“Isn’t there any way you can convince Patty’s lawyer that she’s welcome to see Dawn, but only if she’s not suing me to become her parent?”
I tell her I will talk to Stephen once again, but wonder if this is the best time. “He might think we are just trying to get out of having your deposition taken.”
She pleads with me to talk to him, doesn’t care about appearing weak. I promise her I will, and we go back on task. I tell her that, if asked about traditions, she should say something to the effect that she and Dawn are developing them over time.
Gerta knocks and opens the door.
‘It’s Mr. Petrakis on the line. He wants to continue Karen’s deposition.”
As I grab the phone, I see Karen’s expression lift.
“I’m sorry to do this at the last minute, but I’m going to have to postpone taking Karen’s deposition. My wife’s family arrives tonight, and she wants me home tomorrow.”
Relieved myself, I tell him this is his prerogative, and we can pick a new date now or talk next week. He opts for talking next week. My own spirits lift with Karen’s, and I begin to think of holiday preparations again.
“You’re sprung for tomorrow. We can pick a new date next week. Will you be around for the next several weeks?” She assures me she isn’t going anywhere and asks that we set this during the Christmas school break.
We wish each other a hurried happy Thanksgiving. She says the same to Gerta on her way out. Gerta and I leave early too.
I brine the turkey as soon as I get home, grateful to be early enough to start before dinner. It requires an ice chest to hold the several giant plastic garbage bags surrounding the turkey in its salty-sweet bath. After I close the lid on it and wash my hands, I go into my home study to find the book Karen had given me several months earlier, when I visited her in Rough and Ready. Rummaging through stacks of papers, I reflect on my irritation with Karen today, at her loss of energy for this lawsuit. I regard it as nearly life or death for her, as she had seemed to at the beginning. Now I have become so immersed in the complex legal issues that I have an extra layer of attachment to it. Karen, by contrast, has lapsed into complacency because normal life is good and the lawsuit has lost its immediacy to her. Trial is set for February, and I can only hope she will re-engage productively.
I find the slim book under some legal journals I had set aside for later reading. On the cover, a baboon with a jaunty, teasing humanoid expression hangs from a tree limb above a menacing leopard. I read it first, as I do with all books my boys receive, and decide to try it out on them before bed tonight.
Cleo and the Leopard
Cleo and the Leopard lived in the same neighborhood, sometimes even in the same tree, but never at the same time, because they were not friends.
But they understood each other’s speech and sometimes spoke to each other. As a baboon, Cleo spoke more than the Leopard. Words came to her readily because she was always talking with the other baboons. The Leopard was usually silent.
When the Leopard tried to sneak up on some tasty little mongoose under Cleo’s tree, she and her brothers started a horrible screeching. “Yak, yak, yak, yak!” They scared away the Leopard’s meal. The Leopard was annoyed.
“You make too much noise,” he snarled.
“We protect our friends,” Cleo retorted. “You don’t have any friends,” she taunted.
“I don’t need any friends,” said the Leopard. “I am enough for me.”
“My friends help groom me, and it feels good.” One of Cleo’s brothers was picking ticks out of her ears.
“I have a nice long tongue and I can groom myself,” said the Leopard.
“I have a thumb that lets me hold onto branches and swing from them,” bragged Cleo as she flung herself from one limb to another.
“So you can,” said the Leopard, “but I have excellent claws for climbing,” and he leapt up so suddenly and so close to Cleo that she shrieked and swung away as fast as she could.
“You have an ugly bare rump,” said Leopard, staring at Cleo’s bare pink behind. “I have nice fur all over my body.”
“Talk about ugly,” Cleo shot back, “your fur is all spotted, as if you had sat under the weeping tree when it was dripping black juice. Mine is a nice even brown.”
None of their talk was pleasant.
One night Cleo disappeared. The Leopard did not see her for three days. When Cleo reappeared, she had a tiny baby tucked in her arm. She moved more slowly and carefully with only one arm free. She no longer taunted the Leopard. She was too busy feeding and grooming her baby. The Leopard paced below, consumed with curiosity. Despite himself, he admired how tender and attentive Cleo was with her baby.
