by Debra Kent
I could feel the thunderclouds roiling in my skull, the prelude to a colossal migraine. And I felt such despair. I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation. It was all so impossibly surreal, the idea that Roger might wind up with full custody. My mind raced ahead to nightmare scenarios. Surfer Girl insisting that Pete call her “Mommy.” Watching Pete through Roger’s living room window like some Peeping Tom. I forced myself to stay focused.
“Valerie, Are you absolutely sure that Pete is Roger’s child?”
The question knocked the wind out of me. “What?”
“I’m sorry, Valerie. But I have to ask.”
“Yes, I am quite certain that Roger is Pete’s father. I’m not the pathological philanderer, remember?”
“Yes, of course I do. But if all else fails …”
“Failure is not an option, Omar.” I started to cry. “I can’t lose Pete. I’d kill myself.”
Omar grabbed my wrist. “Hey. Don’t you dare think that way. And don’t you ever, ever let anyone else hear you say that. Roger and Sloan would have a field day with a comment like that. Do you understand me?”
I was sobbing now.
“Look. You wanted to do this, not me. I told you to relax and sit tight until we knew who the courts were assigning to the case. But you insisted. And so here we are, talking worse-case scenarios. But that’s all we’re doing, Valerie. We’re talking. You’ve got to pull yourself together.”
He slid a new box of tissues across the table. I grabbed a handful and wiped my face. My mascara was all over the place. I hadn’t planned on crying today.
“At the risk of making you even more miserable,” Omar began, and I braced myself. “Roger is going to sue for child support. My guess is he’ll be aiming for twenty thousand a month, maybe more.”
“You’re kidding, right?” But I looked at Omar’s face and knew he wasn’t.
“The good news,” Omar said, “is that you can afford it.”
I guess that’s true. But it didn’t make me feel any better.
It’s two in the morning. I can’t sleep. What will Sloan say about me? That I cheated on my husband? That I put my own clients at risk by skipping out of work? That I tried to break into my supervisor’s e-mail account? That I left my home every day to work downtown while my husband stayed home with Pete? It’s all true. But it hardly compares with Roger’s history.
Unless we get Judge Willis.
’Til next time,
V
August 7
I fell today. Flat on my ass. Slipped on a piece of cracked sidewalk. As I flew through the air, I had the following train of thought: I’m slipping because my neighbors refuse to fix their sidewalk. I really should complain to them. I could even sue them. But I haven’t fixed the cracks in my walk either. Which means that people could just as easily slip in front of my house. And if they do, and if they know about my divorce settlement (and it appears that everyone in town does), they might sue me. So I’d better start repairing my sidewalk. I’d better go to Walmart and buy some concrete mix.
Who should I see at Walmart but Mr. Bill Stropp himself, the lunatic, the tree hater, the maniac who lives behind my house. He was in the hunting goods department (big surprise), and I watched as he picked out some sort of rifle. He felt its heft in his hands, hoisted it onto his shoulder, peered through the sight and aimed the gun at the fishing rods hanging overhead. I suppose I should have run in the opposite direction, but something held me there.
It didn’t take long for him to notice me. “Hey. It’s the tree hugger,” he said with a smirk.
I smirked right back at him. “Going hunting?”
“You bet,” he said. “Bear hunting.”
“Smokey or Yogi?”
He squinted at me through those heavy lids of his. “Lemme guess. You’re not just a tree hugger, you’re a save-the-whales type too.”
He ran his hand over his short hair and shook his head. “Actually, it’s Alaskan brown bear. Heading out to the Canadian coastal range.” He lifted the second gun to his shoulder and pointed it at the sleeping bags on the wall. “Nothing like an Alaskan brown bear. Biggest sonofabitch I ever laid eyes on. Stands eight feet tall on his hind legs. Twelve hundred pounds of pure terror.” He put the gun down. “Wanna come along? I could use a good cook.”
