A Complicated Marriage

by Janice Van Horne

  Hefner’s largesse was prompted not by my interviewing him—he couldn’t have cared less—but by my being his son’s boss. David Gunn, twenty-one, was Hefner’s younger child and my photographer, the best the magazine ever had. He lived in Chicago near his delightful mother, Millie, and would travel with me often. Handsome and fun, he was also unsure of himself, but never more so than when we were at the Mansion. At dinner, around the table filled with regulars, Hefner gratuitously belittled David. I tried to deflect the attack with talk of David’s remarkable work for the magazine, but his father would not let go until he had reduced him to tears. The unacknowledged son, the golden-girl daughter, Christie. Publicly, even privately, it was as if David didn’t exist. But it was the face-to-face father-to-son cruelty that appalled me. And David continued to go back for more.

  After my interview with Hefner, I broached the subject of David’s need of his father’s approval, but I touched no chord. I had stepped over the line. I was very fond of David and admired his father, but didn’t like him.

  Three years slipped by. Not in a blur, not at all—the images were indelible. And from day one, my wish had been realized; once again, I was using myself up fully and happily every day. With pride I watched the magazines piling up on the shelf, each one thicker than the last, proof of a job well done.

  Along the way, in 1976, I picked up a powerful ally, a new analyst. The impetus was my first, and only, panic attack. On Madison Avenue, steps from my office, I found I could barely breathe or swallow. Kathy took me to the emergency room at Lenox Hill. Even as I waited for the shot of whatever to do its thing, I wondered where I could find a good analyst. I asked Joe Smith, a marketing guru and mentor/friend who knew all things, and he referred me to David Rubinfine, a member of that elite coterie, the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.

  It was clear from the start that though David was a Freudian MD, he was a maverick at heart. The first session was remarkable. I dutifully reeled off my life scenario. He, without taking the usual meaningful pause, said, “You’re an orphan.” With that word, the floodgates were finally released. I cried until the session was over. Defying protocol, he walked me to the door, patted my shoulder, and, alakazam, instant transference. It saved a hell of a lot of time and money.

  David was a great analyst. I was a great patient. With his help, my day-to-day empowerment remained intact. With his support, in 1977, I took a step that startled me: I told Clem that I would like a divorce. Clem was startled, too.

  Clem is on the love seat in the living room, where he always sits. I am next to him, where I rarely sit. It is midafternoon on a fall weekend. It is warm. The windows are open. He is angry, the only time he has ever been angry with me. Not loud or full-out in any way. Worse, the anger is in the restraint of it. In his face, in his voice, I can see and hear the effort it takes to hold the anger back. All I can say is, “I want to know what it would be like to be single.” He calls it “a meaningless gesture.” I agree on some level; it does seem out of nowhere and frivolous. But it isn’t meaningless.

  “What’s wrong with the way we are now?”

  “Nothing. It’s just something I need to do.” Which brings us back to “meaningless gesture.” We repeat the circle a few times and then sit in silence. In my mind I start second-guessing. I know the time is right, but the words feel hollow. I feel strong, but I am unsure how long that feeling will last. Most of all, I find I am unable to talk definitively about a separation. I am afraid.

  Clem’s anger subsides. We go to the kitchen for another drink. It is there that he asks if my reason is another man. I say there is no one. He repeats one of his life axioms: “To leave one person for another doesn’t speak well for one’s character.” I am reminded how much I believe that. Only two years ago, Charlie asked one day whether, if he left his marriage, my door would be open. My response, an emphatic no. “If you leave, you leave for yourself, not for me.”

  Once again in the living room, Clem becomes practical and says, “As long as it is all done through one lawyer.” Given that neither of us has ever had a lawyer, much less known one, that seems a good idea. Then he adds, “And it should be no one’s fault.” Makes sense. And then he says, “And as long as nothing changes.” That’s when I know all will be right in our world. We talk about Sarah, who we suspect won’t even notice the difference. And then we move on to the more mundane: the magazine, what bills have come in, did the maid show up on Tuesday . . . And when I leave, we kiss.

