“Lining up that help can be a job in and of itself. It takes being organized. Rate yourself there.”
“Organized?” Not hard to choose. “Nine.”
He shifted the sourball, then said, “Imaginative?”
What the hell. If he wanted to call me conceited, he would anyway. “Nine.”
“Compulsive.”
“Three.”
He looked surprised, sitting there with his bushy brows raised and the candy bulging against his cheek. “You don’t see yourself as compulsive?”
“No. Does my husband?”
He bit down on the candy. I had to wait for my answer until the crunching was done. Then his words poured out as if to make up for the delay. “He mentioned it. He feels you’re compulsive with regard to achievement. He fears you’re too rigid when it comes to the schedules your children keep. He fears you’re too demanding of them.”
“I’d have said he was the demanding one. He’s the one who gets upset when Johnny’s grades aren’t good enough, or when Kikit lapses back into a lisp. I’m not demanding. The kids’ schedules aren’t rigid. I make them go to school, that’s a must, but they’ve always been the ones to ask for the after-school things. They have musical ability, but neither has wanted lessons either in voice or an instrument, and I haven’t pushed. So Kikit does ballet and gymnastics and library, and Johnny plays sports. The only thing I ask of them is that if they take something on, they give it their best shot.”
“Your husband says they’re busy nearly every day after school. Does it worry you they don’t have down time?”
“They have down time—suppertime, evenings, days when they don’t have plans, weekends. I schedule my own work around those times.”
“Must be a challenge.”
“Not usually. Since I’m the boss, I can work when I want. It gets back to the issue of help. I have good support staff. That’s one of the things I decided on as soon as WickerWise started to grow. My kids come first. My staff knows that.”
“Sounds pat.” What he meant, what his tone inferred, was that I was being glib.
“Ask the people I work with,” I suggested. “Please. Their names are on my list.” In addition to the six who knew Kikit and Johnny best, I had included the managers of both the Essex and the Vineyard stores, plus, of course, Brody.
“Did you ever want to be anything else?”
“Career-wise?” When he nodded, I thought back. “I wanted to be a doctor, had that childhood dream, you know, of saving lives. That was before I took biology. I wasn’t very good at it.”
“Was that why you didn’t pursue it?”
“Partly. The other part had to do with money. I didn’t have it. Then I met Dennis, who had a little, but by that time I was involved in interior design and had forgotten about being a doctor. Good thing. Dennis wanted a full-time wife.”
“So how did the interior designing fit in?” Jenovitz asked and opened the drawer again.
“I had been working as a furniture buyer for a national chain of home stores. I resigned my job when I got married and started doing freelance design work instead.”
He was listing toward the drawer, looking at me while rummaging inside. “How did Dennis take to that?”
“Just fine. He hardly knew I was working. He was stunned when tax time came and he saw how much I was earning. Not that it was that much. But it was more than he expected. It was like that for a long time, my work being unobtrusive.”
“Not now,” Jenovitz said. He came up with another sourball, pulled the wrapper off, popped it in.
“Maybe not, but back then we didn’t depend on my income to live. Now we do.”
“You certainly do.” Sucking hard, he leaned forward and shuffled through papers. “Your house is worth”—his brows rose when he saw the figure—“quite a bit.”
“Dennis fell in love with the house.”
“You didn’t?”
“Not that house. My first choice was another one. It was older and had more unusual lines. It was less expensive, but it needed work.”
“Didn’t Dennis see the same potential?”
“No. He loved the colonial. So we bought it.”
“But you do like fine things.”
“Don’t we all?”
“We’re talking about you, Mrs. Raphael. Materialistic. Rating, please?”
“Five,” I said without pause. “I spend money on things I can afford, and enjoy them, but I can live without them. I did for a long time.”
“Ah, yes. Growing up. You had less than your children do now. Do you think that they’re spoiled?”
“Maybe a little. Parents enjoy giving their children things they didn’t have themselves. I’m no exception.”
He pushed the sourball into one cheek. “Would you say that your children are happy?”
“Right now, no. They’re confused about what’s happening between Dennis and me. In general, yes, they’re happy.”
“How can you tell?”
“They smile. They relate well to people. They don’t act out. They do well in school.”
“They’ve been in a two-parent home,” he remarked. “How important do you think that is?”
Of all the things he had asked me, this was one of more relevance to my children’s future. Uneasy, I said, “It’s something I always wanted for my children. Something I assumed they would have. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t want Dennis to talk about separating.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
No, I hadn’t, because it upset me. Dealing with the everyday details of my life kept me buffered from the overall reality, which was that my kids wouldn’t be living with both of their parents, together, ever again. And they shouldn’t, under the circumstances. It wouldn’t be healthy. Dennis resented me, and, increasingly, the feeling was mutual. Not a good atmosphere for adults, much less kids.
“Mrs. Raphael?”