I can’t believe he asked me that. What a sexist jerk! “I think I’ll pass, if it’s all the same to you,” I told him. I started to leave.
“What about those trees?” he called out.
I ignored him. I can’t stand hunters. I think I’ll write him a nice long e-mail and tell him exactly what I think of people who kill innocent animals for sport.
’Til next time,
V
August 8
I’m determined to be nicer to Lynette Kohl-Chase. So I dragged out the pressure cooker and made a pot of my mother’s chili (from scratch), baked some cornbread (from mix), and toted it over to Lynette’s house, feeling rather pleased with myself.
Lynette greeted me with a grimace. “I was just about to call you,” she said, leading me into her characteristically immaculate kitchen. A sterling tea set was neatly arranged on a folded blue kitchen towel. A tub of silver polish and flannel cloth sat beside them. “You’re so ambitious,” I told her.
Lynette peeled off her yellow rubber gloves while I set the chili on her sparkling white cooktop. “It’s the second Tuesday of the month,” she explained matter-of-factly, laying the gloves over the edge of the sink. “Polishing day.”
“And what’s the third Tuesday of the month?” I teased.
“Ceiling fans and baseboards,” she replied without missing a beat. “But if I had your money, I’d hire someone to polish my silver and wash my baseboards and I’d be eating bon-bons in France. Or someplace far, far away from here.”
My money. Who knows how much longer it would be mine? What if Roger wins custody of Pete? What if he convinces that fathers’ rights fanatic into reversing our settlement so Pete can “live in the manner to which he has grown accustomed”? I didn’t want to think about that now.
“So, you said you were just about to call me. Is everything okay?” I assumed Lynette would want to talk about her bizarre new sex life, but, actually, she wanted to talk about me.
“Roger’s lawyer called me,” she began, and I felt my lunch surge in my stomach. “He wants to take a statement from me,” Lynette continued. “I think he’s going to make me testify against you!”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the lawyer—Sloan, I think his name was— asked me all kinds of questions. About you, what kind of mother you were, if you ever left Pete alone, if you had men at your house.” Lynette rubbed her eyes. “He just kept asking and asking, one question after the other. He totally caught me off guard. I’m afraid I might have said the wrong thing. Oh, Valerie!” Lynette bit her lower lip and stared at me.
“What did you say, Lynette? Tell me what you said!” I felt myself teetering on the precipice of hysteria. I wanted to shake her by the shoulders.
“I don’t remember exactly,” Lynette said, her voice cracking. “I told him about Eddie, how I saw him maybe once or twice here. I mentioned the detective….”
“What else, Lynette? What else did you tell him?”
She started crying and put her face in her hands. “Oh, Valerie, I’m afraid I’ve really messed things up for you.”
Now I really was shaking her. “What did you say, Lynette?”
“I told him about the time the boys carved soap at your house. With real knives. He asked me if I felt comfortable letting my own son play at your house and I, I told him how after that whole knife thing, I hesitated letting Hunter play there because”—she choked and sobbed—“I didn’t think you were attentive enough. And I was afraid the boys might get hurt.”
“Oh, Lynette, you didn’t.” I gripped the edge of the counter to steady myself. I wanted to hate her, but she obviously hated herself enough for both of us.
“Yeah, but did you have to dredge up ancient history? He didn’t specifically ask about the knives, did he? You volunteered that one yourself, right? What were you thinking, Lynette? What the hell were you thinking?” I was shaking now. Dear God, I was going to lose Pete! I grabbed Lynette’s cordless phone. “I’ve got to call my lawyer.”
“Of course, of course, go ahead.” Lynette stood back, stuffed a knuckle in her mouth and watched me dial. I told Omar everything.
“I can’t say I’m surprised, given the way your luck has been going today,” Omar said, sighing deeply.
“What do you mean?” I glanced at Lynette. She had resumed her silver polishing, listening in. She looked stricken.
“There’s good news, and then I’m afraid there is very bad news,” he said. His voice sounded weary.
