by Warren Adler
“Do you ever discuss cases between yourselves? I mean on the golf course?” she asked, glancing at Charlie.
“Not usually,” Forte answered. “When we play golf, we want to get away from business.”
“That’s a hard one to swallow,” Charlie said. He was clearly becoming agitated.
“Legal ethics prohibits our discussing cases where we are on opposing sides.”
“But you get yours, win or lose,” Charlie said.
“Do I detect a note of apprehension?” Forte replied, frowning.
“I don’t understand it, is all,” Charlie mumbled, looking into the beer, which had flattened. “I’m from a different side of the tracks. When we take sides, we take sides.”
“It does sound odd, I know. But we’re nothing more than paid advocates.”
“I know that, all right,” Charlie said. “Hell, you could both get together and stall this thing and stretch the payments out to the next century.”
“The entire system depends on trust, Mr. Waters.” The lawyer looked toward Molly for alliance. Finding none, he shrugged and lapsed into silence.
“I never did trust lawyers,” Charlie said, upending his glass. Thankfully, the waiter brought their orders, and they began to eat in studied silence. “I just think it smells,” Charlie said abruptly, after swallowing a bite of crab cake and washing it down with water. The lawyer put down his knife and fork.
“What smells, Mr. Waters?” Forte began pointedly. Molly held her breath, her heart pounding. “Is it the botched-up relationships that families get themselves into? The fact is that a court of law is not the place to sort out personal relationships. It is a last resort, a recognition of the failure of human beings to work out their own problems. You hired me because you and your daughter-in-law and her husband cannot work out the most simple and basic impulses of human understanding. You don’t blame the messenger for the bad news, Mr. Waters. Peck and I sell time and legal expertise. We both know our jobs. Mine is to get a legal order that permits you to visit your grandchild. Peck’s is to prevent that. We’re both going to do our damnedest to win because the business we get is based on how well we do for our clients. A doctor who persistently kills off his patients by negligence, stupidity, or ethical lapses soon finds his waiting room empty.”
It could only be classified as an outburst, although the words came out as if they had been heated on a pure blue flame. Charlie was obviously cowed. His eyes seemed like loose marbles rolling around in their whites. Molly knew she had to somehow fill the breach.
“That’s what we’re paying for, counselor,” she said. “You convinced me.”
Charlie looked down at his food, picking at it with his knife and fork. The lawyer glanced at her and nodded understanding. He had, she realized, just fallen short of telling them both what to do with their case. She tried some small talk about the view and the weather, soliciting Charlie to join in, but he appeared too busy nursing a bruised ego, a daily occurrence these days. Forte’s lecture, she could tell, had unnerved him. When he started to play with his food, rearranging it without eating, she became concerned.
“Want another beer, Mr. Waters?” the lawyer asked with a stealthy glance at Molly that did not conceal his anxiety. Charlie shook his head, then put down his knife and fork and stood up.
“Back in a minute,” he mumbled, ambling off.
They watched his receding back.
“He’s beginning to really worry me,” the lawyer said with obvious concern. “I hadn’t intended to be so tough.”
“He’ll get over it,” Molly replied, unconvincingly. She was, indeed, worried.
“If they see his weakness under pressure, they’ll exploit it.”
“It’s been a couple of rough years.”
“Why doesn’t he get a job?”
“I thought he would. Maybe after the case is over.”
“That’s not very wise. They could stall this for months. It’s not that he’ll be doing any real work on it. I’m afraid this is not a day-to-day job.”
She knew he was right, of course. The loss of his work had been a crushing blow. Perhaps almost fatal. Quickly, she erased the terrible image from her mind.
“At least I have my work and my fifth grade kids. I understand what he’s going through. That’s why I went along with the case. He needed the hope, you see.” She paused to compose herself. “So did I.”
“You seem to be taking it better than he, Mrs. Waters.”
