The Love Wars (16 page)

“So, this is a case that requires a lot of thought, Your Honor. Not only is there the very basic matter of the kids’ safety if Ms. Walker’s inappropriate requests are granted—there’s also the very real concern of upsetting the routine of two tiny little kids from a broken family, who have been through enough. These kids, these poor, poor kids—their mother is a sick, sick woman—homicidal.” She looks around the room, making sure we all understand what’s at stake. “It’s quite a burden for these poor kids to have. A homicidal mother. We have to proceed with caution.”

The stooped giraffe, whose name, it turns out, is Graham, nods emphatically and slowly, as though he’s found a great batch of leaves to snack on.

Justice Strand frowns. “Of course. We certainly don’t want to do anything rash that will upset the kids.”

“No, Your Honor. You need to dismiss their motion.”

“Your Honor, may I speak now?” I say.

“Yes, of course. So, how is Ms. Walker doing? Is she on medication?”

“Your Honor, the mother is not mentally ill. Ms. McDunn is mistaken about that.”

He looks confused. “Having homicidal tendencies does point to mental illness. You don’t need to worry about the stigma, counselor. No one thinks it’s your client’s fault.”

Risa jumps in, “I have documentation—”

“Your Honor, I assume I can finish without being interrupted?”

He looks relieved at knowing the answer to my question and points at Risa. “No interrupting, Ms. McDunn. Everyone gets a chance to speak in my court. We’ve covered the rules here already.”

“The mother had postpartum depression two years ago, when her son, Connor, was born. She has no other mental health issues whatsoever.”

“But what about the violence?” Justice Strand says.

“She’s not violent, Your Honor. She is a gentle and loving person. She’s in perfect health. Mr. Walker has deliberately frozen her out of her own kids’ lives. It’s a textbook case of parental alienation, and all she’s asking is the chance to be their mom. Because of him, she’s missed too much already.”

Risa is up, out of her chair. “Parental alienation? This is not parental alienation. This is a case about a father’s protection of his children. Your Honor, I wrote a book about custody. I am an expert on identifying parental alienation, and this is not it.”

Justice Strand frowns as though trying to figure out why we can’t just get along.

“I care about the best interests of the children,” he says. “And you’re both telling such different stories about what’s happened here. Can you settle this?”

“I’m sure we can, Your Honor. The father is absolutely willing to continue Ms. Walker’s visitation. It does need to be supervised, of course, for security reasons.”

I shake my head. “We won’t agree to anything other than custody returned to the mother.”

Justice Strand sighs. “Well, then, I can’t really decide anything until we have a hearing on the best interests of the children.”

“Your Honor, that’s ridiculous. There’s enough to dismiss this motion
prima facie
,” Risa says.

“No, there’s not, Ms. McDunn. There’s a request to change custody and an accusation of parental alienation. And you know I can’t just dismiss it. So, you need to get some dates from my court clerk out front. And I’ll need you to stipulate to a law guardian and forensic. Can you do that or do I need to select one for you?”

I nod. “Yes, Your Honor. I’m sure we can stipulate to that. What about establishing some counseling or visitation now for the mother and the children? She hasn’t been able to see the kids since last fall.”

Justice Strand raises an eyebrow at Risa.

“Absolutely not.” She steps backward, as though she can’t even be in the same room as that suggestion. “It’s a basic safety issue. For the kids.”

Justice Strand looks thoughtful. “I’m concerned about the violence. What about the knives? You know, let’s just continue supervised visitation until the hearing, just to be sure. You’ll get your hearing soon enough.”

“We need a neutral therapist to supervise, not Mr. Walker’s nanny, which is what’s been happening.” I hand over a list to Risa and Mike that has five names of psychologists specializing in children of divorce. “None of these has any connection to Ms. Walker.”

Risa crumples up the list without looking at it. “The father is not going to agree to have some therapist he’s never heard of talking to his children. Why would he agree to that?”

“That’s why there are five names on there. I’m sure we can
agree that at least one of them is sufficiently qualified to clean up the mess he’s made.”