“Go on,” I told him.
“The good news is, we’re not getting Willis,” Omar said, and at first I felt my heart do a joyful cartwheel. This wasn’t just good news, it was great news! I didn’t think I had a chance with that fathers’ rights zealot. “So what’s the bad news?” I asked Omar.
“The bad news is that your ex-husband has had an ex parte hearing with Judge Brand.”
“Speak English, Omar. What does that mean?” I had a feeling it was something really bad.
“It means that your husband had a private consultation with another judge. The one who’s presiding over your case. Ex parte means that they met without you.”
“Is that even legal?” I asked. How could it be?
“Yes. I’m afraid it’s perfectly legal.”
“Okay. But I’m still not sure why this is such bad news,” I continued. “It’s not as if this new judge is another fathers’ rights fanatic, is he?”
“No. It’s worse than that,” Omar explained. “He’s a bitter, vindictive man whose wife left him last year. For a woman.”
“Maybe I’m dense, Omar, but I still don’t see why that’s a problem for me.”
“Because Roger is claiming that you left him for the same reason. And he says he has proof.” He paused. “Valerie, is there something you haven’t told me?”
I had to laugh. A lesbian? Me? He might as well have accused me of being an Olympic gymnast; in either case my body just isn’t designed to work that way. “I don’t think Roger’s going to get much mileage out of this strategy,” I told Omar. “He doesn’t have a case.”
“He has pictures,” Omar said quietly.
“Pictures of what?”
“I don’t know. All Sloan would say is that they’ve got photographic evidence. Apparently it was enough to persuade Brand to schedule a hearing to contest the current custody arrangement. He’s going for full custody. And I’m afraid that the testimony from your friend there isn’t going to help.”
“Why don’t we get our own character witnesses? Mary’s aunt Esta?”
Omar sighed heavily. “We could fill a room with Roger Tisdale’s sexual victims, but none of their testimony would go to his competence as a father.” Omar paused. “Lynette didn’t help you on that front either, by the way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why don’t you ask her? Our hearing with Brand is set for next Wednesday at eleven. We can talk later. In the meantime, I want you to put on your thinking cap and see if you can’t come up with some anecdotal evidence of Roger’s incompetence as a father.”
I eyed Lynette, who was intently swabbing an ornate sugar bowl with a Q-Tip. “What did your lawyer have to say?” she asked. She buffed the sugar bowl to a blinding sheen. The smell of my chili commingled with the Tarn-X was nauseating.
“He said that Roger is going for full custody. And he said that your testimony is quite likely to help him make his case. So thanks, Lynette. Thanks a lot.” My head throbbed. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. “Lynette, is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“About what?”
“About your conversation with Roger’s lawyer.”
She began wiping down a silver serving tray.
“Lynette, would you quit polishing the goddamn silver and answer me?” I pushed the tray with my hand and knocked over the Tarn-X bottle, spilling its noxious contents onto the counter and floor.
Lynette grabbed a dish towel. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said, soaking up the spill, though I had not apologized.
“What else did you say, Lynette? Please.”
“Well, I told him about the whole soap carving thing, you already know that. And how Roger had a reputation for playing the field.”
“What else?”
“Well, let’s see …” Lynette scratched her head. “Not much else, I guess.”
“Did Sloan ask you what you thought of Roger as a father? Whether he was a good father?”
She squinted as if trying to recall something deeply buried in her memory banks, but we both knew that the answer was at the surface of consciousness. “Well, yes. He did.”
“And … ?” I prodded.
“And I told him I thought that despite all his character defects, Roger was a wonderful parent, better than most men, better than lots of women. In fact—”
“Better than me?” I cut in.
Lynette cringed like a dog about to be smacked. “Yes. Better than you.” She folded the flannel polishing cloth and placed it on the counter. “I meant, better in the sense that he was home with Pete while you were at work. He was a good dad, Valerie. You have to give him that.”
