A Good Divorce

by John E. Keegan

  “Are you saying that you’ve never experienced that kind of behavior in the child of a heterosexual mother?”

  “I don’t think it’s mere coincidence, M’am. We’ve got experts to back me up.”

  “I’m asking you to speak from your own knowledge, Mr. Washington. Can you give me a fact, an action taken by my client that has been harmful to those kids?”

  “You’re twisting it around, that’s what you’re doing. It’s obvious to everyone in this courtroom what’s going down here.” Mr. Washington’s voice deepened as he became more righteous. “These were perfectly good kids. They had outstanding records until their mother turned into a lesbian.”

  “And how do you know it wasn’t the result of the divorce?”

  “Because our interviews with the kids showed they were scared to death of what their mother had become. Don’t ask me, ask the kids.” Justine and Derek were looking into their laps.

  “Are you aware that the kids chose to live with their mother?”

  “That was before they knew. Besides, they’re kids, they’re just kids. If their mom was a sword swallower, maybe they’d swallow swords, but that doesn’t mean we should let them. I’m not here for my own health. I’m here because I think those kids are in danger and I refuse to stand by and let something happen to them. I may not be able to give you the technical ins and outs of it but I’ve got a pretty good nose and my nose says get her away from them now.”

  Gloria wasn’t a fool. She’d gotten all she was going to get out of this witness. Mr. Washington had found his groove and the judge wasn’t going to let her knock him out of it. He inhaled far enough to button his jacket before exiting the witness stand, winking at Larry Delacord as he strode back to his seat. He may not have won the battle on the facts but he’d succeeded in creating an aura of concern for the kids and that, after all, was the core policy driving this custody hearing. He’d also won the heart of Judge Purnell, who followed Mr. Washington with his eyes back to his seat.

  Jude must have been picking up on the same vibrations because she had her hands cupped over her face. I knew this was her worst fear. A male senior military officer with a crew cut was going to decide whether she was a fit mother. She didn’t even look up as Mrs. Perryvan took the stand and started her testimony.

  “It took me a while to draw Derek out,” Mrs. Perryvan said. “He was very protective. But he finally told me how he’d gone into his mother’s bedroom with one of his nightmares.” Her face twitched with the same tic I’d noticed in my interview at the Alhambra as she drew her knees together and pressed her gloved hands down on her thighs. “They were on top of the sheets, he said, in some form of coitus. Derek, of course, used his own words.” For this kind of testimony, I would have wanted Derek out of the courtroom, but then again, he was the one who’d seen it first hand in the raw.

  “Your honor,” Gloria said, “I don’t see how this is any more relevant than Mrs. Perryvan’s sexual behavior.” Mrs. Perryvan put a gloved finger against her lips and bit it.

  Before Larry could respond, the Judge spoke. “As far as I can figure, sexual behavior is about all this case is about, counsel. Overruled.”

  “How … did Derek react to this?”

  “The children fled to their father’s. I think Derek was shocked and deeply embarrassed. For himself, for his mother, for his whole family.” Derek had told me he’d seen them kissing and I was naive enough to leave it at that. No wonder it was easier to tell his friends his mother was dead. When I tried to catch Derek’s eye, he turned the other way.

  All Jude’s lawyer could do on cross-exam was get the witness to admit that an eight-year-old might feel some disgust at any form of adult sexual conduct. “But,” Mrs. Perryvan added, “the child would learn over time that heterosexuality was normal and accept it. The image of your mother with another woman, I suspect, would be quite another thing.”

  Mrs. Leonard from Child Protective Services concentrated on Justine when it was her turn, describing to my dread the suicide attempt. I’d debated with Larry whether it was necessary and, of course, it was. The specter of that incident and the possibility that her staying with Jude could trigger another try was one of the main reasons we were there. “The poor girl’s desperate to be recognized as attractive,” she said. “Her mother’s condition has caused her to question her own sexual identity. She wilted, thinking there was something genetic and nothing she could do about it. I think she temporarily gave up on herself.” Mrs. Leonard patted her hairdo to make sure nothing had slipped.

