The Love Wars (6 page)

I know, as they sit in her office and claim them, that none of these clients will wind up with any of these awards, and while Lillian doesn’t explicitly promise anything, she is, as she’s explained
to me, selling hope along with the heartbreak. An initial consult is a beautiful thing, she told me after the first one I observed; it’s probably the
only
place in divorce law where there are no unfulfilled expectations yet; once a divorce becomes real, that’s all it is—a series of unfulfilled expectations, the most fundamental, of course, being the unfulfilled expectation of until death do us part.

I relax in one of Lillian’s cozy garnet guest chairs. Increasingly, when I’m here, I’ve felt Lillian’s office using its powers to lull me. I remind myself that I am there for an assignment, not a coffee-and-gossip session, and listen to her phone call.

“I know, Ethan. Oh, that’s too bad,” she says, making delicate pen marks on a pad of paper. “Well, why did you let it get that high? If they’re not paying, just stop the work. Yes, just like that. I do all the time.” She laughs. “Oh, good. See you both then.”

“Ethan Crosby?” I ask.

She nods. “I called him to find out about Fern Walker, the woman we’re scheduled to meet with. He represented her in her divorce.” She taps her fingernails distractedly on the desk, a manual ellipsis that explains why her burgundy nail polish is a little chipped at the tips.

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was postjudgment.”

“Her divorce was about two years ago. This one doesn’t smell good. The ex is Robert Walker. Do you know who that is?”

I do.

As a first-year corporate associate, I had volunteered to assist in a closing on behalf of the Aristotle Foundation, an education nonprofit. I had thought the assignment would be understaffed, but when I walked into the conference room, twenty people, three of them partners, were fluttering around as though preparing for a presidential visit.

I had walked over to Holly, a second-year, the next junior person in the room. “What’s going on?”

Frantically stacking papers, Holly had lowered her voice. “Robert Walker is expected to show up. This morning.”

I lowered my voice too. “Who’s Robert Walker?”

“You know Options Communications?”

“The cable company? Of course. I’m not a moron.”

Holly looked uncertain. “Walker’s the CEO. He’s a first-time donor to Aristotle, and it’s a big haul—a shitload of complex assets, probably to get his girlfriend on the board or something. Anyway, the firm has been trying to get Options’ business for years, so everyone’s going nuts at the thought of an audience with him.” She pushed a stack of papers toward me. “Here, help me sort.”

The fevered activity continued for the next hour, peaking when Robert Walker phoned in, about forty minutes after he had been expected to appear.

Doug King, the most senior partner in the room, punched the phone’s speaker, clasped his hands together and leaned forward, grinning madly. “Mr. Walker, what an honor.”

“What. The. Fuck.”

Doug King leaned farther forward, his face contorting a little bit. “Mr. Walker? Hello? This is Doug King, senior corporate partner at Bacon Payne. We’re preparing everything for the transfer. Such a generous donation—”

“What. The. Fuck. Stop calling my office, you morons. Does no good deed go fucking unpunished?”

“Mr. Walker, there must be some misunderstanding. We expected you here—”

“Well, obviously, asshole. Can’t I just give a fucking gift? You idiots need me there to wipe your ass too? You can’t just messenger papers to my office like anyone who actually gets shit done in this town?”

It was more than a little satisfying to see Doug King turn white, pick up the phone and murmur apologies like a schoolboy, but the flip side was that anyone capable of inspiring such behavior in Doug King was one scary guy.

I opt against sharing that story with Lillian.

“He’s the CEO of Options Communications.” She nods, letting the gravity of this sink in.

“Oh. Have they become clients?”

“Not yet, but I can think of sixteen partners who will shit a brick if we go after him. And on top of that, Ethan says this consult, the ex-wife, is a mess.” She frowns. “I hate wasting my time.” She looks at me.

“If it would help, I could do it for you?”

I don’t for a second think that Lillian Starling will seriously want me to substitute for her in a consult. She has practiced for over thirty years and bills at nine hundred dollars an hour. A monkey can tell the difference between us; certainly a client in distress who had waited weeks for an appointment will not be pleased.