“I don’t miss Tray any less, Mr. Forte.” She sensed a touch of indignation in her tone. “But Charlie’s the one that’s down, a lot farther than I am. I have to appear strong for his sake.” She was strong, she told herself, hating the idea that she was stronger than Charlie. He had been through the toughening process of war, for God’s sake.
In a brief flash of memory, she saw him as he was then, her courageous young warrior, ready to laugh down fate, a twinkle in his eyes and a smile on his lips. Hadn’t she always deferred to his courage and good sense, his strong, wise, manly ways? No, she protested, he’ll come back. Hadn’t he protected and encouraged her through their years together, through the dark times of her miscarriages, her intimate failures? Hadn’t he shored up her defenses, poured devotion and trust and love into the cracks of her own failed dreams of a large, loving family? It was her turn now, her turn to backstop him.
“I’m thinking of the case. Mostly the courtroom confrontations. If they mash away at him and he blows, they’ll make their case for his instability. If we don’t appear calm and kindly in that courtroom, we’ll be up the creek without a paddle.”
“You mean you get judged on appearances,” she said sarcastically, searching the room for any sign of Charlie, missing him.
“On perceptions. At least in a jury trial you’ve got twelve chances. In a domestic case, you’ve got only one.”
“I think if I explained it carefully, he would get himself under control,” she said with mock conviction.
“Look, Mrs. Waters. Their strategy will be to crucify you both, to exaggerate your every flaw and to hide behind the tight restrictions of adoption law. That’s bad enough to face, and even if you clear that hurdle, they’ll be defaming your character, selling you both to the judge as bad influences on your grandson. Our only comeback will be a strong, aggressive defense of your character, your past, your parenting and grandparenting, your general all-around goodness and decency. That’s our case. A long shot at best. We may not even get that far. Not if your husband blows his cork. It will turn off the judge and give their side an opening you can put an army through.”
“He wasn’t always like that,” she said thoughtfully. “Used to be a reasonably contented man.” She glanced up at the lawyer. “We’ve had our troubles, Mr. Forte.”
“Now that’s the attitude we need, Mrs. Waters. Be a victim. Show that. Not an angry victim. Anger makes people seem ugly. If he doesn’t get himself under control, you’ll be wasting your money. Not to mention the emotional agony of it.”
“He can’t hide things, I guess.”
“He has no choice.”
“Poor Charlie.” The words came out before she could stop them. She had been a true and loyal wife, an ally and a friend. At the beginning they had planned a large family. Charlie would have been perfect in the role of wise father for a large brood instead of investing so much in one child. It was her fault. She had let him down. Suddenly she pulled herself up short. What am I doing? she rebuked herself.
“Here he comes,” the lawyer said.
“Look, Mr. Forte,” she said hurriedly, “I’ll handle it. He’ll be fine.”
“He has to be, Mrs. Waters. I kid you not.”
Charlie strode across the dining room, trying to put some confidence in his step. See, he will be fine, she told herself. But it was without conviction.
“I guarantee it,” she said, forcing her bravado, her mind searching for another course of action. If they didn’t win this case, Charlie might never recover from
the loss. Never!
I’ll have to confront Frances one more time, she told herself. I’ll beg her to save my Charlie.
The author is indebted to Judge Paul Dorf, formerly of the Baltimore Municipal Court, for his valuable information and insight and to Frederika Friedman for her advice, counsel, and superb sense of craft.
10
FOR the third time that morning, Frances found herself instructing Maria, their three-day-a-week cleaning woman, on the care and feeding of Baby Mark. It was the language barrier that made her anxious, even though Maria had birthed eight children in Peru and there was not the slightest doubt of her reliability and competence.
“No worry, Meeses,” Maria said, patting Frances’s arm. Baby Mark slept peacefully, bundled in his carriage on the patio, clearly visible through the breakfast nook bay window.
“Bottle in the refrigerator,” Frances said. She looked at the kitchen clock. “I come back two, three hours.”
