Every Fifteen Minutes

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Um, well,” Eric started to say. “I thought we could talk about Jacobs today. I didn’t get to it because Perino—”

  “You knew I didn’t really want to talk about Jacobs.” Kristine took another step toward him. “I wanted to talk about us.”

  “Oh, no. There’s no us.” Eric stepped backwards.

  “Not yet, but there can be.”

  “Kristine, no, there can’t, it’s not appropriate. It can’t happen.”

  “Why not?” Kristine blinked, her smile amused. “You’re single and I’m single. Don’t tell me you’re not attracted. I know you are.”

  Eric’s mouth went dry. “That’s not the point.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “The point is that you’re on my unit.”

  “Only for a week, and do you know how many people are hooking up in that hospital? What difference does it make that we work together?” Kristine’s smile didn’t change and her sharp blue eyes searched his, as if she wanted an answer.

  “There’s an imbalance of power between us.”

  “I know, but there’s nothing I can do about that.” Kristine grazed his shirtsleeve with her fingertips. “I have power over you. Can you deal with it?”

  Eric couldn’t deny his reaction to her nearness, or touch. She smelled great, and he shouldn’t have had anything to drink. “No, it’s not right. This can’t go any further.”

  “You’re dismissing it out of hand, but you shouldn’t.”

  “Yes, I should.” Eric took a step toward his car, but before he knew what was happening, Kristine was on tiptoe, looping her arms around his neck, kissing him fully. He grabbed her arms, stopped her, and set her back on her heels. “Kristine, no, listen. This can’t happen.”

  “Just think about it, is all I ask,” Kristine called after him.

  But Eric stepped to the car, got his keys, chirped his door unlocked, jumped inside, and drove off.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Hi, Hannah.” Eric drove through the garage with the phone to his ear, keeping an eye out for Kristine. There was only one pedestrian exit to the garage, and the reserved parking was on the first level, but he didn’t see her.

  “Daddy, I knew you would call!”

  “I’m sorry I’m late. Are you in bed already?” Eric reached the exit, pushed the button to lower the window, and slid his pass card into the turnstile. He thought he would hear Kristine’s high heels click-clacking somewhere, but the garage was stone quiet.

  “Yes, I turned out the light but I kept the phone on. Mommy said it was okay for five minutes.”

  Eric felt his gut clench at the mention of Caitlin. He returned the pass card to his visor and waited while the turnstile arm rose. “I won’t keep you too long. You sound tired, and I know you need to get to sleep. I just wanted to say good night and tell you I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “Tell me, how’s your ankle? Does it feel better?”

  “Yes. You’re going to come and take me to school tomorrow, right?”

  “Yes, of course, but don’t forget I won’t see you tomorrow night because your mommy is taking you to your cousin Rebecca’s birthday dinner.” Eric turned left out of the garage, checking the rearview to see if anybody was driving behind him, but there wasn’t. His was the only car leaving the garage, and he didn’t know if Kristine drove to work. Most people did, but not all the medical students had cars.

  “Mommy said tomorrow is the last time.”

  “Wait, what are you saying?” Eric didn’t know what Hannah was talking about. He’d lost the train of thought over Kristine.

  “Mommy said tomorrow is the last time you’re taking me to school.”

  “No, it’s not.” Eric stopped at the light. The strip mall was to his right, and he glanced over to see if Kristine was walking through its parking lot, heading back to Thatcher’s, but it was too dark to see anything. “I always take you to school Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tomorrow isn’t the last time.”

  “Mommy said it is.” Hannah sounded a little crumbly, her voice thinning, the way she did when she got sad.

  “Mommy said that?” Eric hoped Hannah had simply misunderstood, but his gut was telling him otherwise. He’d been taking Hannah to school Tuesdays and Thursdays ever since she started first grade, because her elementary school started late, at 8:20, and it gave Caitlin a chance to get into work early. He would make breakfast for Hannah, pack her lunch, the whole shebang. It had become a special thing they did together, and he wasn’t about to give it up.