“A two-parent home is nice,” I said, “but it isn’t the be-all and end-all. It isn’t a guarantee that the child will be happy. Many a happy, well-adjusted child has come from a single-parent home.”
“You, for example.”
I had been well-adjusted. Happy was another matter.
For simplicity’s sake, I said, “Yes. Me. It depends on how that single parent handles the situation. It depends on the child, too, and on the dynamics between parent and child. My mother and I were alike. We helped each other.”
He sat back, sucking his candy, waiting.
I filled the silence by saying, “My sister, Rona, was something else. She and my mother had a different relationship.”
“In what way?”
“I wish I knew,” I said with a diffident laugh. “Actually, I know how it was different. I just don’t know why.”
He frowned, set his elbow on the arm of his chair, put his chin on his fist.
“They rubbed each other the wrong way,” I started in with the how. “What one wanted, the other couldn’t give. What one had, the other belittled.”
“Which of you is older?”
“Me.”
“You must have been a hard act to follow.”
“It wasn’t that. Mom and I were close. Rona felt left out. So she tried harder. But the harder she tried, the more she bombed.”
Jenovitz looked intrigued. It occurred to me that, being an experienced psychologist, he might suggest how I could deal with Rona better.
“Mom had a thing for security. She never wanted us to feel helpless like she had. I took the message in a general sense and grew to be self-sufficient. Rona took it in a specific sense and married the richest guy she could find. That marriage failed, so she married again, and that marriage failed. She has money now, trust funds and all, and she doesn’t understand why Mom isn’t thrilled.”
“Why isn’t Mom thrilled?”
“Because Rona doesn’t have any ties—no children, no reliable friends. She isn’t trained to do anything and doesn’t want to be anything, just f
lits around. Mom thinks she’s shallow.”
“Do you?”
“No. I think—” I tried to decide. “I think she’s stalled. She’s spent so long trying to please Mom that she doesn’t know what she wants, so she can’t move in any direction. I also think she’s terrified. Since she can’t do things right for Mom, she feels she can’t do things right, period.”
“Poor girl sounds demoralized. She must think Mom doesn’t love her. Does Mom worry about that?”
“I’m sure she does.” I frowned. “I guess. That generation was never good at expressing some things.”
“That generation is my generation. I express what I want to express.”
“Well, my mother doesn’t, or can’t, or won’t.”
“Which is it?”
“I don’t know. But I know she loves me. She may not be big on saying the words or holding my hand or hugging me, but I know she loves me. It’s right there in her face.”
“Is that where Johnny and Kikit see it?”
“They do, but they don’t need to. I also say the words, and I use my body. I hold them a lot. I’ve never wanted them to doubt what I felt. I’m very different from my mother that way, if that’s what you’re getting at. My children know I love them. Ask them. They’ll tell you.” Had I been too vehement? No. It was impossible to be too vehement about something like that.
“So. Your mother worked long hours. Did you resent that?”
“I understood the need. I knew she had no choice.”
“But did you resent it?”
I didn’t want to resent it. Connie had tried so hard to make a life for us that criticizing her seemed ungrateful. Still, there were times when I was frightened by something I had experienced—girlfriend squabbles, money worries, menstruation—and had wanted to curl up in a ball against her, only she hadn’t been around. “Sometimes. I was lonely.”
“Don’t you worry that your children feel the same?”
“No. The situation is different. For one thing, my mother was the only parent I had. When she was at work, my sister and I were alone. For another, we didn’t have things to keep us busy after school. For a third, we couldn’t call her.”
“Couldn’t?”
“Her boss didn’t like her getting calls. My kids call me all the time. I encourage them to. They love coming to work with me during school vacations.”
“Don’t they get in the way?”
“No.”
He looked skeptical. With a slight, almost teasing smile, he asked, “There weren’t ever times, even when they were little, when you wanted to give them back?”
“Give them back?”
His smile lingered. “A figure of speech. You know what I mean. Had it up to the eyebrows with spills and squabbles.”
“Of course there were, but—”
“Patience. How would you rate yourself?”
“With regard to my children? Nine-point-five.”
“Amazing you never thought of teaching, with a patience level like that.”
I returned his teasing smile. “Just because I’m patient with my own kids doesn’t mean I’m patient with other people’s kids.”
“Did you always know you wanted only two?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Two seemed right. Few enough for individual attention. For individual love. Besides, children cost money. We had no idea back then that we would have what we have now.”
“Is that why you put it off?” When I frowned, he said, “You weren’t young, having your first.”
“I was thirty-one. That isn’t old.”
“But you were married at twenty-five. You told me you resigned your job at that point and freelanced. Plenty of flexibility there, so why the hold on kids?”
I didn’t know what he was driving at, but it didn’t feel right. Cautiously, I said, “I felt we needed time alone, Dennis and I.”
“Did he agree?”
“He certainly didn’t argue. He was busy trying to build his own business.”
“If he was busy doing that, you couldn’t have gotten the time alone that you wanted.”
