Chris stood, hands on hips, looking away from her. ‘Maybe you can pacify him. Maybe I’m buying you a fight you don’t need. Maybe if he’s the first to find someone, he’ll go on to other things.’
Terri got up and went to him. ‘I want custody of Elena,’ she said. ‘And then I want to spend time with you. I have to be careful, that’s all. Just until this hearing’s over.’
Chris became narrow-eyed with thought. His quiet made Terri anxious. ‘Is there anything you even want?’ she asked. ‘Because for me, I have to put Elena first.’
‘What’s bothering me is yesterday. All that restraint, and I’m paying for it anyhow.’ He smiled down at her. ‘Two weeks is a long time to live with the knowledge that I’m an idiot.’
In her relief, Terri found herself laughing. ‘Two hours,’ she said, ‘is a long time with Elena, unless you’re seeking custody. We should rescue Carlo.’
When they returned, Carlo and Elena were still in the library. Elena had planted herself in his lap, and the floor was a mess. Carlo glanced at his watch with a look of mock annoyance, an important man with places to go and teenagers to see. ‘We’ve done a trip down memory lane,’ he reported. ‘My childhood from seven to thirteen – puzzle by puzzle and game by game.’ He looked at his father. ‘You saving this stuff for my kids or something? Or for the Smithsonian?’
Chris smiled. ‘Cooperstown,’ he rejoined. ‘Along with your baseball glove and first athletic supporter. From Little League.’
‘What’s an athletic support?’ Elena asked Carlo.
‘Great, Dad.’ Turning to Elena, Carlo grinned at her. ‘My dad wouldn’t know. And I won’t tell you till you’re six. Give you something to look forward to.’
Elena put her arms on his shoulders, bumping her head against Carlo’s. ‘Tell me now,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll never marry you. Ever.’
Watching their children, Chris and Terri shared the smile of parents.
Chapter 6
The mediator’s office was a bare rectangle in the Alameda County Administrative Building, In Oakland. Terri and Richie had sat against a blank wall, several feet from each other; Alec Keene – a fortyish mediator with a salt-and-pepper beard, horn-rimmed glasses, and a quizzical expression – had turned his chair to face them.
Terri had felt tense, concerned about Keene’s first impression. In a gray suit and white blouse, she looked like what she was – a lawyer who had come from work. But with his corduroy slacks, checked shirt, and sweater with its sleeves pulled up, Richie resembled the benign head of a creative preschool for children whose parents valued ceramics and free play. He gazed at Keene with a pleasant, expectant expression. Keene would need to have been a mind reader to know, as Terri did, that Richie had studied the local family-law procedures so carefully that he could have given Keene’s opening speech himself.
‘So my central purpose here,’ Keene summarized, ‘is to see whether we can resolve custody of Elena without the ordeal of a courtroom.’
He paused gazing from Terri to Richie. ‘I’m sure we’d both like that,’ Richie said. His voice was hesitant, humbled by their joint responsibility. ‘I love Elena very much, and I know that Terri does too.’
Richie wanted to establish a persona, Terri saw at once, to make it harder to attack him. ‘We have thirteen days,’ Keene told them, ‘before the hearing on support and interim custody. If the two of you can’t come to some agreement, this office will make a recommendation to the court regarding interim custody until you do reach an agreement or permanent custody is awarded by the court.’
The not-so-tacit message was that compromise was better. ‘How can you do that,’ Terri asked, ‘without any background beyond whatever we tell you?’
Keene nodded his acknowledgment. ‘That’s why we’d much prefer that the parents, who really do know the child, try to work this out.’ He looked to Richie and back again. ‘But if they can’t someone has to resolve – and pretty quickly – the child’s immediate situation.’
Terri leaned forward. ‘But doesn’t that put too great an emphasis on this one meeting? As I understand it, interim custody orders tend to become permanent.’
Keene’s eyes opened in an expression of candor. ‘Not always. But I admit that if the status quo seems to be working, the court may be reluctant to change it. Absent compelling reasons.’
‘What are those?’ Richie interjected. ‘Can you give me an example?’
