A Woman's Place

by Barbara Delinsky

Dennis didn’t argue. He simply stood at the window, alternately studying his mug and the snow.

  I sipped the coffee. It was stronger than I made mine but felt good going down.

  “I fired Phoebe,” he said without turning.

  “Fired her?”

  “Fired, broke up with, whatever. She didn’t have any right to go after that medical file. If she’d asked me, I would have told her not to. That abortion was more my fault than yours.”

  I was so stunned that it was a minute before I could speak. Thank you, I might have said. Instead, I said, “Was it hard breaking up?”

  “Not as hard as I thought it would be.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “Nah. I thought I did at first. We worked everything out so I’d get custody of the kids and a neat divorce settlement after that. Then a funny thing happened. I found that I liked my kids.” He looked at me. “Phoebe doesn’t like kids.”

  “Ah. Has she met ours?”

  “No. It never got that far.”

  “Just sex and law. No family.”

  He turned quickly, about to argue. I could see it in the flash of his eyes. Then the flash died, and he turned back to the window.

  “What was it all about?” I asked. “I need to know.”

  “So do I,” he said on a note of exasperation.

  “Did you fall for Phoebe before or after you talked to her about getting a divorce?”

  “After.”

  I felt an odd relief. If it had to be one or the other, after was preferable.

  “She was so….on my side,” he said, seeming far away. “She told me I was right and you were wrong. She told me I was smart. She loved my looks.”

  “I loved your looks.”

  “Yeah,” he waffled, “but it’s different when someone new says it. You expect your wife to say it. When another woman says it, one who is young and beautiful and powerful and has no obligation at all to do it, it’s more exciting.”

  “Flattering.”

  “Yeah. So maybe it was a mid-life thing, at least, with her. But the other, the stuff about the business, it’s been tough for a while. There was a time when I had the magic touch. But it’s gone.”

  I might have reminded him that the magic touch hadn’t been magic at all, but mere sleight of hand, thanks to the late Adrienne Hadley. But I didn’t want to spoil the mood. He seemed to be feeling what I was—tired and mellow, benevolent now that Kikit was on the mend. We desperately needed to talk this way, for ourselves as much as the kids.

  “You never really wanted WickerWise, did you?” I asked.

  He snorted. “What would I do with it? I don’t know the first thing about wicker.”

  “Then it’s for the money? For Pittney?”

  He nodded, drained his coffee, leaned against the window frame facing me. His stance would have been nonchalant, had it not been for the caution I saw on his face.

  “Would you make me sell WickerWise?” I asked.

  His smile was skewed. “Can’t do that now, can I? You know about Hadley.”

  “But if I didn’t, would you do it? Knowing how much the business means to me?”

  He frowned, lowered his chin. “Probably not.”

  Well, that was something.

  His expression was gentle when he looked at me. “I was listening when you sang Kikit to sleep. Your voice is as clear as it was twenty years ago. Can you believe it’s been that long? Twenty years. I fell in love with that clarity.” He lowered his eyes and studied his mug. “It was good when we sang.”

  “Yes.”

  “When we sang, we were in tune with each other. When we stopped, it went.”

  An oversimplification, perhaps. But I had thought it myself. “Singing was one of the good things. There were others. Certainly the kids. I don’t regret our marriage, if for no other reason than them.”

  “So what happened to us?”

  I had asked him that same question, way back when. His answer then had been accusatory. He had blamed our break-up on me. I had every right to turn the tables now, but I didn’t. As exhausted as I was after Kikit’s ordeal, I felt stronger than I had in months. I had been forced to do things I didn’t like. Now I was taking back my life.

  “We need different things,” I said. “I’m wrong for you. You shouldn’t have to compete with a wife. You shouldn’t have to fight over who’s the better worker or the better parent. You need someone who’s vulnerable and will lean on you and look up to you and devour every word you say. Me,” I gave a wry smile, “I’m an old hand when it comes to self-sufficiency. I’ve been at it since I was eight. So I needed other things from my marriage.”

