by Jon Reisfeld
“Of course, she says so, dear. That’s how she makes a living, by getting clients like you all riled up. Did you tell her how you get when you’re angry?”
Katie put her hands on her hips and glared. “Just what is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come on, dear! You forget; I raised you. I’ve lived with that mouth of yours—and your temper. I’ve heard you yell at Marty during your ‘special times.’ I’ve heard the vases and dishes break, too. And Marty wasn’t the one throwing them. So, by your own definition, you’re as much at fault as he is—maybe more.”
“That’s not true, Mother.”
“Of course it is!”
“No,” Katie said, lowering her head and turning away. “Marty assaulted me.”
“What?!” Esther grabbed her daughter by the shoulders, spun her around and searched her face. “Marty hit you, honey? I had no idea. That changes everything. Where? When?”
Katie tried to dodge her mother’s piercing gaze. “He didn’t actually hit me, Mom.”
Esther threw up her hands. “Then I don’t get it,” she said, pulling out a kitchen chair and collapsing into it. “How could he have assaulted you without hitting you?”
Katie looked down at her mother with disdain. “You’re not a lawyer, Mother. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me, dear.”
“Beverly, my lawyer, said the true test for assault is if Marty’s actions ever made me feel scared or threatened, in any way; and they have. ‘Assault’ means any kind of threatening, abusive behavior. You’re confusing ‘assault’ with ‘battery.’”
Esther looked at her daughter as if for the first time. Then she burst out laughing. “What kind of nonsense are you and that lawyer of yours peddling, Katie? Do you really expect me to believe that you’re afraid of Marty?”
“I am, sometimes.”
“Good luck with that, dear.”
“You don’t know what happens in this house when you’re not around, Mother.”
“Katie, the man treats you like a queen!”
“Oh, really?”
“He lets you sleep in on weekends, doesn’t he?”
“Sometimes.”
“He still opens doors for you and carries your bags?”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t object when you took over all the master bedroom closets, did he?”
“What does that prove?”
“Just answer the question, dear.”
“Who are you, Denny Crane?”
Esther stared at her daughter and waited.
“OK, yes. He didn’t object.”
“—even though he had to store all of his clothes in the spare bedroom closet down the hall?”
“Yes.”
“He shares the household chores with you?”
“More or less,” she sighed, rolling her eyes.
“He lets you manage the joint checking accounts, too?”
“Uh huh.”
“He never asks you to return anything you buy for yourself—no matter how expensive, frivolous or extravagant?”
“That’s right.”
“He adores the children and dotes on them?”
“Yes.”
“Well, no wonder you want a divorce. The man’s a freak, a total monster! And just like all the abusive husbands that I’ve ever read about, his personality profile sounds so controlling and demanding, too.”
“I guess we won’t be calling you to testify on my behalf at the trial.”
“Not if the truth would hurt your case, dear, as it appears it would.”
“Mother, you don’t know what the truth is in this matter. You think you do, but you are only here a fraction of the time.”
“Well, since we’re discussing ‘the truth’ dear, how much of this has to do with ‘Uncle Eddie?’”
Katie went to the sink and poured herself a glass of water. “Who?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Uncle Eddie, dear. Your friend. The one your children have told me about.”
Katie remained at the sink but now turned around to face Esther. “Oh, Eddie. He’s just a friend. A concerned friend. That’s all.”
“A concerned friend who takes you and the kids out to dinner and to the movies and spends his evenings here with you?”
“Where are you getting all this information?”
“From the children, dear. They see what’s going on, even if they don’t fully understand it. Have you lost your mind, Katie? This is madness!”
“Mother, please stay out of my personal affairs. And if you can’t be on my side, please keep your opinions to yourself. I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. My marriage to Martin is over. Over. We’ve been in a rut for some time now, and yes, if you must know, I finally have a chance to be happy...with Eddie. I’ve hired a great attorney, who comes highly recommended. She says she can help me end the marriage, come out on top, and begin a new life. So far, she’s helped me get a restraining order, sole custody of the kids, and exclusive use of the house; and that is just the beginning.