  “Why can’t you take me to school anymore, Daddy?”

  “I’m not sure.” Eric fought the impulse to throw Caitlin under the bus. “I’ll talk to Mommy about it, okay? Is she around? Can you put her on the phone?”

  “Mommy! Mom! Daddy wants to talk to you!” Hannah called out, and Eric could hear some commotion on the other end of the line, then some talking he couldn’t understand, then Hannah got back on the phone. “Daddy, Mommy said she can’t come to the phone and you should call your friend.”

  “My friend? What friend?”

  “Susan. Isn’t that your friend?”

  “Oh, right. Susan is my friend.” Eric simmered. Susan was his friend for $350 an hour. He hit the gas, entering the line of traffic. “Okay, don’t you worry. I’ll talk to Mommy about it, and we’ll figure it out. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, same time as usual.”

  “I like when you take me to school.”

  “I like it too.” Eric suppressed a twinge. He wished for the umpteenth time that he and Caitlin had never split up. It was one thing to go through a divorce, but another to watch your kid get tortured.

  “Can we have eggs and ketchup tomorrow?”

  “Yes, it’ll be special. We’ll have eggs.”

  “Yay! Mommy says I have to get off the phone now. Good night, Daddy. I love you.”

  “I love you too, honey. Sleep tight.”

  “Aren’t you going to say ‘pleasant dreams’? That’s what you always say.”

  “Whoops. Pleasant dreams, honey. Good night.” Eric hung up, navigating with one hand while he pressed the number to call Susan. He kept his eye on the road, leaving the hospital campus, but his thoughts were racing. If he hadn’t made the decision about custody yet, he had made one now.

  “Eric?” Susan asked, picking up. “Glad you called.”

  “Hi, listen, I made a decision. I want to go for primary custody, but I don’t know about quitting my job at the hospital yet. I might’ve jumped the gun on that.”

  “Whoa, you sound different.”

  “I’m furious, that’s what I am.” Eric stopped at a red light. “Hannah just told me I can’t take her to school in the mornings anymore. Caitlin is seeing someone, by the way.”

  “I know, I talked to Daniel today. I was going to tell you when you called me. She was very unhappy that you came over uninvited.”

  “Did she tell you that she took Hannah to an emergency room without telling me? Because she hurt herself playing the stupid softball? I was worried and I called but they didn’t answer.” Eric stared at the red light, hearing himself and hating in his own voice the tit-for-tat fighting that he’d seen in couples he counseled. Almost uniformly, the wives found him first, looking for support. They didn’t know it when they came, but they were all looking for the support to get a divorce. He realized that Caitlin must have been just like those wives, wanting out, looking for the opening, trying to find the courage.

  “Okay, relax. Changes are coming, Eric.”

  “Like what?” Eric tried to keep his temper. “Like that all of a sudden I can’t take Hannah to school?”

  “That, for one.”

  “But why? I just want to take my kid to school. I’ve been doing it since she started school!”

  “We didn’t provide for your right to do that in the agreement.”

  “Seriously?” Eric hit the gas as the light turned green. “How many things didn’t we prepare for in this agr
eement?”

  “This isn’t on me.” Susan’s tone stiffened. “We have a standard custody agreement, but you two have been ignoring it, as a past practice. Now Caitlin is reverting to the agreement, going to go strictly by the letter. In other words, your informal practices are going to be null and void. It’s a fairly typical pattern.”

  “What do you mean, a pattern?” Eric switched lanes, newly angry. Eric drove home, and the neon signs of the CVS, Gap, Walgreens, McDonald’s, and Wendy’s became a suburban blur.

  “You and Caitlin were working well together, having a pretty informal custodial relationship and keeping things in place, which involved your being around the house more. That’s why you didn’t exercise your right to have overnights during the week, correct?”

  “Right. I wanted Hannah to sleep in her own bed during the week.”