“No worry, Meeses,” Maria smiled, glancing at the carriage in its pool of bright winter sun.
Her anxiety and discomfort were not totally attributable to Baby Mark. Her decision to meet with Molly seemed to fly in the face of her best instincts, and she felt now as if she were disobeying the inner voice of reason. To make matters worse, she had not told Peter about the meeting although she had mentioned Molly’s previous calls, both of which she had cut short with a curt, “It’s out of my hands now.”
“What else could you do?” Peter had responded. “To talk to her would only exacerbate the situation.”
Exacerbate! The word had lingered in her mind from another time.
“Wouldn’t it be wise to send them back?” he had asked then. “They’ll only exacerbate the situation.” At first she had been stunned by the question. Send back Molly and Charlie’s Christmas presents for Tray? They had been married a little over two months, and Tray seemed to have been slowly weaned away from the idea of Chuck’s parents as central to his life. But it was the word Peter used, exacerbate, that placed an additional note of confusion on the issue, and she rushed to the dictionary to get its meaning. “To exasperate, make angry.”
He hadn’t meant to flaunt a superior education. The word had come naturally. Yet it seemed so much more threatening and ominous than the wordangry .
“He’s always had gifts from them at Christmas,” Frances had argued, although “exacerbate” had considerably weakened her protest. She certainly did not want to have their new happy little family threatened by exacerbation. “He must be expecting them.”
“A Christmas gift demands some form of reciprocation. Are you planning to give them a gift?”
“Well, no,” she said hesitantly, having already determined that such sentiment would open the door to premature communication.
“And Tray?”
“He mentions it in passing, of course. I sort of turn away the idea by ignoring it. Anyway, kids are more interested in themselves at Christmas. It’s their holiday.”
“At this point I think we should just be concerned with reminders. No matter how you rationalize, their gifts would come with fishing lines. Before you know it, they would be reeling them in. Do you want to start the cycle of resentment all over again?”
“Of course not. But this seems so harsh.”
“And I suppose I seem like Ebenezer Scrooge for suggesting it.”
“In a way you do,” she said. “But it probably makes sense for the moment. He does still ask questions about them.”
“Do you think Tray will be upset?” Peter asked.
“It’s hard to tell. He’s adjusted so well. It depends on the way we handle it.”
“He could do without the pressure,” Peter pointed out, not with any burning advocacy, but in his patient, logical manner. “Give him a little breathing room. Let’s not push over the apple cart in a moment of sentimental weakness.”
It was, of course, compelling logic. He had begun to call Peter “Daddy,” and the two were growing closer by the day, with Peter making a special effort to win Tray’s trust and, of course, affection.
“It just seems so cruel.”
“Not cruel. Realistic and consistent. We’ve either committed to it or we haven’t.”
“But it’s Christmas. A special time.”
“Exactly the point,” he said gently. “It’s a time of vulnerability. The question we have to ask ourselves is, are we ready to accept the burden, the resentment, the sarcasm and bitterness. There’s a pecking order of priorities here. Leave the door ajar, and soon we’ll have the fox back in the chicken coop.”
She didn’t like the idea, although she did agree with the concept. Even as they discussed it, she began to resent her ex-in-laws’ intrusion in her family’s otherwise tranquil and happy new lives. Actually, since her marriage, they seemed to intrude less and less, and their influence was diminishing. No more guilt. No more self-recrimination. No more gut-wrenching second thoughts about her conduct.
Molly and Charlie’s presents were spread out in boxes on the floor of the foyer. She looked at them and shook her head.
“It looks like they bought out the store.”
“You can’t blame them. They want to pound the point home.”
“It was hard enough telling them. I try not to think about how they’re taking it.” She crossed her arms over her stomach. She had just learned that she was pregnant. The gesture seemed to trigger his emphasis.