“We had what we needed. Is there a point to this, Dr. Jenovitz? I don’t see what it has to do with how I mother my kids.”
“It has to do with your attitude toward being a mother.”
“In what way?” I asked.
“Some women want children, but resent their presence.”
“I’m not one of those women.”
“Then explain the abortion.”
Abortion, I echoed silently. What abortion? I wanted to ask.
But I knew what abortion he meant. It might have been buried away under the layers of family we had built subsequent to it, but a woman never forgot an abortion. She might try to pretend it hadn’t happened, might keep it a secret from her mother, her sister, even her closest friends, but it was always there.
I understood that. What I didn’t understand was why, after years of silence, my husband had mentioned it now.
twelve
My silence had nothing to do with defiance. I was initially too startled to speak, then, when my thoughts started darting every which way, too confused.
Finally, Dean Jenovitz asked, “Did I hit a sore spot?”
“Sore spot? Whew. I guess you’d call it that. Who told you about it?”
“About the abortion?” He seemed to stress the word, though I might have imagined it. A sore spot, indeed—the word, the memory. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I want you to tell me about it.”
“How did you find out?” I asked again.
“It doesn’t matter,” he repeated and sat back, waiting for me to explain.
But I wasn’t doing any explaining until he did some himself, because emerging from the confusion were anger and suspicion. “That abortion happened a long time ago. Dennis knows how painful it was for me. We haven’t talked about it, haven’t mentioned it in years. By unspoken agreement. I’m stunned that he chose to raise it now.”
“He didn’t raise it. It was right there in the file I received when I got this case.”
“Then the judge knew?” Not likely. Had Selwey known I’d had an abortion, he would have delighted in bringing it up.
“I don’t know what the judge knew,” Jenovitz said. “That isn’t my business. All I know is that these medical records came with the file.”
Medical records. “Medical records?”
“They do exist, you know,” Jenovitz said.
“Actually, I didn’t. I mean, I assumed there would have been a record of it in some old file, but wouldn’t confidentiality laws prevent its release? I wasn’t aware that anyone had gone looking for it, much less made copies and given them to the judge or to you.”
“I take it you’d rather they hadn’t?”
I laughed at the absurdity of the question. “Of course, I’d rather they hadn’t. I didn’t enjoy that abortion. I didn’t enjoy it physically or mentally. It wasn’t something I would have chosen to do—”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Raphael, but you did choose to do it.” He put a hand on the file. “According to this, the abortion wasn’t a medical necessity. You simply decided to terminate your pregnancy.”
“‘Simply’?” My voice rose. I let it. “There was no ‘simply’ about it. It was an agonizing decision.”
“Which you made nonetheless.”
“Which my husband and I made nonetheless.”
“That isn’t what he says.”
“Excuse me?”
“He says that he wanted the baby, but that you were vehement about postponing parenthood.”
I was dumbfounded, hurt, livid. Sitting erect, I said, “Let’s set something straight. It wasn’t that I didn’t want the baby. That’s rarely the issue when a woman has an abortion. She wants the baby, but the circumstances of her life are such that having a baby will be a hardship.”
“What was the hardship in your case? Your husband was earning a decent living.”
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“It wasn’t the money. We were having personal differences. I wasn’t sure the marriage would last. I envisioned having to raise the child alone.”
“And that would have been the hardship?”
“Emotionally, yes. I was desperate to have my children raised differently from me.”
“In a two-parent family.”
“In a secure setting.”
“Your marriage was that shaky?”
“It seemed to be at the time. We hadn’t been married very long, and there were problems. My energies were going into saving the relationship. It wasn’t the right time for us to have a child. Dennis agreed with me on that.”
“Then the abortion was your idea?”
“Actually, it was Dennis’s idea.”
“That isn’t what he said.”
“No, it wouldn’t be, would it. He would have dug up those records to show what a lousy mother I am. He would have painted himself as an innocent, but that wasn’t how it happened. Dennis is no innocent. The problems we were having stemmed from something very wrong that he did. Did he tell you about that?”
“No.”
I hesitated for only a second longer. Dennis had raised the abortion, I could raise this. Fair was fair. I wanted my kids.
“Several years before we were married, Dennis had an affair with a married woman. She was the wife of his boss. When it ended, she blackmailed him with threats of telling what they’d done and having him booted out of the firm and black-balled in the field if he didn’t pay up. So he sent her a monthly check. We were married a year when I found out about it. It mightn’t have been so bad if he’d been up-front about it, but even when I had the canceled checks in my hand, he gave me a story or two before the truth. Adultery and blackmail. It was hard for me to accept.”
Jenovitz regarded me patiently.
“Up until then, I had thought he was just about perfect.”
Jenovitz nodded.
“So, suddenly, I was disillusioned. I kept thinking there were other things I didn’t know about him. Dennis denied it, but I had learned the hard way that he could put on a good show when he wanted to.”
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