Four Wives

by Wendy Walker

  What Marie couldn’t understand was that, despite the large Haywood contributions, the clinic’s finance committee habitually opted to use the yearly benefit money for prenatal care and upgrades to the facility. It was a centrist approach, easily swallowed by the vast Republican majority of their donor base, but it also left a huge gap in the services these women needed.

  Now, finally, there was a chance to change all that. The gala had been in desperate need of a new home after the planned venue fell through. And although it would exact an enormous toll on her need for privacy and containment, Gayle had offered her home in exchange for a seat on the committee and a say in how the money was spent.

  “How’s the vote leaning, anyway?” Love asked.

  Gayle shrugged. “I’m working on it.”

  “She’s a brilliant lobbyist,” Janie Kirk chimed in. “In all our years together on the board, I’ve never seen this woman so cleverly infiltrate the enemy ranks.” She looked at Gayle and gave her a wink. Gayle smiled back, though they both knew this wasn’t exactly the case. Gayle was smart, and she could be clever. But it wasn’t in her to engage in warfare, even of the social kind.

  Marie knew this as well, and she shot a look of disapproval at Love. Wasn’t that the reason they were all here? Within the scope of half an hour, Marie could negotiate every demand Gayle had. These women needed her house, not to mention the ongoing support of the Haywoods. Marie could get it done in her sleep. That she couldn’t cure Gayle of her inability to exercise her own power was close to maddening.

  Love shook her head in that not now way of hers, and Marie threw her hands in the air, but said nothing.

  Pulling some papers from her folder, Janie changed the subject. “Anyway, can we at least choose the flowers? I have to go in about three min-utes.

  “What’s in three minutes?” Marie said, her tone laced with judgment.

  It did not go unnoticed, and Janie had come to expect nothing else. Marie had a chip on her shoulder from being a working mother. Her very identity was wrapped up in resenting the SAHMs (stay-at-home mothers), especially those like Janie who could afford help.

  “I have a session with my trainer,” Janie said, rubbing it in just a little.

  Marie did not look up. “You should just go then. Nothing gets done in three minutes.”

  “That’s not exactly true,” Janie retorted, then paused for the slightest moment. “His name was Allen. Senior year. Two minutes, tops.”

  Love and Gayle laughed, and Marie gave an obligatory smile.

  Having had the last word, Janie gathered her things. “Sorry to leave you with the work.”

  “It’s fine. Go to your session.” Gayle waved her off with a smile, and Janie blew back a kiss. Then she was gone, and her exit brought a sudden deflation of energy throughout the room.

  “What?” Marie asked, taking note of the silence.

  Love looked at Gayle, who shrugged. What could they possibly say about the giant chasm that divided these two women? Marie had a growing disdain of suburbia and Janie Kirk had made a career out of becoming the woman every other suburban woman wanted to be, and that every man wished he had. It was an irreconcilable situation.

  “She’s too happy,” Marie said, finally. “Maybe she’s having an affair.”

  “Marie!” Love said, putting down a florist bid.

  “Well …”

  Gayle shook her head. “I’ve known her for many years. She’s just a happy person.”

  “OK, OK,” Marie relented. “Christ, I can be a real bitch. She just fills me with thoughts from the devil. What’s wrong with me?” Marie dropped her head to the table with customary drama.

  Love and Gayle both smiled. There was something comforting in knowing another person as well as they knew Marie.

  “Maybe we can perform an exorcism,” Love teased, rubbing her neck.

  Gayle let go of her smile, her face growing concerned as she looked at her friend.

  “What’s wrong with your neck, Lovey? That’s the third time you’ve had to rub it.” Her voice had a soft, maternal tone, and it made Love want to curl up in her lap.

  “The baby was up again. I fell asleep in the rocker. I’ll be fine,” Love said, now self-conscious as she removed her hands from her neck. In truth, the pain had been with her for nearly a month’coming and going, attacking and retreating seemingly at random. That it had coincided with the arrival of her father’s letter was not lost on her, though it presented a significant dilemma for someone who did not believe in fate or any other kind of metaphysical occurrence.