  “Well, I spoke with Daniel, and Caitlin is taking the position that it’s not going to work for her anymore for you to come by the house in the morning, be in her kitchen, make breakfast with her pans, and then take Hannah to school.”

  “What if I came by in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and took Hannah out to breakfast? I get up early. It’s not a problem for me, and she likes to get up early too.”

  “That doesn’t solve the problem.”

  “Why not? Why doesn’t it?” Eric felt a tension around his chest he hadn’t felt in ages. He realized he was driving distracted, so he turned into a CVS parking lot and braked, leaving the engine and air-conditioning on.

  “You have to look at the facts the way a court would, and what your ex is requesting is reasonable. We both know that she’s seeing someone, and I don’t think he’s staying over there now, but one day he will. The current custody arrangement is conventional in every way—”

  “I want to change it. I absolutely want to change it. I want primary custody.”

  “Don’t do this rashly, Eric.”

  “Susan, I never do anything rashly. I’ve never done a rash thing in my entire life.” Eric flashed on how he’d turned Kristine away, in the parking garage. Any other man would have had her against the car.

  “So you considered it, over the weekend?”

  “I did nothing but consider it. Every decision I make is the most endlessly well-considered decision you can ever imagine, analyzed every which way from Sunday, including relevant pros and cons, research data, family-of-origin, barometric pressure, bloodwork, and the status of my own bowel movements.”

  Susan chuckled. “You’re funny when you’re mad.”

  “I don’t feel funny, I feel like I’m being shut out of my own daughter’s life. If this is the shape of things to come, then I want to file for primary custody.”

  “Fine. I’ll draft and file the papers quickly serve them on Daniel, and copy you. It’s a form, and I want to move before the court approves the previous agreement we filed.”

  “Go for it.” Eric knew it was the right thing to do. He didn’t relish the combat for Hannah, but he would help her get through. Eric felt as if he had crossed a line, and there was no going back. “As for my hospital job, I don’t want to give it up yet. What do you think?”

  “It can wait. You offered to quit the job, and I agreed because it makes your case for custody stronger. It makes it a closer case if you have a big job, but I’m not afraid of a close case. If you only win the easy ones, what kind of lawyer are you?”

  “Okay, good.”

  “After I file, we all go by the agreement. On your nights, you should take Hannah to your house to sleep over.”

  “Okay, good. So I pick her up when it says in the agreement and take her over to my house?”

  “Yes, exactly. The agreement provides that you take her to school the next morning, so you’ll get your mornings with her that way, eh?”

  “Good point.” Eric considered it. “So I’ll have her alternating Tuesday and Thursday mornings, plus two weekends a month.”

  “Exactly. Meet all the terms and times of the agreement. Caitlin thought you would be the only one to lose time, but now, so will she.”

  “It sounds like a war, with Hannah in the middle.”

  “Get used to it, Eric. I’m advising you to take her because not only will it give you more time with her, but it would look better to the court. You don’t want to be asking for more time when you haven’t utilized the time you’ve been given.”

  “Right. I see, we’re making a record.”

  “Exactly. You also don’t want to be in a position where the fact that you haven’t been taking her overnight is somehow used against you, suggesting that you weren’t interested.”

  “True, and school is almost over anyway.” Eric could envision it, and it eased his heart. “I already painted the room.”

  “Good. Tomorrow morning when you go over there, don’t start any discussions with Caitlin about not letting you take Hannah to school. She told Daniel that she wants all communication to be between the lawyers, and that’s right. You may have been able to work together before, but for now it’s radio silence.”

  “Whatever, fine.” Eric had founded his entire professional life on the notion that talking could heal people and solve problems, but now he had to not talk to his own wife, about the most important problem in his life.

  “Finally, don’t breathe a word to her that we’re going to file for primary custody. Be nice to her. Act like you’re working with her. In terms of strategy, I want to spring it on her. I’m hoping to file our papers and serve Daniel right away, to surprise her before the weekend.”