  “Like what?”

  “The security of knowing I’d never be left alone.”

  It was a while before Dennis said, “Guess I blew that.”

  I didn’t respond at first. My mind was sorting things out. Much as I resented Dean Jenovitz, some of what he said rung true. “Maybe I’m too self-sufficient.”

  Dennis didn’t say anything. Which was good. No hackles raised. I went on.

  “Sometimes I don’t listen. I find solutions and impose them. I jump in and take charge before others can, even when they want to, even when they need to.”

  When Dennis remained silent, I looked at him. He smiled gently. “I’m not arguing.”

  “Take Kikit,” I went on, because this affected us both. “She can read. She knows how to spell all the things she’s allergic to. We have to teach her how to look at labels and monitor herself. We have to give her the power, rather than keep it ourselves. That means letting go just a little.” Quietly, I added, “I have to learn to do that.”

  It would be hard. I worried so about her. But if I had refused to put her on the floor as an infant, lest she fall and hurt herself, she would never have learned how to walk. So, now, I had to set her down. The trick would be in being there to prevent a fall while she learned. For Kikit, allergy-wise, falls could be fatal. But she had to learn that she could prevent them herself. She had to gain that self-confidence.

  “Jenovitz accused me of not wanting to change. He’s wrong,” I vowed. But when I tried to apply the empowerment model to Dennis, I couldn’t. I had let him be weak. I had let him lean on me. Now, he was too heavy. I no longer had the trust or respect to prop him up. I didn’t want to catch him if he fell. “I’m just not sure I can change, where you and I are concerned.”

  And where Brody was concerned? Overpowering self-sufficiency had never been an issue with him. From the very first, I had been able to lean on him. He was a strong man.

  Dennis was studying his mug again. When he raised his eyes this time, they held a vulnerability that did something to me. It brought back, in one swift instant, all the positive parts of our marriage, the feelings of warmth and affection and, yes, love, that had seen us through for years. In that swift instant, my heart ached for the potential that had been there and had gone awry. In that swift instant, I wanted to comfort Dennis.

  “Is there any chance for us?” he asked.

  With the passing of that first swift instant, came another. This one held all that I hadn’t said about Dennis and our marriage, all that had come into focus only after Dennis himself had broken it up. It held things like rashness, lack of loyalty, and moral weakness. On the plus side, it held Brody.

  I gave him an apologetic smile and a quick head-shake. “It may be we’ll be better friends than lovers. I’ll try that, if you will. Want to?”

  I stayed at the house until dinner was done and the children settled in, then left them in Dennis’s care with a new sense of peace. I headed for the lighthouse, changed my mind and headed for Brody’s, changed my mind again and headed for my workroom. By the time I got there, I was on an adrenaline high.

  Setting the rocker and its table side by side on the workbench, I studied them. The reweaving was nearly complete, though I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the job I had done. Often, working during the last few weeks, I had been tense and distracted,
and it showed.

  I was focused now. With infinite patience, I removed those reeds that I hadn’t placed well, soaked new lengths, and wove them in. They fit smoothly. With similar ease, I wove replacement pieces into those spots previously empty. I had the touch tonight. My hands were magic.

  Standing back, I admired my work. As jarring as the two pieces had looked filled with holes, now they looked mended. They weren’t perfect yet. The new weavers had to dry before I could guarantee their alignment, and once that was done, there would be more cleaning and sanding, then priming and painting. I was hoping for a particular shade of green, something warm and lime. If I didn’t get it right with the first coat, I would get it right with the second.

  Had it not been for those still damp reeds, I might have started the priming right then, my energy level was so high. As fate had it, Brody appeared at the door and gave me another outlet.

  eighteen

  A blustery wind blew me along Federal Street the following afternoon, but my shivering was as much emotional as physical. All too well I remembered the first time I was here, when Dennis had held all the cards. Now I held a few. But despite the change in circumstance, too much was at stake for complacency.

