A Good Divorce

by John E. Keegan

  It was with trepidation that I accepted Jude’s invitation for lunch. We hadn’t seen each other face-to-face since the divorce was finalized. We agreed to meet at the Athenian, a restaurant in the Pike Place Market just off the produce aisle, with swinging saloon doors and a counter for the regulars who came in for coffee and loaded it with sugar and non-dairy creamer. The handmade sign over the grill said “No Loitering.”

  When I arrived, Jude was in one of the narrow two-person booths next to the windows that overlooked Elliot Bay and the ferry terminal. She looked good in a gray blazer and pants and, despite the exhaust grime on the windows, the sun gave her hair a pleasant glow.

  “I thought it would be handy to your office,” she said.

  My antennae were twitching while we talked about whether Iowa City, Iowa’s first female firefighter would be allowed to breastfeed her baby at the firehouse, a subject I’d brought up.

  “How are the kids?” I finally asked.

  “It hasn’t exactly been Ozzie and Harriet.”

  I fiddled with the plastic-laminated menu. “They’re getting along with Lill?”

  “Lill’s been wonderful. She gives them lots of space.” I pictured the kids sitting alone in those big upstairs bedrooms, listening through the heat registers to Jude and Lill giggling in the kitchen while they cooked. “It’ll take a while. How’s it going with you?”

  The waitress saved me, asking if we wanted anything from the bar. If anyone still ordered double-martini lunches, it was here.

  “What do you have on tap?” Jude asked.

  “Rainier, Miller, Heineken, Bud,” she said, without moving either her lips or the pencil in her hand. She returned to chewing on her cud while Jude deliberated.

  “I’ll have a bottle of Mickey’s,” Jude said, nodding to me to order.

  “I’ll have the Athenian steak sandwich, medium, and more water.”

  The waitress studied the top of Jude’s head while she flipped through the plastic pages of the menu. Jude wasn’t my responsibility anymore; she could take as long as she wanted. I looked down on the Alaska Way Viaduct and watched the cars on the top tier heading north. It was a concrete monstrosity built before the days of environmental consciousness, when people just wanted to get there. Puddles of water spotted the tar roofs of the warehouses and industrial buildings below us.

  “I’ll have the Manhattan clam chowder and a slice of garlic bread.”

  The waitress stabbed the pencil tip into the pad and ripped the menus out of our hands. Jude gave me a smile like someone had just said cheese. Tap, tap. The butt of my knife continued to rap through the napkin to the table.

  “This isn’t about money,” she said, “in case that’s what you’re worried about. As far as I’m concerned, the decree put all that to rest.” That left her relationship with Lill. I laughed nervously but my eyes were on her fingers, which were pressed together so tight that the blood darkened the skin under her nails. “I’m worried about Justine. She’s been distant again. Coming home late from school. Missing dinners. She won’t say where she’s been or who she’s with. I got suspicious and went through her drawers.” One of Jude’s feet accidentally kicked me under the table. Her lips quivered. She reached into the pocket of her blazer and set three condoms on the table in our booth.

  I felt like someone had kneed me in the groin. I thought we’d passed through Justine’s hell. “She’s only fifteen.”

  “A fifteen-year-old has all the equipment.”

  “I know but …”

  “At least she’s using protection,” Jude said.

  “There’s something so calculated about these things.” I flipped one over with my index finger. The ring shape showed through the foiled label that read Stimula and Vibra-Ribs. “How long do you think …?”

  “It’s post-separation, probably post-Lill.”

  “You’ve talked about sex with her?”

  “I told her it was overrated, but obviously she isn’t taking my word for it. Any suggestions?” I stole a glance at the Alaska Way viaduct where the cars were now swimming upstream like sperm. “Maybe you should talk to her. I can’t even tell her what to eat so I doubt I’m going to be able to tell her what she can put in her vagina.”

  “Jesus, Jude. Don’t be so crude.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m just worried. Mad I guess. I didn’t want to surprise you again.”

