterward they need to be with their peers. I’d be stunting their emotional growth if I tried to prevent it. So I have time to do other things without taking time from them. Same thing with being with Brody. He complements my relationship with the kids. Same thing with WickerWise. Everyone benefits. No one’s hurt. Some women choose to be full-time mothers. Some men choose to be absentee fathers. I choose to lead a multifaceted life. Isn’t that a valid choice?”
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