“You mustn’t. We have other concerns. We’re putting together a new life. There’s the house. All the work that goes into getting it in shape. And the baby. Not to mention Tray and his problems. His new school, a new father. And your getting used to me. I’m sure that’s not too easy either.” He was fishing for a little solace now, she knew. Like her, he hated deliberately hurting other people. Despite his arguments, she knew he was just as distressed as she was.
“You’ve been wonderful, Peter. I have no complaints in that department.” She moved toward him, and he embraced her.
“You don’t think I’m a little stodgy? Engineers have that reputation.”
“But I know what’s beneath the surface, you see.” She lifted her face, and he kissed her deeply.
“It comes down to the old question. What’s best for us? Let Tray get used to the new nest. Why remind him of the old one? At least, not yet.”
“I still feel funny about it.”
“So do I.”
She looked at the presents.
“It’s so much. It seems like . . .”
“A bribe.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
Peter’s parents had already sent their gifts. They were, of course, more than generous. But not nearly as abundant as those sent by Molly and Charlie. No, she decided, she would leave that alone. Her new in-laws were coming for Christmas, the first with their son’s new family.
“But I’ll go with whatever decision you make,” Peter said.
“No you won’t. This will have to be a joint decision.”
He looked at her intensely, waiting. She remembered that she had stood in the foyer among the gifts, facing him.
“I’ll just leave one of the cards,” she said finally.
“That’s probably the best compromise.”
Later, it surprised her how little she brooded over it, even knowing that it was an act of cruelty on her part. Odd, how the mind rationalizes, she had thought, and makes itself well again. Besides, as a genuinely loving and devoted mother and wife, living a busy, happy life, she could not conceive of herself as intrinsically cruel. It was like reading a newpaper story of some hideous act, far away. It touched her for the moment, then passed.
Not quite. On Christmas morning, Tray went through his gifts with the usual gurgles of surprise and satisfaction, with Peter’s parents greatly enjoying the spectacle. It was truly wonderful to see how they had taken Tray into their hearts. Tray had responded in kind, and the whole scene was one of warm, familial affection. Then, suddenly, Tray had
asked, “Didn’t Grampa and Gramma Waters send me anything?”
“They sent this lovely card, Tray,” Frances said, as her heart jumped to her throat. Tray looked at it with some confusion, started to say something, then frowned. Seeing his reaction, Peter jumped between them with a loud exclamation.
“Bet I can get to the castle first.” He was referring to the computer game he had just unwrapped, a game of knights and dragons. Tray hesitated, obviously still wrestling with the idea of the missing gifts. Peter reached out and tickled his ribs. The boy giggled.
“Bet I can,” Peter pressed as Tray squirmed.
“Bet you can’t.”
Frances was relieved. A critical moment had passed. Or had it? Had it been the right thing to do? she wondered, taking some comfort from seeing her son and his new father eagerly at play, full of smiles. She took the card and quietly replaced it under the tree, amid the cluttered jungle of unopened gifts.
Nevertheless, Frances had agreed to see Molly, whose call yesterday bore an ominous note of desperation that somehow triggered her conscience.
“It’s strictly between us, Frances,” Molly had said. “Woman to woman.”
“But it won’t change anything, Molly.”
“There’s no harm in talking.”
“It’s an unnecessary aggravation. I have my kids to worry about. And Peter.”
“We’ve never been enemies, Frances.”
“But we are involved in a very delicate controversy.”
“I’m not asking for anything more than talk,” Molly pleaded. “Just talk.”
“Can’t we do it on the telephone, then?” It had been her first mistake. Fight off the guilt, she had begged herself. As she begged herself now.
“Face to face, Frances. Please.”
“Peter would never approve.” She was immediately regretful. Approval was not the proper word. Agree, she thought. He would never agree. Approval made her appear subservient. Nevertheless, she let it pass.
“Just between us,” Molly pressed.
“But look at the terrible position you put me in. I have no intention of changing my mind.”