“Beverly says Martin has an enormous amount to lose, professionally, if he were to fight me on this, far more than I do. We worked up a reasonable settlement offer for him—one Beverly says he would have to be crazy to refuse. She expects to have everything wrapped up in just a few days’ time. OK?”
“No, it’s not OK. Are you now comfortable lying to get your way? I raised you better than that. You’re perjuring yourself, dear, and that has consequences.”
“Oh, my God, Mother,” Katie said, laughing and shaking her head. “Do you really think anyone’s going to send me ‘up the river’ for this? I’m the battered spouse, here, the injured party. Marty is the abuser. Besides, Beverly says perjury is extremely hard to prove. The courts rarely, if ever, even pursue perjury convictions in these kinds of cases. Did you know that?”
Esther shook her head, “No, I didn’t.”
“Of course not! Well, those are the facts, Mom. Beverly West has represented hundreds of women like me, in similar cases, for more than twenty years, and do you know how many of her clients have ever been charged with perjury?”
“No.”
“Zero. And do you know why?” Katie asked, without waiting for a reply. “Because, Beverly says, in these cases, the victims actually determine whether or not they have been assaulted.
“As long as the victim can honestly say that she felt scared or threatened by her husband’s actions, then he has committed assault. It’s that simple. The charge stems directly from how the behavior makes the victim feel. And how can you dispute someone else’s feelings? You can’t.”
“But, Katie,” Esther said, “Marty is a reasonable man. Why not do this nicely? Why do you have to make everything so ugly and mean spirited?”
Katie sat down at the table now and took her mother’s hand. “If I could do this nicely, Mother, don’t you think I would? Marty’s far too attached to the kids. He loves them and will not allow me to end this marriage, or give me full custody, without a fight. He makes a lot of money, Mom, and the children deserve to get as much financial support from their father as the law allows.
“If he were to get angry enough over this, he might try to hurt me by refusing to provide full support for the kids. I have a parental responsibility to protect them from that.”
“Why would Marty do such a thing?” Esther asked. “He loves the children. I can’t imagine him denying them anything.”
At that, Katie forcefully withdrew her hand from her mother’s—as if the older woman had suddenly contracted Leprosy. “Whose side are you on, Mom?”
“Well,” Esther began, a bit startled and fumbling for the right words, “I-I’m on the kids’ side, of course...and yours, too, dear. After all, you are...my blood.”
“Glad to hear it, Mom!” Katie said with more than a hint of sarcasm. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply. Then, she leaned forward, opened her eyes again and, once more, took
her mother’s hands in hers.
“I’m glad you feel that way,” she said, a smile slowly returning to her face, “because the last thing those kids need now would be to lose their grandmother, too.”
Chapter 9
Late Wednesday morning, Swindell called Martin at work with the details of the settlement offer he had received the previous afternoon.
“These are the main points,” he began. “Your wife wants to make the temporary custody arrangement you now have permanent. She wants substantial child support payments from you, free use of the family home for three years, your promise never to come inside the house again—under any circumstances—and an agreement acknowledgin’ your mutual consent to begin seein’ other people immediately.
“In return,” Swindell continued, “her attorney, Beverly West, said your wife would agree to drop the domestic violence charges now before the court and grant you the standard ‘weekend warrior’s’ allotment of time with your kids: dinner one night a week and visitation every other weekend.
“What do you think?” Swindell asked, with carefully suppressed anticipation.
“I think she’s out of her effing mind! I want you to have a detective tail her for a couple of days. I’m pretty sure, based on her offer, that she’s been having an affair.”
“Of course,” Swindell said, positively glowing inside.
“I also want you to reject her offer out of hand.”
“Are you sure?” Swindell asked, in a last ditch, half-hearted attempt to appear impartial.