When Cleo looked down at the Leopard looking up at her baby, she became nervous. She became so nervous that her milk stopped flowing on one side. She switched her baby to the other arm, but something happened in the way she shifted her body and she lost her balance for a second.
Cleo’s baby fell out of the tree. It landed with a soft plomp on the leafy ground and lay still. A nearby jackal lifted its nose and trotted toward the baby.
The leopard sprang out of the tree before the jackal could get to the baby. “Stay away!” he hissed loudly, and the jackal slunk away.
Cleo held both hands in her mouth, paralyzed by fear.
The Leopard sniffed the baby and nudged it with its paw. The baby opened its round black eyes but did not move.
The Leopard grasped the baby’s neck in its jaw, but very gently. He leapt onto the tree trunk with the baby dangling from his mouth. Cleo looked on in horror. The Leopard climbed to the limb where Cleo sat frozen in place. Very gently, he set the baby down in front of Cleo. The baby quickly crawled back into Cleo’s arm, where it belonged.
The Leopard crawled back down the tree trunk and sat still.
Cleo did not know what to say. For a long time, she was unusually quiet.
Finally, she said, “Leopard, I thought you would eat my baby, but you didn’t. I was wrong about you. You may have ugly fur, but you are beautiful inside.”
“Don’t mention it,” said the Leopard, as he slunk into the bush.
I read it twice, admiring what Karen had written. I glance at its publication date five years ago and surmise that Karen had written it while pregnant with Dawn. I wonder how my own boys will receive this story.
At dinner we allocate chores for Thanksgiving Day. My dad and both of Adam’s parents will join us. Since they are all local, they will come just for the afternoon. Adam reminds us all that he is in charge of roasting and carving the turkey. I will prepare the stuffing – “please, no oysters this year” from my picky eater Andy, who favors only red and green foods. I promise to leave out the oysters and to include apples and celery, but I remind him this is an occasion on which there is no getting around a brown bird and mostly brown stuffing. But I tell him I want his help in making cranberry sauce and green beans, which satisfies him. I remind Alex that he will have to set the table and arrange appetizers on plates. He groans but agrees when his father gives him a stern look.
At bedtime, I tell the boys I have a new book to read them, about a leopard and baboon in Africa.
“Not another Kipling story,” Alex gripes, our literary critic.
“No, a more modern author, and it’s short,” I assure him. Adam decides to join us. I had privately mentioned the book to him without showing it to him.
I read it slowly, with different voices for the two animals, and everyone listens raptly. When I finish, I glance at Andy, whose eyes are wet.
“That’s completely unrealistic!” Alex exclaims. “Animals have no empathy. That leopard would have eaten that baboon in a hot second.”
“Yes, that’s what we would expect,” I tell him, “but that wouldn’t be a story.”
Adam reminds Alex that there are videos of real wild
animals befriending one another under improbable circumstances. He has seen a nature film about a young lion that befriended an abandoned gazelle fawn. “I think animals do have emotions, but we may not know how to read them.”
Adam asks Andy what he thinks.
“Animals have feelings too. The leopard knew this baby needed its mom, and he did the right thing.” He takes the book from me so that he can look at the pictures again.
After we say goodnight to the boys, Adam tells me he admires the book.
“If we had a dog, Alex would know that dogs have great empathy.” He slaps me on my butt, knowing my aversion to dogs.
After we get into bed, I realize it has been weeks since I have seen my dad, and I miss him. Mom died not long after he retired three years ago and he has often seemed to regret having left the practice. It still bears his name, Meriwether & Meriwether, even though only I am left to carry it on. Carter (we called each other by our first names in the office) trained and mentored me, and I crave talking to him about Karen’s case. I decide to ask him to come early tomorrow so that we can talk.
I call him the next morning.
“Carter,” I begin. In this way he will know my subject is business, not family. My dad reminds me of the obvious, that Thanksgiving is a poor time to have our conversation, and we agree to meet for coffee on Friday morning.