  The chill left few people lingering on the courthouse steps. They crowded the lobby and, with the added bulk of overcoats thrown over bench backs, compounded the chaos in the courtroom. Otherwise, the scene was much as it had been in October. Lawyers and their clients huddled, uniformed court officers chatted, the judge moved up and down his bench, the radiators hissed.

  Carmen and I sat at the back of the courtroom, waiting to be called. She had already handed Missy a copy of Selwey’s letter, plus a statistical analysis of Jenovitz’s reports, affixed to our Motion to Recuse. Since Dennis and Art Heuber sat several rows ahead of us, I couldn’t see their expressions.

  I had talked with Dennis briefly in the lobby, more by way of passing time while we waited for our lawyers than anything else. There was an awkwardness between us here. It didn’t matter that we had come to an understanding of sorts at home. In this place, we were adversaries.

  He had been at the house all morning, while I had been with Kikit. Then, as now, his manner had been quiet and conciliatory, his shoulders weighted.

  “The Raphael matter,” Missy called.

  We took the same places we had in October—Dennis, Art, Carmen, and I, in that order. Selwey took Carmen’s brief from Missy and stood swaying before us while he read it. I was acutely aware of the moment when the swaying stopped. Lips pursed, he read on a bit, then set the papers down and said to Carmen, “You are aware that your client has committed theft.”

  “No, your honor,” Carmen dared say. “Since she is personally paying the guardian to conduct his study, we argue that the contents of that folder are hers. I don’t expect that Dr. Jenovitz will press charges. He won’t want us arguing our case in open court.” She hitched her chin toward the papers Selwey held. “He won’t want to risk those figures coming out. You may not mind.”

  Of course he would. His manner said it clear as day. Everything about him was small and tight and angry. “What, exactly, do you want?”

  “It’s stated in our petition,” Carmen said, sparing him a public statement. We had asked him to excuse himself from the case, to reverse his orders against me, and dismiss the case.

  In a huff, he said, “I was brought into this case on behalf of two young children. What about them?”

  Art Heuber answered. “Your honor, my client is willing to drop his insistence on sole custody.”

  “Well, what about the original charges? I didn’t dream them up, here. I didn’t go looking for you. You came looking for me.”

  Again Heuber spoke. “My client has agreed to drop the original charges. The parents would like to determine custody of the children themselves.”

  “If the parents weren’t able to do that two months ago, what makes them able to do it now?”

  “A dialogue has begun,” Heuber said.

  Selwey moved his arms, black robes fluttering, feathers ruffled. “Well, what happened to those original charges?”

  “There was a misunderstanding.”

  “A misunderstanding? You’ve wasted the time of this court and a GAL on a misunderstanding?” With a disdainful flourish, he made a notation on the paper he held. “This case is dismissed. Who’s next, Missy?” he asked, turning his back on us as he walked our papers down the bench.

  As quickly as that it was over.

  I made it as far as the courthouse steps before my legs rebelled, this time from utter relief. I rested my weight against the stone wall and took breath after deep breath of the cold December air. With each one I felt stronger, freer, happier. With each one I stood straighter.

  When Carmen joined me, her grin was as broad as mine.

  “Nice work,” I said.

  Her lips quirked. “It’s always nice when you can stand there like a lady and not say a word while the other guys squirm.”

  “Not that I’d have minded if you’d accused Selwey in a big loud voice of unethical conduct, the pompous jerk.”

  “The accusation’s coming,” Carmen promised. “That letter will make the rounds until Selwey is off the bench. My guess is it won’t have to go past the first stop. That’s the Judicial Conduct Commission. Trust me. Selwey’s gone. Jenovitz will have to feed at another trough. And he’ll find one. He’ll get assignments from other judges. Maybe not enough to allow for the subsidized retirement he had in mind. But he won’t starve.”

  “So he was in it for the money. What did Selwey get from the deal?”