  I found Jack Strauss, the perfect lawyer, through a magazine friend who had recently divorced. We met with Jack, a rare lawyer who had creativity and imagination, only once. The final divorce paper was three pages long, reduced from its original length, when Clem said it was overly complicated. He particularly took issue with the phrase irreconcilable differences, but agreed to it after the lawyer read off the menu of alternatives. Typically, after the final decree arrived, Clem edited it and struck out that paragraph. The pieces of paper with a blue cover went into the metal box in his office that held our very few “important documents.”

  In today’s climate of adversarial divorce, I look at the decades-old document and am struck by its civility and simplicity, and the degree to which it reflects mutual esteem and trust. Two portions are particularly telling. Regarding joint custody (another phrase that grated on Clem) of Sarah, age thirteen:“ . . . they agree that being an intelligent young girl, she may reside or be with either of her parents as she, from time to time, may decide.”

  And the final paragraph:“That this document, limited as it is, was arrived at solely between the parties themselves without the aid of an attorney . . . the only part played by him—pursuant to their wishes—was to reduce their agreement to writing . . . and because of their amiable relationship, their agreement has been limited to the provisions contained herein as the only provisions they feel necessary to be included and which they chose to consider.”

  I don’t know if I thought about it at the time, but Clem had another life axiom that would have pertained; “Never marry someone you can’t imagine divorcing.” He was so right. If I had been married to anyone else, my “gesture” could easily have escalated into a nightmare. And kudos again to our lawyer, who understood his quirky clients and made it the non-event it was meant to be. Now, when I ask Sarah about it, she agrees. “I suppose I knew about it. But it wasn’t important.”

  A few months later, in June, my mother called to say she was going into the Falmouth Hospital to have an operation. With her usual vagueness she added, “Nothing serious. I just haven’t been feeling quite right.” I called her doctor, who supplied the chilling adjectives exploratory operation and possible pancreatic cancer and added, “No, she doesn’t know. No need to upset her.”

  The hospital, airy and bright, more like a country hotel. Her room looked out over a stretch of gardens and trees. How pretty she looked, eyes bright, her hennaed hair shining against the white of the pillow. I had never seen my mother sick or stretched out on a bed, much less a hospital bed. I had come up immediately; Norden flew in the next day. She was so happy we were there, together. Such a small family; such a lousy excuse for a reunion. We put on quite a show. He and I kidded around, unwrapped the old family jokes. Hours passed as we leaped over the elephant. Secrets, always secrets.

  The hospital room was easy. Later, back at the house, would be more difficult. Over the last three years, thanks to my sessions with David, my wounds with my mother had begun to heal as I had slowly sopped up the anger and guilt that had festered so long. But Norden. All it took was two drinks, and the resentments—old, new, real, and alleged—streamed out of me. He didn’t react. Much like our father, he had a passivity that almost precluded reaction. He also had an unshakable belief that he was always in the right. Both traits drove me to a fury and to an early end to a long day.

  The following afternoon, Norden and I learned the crushing facts about pancreatic cancer: It was swift, relatively painless, and the cancer the doctor would c
hoose for himself. Or did he say that to all his patients? They had opened her up and closed her up. Nothing to be done. How different from protocols today—no Internet searches, alternative treatments, life-prolonging procedures. And no “full disclosure.” We all agreed that she need not know. Never had I heard my mother say the word cancer. If pressed, she would whisper, “the Big C.” She had a particular fear of breast cancer and was convinced that if her breasts were ever bruised, she would die of it. Odd, in view of the fact that no one in her family had ever died of breast cancer, or any cancer.

  Those were the facts of it. But that was by no means all of it for me. After hearing the doctor’s report, I collapsed into a chair. I refused to believe it. She couldn’t die. It was impossible. I couldn’t listen, all I could do was moan and sob, “No.” Over and over. By the time she was returned to the room, my cheerful face was glued back in place and I was ready to paint pretty pictures for her, just as she had always done for me as she tucked me in at night. She devoutly believed in good thoughts, that everything would be better tomorrow. I thought of the three exquisitely carved ivory monkeys that had always sat on her Chinese desk. Gifts from her father, they had taught her well. Buffeted by whatever travails befell her, and now by the cancer that trespassed inside her, she saw, heard, and spoke of them not at all.