  “You don’t look fine,” Marie interjected, getting up from her chair. She walked around the table and stood behind Love, then placed her hands on Love’s shoulders.

  “Really, I’m OK.” The feel of the soft hands on her skin reached deep inside her. It had been a long time since she’d let someone try to heal her, to help her even. Standing on her own, taking on as many burdens as she could unearth, had been a necessary distraction to live this life and hold back the currents of the past. But these burdens had become increasingly heavy and they created a powerful longing to be saved’one that she knew she would never give in to. She closed her eyes to hold back the tears.

  “Just relax a little.” With gentle, caressing movements, Marie started to work on Love’s neck. “Now’what’s up with the night wakings?”

  Love took a long breath as she felt the pain subside. And for the remainder of the hour, they distracted themselves with talk of their lives. Love described in detail Baby Will’s sleeping patterns. Marie, who had been through it herself, offered her own stories. Through concurrent interruptions from one or another of their children’Baby Will insisting on a seat in his mother’s lap, and a call from the electrician about the landscape lighting’Gayle worried out loud about the gala that would turn her home inside out, and they all plotted the revenge they would seek if the finance committee voted to spend the money on chenille throw pillows for the clinic’s lobby when all of this was said and done.

  It was a good distraction, a pretty dance around the hot zones that were smoldering in each of them. Love said nothing more about the pain that came and went, or the letter from her father that was threatening to expose her past. Gayle left out any mention of her invisible illness and the pills needed to manage it. And Marie managed to stifle the growing discontentment with her life that was verging on intolerable. With the technical difficulty of a fine tango, they spoke of their children’s troubles and tiffs with their husbands without revealing the fears and secrets that held the threat of change. Motherhood could wear you down, but not make you crave something more. Husbands could be difficult, impossible even, but you could never stop loving them. These were the invisible lines that could not be crossed, the lines that held their world together, suspending reality long enough to get them through the day’until the distractions were gone, leaving nothing between them and the bare bones of their lives.

  EIGHT

  RANDY THE INTERN

  AT 121 MAIN STREET, above the town eatery known simply as Joe’s, were the law offices of Marie Passeti. A far cry from the posh New York address where she had begun her career’the plush wall-to-wall carpeting, spacious enclaves, and mahogany reception desk’her current work space was comprised of two moderate rooms lined with linoleum flooring. The front held an oval conference table and shelves of law books. It was freshly painted and, overall, presentable despite the persistent smell of bacon that wafted through the vents from the tenant below. The back held the office where Marie and her two associates came and went as their cases demanded.

  At the door, she dropped her briefcase and searched for the heavy ring of keys that was weighing down her jacket. Finding it, she turned them to locate the right one, then put the key in the door for the daily jiggling-turning-jiggling move that finally got the damned thing to open. Inside, she tossed her briefcase on the largest of the three desks and switched on the row of overhead fluorescent lights. It was damp and musty insid
e, not at all conducive to a productive meeting. Her client, Carson Farrell’defendant in the odd case of Farrell v. Farrell’would need to feel comfortable, at ease. There wasn’t much time before their meeting’maybe just enough to turn on the heat, dry the place out, then blast the a/c to cool it down to seventy-two degrees. Dry and seventy-two. It could be done.