Apparently, that is exactly what Lillian wants. “Molly, you just get it. I love having someone who gets it. You sure you’re comfortable with this? It’s not too much for you? You have the list of attorneys that we refer to?”

She doesn’t wait for a response. “Kim will give it to you. Also, have her set up a conference room so you’re not meeting in your office. That would be embarrassing even for this Walker woman. What will you tell her?” She stops herself, cocks her head and extends both palms in a gesture that makes me think of Don Corleone—equal parts proud and possessive. “You’ll figure it out, I know.”

She picks up her phone and starts dialing, my cue to leave. “Oh, Molly—”

I turn, hoping for one last pearl of wisdom.

“I forgot to tell you. I’m having a night for us, just my girls. We’ll have drinks before the firm holiday party on the seventeenth.”

I’m not sure who her girls are, but I’m glad to be one of them.

____

I
had anticipated an hour of hostility and blame, and I wouldn’t have thought any less of Fern Walker if that’s what she had delivered. Fern is extremely gracious about the bait and switch, though. She understands, she understands. Lillian must be so busy. This must happen all the time (never, that I know of, actually). And she has been through a divorce, so she knows that associates are very much the muscle of the operation. She is just so grateful that I can take the time to listen to her. Yes, Fern Walker seems downright lovely, no easy feat for anyone consulting with a divorce attorney, let alone someone who spent years with that tyrant I heard on the phone.

I watch her as she fidgets with the string of a lemon-ginger tea bag, steeping in her mug. She has delicate features and the kind of proportional tiny figure that men love. Her hair, shoulder length and prematurely gray, hangs over her dark eyes in sharply pointed bangs.

Fern could probably be very attractive if she spent one-quarter of the time on her appearance that the rest of our clients do. Now, though, she looks like it’s all too much—her delicate features have been colonized by her bone-tired expression and puffy eyes; her hair is tangled into a half-completed ponytail. The two plastic drugstore bags that she’s schlepped into the meeting evoke what I think of as subway New York, the city in which real people live
and get the stuffing beaten out of them by attempting the basic acts of daily life: getting their laundry done, going to the post office, commuting. And though her appearance is downright disheveled by Bacon Payne client standards, I have a sense of déjà vu. “You look familiar. Do you mind if I ask where you’re from?”

She nods, as though this is a perfectly reasonable way to begin. “Pittsburgh. You?”

“North Carolina.”

There’s a moment of silence during which Fern stares into space. I lean forward. “Why don’t you just start by telling me why you’re here?” I tell myself this is a fine start, professionally appropriate, even as I sense that Fern is too distracted to realize that I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.

“Bob and I got divorced two years ago. We have two kids. Anna is six and Connor is three. I’m here about them.”

“How long were you married for?”

“Nine years.”

“Was it a messy divorce?”

“It was pretty simple actually. We had a prenup.” She smiles weakly. “I mean Bob Walker without a prenup—would never happen. So everything was pretty set—I made a copy of the agreement for you.” She reaches into her canvas tote bag, pulls out a yellow file folder and hands me a neatly clipped stack of papers from the top of the pile. “The thing is, I wasn’t myself at the time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was still sort of shell-shocked and not coping all that well when we finalized things. After Connor was born, I had postpartum depression for a little over a year.”

“That sounds rough.”

“I spent a lot of time in bed, unable to handle any of the things I used to do.”

“Like what?”

“Being organized and on top of things is—well, used to be—my
thing. Before Connor, I was in charge of running the house, you know? Bob used to call me CEO of Home, Inc.”

“How romantic.” I say it without thinking, but before I can apologize, Fern’s lips purse in the ghost of a smile.

“It really was a full-time job, with everything Bob has going on: signing up Anna for classes, buying her clothing, furnishing the houses, interviewing the babysitters, planning the meals, doing school applications for Anna, the charity work, all of that.