  I picked up the check but Jude insisted on paying the tip, with a short stack of Susan B. Anthony dollars. We parted in front of a fishmonger, where a monkfish lay sideways in a bed of ice with its mouth gaping at us as Jude surprised me with a hug.

  The finalization of the divorce had re-opened the old wound of whether I knew anything at all about what it took to make a relationship work. Between a husband and wife or between a parent and a child. I realized I’d been hiding behind Jude’s zaniness and pretty much blaming her sexual identity crisis for what had happened between us. Maybe it was something else. It was as if we’d successfully assembled a complicated machine from a set of plans and found a place for every part but, when we plugged it in, it sputtered and died. I had earned a good living, went to the kids’ recitals and games, and helped around the house. But I was never very good at all the little moments, when Jude and I were sitting alone in the kitchen nook eating leftovers on a Saturday afternoon and I had nothing to say. Or when the reading light was snapped off in the bedroom and we were sliding down under the covers and there was that awkward silence, wondering whether if I stroked her hair she’d think I wanted something, but afraid to say anything for fear that it would start a discussion that would make sleep impossible.

  Jude had crossed lines that I hadn’t and when I tried to pull her back onto the safe side she fought me and we found ourselves in a tug-of-war. If I’d let myself see her in all of her passion the way other people saw her, I feared that she wouldn’t have been mine anymore, so I tried to possess her the way a kid clutches a favorite blanket and sucks on it and pulls on it and eventually tears it to shreds.

  The school district’s counselor called me for an appointment, saying that she and the social worker from Child Protective Services wanted to meet at the Alhambra. The night before the meeting I mopped the floors with PineSol, cleaned the oven, sponge-washed the fruit and vegetable bins in the refrigerator, and scrubbed out the rug stains. I didn’t want to take a chance they’d find a causal connection between the dustballs under the bed and Derek’s dope smoking. I recognized the competitive element in this. They’d also be interviewing Jude in her four-bedroom Capitol Hill home with a peekaboo view of Lake Union and a yard. If all I had was a basement, at least it would be a proud basement. I didn’t want me or my home to be the reason for Derek’s behavior.

  The woman from CPS, Mrs. Leonard, had a gray bouffant hairdo and could have been a classmate of my parents. I knew those values and they didn’t include divorce. “Do you mind if we look around?” she asked, clutching a clipboard with a pen holder.

  They snuck in and out of rooms, their heads bobbing and whispering as they went, and I thought of my college poetry and Prufrock. The women come and go talking of Michelangelo. Mrs. Perryvan, the counselor from the school district, had wide nostrils and I worried she’d smell traces of the dried-up joint I’d finished off in the bedroom a few months ago.

  “Both kids sleep in there?” one of them asked, nodding with her forehead toward the second bedroom.

  “They rotate,” I said. “This is transitional. As soon as things level out, I’m moving back into a house.” I’d promised myself not to apologize—it red-flagged the holes in your case—but I knew that the single-family home was the benchmark of respectability, a place where everyone had space to be alone. Truthfully, I’d grown to enjoy the inventiveness of living in the Alhambra, where a dining room chair had to also serve as a nightstand, where we had to check each other’s plans so we wouldn’t all end up in the bathroom at the same time. Mrs. Leonard seemed confused. “One of them uses the couch and the other
takes the bedroom,” I said. She lengthened her face and stared once more through the bedroom door.

  Mrs. Perry van opened the refrigerator. I’d beat her to the punch and stopped at Safeway for lots of leafy green vegetables and fresh fruit, as well as milk, yogurt, and cottage cheese, items which I knew without the kids to eat them would grow mold before I could finish them. She inspected the canned foods and cold cereal shelves and the liquor cabinet over the refrigerator, which I’d slimmed down to a single, respectable bottle of Cutty Sark. The total absence of vice would draw suspicion. When the visual inspection was complete, we convened at the coffee table, with the ladies on the couch and me in the chair I pulled up across from them.

  “Well, what’s the verdict?”