I was suddenly overwhelmed with animus toward this woman who had a whole shelf in her family room devoted to kids’ crafts, who made her own play dough, taught Hunter and Pete how to create glycerin soap embedded with plastic bugs, made stained-glass windows from old crayons and wax paper, built gingerbread houses from scratch while slouches like me made prefabs with graham crackers and let our boys run wild with kitchen knives. That sweet-faced, baseboard-scrubbing bitch! I wanted to strangle her.
Then I just lost it. I quickly grabbed the pot of chili and dumped it on her floor, and regretted it just as quickly. We both stared at the deep red mess, the meat and beans and chopped tomato spreading across her gleaming tile floor like blood. I grabbed a roll of paper towels and fell to my knees. “I’m sorry, Lynette.” I started to cry. “I’m so sorry.”
“God, no, don’t apologize. You have every right to be angry with me.” She was crying too.
We were both on the floor now, wiping up my mother’s best chili. I felt so sad, so cursed. I’d married a miserable bastard. I’d dated a lunatic. My father was dead. My sisters were no comfort. I had no real friends to speak of. My current boyfriend was nice enough, but something ineffable was missing, something I couldn’t quite name but felt deeply. I felt so horribly alone.
“As long as I’m confessing, I might as well tell you … Roger’s lawyer asked whether you were involved with any women.”
I stopped wiping. “Okay … and what did you say?”
“Well, I have to admit, the question embarrassed me. I was afraid that the next thing he’d be asking was if I were involved with women, and I’d have to tell him about Melanie and Wade and all that.”
“So what did you say?”
“Nothing, really.” Lynette looked down and kept wiping. “Just that you were friends with that Diana. And I knew she was a homosexual. But I doubted you were involved with her. Sexually, I mean.”
“Doubted? You couldn’t say definitively? You don’t know that I like men?”
Lynette looked pained. “I know you like men, Valerie. But I don’t know what goes on behind closed doors.”
“And is that what you told Sloan? That you don’t know what goes on behind closed doors?”
“More or less.”
’Til next time,
V
August 9
I’ve been free-associating on the subject of Roger As Lousy Dad. This is what I�
�ve come up with so far:
A good father recognizes his power as a role model. Therefore, ALL irresponsible behavior (cheating on wife, buying mail-order bride, screwing teenage girls) must be considered irresponsible parenting. Setting up second household (condo) takes time, energy, resources, attention away from child.
Roger let Pete eat junk food. He let him stay up late at night. Sometimes let him wander around house when he should have been in bed. Did these things because he was too busy writing, didn’t have time to look after Pete. Just because Roger worked at home doesn’t mean he was always attentive.
Irresponsible behavior re: violence? Taught Pete to box. Said it was okay to punch anyone who teased him. Max Hubbard called Pete a poophead. Roger told Pete to punch Max in the nose. Said, “One good punch will shut him up for good.”
Left Pete home alone when he was napping. Justifiable? Pete had fever, Roger ran to neighbor’s to get Children’s Tylenol. Maybe not such a good example. I could have stayed home from work that day. Had crush on Eddie, didn’t want to miss work. Better not mention this.
Roger let Pete watch stupid TV shows. Xena, wrestling, Nick at Nite. Didn’t pay attention when Pete was flipping channels. Pete once landed on nude sex scene. Station was scrambled but Pete could see enough to point out, “Hey, those people are naked!”
I called Omar, read my list to him. He said I was scraping the bottom of the barrel. “What about Roger’s depression?” Omar said.
“What about it?” I asked.
“Well, he’s on medication for it, right?”
“He was, a while ago. After one of his plays flopped. He was in bed for two weeks. But that was before Pete was born.”
“Oh. Too bad. Is he still on medication?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Has he been depressed since then?”
“I guess. On and off. At some point during the Alyssa thing he was pretty bad. But he refused to take anything for it.”
“I think we can work with that,” Omar mused. “Clinical depression. I think we can pull something together.”