Over pumpkin lattes on Friday morning I bleed out all my concerns about the case, the legal obstacles, Karen’s avoidance and request that I try to persuade Patty’s attorney to drop the lawsuit if Karen will grant ready access to Dawn, and my reluctance to do what she asked.
“Don’t you think that would be the better outcome?” he asks, typically trenchant.
“Yes, but if Patty couldn’t be persuaded in mediation, why should she now, and doesn’t it empower Patty to ask just before Karen is deposed?”
“You and Stephen know it’s the better outcome. That is reason enough. You can make it your idea rather than Karen’s if you’re worried about appearances.”
“I bet you could persuade him,” I tease.
“He’s not the one who needs to be persuaded. I imagine he is struggling with his own client.”
“Thanks, Dad. As always, you lift my load.” I feel so relieved, lighter and clear-headed. “How are things with you?”
He smiles ruefully, his lips forming a strained ‘S’ shape, one side down and the other up. I don’t remember seeing this smile when he was younger and working. “Not enough on my plate,” he admits quietly.
“Would you like to come back and help on this case? I bet you could persuade Petrakis.”
This time his smile is open. “No, I’m past that. I need to find new water to wade in.”
Full of resolve and new energy, I speak with Stephen the Monday after Thanksgiving. He has called to set a new time for Karen’s deposition, and we agree on a date during the week after Christmas. “Normally, I don’t work then, but with a trial date of February 1, I’ve got no choice.”
“Stephen, as much as I love the challenges of this case, I wonder whether we’re leading our clients in the wrong direction. I’m pretty sure that Karen would still give Patty regular access to Dawn if Patty didn’t insist on being named as Dawn’s parent. If we try this case, no matter the outcome, these sisters will hate each other, and Patty may never see Dawn again.”
He reminds me that this was what we had told each other at the outset of the case. “Recognition as a parent is a do-or-die issue for Patty, and I haven’t been able to dissuade her, no matter what I say.” He sighs. “I don’t like being just a tool, and I suspect you don’t either. I know your dad complained bitterly when he had to recognize he couldn’t persuade his own client. He coined the term, ‘being a tool’.”
I thank him. Dad had never used the term in talking to me, but certainly I recognize his values. Without telling him so, I love that Stephen has provided me a new detail about my dad.
21
KAREN
Tradition? Me? The question comes back to me as soon as I get on the road home. Was I supposed to have traditions? All my life I have regarded them with something bordering on contempt. To me, tradition connotes boredom, stagnation and a failure of creativity. Patty is the one who respects traditions; I am the one who flouts them. To her, traditions are likely a source of comfort and strength; by re-enacting them, she does her duty without having to think about what it means. I can name a list of traditions for Patty and Doug, but none come to mind for myself. They have the same menu every Thanksgiving and Christmas Day; they spend a week every summer at Lake Tahoe at the same lodge; they host a Labor Day barbeque and pool party for their neighbors every year; they spend a weekend at the same hotel in San Francisco every year for their anniversary. Patty visits our mother every week on Sunday, usually after she drops the family home from church. The family goes to All Souls Parish most Sundays; I went with them once while I was staying with them after my release from the hospital. All I can remember is my misreading the church name as “All Souls Perish,” which seemed fitting enough to me at the time but an unlikely name for a church. Patty’s values lie in following the rules and traditions.
The problem has always been the same for me in our family. I like things that are wayward. I like things taking an unexpected turn and going their own way. I love Dawn’s unruly hair. Part of what makes me so uncomfortable about Patty is that she is so relentlessly proper. Her straightening Dawn’s hair was her own message to me and she knew exactly how I would react. I can’t stand the thought of Dawn turning out like Patty.
I think I have values in place of traditions. I value Dawn above all else, and nothing is more important to me. I am only starting to forgive myself for failing her in her second year, but I know I can make up for that time only in the present and future. I value Megan and Jenny, who have been my good friends since high school, and their families. I go to the opening of each play that Megan directs. A tradition? No, to me it is a way of honoring her achievement. I respect and love the world of nature; it gives me more comfort than any church ever will. I respect growing plants. Aha! I am building a garden tradition with Dawn, who wanted to plant the flowers she first saw at Rock Creek Farm. We have created our own raised bed of tomatoes and lettuce and herbs, out of the rubble of our little back yard.