  After making the necessary adjustments, Marie returned to her desk and opened the coffee, which today had a distinctive, burnt odor to it. It was always a crapshoot with the coffee at Joe’s, where they left the pots on until they were empty. Ostensibly a greasy-spoon diner, the eating establishment had been infected by the insidious culture of Hunting Ridge, which seemed to leave nothing within its domain untouched. No longer worthy of its diner billing, Joe’s lattes were perfect, rich and foamy, served in luscious oversized mugs. Scones and mini lowfat muffins were shipped in from the city at the crack of dawn. Always fresh. And staying true to Hunting Ridge form, the regular, working-class coffee, and those evil bagels driven into disfavor by the low-carb craze, were downright lousy. Marie had been unusually hopeful to catch a fresh pot, but by the smell of the stuff in her cup, there was no question she’d caught the dregs yet again. And it made her miss New York as much as every other thing in this town. Still, it didn’t matter. Musty old office, shitty coffee, the smell of bacon and buzzing fluorescent bulbs that were probably causing a brain tumor’it was all hers, under her command along with the rest of her life.

  The case of Farrell v. Farrell was another matter. There was no affair involved, which in itself placed it in the minority, as did the fact that it was Mrs. Farrell who wanted out. Carson Farrell worked in the city trading derivatives’solid income, enough for a house in the back country, though there was a significant amount of leverage on their assets. They had a 401(k), stock options, and other financial muck that would have to be sorted out. Like most of the cases, the fight over the kids would bring everything into play. Time with his children would cost him, it always did. But this case involved something Marie hadn’t seen in all her years of practice, and how it would play out’in court and in her own mind’was not yet clear. Shortly before the split, the unthinkable had happened. A child had died, and it had been on her client’s watch.

  That was all she knew at the moment, her client having mastered the art of holding facts close to the vest. But they were beyond that now. His wife was pushing for sole custody, offering Carson limited supervised visitation with their surviving three children. His deposition had been scheduled for next week. Time was out. Today she had to get to the bottom of what had happened to the fourth child, the baby named Simone. The kid gloves were coming off, and Marie was not at all sure how she would view this case, or her client, when the truth was revealed.

  It was a dilemma for sure, a real headache. And, her daughters aside, taking it on at the throat was exactly what drove Marie Passeti.

  There was a quick rapping on the glass window of the office door.

  “It’s open,” Marie called from her desk as she walked through to the conference room, closing the adjoining door behind her. She heard the familiar squeak of the hinges, then the rattling of glass as the door closed again. When she turned around, a man was there.

  “You’re not Carson Farrell,” she said.

  The young man smiled nervously. Barely into his twenties, he was perfectly coifed’cleanly shaven, tucked in, and buttoned up. The suit was interview navy, conservative and entirely devoid of personality, though his face told a different story. His cheekbones were still rounded’he was obviously young. But his eyes seemed far too old to be placed there. Glancing around the room to get his bearings, he came full circle to focus on the briefcase hanging by his side. Black leather and far too small to be useful to a lawyer, Marie could tell by the ease with which he held it that it was nearly empty.

  “I’m Randy Matthews. The intern from Yale,” he said with the intonation of a question.

  A look of surprise came across Marie’s face. There was no doubt she had hired Randy Matthews. She’d just gone over the resume that morning. NYU undergrad, Yale Law School, first year. The cover letter had expressed an interest in family law, particularly custody situations. She’d asked one of her associates to vet Randy in a phone interview, and a glowing report had followed.

  Still, in all of that, she’d been expecting Randy Matthews to be a woman. Not that she wouldn’t hire a man. There simply weren’t many male attorneys who wanted to work for a woman practicing family law. And now one was standing in front of her.

  With characteristic ease, Marie recovered. “I’ve been waiting for a client’thought you were him. Never mind,” she said, ushering him around the conference table to the inner sanctum. “You’re here a little early, aren’t you?”

  The young man spoke to her back as they walked. “I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to get here. I drove from New Haven. I hope it’s all right.”

  “It’s fine.”

  Marie showed him to her associate’s desk in the back room, and the drawer they had cleared for him.

  “We’ve set you up here. Nancy is one of my two associates. She only works three days a week. And she doesn’t come in much. I use her to run motions at the court, and she works from home a lot. Are you OK sharing the desk?”

