A Woman's Place: A Novel (42 page)

I stayed at the house until dinner was done and the children settled in, then left them in Dennis's care with a new sense of peace. I headed for the lighthouse, changed my mind and headed for Brody's, changed my mind again and headed for my workroom. By the time I got there, I was on an adrenaline high.

Setting the rocker and its table side by side on the workbench, I studied them. The reweaving was nearly complete, though I wasn't entirely satisfied with the job I had done. Often, working during the last few weeks, I had been tense and distracted, and it showed. I was focused now. With infinite patience, I removed those reeds that I hadn't placed well, soaked new lengths, and wove them in. They fit smoothly. With similar ease, I wove replacement pieces into those spots previously empty. I had the touch tonight. My hands were magic. Standing back, I admired my work. As jarring as the two pieces had looked filled with holes, now they looked mended. They weren't perfect yet. The new weavers had to dry before I could guarantee their alignment, and once that was done, there would be more cleaning and sanding, then priming and painting. I was hoping for a particular shade of green, something warm and lime. If I didn't get it right with the first coat, I would get it right with the second.

Had it not been for those still damp reeds, I might have started the priming right then, my energy level was so high. As fate had it, Brody appeared at the door and gave me another outlet. eighteen. A blustery wind blew me along Federal Street the following afternoon, but my shivering was as much emotional as physical. All too well I remembered the first time I was here, when Dennis had held all the cards. Now I held a few. But despite the change in circumstance, too much was at stake for complacency.

The chill left few people lingering on the courthouse steps. They crowded the lobby and, with the added bulk of overcoats thrown over bench backs, compounded the chaos in the courtroom. Otherwise, the scene was much as it had been in October. Lawyers and their clients huddled, uniformed court officers chatted, the judge moved up and down his bench, the radiators hissed.

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Carmen and I sat at the back of the courtroom, waiting to be called. She had already handed Missy a copy of Selwey's letter, plus a statistical analysis of Jenovitz's reports, affixed to our Motion to Recuse. Since Dennis and Art Heuber sat several rows ahead of us, I couldn't see their expressions.

I had talked with Dennis briefly in the lobby, more by way of passing time while we waited for our lawyers than anything else. There was an awkwardness between us here. It didn't matter that we had come to an understanding of sorts at home. In this place, we were adversaries. He had been at the house all morning, while I had been with Kikit. Then, as now, his manner had been quiet and conciliatory, his shoulders weighted.

"The Raphael matter, " Missy called.

We took the same places we had in October-Dennis, Art, Carmen, and I, in that order. Selwey took Carmen's brief from Missy and stood swaying before us while he read it. I was acutely aware of the moment when the swaying stopped. Lips pursed, he read on a bit, then set the papers down and said to Carmen, "You are aware that your client has committed theft."

"No, your honor," Carmen dared say. "Since she is personally paying the guardian to conduct his study, we argue that the contents of that folder are hers. I don't expect that Dr. Jenovitz will press charges. He won't want us arguing our case in open court." She hitched her chin toward the papers Selwey held. "He won't want to risk those figures coming out. You may not mind."

Of course he would. His manner said it clear as day. Everything about him was small and tight and angry. "What, exactly, do you want?"

"It's stated in our petition," Carmen said, sparing him a public statement. We had asked him to excuse himself from the case, to reverse his orders against me, and dismiss the case.

In a huff, he said, "I was brought into this case on behalf of two young children. What about them?"

Art Heuber answered. "Your honor, my client is willing to drop his insistence on sole custody."

"Well, what about the original charges? I didn't dream them up, here. I didn't go looking for you. You came looking for me." Again Heuber spoke.

"My client has agreed to drop the original charges. The parents would like to determine custody of the children themselves."

"If the parents weren't able to do that two months ago, what makes them able to do it now?"

"A dialogue has begun," Heuber said.

