by Min Jin Lee
Hugh laughed out loud. “Well, please don’t waste time on the niceties. How are you, Hugh? How’ve you been? The wife and kids? How’s your summer shaping up?”
“You don’t have any wife and kids,” she said.
“Maybe I got some. It’s been a while since we last saw each other.”
“It hasn’t been that long.”
“It’s been”—Hugh toted up the months in his head—“almost nine months! See, I could have a child.”
“You must have missed me enormously to carry on this way.” Casey counted the time elapsed herself, and he wasn’t off. Was it possible that he’d gotten married? The idea that Hugh could marry at all was just too implausible. “Anyway, can you let me know if you can or cannot help?”
Hugh paused. In his head he counted eight Mississippis—his lucky number. Women hated being misled, and they hated waiting. He wanted to torture Casey. Just a little.
“It’s kinda late, don’t you think?” he said. “Tell me, did hubris strike again? Is that why you didn’t call sooner?”
“Hedge,” Casey said quietly, “can you hook me up or not? It’s up to you.”
“Yes, Casey Cat, of course I can. And I will. But with this snippy attitude, you will owe me big,” he said.
Casey smiled with pleasure. “You’re all talk.”
“And you? Are you ready to take action?” The image of her in the taxicab came to mind.
“Stop flirting with me. Can you get me a spot?” she asked, unable to remain serious.
“I will call Charlie Seedham. It will be up to you, however, to get a spot.” Charlie, Hugh’s friend, was in charge of summer internships for B school students.
“I appreciate this, Hugh,” she said, feeling relieved. “And you’re right. I was too proud to call you earlier.”
“Ah, that’s better,” he said. “Done. I’ll call you back.”
A few hours later, Casey had an interview set up for Wednesday afternoon. Casey missed her organizational behavior class to meet Charlie Seedham, who gave her a hard time about coming in so late for an interview. But he gave her an offer anyway, and Casey sent Hugh a bottle of wine and promised to take him to dinner.
BOOK III
Grace
1 OBJECT
ELLA’S LAWYER, RONALD COVERDALE, was the only one who wasn’t surprised by Ted’s request. In his twenty-four years as a matrimonial lawyer, he had seen the worst the heart can inflict.
Ella was sitting in the lawyer’s sunny thirty-ninth-floor corner office on Fiftieth and Park. It couldn’t have been a prettier day outside. Ronald Coverdale’s spacious office smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and an expensive citrus air freshener. On his glass-and-steel desk, a charger-size crystal ashtray sat empty except for a single half-smoked stub. The lawyer was trim and wore an English suit cut close to his body. Ronald’s mind worked quickly, and he didn’t have patience for most people. He hardly needed any new clients but had agreed to take Ella Shim’s case as a favor to David Greene, the development director of his son’s school. Ronald liked Ella Shim fine as a client. In fact, he liked looking at her, for she was easy on the eye—only confirming what he had learned over the years. Men left beautiful young women as well as ugly women. Romantic love was a complicated and fickle bond without much security.
For a marriage to last, Ronald believed that both partners should possess a stubborn will, a fear of failure, and a strong sense of shame of breaking from convention—mind you, this was not a recipe for a happy marriage, but it could make two people stay married. If two people had a lot of sex, that was helpful. Having many children did not keep a marriage going, despite all the for-the-sake-of-the-children talk to the contrary. In fact, the more kids there were, the more likely the man would cheat and the woman would be too busy to notice or too tired to care. Men left when the children were not so adorable and the women were too old to marry again, ensuring the Medea effect. The Kim divorce was interesting, because the man had stayed while she was pregnant, then bolted not much after. Ronald had seen it all.
“Why would he want joint custody?” Ella asked him, her hands folded ladylike in her lap.
“Why do you think he might want that?” Ronald redirected the question. There was no reason for the lawyer to speculate on these matters. The wife would know her spouse better.
“I was at my father’s since August, and in the eight months I was in Forest Hills, Ted came by to see Irene six times.”
“And since you’ve been back in the city?” Ronald picked up his pen to jot down the dates.
“I moved back into the house the first of May.” It was Casey who had pushed her to take back the house. “And the past two weeks, ever since we’ve been back in the city, Ted hasn’t come by at all,” Ella said. “He knows I’d never deny his right to see his child, and I would want Irene to know her father and to see him regularly.” Her voice grew more strained. “But now you’re saying he could take her away from me.”
“Not take away from you, Ella. He is asking for joint legal and physical custody, which means that he would have fifty percent decision-making power in child rearing, and he might want to have physical custody for fifty percent of the time. Ted’s lawyer was rather insistent on this point—of custody.”
“But I would’ve asked him for his opinion on how to raise Irene. Of course I would have, but. . .” Ella started to cry. “But she can’t live with him for half the—” She couldn’t get out the words.
Ronald pushed the box of tissues on his desk closer to her reach.
“I just don’t understand.” Ella swallowed her sobs.
“It’s not that you don’t understand, it’s that you don’t like it.”
Ella looked at him, confused.