  Late that night at her house, the phone awakened me. A moment’s hesitation; then a man said, “Is Norden there?” Three words, yet I knew it was my father. Numb, I called upstairs to Norden. He picked up the extension and I hung up. My father’s voice. I hadn’t heard it in twenty-three years, but I knew it. A bland voice, unweighted by emotion, bordering on indifference. A not-unpleasant voice delivering, in effect, a harsh message: I have nothing to say to you. And his brief hesitation told me that he hadn’t even considered the possibility that I, too, might be in my mother’s house that night. Yes, indifference. I had already cried too much that day. I watched my hurt, my anger, wash through me. They would find no foothold, at least not then.

  Over the next two months, I went to the Cape most weekends and called often. The real angel in the family was my stepsister, Judy, who had always maintained a close relationship with my mother. During those last weeks at home, Judy stayed with her as the disease progressed, bringing jaundice and rashes. More and more, my mother stayed in a hospital bed set up by the window in the living room. Thankfully, the doctor had been right. Her pain was minimal, the bottle of Demerol barely touched. And then, beyond even the ministrations of the angel, she was back in the hospital.

  She declined daily. Yet each morning I was taken aback, as if I thought there should be a plateau where she could rest awhile, where we could hang out, have a chat, do what mothers and daughters are supposed to do. But there never was a plateau. Too soon, she retreated into herself, and when she did connect, she was terse and demanding. That mother, who I had never met before, crescendoed one morning when her sister, Elfrida, came to visit and she lashed out, “I don’t want you here. Get out.” I wanted to raise a flag. Finally, “Poor Lolly” had stood up for herself in the love-hate sisterhood that had teetered on half-truths for a lifetime. She had finally told it like it was.

  Then she, who had never taken an aspirin, was given IV drugs and she went further away. One afternoon, drifting on her drugs, she was rapturously happy. I asked her why. “I am dancing,” she said, “dancing with my David.” I could see my parents in their late teens: he the boy next door, she with the secret crush, both so beautiful, dancing on the cusp of love.

  And then the day was there. It was very early, the Thursday before Labor Day. I kissed her on that narrow bed, her face a dark yellow and raised slightly as if to drink in the light she couldn’t see, her shrunken body barely there beneath the sheet. Quiet, alone. I held her hand and told her I was sorry for the pain I had caused her. I told her I loved her. My sweet, loving, soft mommy. I told her all would be well. I searched for her inside the face I didn’t know. Was she still there? It didn’t matter. Did she hear? It didn’t matter. I hoped she was happy.

  The epilogue of her life was written over the next four days. Norden and I composed the obituary, arranged the funeral, buried her, and had a small gathering at the house. We packed up her life in boxes color-coded to my brother, to me, to sell, to a yard sale, to trash. We spoke to the lawyer about her will, to her cousin who lived nearby to oversee the sale of the house, and to a used-furniture dealer. Throughout, I was hot, I was cold, my eyes ran, my nose ran, until I didn’t know if I was distraught or sick.

  Seven rooms, an attic, and a basement. So much stuff. And nothing came easily. Norden and I had not been brought up to share. No need to, when the boy is entitled and the other is just a girl. I had lost my mother, and now I lost my equilibrium. I was a successful forty-four-year-old woman. I was a hardscrabble kid desperate to grab her marbles. Nothing would erase the sordid scavenging, the chill dampness of the basement, the heat of the attic, the musty excavation of closets and drawers that hadn’t been opened in years. All as the clock ticked. Endings should fade away at their own pace, but I didn’t know that then. So that was not the way it was. After all, Norden and I had lives.

  Overwhelming events have a way of piling up, or so it seemed in the wake of my mother’s death. That winter, almost three years into my analysis, David had a heart attack and decided to move to Los Angeles. The timing couldn’t have been worse. He was the most insightful, effective analyst I could have hoped for, and I had become increasingly dependent on him for guidance. Who would I talk to about things like the phone call I got at the office a few weeks after Ma died?