Selwey moved his arms, black robes fluttering, feathers ruffled. "Well, what happened to those original charges?"

"There was a misunderstanding."

"A misunderstanding? You've wasted the time of this court and a GAL on a misunderstanding?" With a disdainful flourish, he made a notation on the paper he held. "This case is dismissed. Who's next, Missy?" he asked, Page 224

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turning his back on us as he walked our papers down the bench. As quickly as that it was over.

I made it as far as the courthouse steps before my legs rebelled, this time from utter relief. I rested my weight against the stone wall and took breath after deep breath of the cold December air. With each one I felt stronger, freer, happier. With each one I stood straighter. When Carmen joined me, her grin was as broad as mine.

"Nice work," I said.

Her lips quirked. "It's always nice when you can stand there like a lady and not say a word while the other guys squirm."

"Not that I'd have minded if you'd accused Selwey in a big loud voice of unethical conduct, the pompous jerk."

"The accusation's coming," Carmen promised. "That letter will make the rounds until Selwey is off the bench. My guess is it won't have to go past the first stop. That's the Judicial Conduct Commission. Trust me. Selwey's gone. Jenovitz will have to feed at another trough. And he'll find one. He'll get assignments from other judges. Maybe not enough to allow for the subsidized retirement he had in mind. But he won't starve."

"So he was in it for the money. What did Selwey get from the deal?"

"Ego. Control. Power. He'll lose all that now. As he should. What he did to you is not how our system of justice is supposed to work." But he had nearly gotten away with it. A quiet exit was more than he deserved. In angry moments, I wanted to picket the courthouse, write the governor, call the media. In more rational ones, I simply wanted to leave this whole experience far, far behind.

Dennis emerged from between the stone pillars and stood on the top step looking around. He hesitated when he saw us, then pulled up his collar and started down. By the time he reached us, his hands were deep in his coat pockets. His expression was sober.

"Congratulations," he said to Carmen, then to me, "I didn't know about the note Selwey wrote. Neither did Art, or Phoebe. We knew he had a bias, but we didn't think it went that far." He paused. "So." His hands remained in his pockets, arms stiff. "What happens now?"

"We talk," I said. "The way we should have in October."

"I still want the kids."

Calmly, I said, "So do I."

"I still have more time for them than you do."

"Not if you buy into Pittney."

"What if I don't? What if I retire and live on alimony?"

"Will alimony give you enough to live the way you want?" I asked in a way that raised the Hadley business without my saying it aloud. Carmen broke in. "I think we should discuss this when Dennis has counsel Page 225

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present. I'll call Art and set a date to meet." Dennis nodded her way. Then, persistent as ever when he was onto a cause, he turned to me again. "I won't be kicked out of the house."

"You can have the house," I said, which took the wind from his sails for a minute, but only that.

"So. Who gets the kids?"

We opted for joint custody. It was the obvious solution. We lived close enough to each other so that Kikit and Johnny could go back and forth without any disruption to their everyday lives. They would stay with Dennis while I traveled and stay with me while he traveled, and for the rest of the time we would rotate weekly, with the assumption of added flexibility as the children grew older. We agreed to share all major decisions and responsibilities, and to consult with each other on all matters relating to the kids. Child support was never an issue. I was thrilled to be able to give my children a level of financial security that I had never had.

The divorce settlement was more thorny. Dennis held out for a large chunk of money. I simply held out longer. It took that long to convince him that I would use what I had against him if he went after Wicker Wise Would I? Really? Carmen asked me that more than once as we negotiated, and I thought about it long and hard. The woman I had been before all this would never have slandered her husband, but that woman had changed. She had been burned. The scars that had formed were tough. She might not take the offensive against her husband, but she would defend herself in a heartbeat if he ever again threatened what she held dear. The final deal included my paying monthly alimony in an amount that would enable Dennis to live comfortably, plus a lump sum for the past year and each of the next four equal to twenty-five percent of the net profit of Wicker Wise

For all of Dennis's complaints that I would thwart his ability to earn a decent living, he bought into Pittney Communications even without the larger share of Wicker Wise that he wanted. The first lump sum that I paid him, plus an advance on the second, plus a deal with Pittney that enabled him to pay for the rest with a portion of his monthly take, and that vice-presidency was his.