“But after Connor was born, I was in such bad shape that I just sort of stopped. I mean, not just the house stuff. I stopped doing anything: brushing my hair, teeth, you get the picture. And Bob tried to understand for the first few months, but when it dragged on, he just sort of stepped in and started dealing with all of it himself. He’s very driven, very successful, as you know. I mean, it’s obvious, I guess. And he doesn’t deal well with sickness or weakness. I think because of his father. He drank, and Bob, well, he always thought it was disgusting how his dad would check out and disappear for weeks, and then he saw me doing the same thing.”

“That seems unfair.”

She shrugs, as if to say, what’s the difference?

“Were you officially diagnosed?”

“Oh, yeah. I saw several doctors—my OB referred me to a psychologist and a psychiatrist. I also tried acupuncture, took progestin, which is supposed to be a more natural therapy. I was breast-feeding, so at first I didn’t want to take anything. Then we tried the more gentle meds that wouldn’t be passed through my milk. Finally, after a while, I just stopped breast-feeding so I could take the strong stuff. That worked, but it was a slow process.”

“And by then the marriage was over?”

“Exactly. After Connor turned one, I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it was too late for Bob. I don’t think he’s ever really got over the image of me as this crazy, needy person.”
She wraps the string around her tea bag and squeezes out the excess water. “And I was pretty bad. I guess I understand why he left.

“The one thing is, and the reason I’m here, I was supposed to have a lot of time with the kids. I moved out of the apartment after the divorce—it was in the prenup that I would—and the kids stayed there, which just made sense given my mental state. The agreement says that Bob has primary custody in terms of decision making but that when I can handle it and when things are appropriate, we’ll go to a fifty-fifty schedule. That sort of never happened. We’ve been divorced for a year and a half and I’ve seen them less and less.”

As she flips open the agreement, I examine her again. God, who does she remind me of? This is going to drive me crazy.

She opens to a tabbed page. With a ridged fingernail, she points to a custody provision that echoes what she said. There’s a minimum schedule that she’ll see the kids no less than twice a week and one weekend day every other week. It’s a far cry from a fifty-fifty schedule.

“How much less? What’s the last time you saw them?”

She looks at her hands. “Two months ago. I had asked to see them for a Saturday. Bob said yes. Sometimes he says yes, sometimes he says no. I planned a great day: the Natural History Museum because Connor likes dinosaurs, or at least he used to, lunch at the burger place and then a movie. Bob called and said they were too scared to go with me for the whole day, but I could take them to a movie. I met them outside the movie theater, and they didn’t even hug me.” Her eyes water as she recounts her children’s reaction. “They were with their nanny the whole time. She sat next to Connor at the theater and unzipped his coat because he didn’t want me to do it. They told me that they weren’t allowed to have popcorn because it’s a choking hazard. Can you imagine what that’s like? Your own children telling you what they’re allowed to eat? And then after the movie, they asked their nanny if they could please go home now. She made them thank
me for the ‘nice movie.’ Like I’m a stranger. They don’t call me Mommy or even Mom anymore—they stopped that last year.”

“Did you see them much before that?”

“We haven’t had much time together this year, just a handful of visits: some dinners, a lunch and some trips to a bookstore or toy shop, always with their nanny.”

“Any phone calls?”

“I’ve called every day. I’ve walked by their schools a few times to try and see them, but it hasn’t worked, which is probably for the best because I might’ve caused a scene.”

“You’re prepared to sue for custody?” I’m not trying to challenge her, but I am worried, whether she can handle the fight.

Fern returns her attention to her tea bag string, wrapping it around her finger twice like it will serve as a reminder of something. “I have this hope,” she says, her voice breaking, “that if I start strong, really stand up for the rights that I have, once he knows that I’m serious and that I’m well enough to be trusted, we can settle out of court, respectfully, without pulling the kids between us. And then, in twenty or thirty years, he and I will be laughing about all of this stuff and maybe share a dance at their weddings.”

I nod, not because I think this is plausible, but because her eyes, still on the tea bag, light up as they envision what I recognize as a fantasy—Robert Walker will pulverize her into mincemeat the first chance he gets. “Fern, I hate to bring this up, but Lillian’s fees are very expensive. A custody battle like this, it will take hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“Of course.”

“You should definitely ask that Robert pay for counsel fees, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll get them. Any lawyer at this level is going to ask for the money up front.”