Ronald realized how sarcastic he had sounded. This was their fourth meeting, and he saw that it wasn’t an act with her, as it was with so many women. This woman was actually softhearted, and he had to resist his instincts to protect the weak. In a divorce, the lawyer had no choice but to be wary even of his own client.
“You should never say you don’t understand when you do. He is asking for joint custody. There isn’t anything you don’t understand about that concept. You are a smart young woman. What you really mean to say is that you don’t like what he is doing; you hate it, in fact; or you disagree with it. When you tell me what you feel and what you want, then I, as your advocate, will know how to take action. Women cannot sit around while their worlds are falling apart around their ears and say they don’t understand.”
Ella nodded. She tried to look braver. Ronald’s gaze was so forceful that it felt invasive. He was scaring her.
“Ella. . .” He spoke gently, as if she were waking from a dream. “Ted’s actions are fairly commonplace in this stage of divorce. He also knows you well, and he will do what will tactically surprise you. Does Ted usually get what he wants?” This was a rhetorical question, because he knew the answer already.
“Yes,” Ella said, thinking of all the times she’d given in to him because it took too much to fight him.
“Well, he will play this the way he has played all the other games he has won. Think about it. He will not change his playbook until it fails him. Do you understand that?”
“Yes. But I don’t like it.”
Ronald smiled. He liked cleverness. “Tell me why you don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it because Ted always wins, and I always let him. He will fight harder, he will fight unfairly, and he will not give up. Ted is. . . You don’t know what he’s like.”
“Oh, I have a vague idea. He’s a winner profile, and they can be. . . tough customers.” As a practice, Ronald avoided name-calling the other side.
Ella looked away, unable to imagine losing Irene half the time to a man who was never home. Would he know that Irene liked tofu mashed up in her rice and that broccoli gave her gas?
“You mustn’t get discouraged, because even winners lose, Ella. And whenever you lost to Ted, you decided to lose,
and that isn’t really losing.”
Ella turned back to him. Was he telling her there was hope?
“It’s like this: I’ve met the Teds of the world, and they’re fine.” Ronald shrugged. “But I also know that despite every study, every seemingly accurate tactic, there are surprises in these kinds of battles, because you are no longer fighting about things, but you are fighting about people and deeply rooted feelings. So in my line of work, there are a lot of surprises. And believe me, I am not a man who likes surprises.”
“Okay,” she said glumly with the disappointment of a child.
“Custody is the principal issue on the table, and it serves as a strategic weapon for Ted.” Ronald checked her eyes to see if she appreciated the gravity of what he was saying. It wasn’t that she appeared dense to him per se, but she still had that look of shock that in his experience took certain people anywhere from a year to five years to wear off. All men and women who’d been divorced aged in a different way. It helped if you were the one leaving, and it helped if you were leaving the unhappiness for someone you loved. Ronald’s first wife had never remarried after he left her. Her shock took many years to lose, and for that, he was admittedly ashamed.
“Are you saying that he would use Irene to get what he wants?”
“Of course.”
“I can’t believe that. Ted isn’t an evil person.”
“I didn’t say he was an evil person. He is just doing what serves him. We should feel lucky that he didn’t ask for full custody.”
Ella looked as though she’d been hit.
Ronald opened his eyes wide, like a professor who had finally reached a student. “Good. Good. You get it.”
“He couldn’t possibly—”
“Sure he could. He could do whatever he wants. Anyway, he could use custody to make you give up some of your rights to certain marital property, to pay less support, whatever. Money doesn’t appear to be the issue at this moment, but many wealthy men can be ungenerous.” Ronald had figured out from the lawyer Ted had hired (often an accurate reflection of the client’s character) that Ted must be a true son of a bitch—Chet Stenor was a hungry dog from beginning to end.
“Or,” Ronald continued, “he could have a sincere desire to be with Irene half the time of her life.” What he didn’t say was that many accomplished men saw children as assets and were unwilling to part with possessions they viewed as hard-won. Some men who left their wives flat had a difficult time even when their ex-wives remarried. “It could be a good thing for Irene to know her father well.”
“Of course. I didn’t expect her not to know him well. I just. . . I just can’t let him. . . raise Irene.” Ella couldn’t mention Delia, the woman Ted was now living with.
Seated on the edge of his chair, Ronald leaned his body forward. “You are worried about him raising the child?”
“And. . .”
“The girlfriend?” Ronald just said it.
“They’re going to get married.”
Ronald didn’t avert his gaze from her face. Ella was still obviously smarting from the adultery. Women didn’t get over that one easily, though in his line of work, he’d noticed that men never got over it, while women somehow sifted through the humiliation and carried on.
“If they do get married, the woman will be in Irene’s life. I suggest whatever happens with the custody issues that you will find it in your daughter’s best interest to get along with this person. It will not be easy, but you will see that it will help Irene, even though it might be killing you.” That was his standard speech about the second wife if there were kids involved.
Ella nodded. He was telling her to be nice.
“So, going back to the joint custody issue. . .” Ronald resisted looking at his watch. He had another client waiting outside for him. His assistant had already buzzed him once.