Justice Strand slumps down in his chair. He looks up wearily. “Ms. McDunn, I suggest you try to persuade your client to at least look at the list or come up with some names of his own. And as far as cost goes, it’s going to be an uphill battle for him to claim that he’s not the moneyed party here.”

I am heartened by this, the first sign Strand has given that his thoughts are independent from Risa’s.

Risa shakes her head vehemently. “But their separation agreement says that the party in breach of the agreement will be responsible for costs, and Mrs. Walker’s in breach.”

Justice Strand stares off in the distance, mourning his hopes for a nice breezy settlement conference.
Dude,
I think,
you are in the wrong business.
“I’m not inclined to rule on counsel fees until after the hearing.” He shoos us away. “Go find some common ground.”

Risa ignores the order to compromise and leads Graham—who is glaring and huffing at me like a ninth-grade drama student in a production of
The Crucible
—to a bench on the far side of the hall where Robert and Claire wait. I join Fern and recount Risa’s arguments for her.

“I have to know,” I say, “where on earth did you meet that guy?”

“CBS. I was his assistant.”

I try not to gag. “Great, so he’s guilty of sexual harassment too?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Yeah. I know
my
parents would be just thrilled if I told them that my new boyfriend was their age and also my boss.”

“Don’t forget married,” Fern says, biting her lip.

“Oh. Fern.”

Fern nods. “To Vicki, his second wife. But they had problems before we started anything.”

“I’m sure they did.”

“He doesn’t seem like an obvious choice at this moment, but I swear, he can be incredibly charming. You probably won’t see that side of him, though.”

“Probably not.”

“And he’s super smart and sharp, completely in his element at work. Everyone had a crush on him.”

“If you say so.”

Fern sighs. “Trust me, I understand your skepticism, but he’s really not a monster. He just gets very defensive and paranoid and likes to be in control.”

I tilt my head to the side. “Isn’t that what Mussolini’s wife kept telling everyone about him?”

Fern jabs me in the ribs with her elbow, but she’s smiling.

Eventually, Mike emerges from the courtroom’s double doors and calls us all back in. Justice Strand sits at his bench, looking reinvigorated and in command as he introduces himself to Fern and Robert, although his smile dims when he hears that we have not reached consensus. Ready for us to leave his courtroom, he rattles off a series of orders: someone named Roland Williams will be the attorney representing the interests of Anna and Connor, and a Dr. Gary Newkirk, a forensic psychologist, will assist Strand in his determination of what’s best for the kids; Emily Freed (after much back and forth from Risa) will be the therapist who supervises Fern’s visits with the kids.

We get some dates for our hearing, and then it’s over. We’ve been here for almost five hours without eating or drinking anything. My head throbs from dehydration and lack of nourishment.

Robert Walker and Risa confer, huddled close together. Claire stands behind Robert, rubbing his back. It must gall him to spend the entire morning at court, waiting. And there is more to come: random deadlines; court appearances where he’s forced to show up but will not be asked to say a word; enough bureaucracy to
make anyone feel small, powerless and frustrated. Robert Walker probably hasn’t been in touch with any of those emotions in a while.

Fern has, however. She and I share a satisfied smile, our subtle substitute for a high five. We have a hearing date and that is a victory.

____

L
illian has blocked out the entire day to prepare for what we’re all now calling the Cat Hearing, which is three days away. I don’t know how one small conference room will contain both Lillian’s and Liesel’s sizable alpha egos. It’s a matchup of headliners—my personal Godzilla vs. my personal Mothra—and I anticipate being curled up in the fetal position by midmorning.

After Kim buzzes me, I knock lightly on Lillian’s door to let her know that Liesel is waiting in the conference room. Lillian stalls, making a few brief phone calls and sorting her papers with the kind of noisy fruitlessness that indicates she’s not even looking at them. Finally, after ten minutes, she grabs the outline for Liesel’s testimony that I left on her desk last night and, grumbling, gets out of her chair.

“I really don’t have time for this,” she says.

“I know.”

“And you did a great job on the discovery. I don’t need to be involved.”

“Thank you.”

She shifts, straightening her jacket. “Talk about divas. I had to move my entire schedule around to do this hand-holding.”