“Have you been smoking something other than those Honduran cigars I saw on your desk the other day?”
“OK,” Swindell said, with a chuckle, “but there’s somethin’ else you need to know.”
“What’s that?”
“Even if the detective can prove your wife has been committin' adultery, Mahr-tin, Maryland law still does not consider that to be sufficient grounds for awardin’ custody to the father.”
“Naturally,” Martin said. “Why should I be surprised? What if she had been convicted of prostitution?”
“Then, maybe, you’d have the beginnin’ of a case.”
“The news just keeps getting better and better,” Martin said, in disgust.
“Yes, it does,” Swindell chimed in, with barely hidden enthusiasm. “Yes, it does.”
Swindell hung up the phone and immediately logged the call and the details of his conversation with Martin into his desktop computer’s case-management program. He used his own, makeshift brand of shorthand: “M.S. rejects settlement. Believes wife cheating. Hire PI. No counter offer. Trial.”
Then, he keyed in the next call he would make that day—the one to Beverly West, in which he would tell opposing counsel that there would be no deal in the case, at this time.
That should put a smile on her face. Now, she can make an even bigger down payment on that beach-front property of hers.
Swindell hit the Enter key with a flourish, restarting the program’s live timer, the proverbial ‘meter’ that accumulated billable hours for him whenever it ran. It had been idle for all of two minutes. He smiled. Everything was on track. The case of Silkwood v. Silkwood was proceeding nicely.
Then suddenly, despite years of careful conditioning, Swindell felt a slight tinge of guilt. He wondered if he should have pressed Martin harder for a counter offer. After all, he knew this was the best time to negotiate a more favorable custody and visitation arrangement for his client. He was convinced Martin would not have cut off negotiations if he truly had understood the implications of that Temporary Restraining Order.
Even though the court had granted the order solely on Katie Silkwood’s say so; even though it was temporary in nature and, therefore, should have no permanent bearing on the case; even though a one-sided ex-parte hearing decision deserved minimal legal standing, at best; Swindell knew better. The order, by its mere existence, already had changed the custodial status quo in the case. It could, and probably would, do his client grave harm.
When the two parties were to appear in court the following Monday, Katie Silkwood would command the legal ‘high ground,’ as the children’s new, court-appointed sole custodian. Meanwhile, Martin would begin the proceedings as a non-custodial parent—with no presumptive right to custody at all! What Martin could not know, because Swindell had never told him, was that, in deciding matters of custody, Family Court judges almost always prefer to maintain the custodial status quo, no matter how new, tenuous or questionable its award might have been.
Swindell winced over the discovery of his newly resurrected conscience. He picked up the phone and briefly considered calling Martin back. Then, he returned it to its holder and, instead, retrieved the small key to his desk’s top-right drawer, where he kept his private stash of hand-rolled, contraband Cuban cigars. A moment later, he finished rummaging through the drawer and withdrew the prize he sought: one of his cherished, six-inch long, H. Upmann Magnum Fifties.
Swindell clipped the end and gently rolled the cigar between his thumb and forefinger several times, taking its measure. He closed his eyes and brought it to his nose to savor its rich, pungent aroma. What is it about this Silkwood fellah, he asked himself, as he struck a match and lovingly puffed the cigar to life, that has allowed him to get under my skin?
Swindell took a deep, long puff, held it a second and then slowly released a fresh, new blast of smoke. As the roiling cloud fanned out and dissipated in the air above his desk, he shook his head and chuckled. He thought he was long past caring about these poor schlubs who couldn’t keep their wives in line. Like most of the men Swindell represented, this new one clearly loved his kids. A sign of the times, he thought. After all, he’s part of a new breed of husband—our second generation of fully ‘liberated’ co-parentin’ males.
But there was something decidedly different about Martin. When Swindell had asked him the perfunctory background questions about his family life, he was surprised, almost touched, by the spontaneity and sincerity his client had exhibited.