  “How is she … she doing now?” Larry asked.

  “When I interviewed her, I sensed an ongoing desperation to prove something. She joked about becoming a prostitute. I think she perceives promiscuity as a way to prove that her sexual desires are normal.” More shame, and I almost welcomed Ms. Monroe’s objection.

  “Your honor, this is highly speculative. The state’s witnesses shouldn’t be allowed to make flip asides about the private lives of these kids.”

  Judge Purnell ground the mallet head into the palm of his hand like a pestle and mortar. “I’m here to protect the interests of you kids.” He nodded in their direction. “That’s why I want to hear everything, but maybe I should have cut this off a little sooner. Mr. Delacord, isn’t this kind of stuff all in the reports?”

  “Your honor,” Ms. Monroe said, “I don’t think it’s relevant if it’s embossed in gold.”

  The judge ignored her comment.

  “Mo … most of it … is in the reports.”

  “Thank you. I look forward to reading them. Now let’s move this along. It’s time for lunch recess and you’re not finished with your case yet.”

  Larry put on our two psychiatrists after lunch in anticipation of the two that we knew Jude’s attorney would call. Numbers gave weight but in this case there was another reason. One of our psychiatrists was a school district employee and, seeing how frail she was, it was easy for someone to imagine Mr. Washington browbeating her.

  “The mother’s lesbianism is like trying to jumpstart the kids’ sexual identity by connecting the negative cable to the positive terminal,” she said. “If someone doesn’t stop her, it’ll destroy the whole electrical system.”

  The other one was more gaurded. “A child’s sexual preference is developed early in life,” he said. “The mother’s homosexuality won’t necessarily change that unless she’s flaunting it.”

  When Gloria was done with her lengthy cross-exam, it was also evident where her witnesses would be coming from. Neither of our experts could cite a single long-term study that showed academic or emotional deficits in children raised by a lesbian mother.

  Larry surprised me by calling the neighborhood snoop, Mr. Sweet. He’d already called out his name when I grabbed his sleeve.

  “A favor for Mr. Washington,” he whispered.

  I glanced over at Jude and she was shaking her head in disbelief. I wanted to signal that it wasn’t my idea, but that would be a cop-out. I was the client. This whole petition was my idea. But I was ticked off at Mr. Washington for not checking with me first.

  From hiding behind bushes, peeping through his mariner’s telescope, and rifling through Jude’s garbage can, Mr. Sweet had pieced together his own unique contribution. “The kids are home alone after school,” he said. “There’s arguments with their mother. Nudity is rampant. Other lesbians come in and out of her place like a revolving door.” I was almost as disturbed by Mr. Sweet’s disregard for Jude and Lill’s privacy as I was chilled by the possibility that his story might be true.

  When we recessed for the day, I was the only witness for my side who hadn’t testified. Larry Delacord, Mr. Washington, and I huddled briefly in the hallway afterwards as the neighbors crowded around trying to get in on it with their hoorays and atta boys. One of them, a former member of Jude’s Sunday night women’s group, told me very solemnly that she thought Jude and Lill had gone too far.

  “We’ve got ’em on the ropes,” Mr. Wa
shington said.

  I steered us away from the crowd so I could say something to Mr. Washington privately. He was enjoying the adulation and took a couple more handshakes before I had his full attention. I glared at him. “Sir, I didn’t appreciate you bringing in the neighbor. This is my case and these are my kids.”

  He looked over at Larry, then back at me. He was the linebacker scowling at me from across the line of scrimmage. “I’m here to win this, counselor. What’s the matter, you afraid of a little smash mouth?”

  When Jude walked by, it was the closest I’d been to her all day. She looked bushed despite the makeup she’d caked on her face to hide the lack of sleep. I had a massive headache and wished it was over.

  20.