“I know,” I say again, even though I am pretty sure, aside from the Cat Hearing, Lillian has nothing other than the usual: a
few luncheons, a manicure and several initial consults. It is rare for Lillian to return to a case after she’s cast it off, but upon hearing that I would be arguing her motion solo, Liesel pitched a fit, sending a torrent of e-mails, letters and phone calls, declaring that if Lillian didn’t do the argument, Liesel would retain new counsel. (“Molly,” she had said, “you are not cutting your teeth on my cats.” And as distracted as I was by how disgustingly furry that sounded, the irony was still not lost on me: I had already taken on Robert Walker, but could not be trusted with the fate of Pickles von Ketchup.)

Lillian had fought back. She tried to pawn off Liesel on Everett, Liz, even Henry, but Liesel wouldn’t budge. Not wanting to lose Liesel’s steady monthly receivables, Lillian eventually capitulated. And to my surprise, today she is rolling up her sleeves for some pure, old-fashioned work.

Liesel steps out of her conference room chair and walks over to Lillian. As always, I am struck by how normal she appears: round brown eyes, boring red sweater set, messy bun—the type of person who could be counted on to bring consistently reliable homemade brownies to her book club meeting.

Beaming, Liesel puts a fluttering hand to her chest. “Lillian. It is such an honor. Thank you so much for making the time. It means everything.”

In a flash, Lillian’s expression changes from put-upon to charmed. “Of course,” she says. “And don’t you worry about this jackass and his lawsuit. He’s toast. We’re going to take care of you.”

“I know you will. I have such faith in the team here.” Liesel turns to me and holds out both hands. “Molly,” she says as though we’re long-lost pen pals. “Always wonderful to see you.”

It’s as surreal as if, instead of burning villages, Mothra and Godzilla had joined forces to coordinate a canned-food drive. “No, really, Mothra, let me design the flyers. I
insist
.” Liesel engulfs me in an awkwardly brittle hug. I manage to blurt out
something pleasant sounding before Lillian adjusts her glasses, opens the outline and begins asking Liesel questions. After about thirty minutes, Liesel raises her hand.

“Feel free to jump in with any questions, Liesel,” says Lillian as though she’s granting Liesel three special wishes.

“It’s very important to me to be able to discuss all the things I did for the cats and especially how I had to constantly remind Stewart to help out. He never had their best interest in mind. Pickles had a fatty tumor once and I asked him to take her to the vet. Seventeen times I asked him. I know it was seventeen because I counted, but he absolutely refu—”

Lillian holds both hands up. I almost duck my head anticipating the explosion from this interruption, but Liesel stops, tilts her head and smiles politely. “Yes?”

“Is a fatty tumor harmful?”

“No, but that’s not the point of the story.”

Lillian smiles kindly. “And isn’t that good news, dear? That Pickles is in good health? But we don’t want to include too much information about how much you had to remind Stewart to take care of the cats, because it’s off topic. Perhaps we’ll get in a quick mention, but really, we want to make sure to emphasize the right things.”

Liesel nods thoughtfully.

We resume the preparation without incident and in fact need to stop only twice more: once to advise Liesel to use a gentle tone with Stew’s lawyer during cross-examination (“Think of him as your boss’s slightly slow third-grade son—even when he gets obnoxious, you have to be polite”) and once more, to tell her what to wear (“professionally tasteful, but not too severe”).

__________

I
t goes so well that three days later, on the date of the hearing, I am optimistic, right up until I spot Liesel waiting outside the courtroom for us. She looks professional, but has skewed a little severe—black suit and slicked-back hair.

“Hi, Liesel.” I smile and step forward. “Sorry we’re a couple minutes late. We had trouble getting a—”

She taps her foot repeatedly, frowns and looks at her watch. “I guess when it’s your life, it’s important enough to show up on time.”

Lillian’s eyes flash and she says nothing as she walks ahead quickly and pushes open the courtroom doors.

Justice Love, a maternal-looking woman with gray hair, is at the bench, presiding over another matter. Lillian darts off to say hello to Ethan Crosby, who is crammed into one of the spectator benches next to Stew. His associate Erika, whom I haven’t seen since moving day, is behind them. I head over to Linda, the court clerk, to say hello and tell her we’re here.