Custody (12 page)

Kelly paused. The Sadler was established to collect and display portraits by lesser-known Boston painters of the Boston aristocracy during the past three centuries.

“Come on,” Jason urged. “It’s an honor to be asked to serve on anything to do with the Sadler. It’s prestigious.”

I don’t care about prestige, Kelly thought. And I’m not even slightly interested in the Sadler. I want to spend my time on serious causes. She fastened her gaze on Jason, hoping he would read her mind. You ought to know that much about me by now, she thought.

Kelly turned to Eloise. “May I have some time to think about it? I don’t know what my schedule will be like yet, how much free time I’ll have.”

“Of course, dear. I understand.” Eloise turned to her son. “Are you going to the Holmes girl’s wedding on the Vineyard this Saturday?”

“Absolutely,” Jason replied.

“And Kelly?”

“I’m afraid I can’t come. I’ve got so much to do …” Kelly had met Muffy Holmes and her fiancé, Buster Bendigen. They were a yacht club, sailing, tennis, skiing, martini-swilling couple just like their parents, without even the pretense of half a social conscience between them. They had buckets of money, it would be an amazing occasion, and Jason felt he had to go; he’d gone to private elementary and boarding school with Buster.

“In that case, Jason, would you be my escort?” Eloise inquired.

“Sure.”

“Lovely. We’ll stay with the Worths.” Eloise smiled at Kelly. “I’ll make certain he behaves at the reception and doesn’t spend too much time with any of the bridesmaids.”

Four

M
ONDAY MORNING
M
ONT
M
ADISON
stepped out of the shower, toweled his arthritic grizzled old body dry, and, spotting the robe hanging from the hook on the back of the door, pulled it on.

It was Madeline’s. He knew that. Of course he did. He wasn’t senile enough quite yet to think this robe of pink terry cloth with white piping and white flowers embroidered on the pockets was a man’s robe.

The thing was, it was so damned comfortable. Once, by accident, in the days just after Madeline’s death, he’d accidentally pulled it on after a shower, not discovering his mistake until afternoon, and even then he hadn’t taken it off because it brought Madeline back to him so forcefully.

“I’d be glad to pack up Mrs. Madison’s clothes and take them to the church thrift sale for you,” their cleaning lady, Dorothy, had offered, more than once.

Mont knew she was well intentioned, but he found her infuriating and intrusive. For God’s sake! Why would he want to get rid of Madeline’s things? They still held her scent, and a life full of memories surrounded him whenever he entered their bedroom and saw them, through the open closet door, hanging in the same colorful disarray in which Madeline, in her later years, had lived her life.

Now Mont shuffled down the stairs and into the kitchen for his standard breakfast of orange juice and Grape-Nuts. Without Madeline around, it wasn’t worth brewing a pot of coffee, and he couldn’t stomach the instant stuff, so he did without. He tripped going over the threshold into the kitchen because he was wearing Madeline’s slippers. One thing about Madeline, she had had big feet for a woman. She’d hated their size, but Mont had always found them oddly attractive, sexual, generous, like the rest of Madeline’s body, and bold, like her spirit.

He stood in front of the sink, spooning cereal into his mouth, staring at the yard—the grass needed cutting again—thinking how much he wanted to die.

Not in any sentimental, mawkish, searching-for-attention, crying-for-help bullshit way.
But just plain honest die.

He couldn’t tell his son this because it would distress Randall so much, when, in fact, the truth of it was the very opposite of distressing.

How many people could say they’d had a marriage like his? He and Madeline had been together for over fifty years, and loved each other passionately, even in the midst of savage disagreements, every second of every one of those decades of days. Volcanic in their early lusty years, life and its pressures had pressed them together so firmly they were, finally, one single thing, bedrock lined with a deep gleaming vein of gold. With Madeline gone, Mont was not even less than half of something. He was only the shape of something, the substance vanished.

Sure, he loved his son. That love was what drove him to pretend he was working on a book. Randall, dutiful enough for two since his sister Evangeline moved out to the West Coast, was clearly relieved by any signs that Mont was pursuing something intellectually, that he was in any way at all going forward.

Neither one of his children could comprehend the kind of marriage Mont and Madeline had. Mont loved his daughter, and was admiring of and slightly amused by the way she lived her life, unmarried, bisexual, weaving tapestries and shawls from the hair of animals—goats, sheep, dogs—on an island off Puget Sound. Evangeline was always too adventurous, too fickle in every way, to settle down to just one person. And Randall, well, now, he was a sweet lad, deep down. Mont was sad that Randall’s marriage hadn’t worked out. Divorce was always sad, but secretly Mont was glad for his son, for he had always thought Anne was one frigid, neurotic, cantankerous harpy. Mont was glad Randall had another chance at finding happiness.

Mont loved his granddaughter best. Tessa was a joy. Always had been. The only reason he didn’t write a farewell note and ingest several dozen tablets was that he felt he needed to do what he could to help Tessa, who, as she grew into a young woman, was being poorly served by Anne with her nerves, phobias, and tics. Mont had seen many things in his long life, and nothing about Anne had ever pleased him, but more and more about Anne just plain frightened him. How Randall, a
physician
, could not see that his daughter was clearly undernourished, troubled Mont. The thinness, of course, was only a symptom, the tip of a particularly sinister iceberg.

Madeline had always been able to counterweigh any damage Anne did to the child. Madeline had simply swept blindingly clean, thin, tidy Tessa up into her plump, energetic arms and hustled her off into her studio where she clad the child in one of her own smocks and let her loose with finger paints. And how many nights had Madeline sat with Tessa in the barn, watching cats or dogs give birth? Madeline had read to Tessa, had sung to and danced with
Tessa, had taught Tessa to ride bareback, had taken Tessa skinny-dipping in the stream behind the house. Had taught Tessa to make jams from berries they picked, and cookies and pies and cakes, and Tessa had been so caught up in the sheer exuberance of Madeline’s pleasure in life that she’d eaten heartily without a thought.