“I won’t. . . I won’t agree to it,” she said. “He can see her for sure, but he can’t, he can’t live with the baby.” She kept herself from tears. How could God let this happen? Why would Ted do this to her? How could he expect her to agree? Her world had been taken over by maybes and anything-could-happens. But God had disappointed her before. He had taken her mother away. She’d never thought that the loss of her mother could be matched, but that wasn’t true. Life just kept threatening you, pushing you into harder corners, and you had to resist, otherwise hell would take over. No, she would fight for Irene. She would kill for Irene.
“I don’t care about anything else. Don’t you see?”
“Then do you see how effective he is? You’ve just given up everything except for your one issue.”
“She’s not an issue. She’s my baby.”
“Yes. Of course,” Ronald said in a reassuring voice.
“I don’t care about anything else. I really don’t.”
“All right, then. Now I know your limits. And mine.” In his own divorce from his first wife, Ronald had given her full custody, because it was better for the children. Meghan was without a doubt the better parent. If he’d gotten joint custody, he would’ve ruined four lives, not just two. His first set of children were now well-functioning college graduates. His daughter was getting a master’s in art history, and his son was in Colorado working for an environmental defense fund. He’d seen them every weekend, and he and Meghan had alternated holidays. His second wife, Jeannine, a painter, was a very good stepmother to them—approachable and never intrusive. His son and daughter got along well with Robert, the only child from his second marriage, who was as sweet-natured as his mother. He credited the success of his second marriage to the fact that he had given his first wife every term she’d asked for and more.
“Could you agree to shared decision-making powers—”
“This man had sex with a woman at an investment bank, and it is on video,” she sputtered. “How can a person like this raise my child?” Ella’s contempt was unhidden.
“How could you have married a person like this?” Ronald asked. The question was risky, but he decided to go with it.
“I didn’t know he could be this way.”
“I’m willing to bet he didn’t know he could be this way, either, Ella. We are all full of surprises. The courts will not let the video influence the custody issues hardly at all. He had an affair. A lot of people have affairs. The child’s need for both of her parents will supersede our conventional notions of sexual propriety.”
None of us are perfect, was what Ella was hearing.
“He is still legally your husband and the legal and biological father of your child.”
“Thank you,” she said bitterly, certain that no one was on her side. “Somehow, I had forgotten.” Ella broke into tears. She grabbed her handbag and prepared to leave his office.
“Ella, I will do my best.”
“I know. I believe you.”
“We’ll be in touch.”
Ella nodded and left her lawyer’s office.
When Ella walked into the lobby of St. Christopher’s, the first person to stop her was David Greene, who was on his way to a meeting. She had managed to fix her face in the bathroom of the lawyer’s office and had kept from crying in the cab ride back, but as soon as David said hello, she burst into tears. She bit her lip.
“Ella, what happened?”
“Ted wants joint custody. But, David, he doesn’t care about her. He’s using her as a pawn—”
“What? That’s crazy.”
Ella wiped her face with her hands. She checked the lobby clock. No one else nearby had noticed her crying. “I have to get back to my desk. I’m okay.”
“You can’t go back to your desk like this.” Ella’s desk in front of the headmaster’s office was in full view of anyone who’d pass by. “Come. Come to my office. Fitz’s fine for a few more minutes.”
Ella nodded. Her boss had given her most of the morning off for this meeting. “But you were stepping out—”
“Don’t worry about that. Come on.”
In his offi
ce, Ella sat on his green sofa, and David sat beside her.
“This is becoming old hat, don’t you think?” she said of her crying jags. As soon as his office door had shut, she’d started to tear up again.
“No. This is a difficult thing.” The sight of Ella’s unhappiness grieved him. He didn’t know how to comfort her. Two friends of his from college had recently divorced, and of the divorces he knew of in passing, the details were uncomfortably similar—overwork, bad habits, affairs, and faulty communication—yet it was never clear to him how love’s alchemy turned passion to indifference.
David had met Ted a few times and fairly or unfairly believed him unworthy of Ella. It was obvious why a woman would marry a man like Ted—the clarity of his ambition, the proven intelligence and good looks—but even in their limited interactions, it seemed to David that Ted didn’t have the deep-rooted kindness that defined Ella. Ted was a thoroughly expedient person. During a charity benefit dinner, Ted had remarked about the actress—the evening’s honoree—who was reputed to sleep with directors to get parts: “So what? If she got on her knees, she was only doing what works. So sex is her currency. Everyone sells something.” He’d tossed it off as if it were a widely shared value. David had smirked guiltily then but recognized that Ella and Ted would always negotiate the world differently. Ted was not unlike David’s father—another man of the world.
Ella pulled out a tissue from her purse to clean her face. David took her in with wonder. Unworthy men got worthy girls because they believed that they deserved the best. If David were ever to get a girl like Ella, he would have to feel entitled to be with her. Top dogs got the best girls—his father used to say this at the club when he noticed attractive women with powerful men. David cared for his fiancée, but what he felt for Colleen couldn’t possibly match what surged through him for Ella. Colleen was smart and kind, and his mother liked her a great deal, but David had never felt the urgency to hold her the way he wanted to hold Ella at this moment. If he took Ella in his arms, he thought he might have a hard time letting her go.