Keene touched his beard. ‘I’d say the real hot-button issues are child neglect, substance abuse, the mental instability of a parent, or evidence of physical or sexual abuse.’ His tone became cautionary. ‘Those kinds of allegations are becoming more and more common. In cases where parents start playing to win, it’s sometimes hard to tell whether we’re dealing with truth or tactics.’
Richie shook his head, as if to signal his wonderment that people would exploit such problems. ‘That’s not the situation here. Not between me and Ter.’ He turned to Terri for affirmation. ‘I mean, we may disagree, but I’m sure that neither one of us questions each other’s sincerity.’
Terri met his eyes, letting a quizzical smile play across her mouth. She could only hope that Keene would get the message: her husband was an actor, and she was too polite to say so. Richie turned back to the mediator, eyes narrowing in pretend hurt. How terrible, Terri thought to, play games for the future of a child.
Keene seemed to watch them both more closely. ‘Let me gather some data, just to get the mundane out of the way.’ He turned to Terri. ‘Where do you work, Terri?’
His manner was that of a man too well-mannered to show his boredom with routine. Terri knew better: her trial lawyer’s instincts told her that he had already read this as a potential custody fight and was trying to determine who could best spend time with Elena. The next few answers could damage her beyond repair.
‘As a trial lawyer.’ Her voice was cool and measured. ‘At the law offices of Christopher Paget.’
She felt Richie stir. Keene glanced at him quickly, then leaned toward Terri, as if something had just struck him. ‘You defended the Carelli case, didn’t you?’
Terri nodded. ‘I was co-counsel, yes.’
‘That must have been an incredible challenge.’ He stopped, as if at another thought. ‘In the past year, what have been your normal hours of work?’
‘Nine to five-thirty.’ There was no point in trying to fool him. ‘Sometimes later.’
‘Weekends?’ he asked sympathetically.
‘Sometimes. Only when I was in trial, really.’
‘When you were in later, or in trial, who watched Elena?’
‘Her preschool, the Discovery School, has her until six. Sometimes on the weekend, I’ll take her to my office.’ She glanced at Richie. ‘As of twelve days ago, when we separated, I told the partner I work for that I really can’t travel, that weekends are out, and that I have to leave promptly at five-thirty. So I’m ready to give Elena a predictable routine and to be with her pretty much anytime she’s not in school.’
Keene raised an eyebrow. ‘And your boss understands?’
Richie turned to watch her. ‘He’s a single father,’ Terri answered simply.
Keene paused at that. ‘Okay,’ he answered, and turned to Richie. ‘I believe when you called me, Mr Arias, you said that you work at home.’
‘I do.’ Richie’s face became alight with pleasure. ‘On a new computer program, called Lawsearch. I really think it’ll revolutionize legal research.’
Looking for a weakness, Terri wondered if he would go too far, overplaying the great promoter until he seemed too preoccupied to parent Elena. As if reading her thoughts, Richie added, ‘It’s been a good compromise.’
His tone suggested that his meaning was evident to Terri. But as Richie had intended, Keene asked, ‘Between what and what?’
‘Between work and parenting.’ He leaned back, spreading his hands. For Terri, his gestures had the same quicksilver quality as his expressions, as if nothing abo
ut him was quite real. But the look he turned on Keene radiated conviction. ‘Terri and I have always hated this yuppie-parent syndrome – you know, the over achieving two-career couple who come home burned out around the kid’s bedtime, grab a drink, and ask the nanny how her day went.’ He gave Terri a confiding smile, as if warmed by the memory of their joint concern. ‘We tried having both of us work in offices for a while and decided it just wasn’t right. So we agreed to put the emphasis on Terri’s career and have me at home for Elena. It just makes sense that way – of the two of us, I’m the entrepreneurial one. It turns out I was also the lucky one. Watching Elena grow has been more rewarding than I ever dreamed.’ He paused, seemingly touched by the thought, and softly said to Terri: ‘No matter what, Ter, I’m really proud of what we’ve done.’
It was a test, Terri realized: in the conspiracy that had been their marriage, it was Terri’s role to cover for him, and he counted on that still. ‘I’m proud too,’ she said to Richie. ‘Of some things. The only problem is that none of the things you just described ever happened.’