  They looked at each other, neither cracking a smile. Mrs. Perryvan pursed her lips and I noticed a tic in the right side of her face. “We won’t be making the final decision on this, Mr. Stapleton. As I’m sure you know, there’s a process. We’ll just be making a recommendation.”

  I looked at Mrs. Leonard, hoping that her colleague had exaggerated the seriousness of this. “I’m not sure I know what you mean by process.”

  “We’re getting a little ahead of ourselves,” Mrs. Perryvan said. Despite the twitching, her voice was steady and somber. “Maybe the easiest way to get at this is to tell you what we know and give you a chance to comment.”

  I was beginning to wonder if they’d come to the wrong house. “This is about my son Derek?”

  “We know about Derek.”

  Mrs. Perryvan modestly squeezed her knees together so that the runs in her nylons were parallel. “We also know about your daughter’s attempt on her life.”

  “And your wife’s homosexuality,” Mrs. Leonard added.

  Mrs. Perryvan’s tic was contagious. It felt like my whole face was jumping. “How did you find this out? Our medical records are confidential.”

  “Our only interest is the welfare of your children,” Mrs. Perryvan said. “The medical information came from Virginia Mason. You signed the consent.” She fingered some documents in a flat leather pouch leaning against the couch skirt. “This.”

  At the bottom of the page was my new signature. Since I couldn’t change my name, I’d decided to change the shape of my signature. The old one was too straightforward. In the new version, the first and second name ran together and ended with a kind of lightning bolt that underlined the signature. The page she held out to me had the lightning bolt. I vaguely remembered signing a form after skimming it in Mr. Washington’s office. For the first time, I read it carefully. It authorized the school district to make Derek’s as well as Justine’s records available to agencies and consultants employed by the district and authorized the release to the district of their medical records.

  “I didn’t realize you were going to get Justine’s records too.” I remembered the pallor of her face through the hyperbaric chamber and felt like a traitor.

  “We thought we better check on both kids,” Mrs. Perryvan said. “We’re required by law to report any evidence of abuse.”

  “Abuse?” I said.

  Mrs. Perryvan treated my question as rhetorical. “As far as your wife’s … situation is concerned, we interviewed her and her woman friend. They were quite open about it all.”

  Mrs. Leonard patted her bouffant. “I would even call it proud. You did know about it, Mr. Stapleton?” There was a tragic undertone to her voice.

  “Where are we going with all this?” I said.

  Mrs. Perryvan, straight-backed, using only the front six inches of the chair cushion, folded her hands prayerfully on the clipboard in her lap. “Our review is not complete, but I don’t think I’m stepping out of line”—she glanced at Mrs. Leonard who was nodding her concurrence—“in saying that your children are suffering. We believe that your ex-wife’s sexual conduct is the potential root cause of the childrens’ problems.”

  “Mr. Stapleton, let me add something here.” Mrs. Leonard’s legs were crossed so that one of her granny heels rubbed against the edge of the table. “I’ve done some research into the effects of parental homosexuality. Not surprisingly, it’s quite deleterious, especially on adolescents. It’s a trying age at best. Your wife’s, excuse me, ex-wife’s behavior is undermining their sense of self-worth.”

  “Neither Mrs. Leonard nor I have any bias against homosexuality per se, but where children are concerned, it’s a different matter.”

  “Don’t you think the kids’ problems could just be the result of the divorce? The kids feeling at sea and all.”

  “We see lots of divorces,” Mrs. Perryvan said. “There’s something else going on here.”

  “Derek sent us a signal,” Mrs. Leonard said. “Fortunately, we might be in time to do something about it.”

  “Like what?”

  She leaned toward me. “Do you have any objection to the children living with you, Mr. Stapleton?”

  “Of course not, but what about Jude?”

  “Are you willing to do whatever is necessary to give the children a proper home?”

  “Of course, but if you’re talking about taking the kids away from Jude she’s going to consider that a little drastic.”

  “Suicide’s a little drastic,” Mrs. Perryvan said.