  “Ego. Control. Power. He’ll lose all that now. As he should. What he did to you is not how our system of justice is supposed to work.”

  But he had nearly gotten away with it. A quiet exit was more than he deserved. In angry moments, I wanted to picket the courthouse, write the governor, call the media. In more rational ones, I simply wanted to leave this whole experience far, far behind.

  Dennis emerged from between the stone pillars and stood on the top step looking around. He hesitated when he saw us, then pulled up his collar and started down. By the time he reached us, his hands were deep in his coat pockets. His expression was sober.

  “Congratulations,” he said to Carmen, then to me, “I didn’t know about the note Selwey wrote. Neither did Art, or Phoebe. We knew he had a bias, but we didn’t think it went that far.” He paused. “So.” His hands remained in his pockets, arms stiff. “What happens now?”

  “We talk,” I said. “The way we should have in October.”

  “I still want the kids.”

  Calmly, I said, “So do I.”

  “I still have more time for them than you do.”

  “Not if you buy into Pittney.”

  “What if I don’t? What if I retire and live on alimony?”

  “Will alimony give you enough to live the way you want?” I asked in a way that raised the Hadley business without my saying it aloud.

  Carmen broke in. “I think we should discuss this when Dennis has counsel present. I’ll call Art and set a date to meet.”

  Dennis nodded her way. Then, persistent as ever when he was onto a cause, he turned to me again. “I won’t be kicked out of the house.”

  “You can have the house,” I said, which took the wind from his sails for a minute, but only that.

  “So. Who gets the kids?”

  We opted for joint custody. It was the obvious solution. We lived close enough to each other so that Kikit and Johnny could go back and forth without any disruption to their everyday lives. They would stay with Dennis while I traveled and stay with me while he traveled, and for the rest of the time we would rotate weekly, with the assumption of added flexibility as the children grew older. We agreed to share all major decisions and responsibilities, and to consult with each other on all matters relating to the kids. Child support was never an issue. I was thrilled to be able to give my children a level of financial secur
ity that I had never had.

  The divorce settlement was more thorny. Dennis held out for a large chunk of money. I simply held out longer. It took that long to convince him that I would use what I had against him if he went after WickerWise.

  Would I? Really? Carmen asked me that more than once as we negotiated, and I thought about it long and hard. The woman I had been before all this would never have slandered her husband, but that woman had changed. She had been burned. The scars that had formed were tough. She might not take the offensive against her husband, but she would defend herself in a heartbeat if he ever again threatened what she held dear.

  The final deal included my paying monthly alimony in an amount that would enable Dennis to live comfortably, plus a lump sum for the past year and each of the next four equal to twenty-five percent of the net profit of WickerWise.

  For all of Dennis’s complaints that I would thwart his ability to earn a decent living, he bought into Pittney Communications even without the larger share of WickerWise that he wanted. The first lump sum that I paid him, plus an advance on the second, plus a deal with Pittney that enabled him to pay for the rest with a portion of his monthly take, and that vice-presidency was his.

  All things considered, it was more than he deserved.

  But I was satisfied. I had made mistakes in the course of our marriage. I felt less guilty about those, knowing that Dennis would be all right. Besides, his ego was a major player in his life. The more satisfied that ego, the more agreeable the man. The more agreeable the man, the better a father he was. The better a father he was, the greater the well-being of my children. And that was the bottom line.

  It always had been.

  By the middle of January, we had our agreement in writing. By the first of February, we had a hearing in court. With Judge Selwey on an indefinite leave of absence, we stood before his replacement, Judge Collier. She granted the judgment nisi as a matter of course. Ninety days later, our divorce became final.

  With the coming of May, the sun was high enough and strong enough to counter the chill of the Atlantic and warm Brody’s back porch for a late Sunday brunch. It was a private affair, just Brody and me. The children were with Dennis in New Hampshire. Rona was with Valentino at the light-house.