Richie’s face was turned from Keene; only Terri could see his reflexive look of anger and surprise. But she kept on speaking to Richie. ‘So let’s talk about what did happen,’ she said. ‘When I got pregnant with Elena, before we were married, I told you that I wasn’t sure we should be married at all. You answered that you wanted a family, that our child would be the center of it. So I asked if I could just stay at home with her. At least for a while.’
Richie’s eyes shone with resentment; Terri felt the guilt of her betrayal, the habit of five years. She forced herself to look straight at Richie. ‘“Of course,” you answered. “I want you home for our baby too. That’s part of why we should get married.”
‘So we did.’ Tern’s voice went flat. ‘And as soon as Elena was born, you quit your new job without telling me and decided to get an M.B.A. To help secure Elena’s future, you said.’
‘That’s not exactly how it happened –’
‘That’s exactly how it happened.’ Terri leaned toward him. ‘So I had to return to law school when Elena was six weeks old and then scrambled to find the first job I could, at the P.D.’s office, while you took out a loan and went to grad school. I’m still paying off the loan.
‘In the first year after you got out of grad school, you quit or got fired from two more firms. When your credit card charges got too high for me to carry, I left a job I’d gotten to quite like and took one with Chris’s office,’ Her voice grew quiet. ‘When I came home that night and told you what I’d be making, you said you were proud of me because now you could “work at home.” I started crying – I was so damned tired. You got angry and stormed out. But I couldn’t even go after you to argue or plead. I had Elena to put to bed. As I do every night.’ She turned to Keene. ‘Elena has one stable parent – me. I want custody of our daughter.’
Keene looked at them both, mouth half open. His quizzical smile seemed to have frozen in place.
With a look of deep sorrow, Richie shook his head. ‘Why are you saying this, Terri? We made those decisions together. Remember all those long dinners. My God . . .’ He seemed to choke on the words, looking to Keene for help. ‘They say divorce does this to people, but I just can’t believe that it’s done it to us.’ He bowed his head, raising his hand to ask for time. ‘Sorry.’
It would not do, Terri saw, for her to interrupt. Richie sat straighter in his chair, as if fighting to recover his dignity, then spoke to Keene. ‘The simple fact is that for the last year and a half, I’ve been home with Elena. In the structure of our family, I’m the one she turns to. We can talk about anything Elena wants to talk about.’ He stopped for a moment. ‘She’s the center of my life, all right?’
‘How many times,’ Terri asked, ‘have I left work to pick Elena because you were too busy? And when you do talk to her, it’s about your problems. Elena’s a child, not a little adult.’ Terri caught herself; Richie’s edge was that Keene could not know where reality lay, so that the truth might sound too harsh. ‘Parenting is more than hanging around the house. And in this case, it’s not collecting child support, either. I need you to help support her.’
‘What is this, Ter? An attack on my entire life? Character smears?’ Richie’s voice rose with hurt and anger. ‘Under the circumstances, I think I’ve been damned restrained.’
‘All right,’ Keene interjected. ‘I think I’ve got the flavor of your disagreements. Have you discussed solutions?’
‘I’ve tried,’ Richie put in quickly, and then made his tone more soothing. ‘Look, I know Terri. She’s a good mom. Elena loves her and she should see her. I just think that I should raise her, that’s all.’
He turned to Terri, voice softer still. ‘I think you think so too, Ter. At some other time, when your thing with Chris has calmed down a little, I’m sure we can work this out in Elena’s best interests. Just give me a three-month trial period, that’s all.’
Keene removed his glasses, placed one stem beside his mouth. ‘I missed something,’ he said to Richie. ‘This “thing with Chris” . . .’
‘It’s hard for me to face – traumatic, actually.’ Richie took a deep breath, gazing at the floor. ‘Terri’s having an affair with her boss. Christopher Paget. Since it started, it seems I can’t do anything right. He’s good-looking and rich – everything Terri wishes I was. I simply can’t compete.’
Keene watched him. ‘That’s a little out of my realm,’ he said gently.