Now Madeline was gone, and much of the lust of living had disappeared from all their lives. Mont could never hope to do for Tessa what Madeline did, but Madeline would expect Mont to do, at the least, what he could to keep the child safe and happy.

So for Madeline’s sake—and for Tessa’s—Mont finished his cereal, then climbed to his bedroom to dress and begin his day.

Anne was pleased that the psychiatrist was male. Often females reacted to their first meeting with Anne with a subdued, instinctive hostility. There were many reasons. Anne understood them all. She was thin, in a culture where thinness was admired above all other qualities, the kind of thinness that few females could achieve without deprivation and grueling discipline.

She was also wealthy, and her ancestors had been wealthy and their ancestors had been wealthy, and so much inherited wealth shone from her like an aura. She could not dim it. It was as much a part of her as the way she moved across the room. She left her jewelry at home, she wore the plainest white shirt and gray skirt, and she still looked exactly like what she was: an American aristocrat.

Still, because he was male, he would tend to like her. Most men did, especially if she went to the trouble to smile and put them at ease. Later, when both men and women got to know her, they came to admire her. Perhaps not to enjoy her company, or to want to share secrets, or to light up when they saw her. Seldom that. But to respect her, yes. They always came to respect her.

Anne had just seated herself on the green leather sofa when the secretary peered over her eyeglasses, produced a professional smile, and announced, “Mrs. Madison? Dr. Lawrence will see you now.”

Anne knew how to enter a room, and she’d given a great deal of thought to the way she should approach this meeting. She must be calm and firm and sympathetic, but resolute. She’d thought of appearing nervous—letting the psychiatrist feel his power—but decided against it.
She wasn’t nervous. She was angry, really. Indignant. But prepared to be polite.

It was not, she saw at once, the office of a wealthy man. The furniture, desk and chairs, were traditional inexpensive “executive” pieces one could buy at any office-supply store. A bookcase along one wall held books, framed family photos, toys and games.

The psychiatrist came out from behind his desk to shake her hand. With surprise she saw that he was rather attractive, not what she’d expected. No eyeglasses, no bushy brows, no hair in his ears. Instead, he was tanned and fit. In gray summer flannels and a long-sleeved black cotton (perhaps silk!) T-shirt, his dark hair clipped close to his skull, he looked youthful, urban, and contemporary.

“Mrs. Madison? I’m Dr. Lawrence. Thank you for coming in.” He gestured to a chair.

“Please call me Anne,” she requested, sitting, smoothing her skirt over her knees, crossing her legs at the ankles and slipping them to one side. She hung her purse by its strap over the back of the chair.

“Anne.” He settled behind the desk. “Would you like some coffee, Anne? Or tea?”

She hesitated.

“How about some iced tea,” he suggested. “I’ll have some, too.”

“That would be lovely.”

He tapped his intercom. “Carrie? Would you be kind enough to bring in some iced tea for the two of us?”

He rummaged around on a desk piled with folders and notebooks. It needed, Anne thought, a good dusting. She let her hands lie at ease in her lap as she waited. He opened a folder, glanced at it, opened a desk drawer, brought out a pen, laid it next to the folder, and finally looked up at Anne.

“All right, now. I see we’re here about your daughter, Tessa.”

She nodded.

“You and Mr. Madison, um, Dr. Madison—he’s a physician, right?”

She nodded again.

“You’re divorcing, and you both want to have full custody of your daughter.” He looked at Anne expectantly.

“That’s correct.”

“You understand that I, as court-appointed guardian
ad litem
, will be talking with you and Tessa and her father.”

“I understand that.”

He looked at his notes. “In fact, over the next month, I’ll be seeing quite a lot of you and your daughter. The appointments are scheduled very close together. Is there a reason for the rush?”

“Is there a reason
not
to rush?” she countered coolly. “Tessa starts school in September. She’ll be busy all day, and she’ll have extracurricular activities. In my opinion, it would be best for everyone to get this settled. Tessa needs to know where she’s going to be living for the school year.”

He cleared his throat. “Often the expense of so many sessions close together is too difficult for people to deal with all at once.”

“That’s not a problem. For either of us. Randall and I have no issues about money. I have—and always will have—a comfortable living from a trust fund from my grandparents.”

“All right, then. Well, first, why don’t you tell me something about your marriage and the reasons for your divorce?”

She cleared her throat. It was, after all, harder than she’d thought it would be. A welling of emotion conflicted with her need to control this meeting.

“Randall and I have been married for fourteen years. We met fifteen years ago, when he was a resident at Brigham and Women’s and I was a nurse. We were both idealistic. We both intended, in all naiveté, to save the world. And I suppose, in our own ways, we’re still working toward that.”

Dr. Lawrence smiled. “A difficult task, saving the world.”

“True. And, of course, we both know we can’t really do that. But we have to try.
Someone
, after all, has to try.”

“An admirable thought.” He paused a beat and, when she did not continue, said, “And so you married.”

“And so we married. We wanted children—” She dropped her eyes. It’s all right, she assured herself, anyone would expect her to find this difficult. Anyone would feel sympathy. She raised her head and looked right at him. “During our first year of marriage, I became pregnant twice. And both times—” She clasped her hands together. “Both times I had an ectopic pregnancy. Do you know what that is?”

“I’d be grateful if you’d refresh my memory.”

“An ectopic pregnancy takes place when the egg is fertilized somewhere other than in the uterus. In my case, in the ovary. As the embryo grows, it quickly becomes too large for the ovary and the ovary bursts. The result is that the woman no longer has ovaries or eggs.”