  “What’s the thinking there?” Eric’s stomach flipped over, his loyalties mixed. As angry as he felt at Caitlin, it was strange to be conspiring against her. He lost focus a minute, feeling himself enter uncharted emotional territory.

  “Look, Eric, no more Mr. Nice Guy. This is litigation, and we want to win. If we file before the weekend, we give her the weekend to worry.”

  “But how does that help us win, if she worries?” Eric rubbed his face. Caitlin was becoming his enemy. He’d never had an enemy before, especially not one he loved to the marrow. His wife.

  “We win when we have our adversary off-balance, off-kilter. Winning is not a passive act. You actually have to beat somebody and you beat them before you even enter a courtroom, by dominating them. Especially your ex. She’s a prosecutor, for God’s sake. She wins for a living and she loves Hannah, too.”

  “You’re right, but she doesn’t like Hannah, though she’ll never admit that to herself, much less in court.” Suddenly Eric knew the truth, one that he’d never faced before. “Hannah isn’t the kid she wanted, it’s as simple as that.”

  “There you go.” Susan didn’t miss a beat. “Right now she has the upper hand. She’s calling the shots and shutting you out. We have to get the upper hand and do some shutting out of our own. Litigation is always about power. We’re about to right this imbalance of power.”

  Eric flashed on Kristine, talking about how she had the power, and now here was Susan talking about how he needed to get the power. It struck him as strange that he’d never thought of who had the power in his own marriage. He’d analyzed it in the couples he counseled, but that was an abstraction. That was them, not us.

  “It’s your weekend with Hannah, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it would be.”

  “So she’ll be at your place for the weekend, overnights on Friday and Saturday and home Sunday by seven o’clock. When I file the papers, I’ll let them know that, commencing immediately, you will be there to take her for your weekend with her. You don’t have to communicate that, I will. Got it? Don’t be late with the pickups or the drop-offs. Judges hate that.”

  “I’m never late.” Eric didn’t add, for anything.

  “That’s good for Hannah to be with you this weekend. When Caitlin is upset, she’ll be insulated from it.”

  “Right.” Eric felt reassured that Susan was concerned for Hannah’s well-being. “I really want to minimize the effect on
Hannah. It’s bad enough I’m going to be her mother’s adversary, and she picks up on things. That will really bother her.”

  “I’m aware. Finally, I want you to keep your nose clean.”

  “My nose couldn’t be cleaner.”

  “You know what I mean. Imagine that a court will find out everything you do, every misstep, because it will. You’re not dating, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t. Let’s keep the record clean.”

  “Okay.” Eric thought maybe it wasn’t the worst thing that he hadn’t had Kristine against the car.

  “You won’t be lonely forever,” Susan added.

  And Eric thought, Bingo.

  Chapter Eighteen

  4. I grasp quickly what motivates others.

  Circle one: Doesn’t apply to me. Partially applies to me. Fully applies to me.

  Okay, so not everything is going according to plan. I already threw my temper tantrum. I broke my best controller by throwing it against the wall, cracking the casing.

  I feel angry deep down. It’s eating away at me, gnawing at my gut like a pack of rats.

  What is it they say about the Serenity Prayer? You have to learn what you control and let go of what you don’t. Or something like that.

  Okay, so I don’t control everything.

  Evidently I make mistakes.

  I called it wrong.

  I thought it would work, but it didn’t.

  I thought he would go for it, but he didn’t.

  It pisses me off so much. I’m pacing in my bedroom, walking back and forth across the floor, probably wearing a line in the wood. Maybe if I keep pacing I’ll turn into a chain saw, destroying the floor, then butchering the earth itself, then falling to the center and burning alive.

  I thought I understood what motivated him, but I guess I was wrong.

  This is going to be tougher than I thought.

  But part of me likes that. It gets my juices flowing. I’ll try to focus on that part. The part that appreciates the challenge. The part that wants an adversary who is truly worthy, not one I can crush quickly.

  There’s no fun in that, and I’m in it for the game, too.