Richie glanced up quickly. ‘Look, I know I need to seprate my feelings about that from my positive feelings about Terri as a mom.’ His voice grew stronger. ‘The only thing is, I can’t help but think it’s affecting her judgment about Elena. The last thing that little girl needs is to be suddenly forced to rely on a distracted mother with a demanding job and a new boyfriend who isn’t the dad that Elena’s grown up loving.’
‘That,’ Terri answered, ‘is not true. Chris and I are friends, and I may be seeing him. But I wasn’t during our marriage –’
‘We are married,’ Richie broke in. ‘Two weeks ago, we were living together. We’ve never even seen a marriage counselor. So don’t tell me that Christopher Paget has nothing to do with the hell we’re putting Elena through.’
‘All that Chris has to do with Elena,’ Terri shot back, ‘is that he’s given me shorter hours so that I can raise her. Which is far more help than you’ve ever given me.’
Richie flushed. In the silence, Keene looked glumly at them both. ‘Our time is up,’ he said finally. ‘Unfortunately, absent some change, I’m going to have to make a recommendation to the court that someone won’t like. Maybe both of you.’
That was it. A quick handshake, a neutral word of encouragement, and she and Richie were in the hall.
Terri felt suddenly empty; Elena’s future, she thought in wonderment, might just have been decided.
Richie clutched her arm. ‘You said a lot of crap in there, Terri. Nothing but lies. But it won’t get you a thing. Because you’ve got no idea of how to reach people.’ His voice grew quiet with contempt. ‘Which is why you’re going to lose her. Big time.’
She turned to face him. ‘You said I was attacking your whole life. There’s just one thing I forgot to mention.’ She moved close, staring up into his face. ‘You’re a shitty lover, Richie. I mean really, really bad.’
He reddened and then mananged a faint, superior smile. ‘And there’s something I forgot to mention – something I picked up from a lawyer I’ve been consulting.’ He almost whispered now. ‘Alec Keene’s wife just left him. For a lawyer. See you in court, Ter.’
Chapter 7
For security reasons – chiefly the potential for disappointed fathers to run amok with guns – the family court was housed in the Municipal Court building, a bleak and dingy building whose cramped entryway housed a guard and a metal detector. As an urban criminal lawyer, Terri was inured to such surroundings; passing through the metal detector with her lawyer – a pert
, red-haired divorce specialist named Janet Flaherty, whom Terri had found through Chris – Terri the mother had felt a rising dread.
A cheery voice spoke out behind her. ‘“Abandon all hope,”’ it quoted, ‘“ye who enter here.”’
Turning, Terri saw Richie’s too bright smile. Part of him, she realized with amazement, enjoyed the attention he was about to receive. ‘Have you been lurking outside, reading Bartlett’s Quotations?’
‘Such a cynic.’ Still grinning, he extended his hand to Janet Flaherty. ‘Janet? I’m Richie Arias. We’ve spoken on the phone. Can we talk a moment’ – his head twitched toward Terri – ‘without your client?’
Terri felt her face tighten: unerringly, Richie knew how hard it was for Terri to speak for Elena through someone else. Flaherty regarded him with a blank expression. ‘Can we talk for a moment,’ she asked, ‘without your client?’
Richie laughed with great good humor. ‘I think only caterpillars can do that.’ The smile flashed again. ‘Or worms.’
Flaherty’s face did not change. ‘Exactly.’
They took the elevator to the third floor, stood in the green tile hall outside the courtroom. Ignoring Terri, Richie fixed Flaherty with a gaze of profound seriousness. ‘I just wanted to avoid any undue emotion. What I was hoping, Janet, is that you might help mediate between Terri and me. We don’t seem to be talking too well.’
Richie with his party manners, Terri thought grimly. But Flaherty stayed level and unimpressed. ‘One reasonable step,’ she said ‘would be for you to look for work. As we’ve requested the court to direct.’
Richie shook his head in disappointment. ‘At this critical time in our daughter’s life, the last thing she needs is two absent parents. I do work. At home.’
Flaherty suppressed a grimace. ‘We’ve plowed this ground before. So what’s the proposition now?’
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