  Midmorning, while I was knee deep in the magazine, Elfrida called me. Always one to have the last word, she wasted no time: “You killed your mother.” There were a few other words, but that was the message. I don’t know what I said, if anything, or who hung up first, and it doesn’t matter. But I heard the message. Guilt, rage, hatred, self-pity, and more guilt. Nothing new, except the messenger. I went back to editing my magazine.

  The loss of David even more difficult to bear. And then, within a few months, another loss. Charlie abruptly left the magazine. Restless Charlie—the monthly routine had slowly ground him down. He had always said that if it wasn’t fun, it wasn’t worth doing. And, true to his word, just like that, he was gone. After four years of partnership, I was flying solo.

  Well, not exactly solo. The silent partner, Walter Wiedenbaum, who until then I had met only in passing, stepped out of the shadows and became publisher. Tall, patrician, he ran a tight ship. Gone was the spontaneous informality of the office. Walter ruled from the top down with a steady stream of memos that replaced discussion and any semblance of autonomy. Worse, from the onset we were oil and water. As a boss, he had an icy authority that brought out my own icy defensiveness. I began to notice that whenever our paths crossed his jaw muscles would clench, a sure sign that this wasn’t just dislike, this was barely concealed anger. This was someone who would have liked to take a swing at me. I kept my distance.

  Compounding the personal differences, I realized that I had been stretched too thin for some time. The magazine had grown from 34 pages to 142. As thrilled as I was by its success, in some respects, I hadn’t grown with it. Although the staff had increased commensurately, I had never learned how to delegate and still ran the magazine as the small operation it had once been. I was convinced that my hands-on attention to the day-to-day minutiae was vital to maintaining the style and tone that set the magazine apart from other trade publications. But how could I motivate the staff if I didn’t trust them? I was tired.

  I knew I was seriously off track when I experienced a meltdown during a trip to Kansas City to do a Midwest-markets issue. The trip proceeded smoothly: good interviews, VIP treatment from Hallmark, an enthusiastic panel of agency people, superb hotel, and my regular sidekick, David Gunn, with me. But my second night there, I started crying and pacing. I couldn’t quiet my mind or body. I had never felt so lost. I called Clem. No answer. I
called David in Los Angeles, my now ex-analyst. He was there, but not in the way I needed him. He was almost indifferent to my state of mind. He had switched hats. He talked not as an analyst but as a friend, more than a friend.

  About a year into my analysis I had begun to feel that David was coming on to me. I well understood the power of the patient-analyst attachment, and, like a good patient, I had shared those feelings. He had said that my perception was a natural part of my transference. However, shortly after that, he had initiated a conversation about countertransference. Oh, the jargon of it all. It seemed my feelings had been spot on, and indeed he had feelings for me that went beyond the patient-analyst boundaries. I hated what I heard, while at the same time I felt relief that I hadn’t been imagining it. I was also scared that it was one of those “things will never be the same again” moments. But, as I have said, David was a good analyst and the incident was smoothed over.

  In Kansas City, what I thought had been smoothed over had merely been sidelined. I asked him if I was having a panic attack. I knew that I was. Instead of advice, he suggested we meet somewhere, perhaps a resort. Or he would come to New York for a visit. Could he stay with me? I told him I didn’t need a lover, I needed an analyst, and hung up.

  Technically, there was no unethical behavior on David’s part; the analysis had been terminated. To my way of thinking, that still didn’t make it right. But I needed him, and, after several subsequent phone calls over the next few months, we began a sporadic sexual relationship. Two or three times he stayed with me in New York, and I with him in Los Angeles. The problem was, I did not find him attractive and did not want to have sex with him, yet I continued the relationship. That was a first, and I was angry at him and at myself. And ashamed. I couldn’t ascribe my complicity to the thrall of analysis. That was gone. Though I often thought that perhaps there was no time limit on transference. Sadly, the person who could have helped me sort out my feelings was the cause of them. And I didn’t feel free to talk to others about the situation. The abuse of power analysts wielded over their patients was still a taboo subject and protected by secrecy. That would soon change, and experiences such as mine would become almost commonplace. But meanwhile, I kept my story to myself and tried to focus on how grateful I was to him for understanding what it had felt like to be “orphaned.” And for shepherding me through my years at the magazine and through my reconciliation with my mother.