  I’d already decided to get a second opinion. These two women seemed a tad outdated. I didn’t know how much of their conclusion was science and how much narrow-mindedness. Mrs. Leonard had a gaudy diamond on her ring finger; her husband was probably in real estate sales. Mrs. Perryvan didn’t have things quite as easy. I guessed that hers was the primary income and her husband was physically disabled. With people less hidebound, I could have explained away Derek’s incident as something I’d done myself as a kid, only it would have been a cigarette. But Justine’s behavior was something else.

  “We’ll be talking to each of the children.”

  “Don’t …”

  “Don’t worry, we won’t be as candid as we’ve been with you,” Mrs. Perryvan said.

  “By the way, we think your apartment is very cozy,” Mrs. Leonard said as she stood up, bracing herself with one hand on the coffee table. “It would make an adequate home for the children. In fact, it’s lovely. My husband would die of clutter if he had to keep his own place. I know your law firm too. They’ve represented the district.” God knows who she’d talked to. The thought occurred to me that she might just enjoy spreading this story around with her friends downtown.

  “This is strictly confidential,” I said, as we walked the four steps to my entry door.

  “Of course,” Mrs. Perryvan said, extending her hand. “You’ll be hearing from us, I’m sure.”

  They turned their wide backsides to me and trudged up the stairs, each of them gripping the wooden railing to facilitate the climb.

  I dug through my wallet and found the phone number for Dr. Tony Brava on the back of a business card where I’d listed my blood type, Social Security number, and the 800 number for my car insurance carrier. He was the psychiatrist at Group Health who co-led the men’s therapy group.

  “I’ve dealt with gay parents,” he said. At least his vocabulary was contemporary. “More men than women.” As he spoke, I pictured Tony’s chest hairs in the open neck of his shirt. “This kind of trauma goes to the kids’ bottom line. I’m not saying it’s just her being lesbian. You could have the same reaction if she was a screaming alcoholic or physically abusive.”

  “That bad?”

  He applauded the school district for getting off their butts and praised Mr. Washington. “There’s a guy that operates one hundred percent for his kids. Not a bad guy to have on your side. Washington had a younger brother who fell through the cracks and died with a needle in his arm. He’ll make this a crusade.”

  Tony’s comments disturbed me. We were well past the who-does-the-dishes and should-mom-shave-under-her-arms stage. This wasn’t a case of marking an X for McGovern/Shriver and feeling good about yourself even though your candidates wo
n only seventeen electoral votes. We couldn’t afford to piss this one away. I had to have the crusader mentality of a Mr. Washington. My only friends in this deal were my kids.

  17.

  I stayed late at the office to bone up on child custody laws. I was surprised to learn that in the mid-nineteenth century children in Washington were still considered the father’s property and the father would normally be awarded custody in the event of a divorce. Jude would flip if she knew that. It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution when men started working long hours in the factory that the pendulum swung in the other direction and the courts developed the “tender years” doctrine to justify a preference for awarding custody to the mother. It was hard to think of a girl with condoms in her drawers as still being in her tender years, but Derek was another matter. The current test was the “best interests of the child” and the court examined any conduct by the parent that affected the child’s welfare.

  Out of habit, I jotted notes on my yellow legal pad as I plowed through the stack of books on the table, putting a bold five-pointed star in the margin for any points which helped me. None of the reported cases involved lesbian mothers or gay fathers. If they did, such facts certainly weren’t discussed in the reported opinions. For the mother to lose custody, she practically had to be a substance abuser, child abuser, or prostitute. If only our situation were that cut and dried. Still, I knew from what was happening to our kids that Jude’s relationship with Lill was just as deleterious. This wasn’t a moral judgment, it was parental. If I gave a damn about my kids, I had to wake up and do something. I couldn’t wait for them to do it for me.

  I probably made my decision while I was futzing with the coffeemaker in the firm’s kitchen, trying to measure out enough coffee granules from the package to make a single cup. That’s always when true wisdom came, when the brain was in idle, when I wasn’t trying to cram something in, when I just let it do its own search. It felt right. Like a new key, it moved all the tumblers.