  I felt like I was wearing a hairshirt that night. Everything itched. Ever since the kids had run to the Alhambra in panic, our family had been bouncing off the walls like a handball. I had to step into the court and pocket the ball. Jude would be peeved for a while but she’d thank me when things settled down. With their behavior, the kids had practically begged me to do something. Scuttlebutt around the courthouse had it that a lesbian mother had no chance of keeping the kids if the father objected.

  “It’s a no … no-brainer,” Delacord said.

  I called Mom. She said that Warren’s visit had perked Dad up and that Carl was flying in tomorrow. I told her I’d be back by the weekend. I poured a Cutty Sark over ice to help me review my testimony notes on the kitchen table. For moral support, I also skimmed the chapter in the book that the Group Health psychiatrist had recommended on the harmful effects of parental homosexuality, but something didn’t feel right.

  I went to the closet in the kids’ bedroom and found the unmarked Mayflower box that Jude and I used to throw in report cards, letters, newspaper articles, drawings, notes, and anything else potentially memorable. Most of it was stuff by the kids. In fact, we’d encouraged them to put things into the box on their own. Someday we were going to sort it out and mount the best of it in the official family scrapbooks. We’d laugh our heads off showing it to the grandkids. When Jude and I split, I took the Mayflower box and she took the envelopes of unmounted photos but neither one of us had followed through on our promises to divide them up.

  I brought the box out to the living room and dumped it upside down. Homemade valentines, school pictures, theater programs, and finger paintings spilled onto the rug. There were lots of C&H cane sugar notepad pages with the familiar printed pink and blue Hawaiian flowers, pineapple trees, and ukeleles that had been the staple for our family notes and grocery lists. Dad had given us reams of it that we kept on a shelf in the fruit cellar, which the kids had converted into the McGovern Club using Jude’s old banners and bumper stickers. Dad wouldn’t use the stuff for fear it would show disloyalty to the local U&I sugar plant.

  In a sterling silver frame with a lacy metal border, I picked up our mounted wedding invitation:

  Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Martin

  request the honor of your presence

  at the marriage of their daughter

  Judith April Martin

  to

  Cyrus Lionel Stapleton

  We’d had the wedding reception on the Martins’ lawn, which Jude’s mom had hired painters to spray green.

  There was a Polaroid photo with a cellulose membrane backing, darkened with age, that Jude’s father must have taken. Jude was in a rocking chair, pregnant with Justine, holding up a light blue blanket she was knitting and Martha was next to her with a pink one. Both of them were beaming with expectant smiles. We were still living in our apartment in the University District then because I recognized the radiator in the background. That was the weekend Jude’s father took me aside and asked if Jude and I needed a family loan and I declined, telling him how thrilled we were at the prospect of this child.

  “We could live on fumes,” I said.

  He shoved a hundred dollar bill into my pocket anyway. “Buy something for the baby, then.”

  I iced and refilled my glass with Scotch and spread the pile of memorabilia into a wider circle. The things with kid writing interested me the most. A note in pencil read:

  Reasons Why We Need Kids Lib

  1. Adults take advantage of kids too much. They think just because kids are small they can order them around.

  2. If an adult tells you to do something and you don’t want to do it don’t. Ask them what will happen if you don’t do it. If they say a punishment, say fine I’ll take the punishment unless it is something really bad.

  I remembered when Justine taped that note to the refrigerator in defiance of and next to Jude’s rules for the household chores.

  There was a file card with a note underlined in pencil that said:

  Derek’s club rule book: 1. don’t let anyone identify.

  2. act pretty normal. 3. say you are a spy. 4. have your

  shoes off and do not carry much food. 5. don’t laugh

  or talk when spy.

  Stuck to the scotch tape on the back of a black construction paper silhouette of Derek’s head was a note from Justine:

  Dad, what movie do you and mom want to go to? I want to go to that one about people who die. PS. Write me back.

  That note had come from the confinement of her room and was probably slipped under our bedroom door.

  A postcard from Pocatello when Derek was staying with his cousins said:

  Dear Dad and Mom, I played soccer today. Then we went swimming. And a movie. I miss you millions and trillions.