Tomorrow I will bring sweet potatoes to Thanksgiving dinner at Megan and Jeff’s. Online, I found an interesting recipe including apples and brown sugar. If I had to make the same dishes each year, I would be bored and resentful. Tomorrow we will have new friends at the feast --Zara and John and Alana. Adding them to our circle is a blessing.
Tomorrow we will celebrate our connection, our friendships and our larger family and good fortune. I will put the lawsuit out of mind for the holiday. Dawn is back. Nothing could make me more thankful.
In that spirit, I fetch Dawn from school and, after a simple supper, begin to prepare the sweet potatoes. Dawn asks why I am cooking after dinner, and when I explain I am bringing a dish to Megan’s for Thanksgiving, she asks what she can bring. I tell her that if she make a drawing or painting and gives it to Megan that it will be a great addition to the celebration. As I slice the sweet potatoes and lay them in the dish with apple slices, she sets up her own paints, jar of water and large sheet of paper. By the time my concoction comes out of the oven, with an aroma of baked apples, Dawn has finished her own -- two rows of people holding hands, one row upside down because, she explains, we are all in a circle and the paper isn’t large enough to show us all across the page. She proudly identifies us all – she and I in the center, Alana holding her other hand, Alana’s parents together, Ian holding my other hand, Megan’s husband Jeff next to her and Sam next, Jenny and her sons below. All of us smiling, all of us connected. Ian is near the center even though I know she knows he will not be with us tomorrow.
Thanksgiving Day warms enough that we can all mingle outside o
n the deck Jeff had built at the back of their home, above Deer Creek. We can hear the gurgle of the water just below our own conversations. It turns out that Jeff, who does construction of high-end homes, knows of John’s furniture work, though they hadn’t met before, and they talk woodworking, while I loop arms with Zara and bring her into the kitchen with Jenny and Megan. She carries John’s contribution to the meal, a steaming blue bowl of red cabbage slices, with a rich sweet-sour fragrance. I admit I have never seen or heard of such a dish, and Zara explains that it has been part of John’s family dinner celebrations for as long as he can remember, originally cooked by his grandmother to accompany roast pork. “Every time he bites into this, he says the same thing: ‘this brings back my family.’ Watch him, and tell me if he doesn’t do the same tonight.” We all laugh, and she fetches two glasses of cider to take out to John and Alana.
After Zara leaves the kitchen, Jenny confesses she experiences every Thanksgiving as a loss since her divorce three years ago; Daniel had been part of a huge family that had two large dining tables and two turkeys to feed them all. For eleven years that had been their celebration. Megan assures her she will always have us as family. I hug Jenny and tell her I am grateful each year to be back in this family.
Megan tapes Dawn’s drawing to the wall adjacent to the large dining table. As we eat dinner, John sits directly across from me next to Zara. When the red cabbage comes around, he bends to inhale its vapor and exclaims how it brings back memories of feasts with his grandparents, now gone, and his parents. “I’m always amazed at how a particular taste, or a particular scent, can bring back such powerful memories.” Zara winks at me across the table.
Unbidden, I suddenly remember pan-fried trout with lemon and a touch of vinegar that Abe often prepared after catching fish in the river. I push back that memory by inhaling the food in front of me.
On the day of my deposition I face Patty’s lawyer for the first time. He sits across his conference table with a porcelain teacup and saucer in front of him. The rest of us have coffee in mugs. He is a man who will have hair all of his life; it is like sod atop his head, thick and erect, but gray. Unruly eyebrows mark his face; on the left side the hairs jut outward, pushing his horn-rimmed glasses away from his forehead, and on the right the hairs jut upward. Even those eyebrows can’t overwhelm his black, penetrating eyes. I imagine him as a brilliant law professor.
Raising Dawn Page 16