All things considered, it was more than he deserved. But I was satisfied. I had made mistakes in the course of our marriage. I felt less guilty about those, knowing that Dennis would be all right. Besides, his ego was a major player in his life. The more satisfied that ego, the more agreeable the man. The more agreeable the man, the better a father he was. The better a father he was, the greater the well being of my children. And that was the bottom line.

It always had been.

By the middle of January, we had our agreement in writing. By the first of February, we had a hearing in court. With Judge Selwey on an indefinite leave of absence, we stood before his replacement, Judge Collier. She granted the judgment nisi as a matter of course. Ninety days later, our divorce became final.

With the coming of May, the sun was high enough and strong enough to counter the chill of the Atlantic and warm Brody's back porch for a late Sunday brunch. It was a private affair, just Brody and me. The children Page 226

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were with Dennis in New Hampshire. Rona was with Valentino at the lighthouse.

Wrapped in a fleece blanket, I sat on my lime green rocker and, while its runners creaked to and fro on the weathered planks of the porch, I looked lazily out at my kingdom. The air held the salt smell that I loved, along with the sweeter one of the first tiny lilies of the valley to bloom at the foot of the porch. Later there would be morning glories and lilacs, and beach roses in the thickets where grass met rock. I was looking forward to watching the sun rise over them all. Smiling, I fingered the pearls that wound around my throat and dipped under the blanket to fall between my breasts and rest in a gentle loop on my thigh. Connie had been right. My strand was long and ever-growing. In the last few months alone, I swear, a dozen new ones had appeared. There was one with a beaming Kikit posed prettily in her tutu at the dance recital, and one with Johnny's arms raised in victory when his basketball team won the league championship in double overtime. There was one at the joint birthday party we had thrown for the children, with thirty of their friends, one magician, Dennis and his parents, and Brody and Rona and I in amiable attendance. There was one for a newly signed Wicker Wise lease on Newbury Street in Boston, and another for the successful Alzheimer's Association benefit in Washington that Brody and I had supported.

There were pearls on my strand that were still half-formed but growing--Rona searching for the place in Wicker Wise that suited her best, she and I puzzling out a comfortable personal relationship, my memory of Connie that held not the withered figure she had been at the end but a more healthy woman in her prime.

I was working on other pearls, brushing at sand that stubbornly resisted my desire for perfection. Though Kikit had gone since December without an allergy attack, the last one had left her skittish about eating anything other than what we had checked and she had checked, and even then she searched for things as she ate. Johnny was still tussling with the divorce, still trying to figure out what the rules were, what position he played, and how he could score.

Divorce is never an ideal situation. For the sake of the greater good, something was always left behind. In our case, it was the intact family that the four of us had once been. As agreeable as Dennis was, I hated making arrangements about who would have whom when. As sensible as shared custody was, I never stopped wanting the children all the time. On the positive side, Dennis had come to know the children. And I had Brody.

Ahhh, Brody. So many pearls there, I couldn't begin to count them. Smooth and precious--best friend, lover, husband-to-be--my fingertips touched each. As I watched, the sun caught on the diamond he had given me. It was as multifaceted as our lives.

"You look like you're taking root," he mused, drawing up the rocker's matching table and setting down a tray. It held French toast, fresh strawberries, and a carafe of coffee.

I gave him a lazy smile and stretched under my blanket. "I might just." Hunkering down before me, he opened the blanket, slipped his arms around my waist, and pressed a wet kiss to my bare middle. My fingers were in his hair by the time he looked up. I felt happier than I would have Page 227

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believed possible a few short months before.