  “It’s fine.” With the awkwardness of a novice, he sat down, then popped back up to unbutton his jacket. Marie smiled and took a seat at her own desk, leaning back in the chair precisely as far as it would go, then crossing her legs. There was no question a male intern had never entered her mind, and she found herself surprisingly unnerved. But as she watched him settle in, it occurred to her that this would have been true even if she hadn’t made the wrong assumption about his gender. There was something about him’a sense of inner comfort that was unusual in a person his age. The suit was new. He was in a strange town, a hole-in-the-wall office with a woman superior. Still, he seemed to accept his awkwardness, his inexperience.

  Smiling with authority, she tried to put them both at ease. “You can take off your coat. We’re pretty informal around here.”

  As he removed his jacket and hung it on the back of his chair, Marie turned to a stack of books she’d collected from the conference room shelves.

  “I’ve pulled together some of the pivotal custody cases in our jurisdic-tion.

  “Great,” Randy said, taking a legal pad from his briefcase. “Is there something in particular I should pay attention to? I mean, a specific case I’ll be working on?”

  Marie nodded. “We’ve got a lot of cases in the works. All fathers, different degrees of custody and visitation requests. We don’t have any demands for sole custody at present, just clients who want more time with their kids than their wives want to give. But you’ll see a list of factors the courts use to make these decisions, and all of those will be relevant to our cases.”

  She paused then, and let out a long breath. “Then we have the Farrell case.

  Randy picked up the first book. “The Farrell case?”

  “The client I’m expecting. They had a baby who died, and now the mother wants to keep him from the other kids.”

  “Oh,” Randy said, trying to have the appropriate response but getting it all wrong.

  “It’s OK to be surprised. This is highly unusual. I’ve never seen it before, and I can’t find any local precedents. You’ll be doing research later on, after the discovery. Assuming our client shows up.”

  “OK.”

  He sat upright at the desk, both feet planted on the floor. It was hard not to watch him. His dark wavy hair, polished shoes, the gold college ring that was still glistening. His eyes were an average shade of blue, but clear and honest. Not something one saw every day.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  Randy turned to look at her. “Sure.”

  “Why do you want to be a divorce lawyer?”

  Randy shrugged, returning his gaze to the closed book on his desk. “I guess the same reasons anyone
does. I just feel drawn to it.”

  Marie smiled to herself. If he only knew. Divorce lawyers, though necessary, were usually (and unfairly) seen as occupying the bottom of the ladder as far as lawyers went. Well, maybe not the bottom. Personal injury specialists were tough to beat for that privilege. Still, having come from Harvard and a haughty first job in corporate litigation, Marie had hardly been drawn to overseeing the unraveling of families. What she had been was smart. She’d honed in on a highly lucrative niche. Now, after six years, she was not only the best female attorney specializing in paternal custody claims’she was the only one in the county.

  It was an odd fit for a strong-minded feminist who had, generally, more contempt for her clients than sympathy. The suburban divorce stories were usually the same’happy marriages crumbling under the weight of kids, financial stress, and a social structure that cast men and women into opposing universes. The husband usually caved in first, seeking solace in other women, falling “in love.” Ironically, he would somehow think that the flaw in the first go-around was with his choice of wife, and jump wholeheartedly into a second marriage, a second family. Still, the ones she took on as clients wanted to be a part of their children’s lives, and this was, to Marie, worthy of her efforts.

  As she had quickly discovered, divorce law could be rigid, presumptive, and arbitrary. And it wielded a great deal of discretion to the local judges’more than some were worthy of. Too often, they used their discretion to pay tribute to the well-defined roles of working dads and stay-at-home moms. Stereotypes provided easy cover to avoid the tough calls. Mom got the kids, but dad usually got financial concessions to afford his new family. None of this was good for the children. It was Marie’s job to effect a different result, and doing that job required bitter contention of legal norms, which sometimes verged on belligerence. This bothered Marie not in the least. Over the years, she had come to believe that she was looking out for the real victims of the system’the children.