  Love, Derek

  I remembered how he didn’t want to go on that trip and I made him. He called every night saying how homesick he was and I was angry and embarrassed because it felt like he wasn’t being a man. When my brother Carl came on the phone, I apologized for him. Derek had been right all along; we were all homesick.

  Another C&H note with creases where it had been folded into a paper airplane the kids sailed down the stairs said:

  You don’t understand KIDS!! They get full at

  dinnertime but they get hungry later.

  Signed,

  YOUR KIDS

  In my print below theirs, it said: You don’t understand parents. You can eat but it has to be something good for you. Followed by their response: Is raison bran good for us?

  A large red booklet that was folded in half said JUSTINE’S LIFE in crayon on the cover with a picture of a two-story house with window frames that looked like prison bars. On the first page, it said See my family, and there was a view from the ceiling of our kitchen table with a man, a woman, a girl in a triangular dress, and a baby around it. The drawing looked as if the table top was resting directly on the floor, without legs, and the four stick figures were lying prostrate with their heads and shoulders on the table.

  At the bottom of the pile, which meant it must have been near the top of the box, there was a hand-printed poem in Derek’s writing:

  If your a father

  stay a father.

  Don’t be mean

  stay keen.

  Love your children

  and don’t fight.

  Then things will

  turn out right.

  There was no date. I’d never seen it before. Derek must have slid it into the box one weekend while he was at the Alhambra. I read it again and the stab was just as sharp. Derek’s logic made a joke out of the sociology books.

  When the last ice cube in my glass had melted to the size of a lozenge, I downed the drink and decided to get some fresh air. I headed north along Federal Avenue, one of my favorite streets, with stately colonial and craftsmen mansions large enough to hold the families that people raised before the pill and zero population growth. When I reached Miller Street, I realized I was close to the old house and shuffled along until I found myself sitting on the curb across the street from it. The house was dark, except for the yellow bug bulb in the lantern porchlight and a nightlight in the bathroom upstairs.

  There was a peacefulness about the house that
was missing in me. I felt like a terrorist. That wasn’t my wife in there, whom I’d slept with and trusted with my kids for fifteen years. She was the enemy, and tomorrow we’d duke it out in a courtroom. If it worked as well as Larry Delacord and Mr. Washington assumed, I’d be here tomorrow night stuffing the kids’ clothes into suitcases and shopping bags.

  The bathroom light must have been left on for Derek, who was still afraid of the dark. I used to tell him that the only thing that changed at night were the colors. The same shrubs and sidewalks and cars were out there; they were just blacks and grays instead of grass blade greens and metallic blues. I told him that as long as he was in the same house with the people he loved he didn’t have anything to worry about, that we’d protect each other. Except tonight it wasn’t true. There was someone lurking on the curb to be wary of, someone who was going to take them away from their mother.

  My dad had always scared me with stories of people who’d died, seemingly oblivious to the living relationships around him that had become terminal. His punishment for a lifetime of not listening was to produce a family that had stopped talking about matters of the heart. There was something in what I was doing that mimicked my dad. When I tried to see myself through the future eyes of the kids, I didn’t like what I saw. I had my foot firmly on Jude’s neck like a prison guard; I was someone who made his way by holding everyone else in their place. And I was getting weary because part of me was down there on the floor with her.

  I’d let Jude become a caricature. I’d probably helped goad her into that role to rationalize the disintegration of our marriage. But there was another Jude whom the kids knew, the barefoot mother in Patchouli oil who was trying to do what mothers have always done, to help her children stand up in a spinning world that ground you down to look like everyone else. They probably still knew, but I’d forgotten, the woman who could get sentimental over Stopping By Woods.

  I picked up a chestnut still trapped in its prickly shell and closed my fist over it, then squeezed until the thorns drew blood to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Then I held my head still until the shuddering stopped and I could feel the cold hardness under my butt. I looked up at the house again. Derek was right and I was wrong. The dark did change things for the worse.