Martin’s entire demeanor had changed, brightening considerably, when he spoke about a recent afternoon he had spent at the park near his home, teaching his six-year-old boy, Justin, how to field ground balls and how to perfect his Tee Ball swing. Martin also went on and on, bragging about his three-year-old daughter, Monica’s, prowess in toddler tumbling class. Martin took her there every Saturday morning, he said, so his wife could ‘sleep in.’
Initially, Swindell had found all this paternal gushing on Martin’s part to be a bit excessive, almost bordering on the effeminate. At the same time, though, it made him painfully aware of the lack of closeness in his relationship with his own thirty-three-year-old son, a marine biologist now living in southern California. He and Randall rarely spoke, and Swindell normally had to board a plane just to effect a face-to-face meeting with him. But that was to be expected, he thought, when he considered his own emotionally starved childhood, growing up in a household dominated by his distant, demanding and aristocratic father, Chester, Sr.
Swindell may have envied his client for the closeness of his relationship with his children, but he found little else appealing about Martin’s present life or circumstances. Late the previous afternoon, for instance, he had received a disturbing phone call from Gloria Cheswick, a fellow divorce attorney, who served with Swindell on the county bar association’s Civil Procedures committee. Swindell secretly disliked Gloria, whom he considered to be a women’s rights zealot and a bit of a nut case.
“Chester,” Gloria had begun somewhat sternly, once she had dispensed with the usual pleasantries, “please tell me the rumors I’m hearing aren’t true.”
“What rumors, Gloria?”
“Tell me you are not representing that awful man.”
“Who?”
“Martin Silkwood. Tell me, it’s not true.”
“I’m not tellin’ you anythin’, Gloria—one way or the other. What’s your interest in this case, anyway? You representin’ the w
ife?”
“My interest is strictly personal, Chester. Katie Silkwood is a good and dear friend.”
“Then, you might not want to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, Gloria. If your intent is to interfere with my representation of a client by slanderin’ that individual, you could end up gettin’ yourself sanctioned by the court.”
“You would report me to the judge, Chester—over this?”
“I’d do it before I’d allow your actions to compromise me, yes.”
“He’s a monster, Chester. An absolute monster!”
“Where’s all this fervor comin’ from, Gloria? You got any first-hand knowledge you want to share?”
Gloria thought a moment before replying. “No, I don’t. But I know what this man is capable of. Katie has told me everything.”
“That’s all hearsay, Gloria: inadmissible in court and inappropriate here…. Did the Silkwood woman put you up to this?”
“Of course, not!”
“Then, I guess she’s got more sense than you!”
“You are representing him, aren’t you, Chester?” Gloria said with a gasp. “And all along, I thought you were one of the good guys!”
Swindell laughed. “I’ve been called a lot of thin’s, in my time, Gloria, but that’s a first! Listen, it’s been real nice chattin’ with ya, but I have got to run now. Bye!” And with that, Swindell had hung up the phone. Even now, as he replayed that conversation in his mind, Swindell rolled his eyes and shook his head in disbelief. Gloria Cheswick clearly had wandered far off ‘the reservation.’
He shuddered at the thought that he might, one day, have the misfortune of facing Gloria in court. Unlike Beverly West, who played the ‘domestic violence’ card frequently, but always in a cold, calculated way, Gloria Cheswick behaved erratically...and emotionally.
Gloria seemed to fancy herself as a true champion of oppressed and victimized women. For some unknown reason, all the domestic violence propaganda freely circulating within the legal community seemed to resonate with Gloria on a deeply personal level. Her passionate, warped perspective made her actions highly unpredictable and, on occasion, genuinely unprofessional. That, in turn, made her extremely dangerous in the courtroom. Whereas Swindell could deal with Beverly West, he had no idea how to read or strategize effectively against someone operating on Gloria Cheswick’s private wavelength.
