Family Law

by Gin Phillips

  It was typed and unsigned. She ripped it in half and tossed it in the trash can. Once upon a time she wondered who would go to the trouble of typing and mailing such a letter, but now she didn’t wonder about any part of it.

  Her thoughts drifted instead to Bequeatha Long, a girl from her family court days who had been taken from her addict mother and placed with an aunt. Out of view of the courts, the aunt kicked Bequeatha out of the house when she was thirteen. There were only so many ways for a girl to earn money, and by the time the courts rediscovered the child, she was fifteen years old with one prostitution charge and a thirty-eight-year-old boyfriend. That boyfriend shot the assistant manager at an Exxon station and stuffed the body in the trunk of his car. Bequeatha—such a doll-like face—had been waiting in the car during the robbery; at her own arraignment, her eye had been swollen shut. The boyfriend had punched her not long before the robbery, and she’d driven the car like he told her. What was she supposed to do—let him kill her, too? She was poor and she was black, and they tried her as an adult and sent her to prison for twenty years.

  You reap what you sow, the judge had said to her, his gold tooth flashing, and Lucia had imagined ripping it out with needle-nose pliers.

  Let that be a lesson to anyone who said men and women weren’t treated equally. People might scoff at the idea of a woman astronaut or Supreme Court justice, but when it came to punishing that girl just as harshly as a grown man—well, justice had been completely blind.

  No one ever mentioned that sometimes you reaped what other people sowed.

  “Here you go,” said Marissa, inches away, holding out a cup of coffee.

  “Thanks,” Lucia said.

  “Gladys Plexico just called again about her late parents’ house—”

  “I meant to get back to her yesterday,” Lucia said. “Call and tell her she’s free to put the house on the market. The court eliminated that restriction on married women four years ago—she doesn’t need her husband’s signature anymore to sell her own property. No need to wait until the divorce is final.”

  Marissa gave the trash can a light kick. “So what did the letter say?”

  Lucia remembered her first firm, where the secretary had plopped herself on the edge of her desk and announced, “Just so you know, I don’t work for women.” And yet she’d managed to find Marissa, who knew her well enough by now to interpret her paper ripping.

  “Rot in hell,” Lucia said. “In summary.”

  “No signature?”

  “Why do you still ask that?”

  Marissa pushed her dark curls out of her face. “You should have to sign a letter like that. You should have to put your name and phone number at the end, in case someone would like to continue the discussion.”

  “I don’t want to continue the discussion,” Lucia said.

  “You’re telling me that if that lowlife was standing in front of you, you wouldn’t have a response?” Marissa was already through the doorway, headed back to her own desk with its stash of Tic Tacs and thermos full of Coke. “You’ve got a potential at eleven. The outline is on your desk. Then you’ve got the luncheon at twelve thirty, as you know.”

  Lucia eyed the rest of the mail, then pulled her Dictaphone from the drawer. Marissa was wrong. A response required thought and she refused to waste any. She settled the Dictaphone into her palm, running a thumb over the buttons that felt as if they’d been worn into the shape of her fingers. She propped an elbow on her desk and began her response. “Marissa, this is to Paul Price at Jackson and Price. Dear Paul, I’d be happy to meet about the Woodruff case.”

  VI.

  Beverly Leles was a woman who would radiate old money and fine china even if she were in overalls, not that she would ever own a pair. Collarbones sharp and hand trembling slightly as she pulled at her pearls, she had the look of a Gothic heroine.

  Hopefully a heroine, thought Lucia, and not a madwoman in the attic. If you feel the need to cry, she had told Beverly, don’t hold back. It’s not bad for the judge to see your emotions. But sometimes a woman misunderstood that concept and cried the whole damn time, and there was such a thing as overkill.

  “Didn’t you hope to be an architect yourself?” said Arnold Dobson, standing too close, his belly brushing against the stand.

  Beverly’s hand dropped into her lap.

  “No,” she said, leaning into the microphone. “Well, yes.”

  “When was that?”

  “When I was an undergraduate. I was never serious about it.”

  Arnold cocked his large square head. His white hair scraped his collar. “You hoped to design office buildings,” he said. “You hoped to leave a mark on the world.”

  Lucia caught Beverly’s eye. That exact line had come up in the deposition, and while Lucia considered objecting—could Arnold never remember to ask an actual question instead of preaching at them all?—she let Beverly handle it.

  “At some point I did,” Beverly said, smiling slightly, exactly as they had practiced. “I liked the idea of building something that would last.”

  “And you stopped wanting to leave your mark?” Arnold asked, too incredulous.

  “No. But I realized there were other options that appealed to me more. I think I am leaving a mark.”

  “Of course. You dig up marigolds and your husband has designed six different buildings from Atlanta to Mobile. Did—”

  Lucia half stood. “Object. Your Honor, counsel is testifying. That’s not a question.”

  “Sustained,” said Judge Harrison, eyelids at half-mast. His sleepy look was deceptive.

  “Did your resent your husband’s success?” Arnold asked.

  “No,” said Beverly. Not a hint of tears.

  Arnold shook his head in what he surely imagined was a fatherly way. The man was a complete dick. Once Lucia had gone to his offices for a meeting, and she’d overheard him telling his secretary to hide the Tab because she would want one. As if having to drink a Coke would crush her soul.

  “How many clients have you had so far this year?” Arnold asked.

  “Two, but both are extensive projects. I’m currently redesigning the gardens at the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald House.”

  “Well,” said Arnold. “Isn’t that impressive.”

  Lucia stood. “Your Honor, Mr. Arnold is not asking a question.”

  “Sustained,” said Judge Harrison.

  “Move to strike,” said Lucia.

  Arnold barely paused. “The truth,” he said, “is that you stayed home with the children, and your husband continued to grow more famous.”

  “Your Honor, there he goes again,” said Lucia. “We’re not in court to hear Mr. Dobson’s lecture.”

  A slight raising of Judge Harrison’s eyelids. “That’s correct, Ms. Gilbert. But that’s not a proper objection.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor,” said Lucia. “I object on the grounds that counsel made a statement rather than asking a question.”

  “Sustained.”

  “Has your husband grown to be an architect of some renown since you’ve been married?” snapped Arnold, his temper showing.

  Go on, thought Lucia. Turn up the heat. See who burns.

  “Yes,” said Beverly. “In the South, I’d say.”

  “You hate him for it, don’t you?”

  “No,” she said.

  “In fact, you want to punish him by taking his children away from him?”

  “That’s not true,” Beverly said, voice steady. “That’s not true at all.”

  Lucia wished for a Kodak: she’d love to offer up this moment the next time someone asked why she left Legal Aid or the D.A.’s office and switched to private practice. The question always held a certain condescension.

  I’m sorry. Those were the first words Beverly Leles had spoken to Lucia. Marissa had waved her into Lucia�
�s office, and Beverly had apologized for walking into the room. The husband had stripped her of every bit of value, like a thief coming back to the same empty house night after night, ripping out the copper and marble and hardware, bit by bit, until the place was gutted. The husband—he was sitting there now, big eared and bony—had told her that she was too heavy and that her laugh was too loud and her vegetables were too soggy. Bit by bit. Eventually her daughter and son started telling her the same thing.

  At times Lucia grew furious with clients who seemed eager for court, but the truth was that some landed here through no fault of their own: they happened to be married to a narcissist or sadist or what have you. She’d watch amazed as a client sat there listening to a litany of their worst sins—real or invented. Nothing could be worse than looking across these scratched parquet floors at someone you had loved, someone who had stripped you naked and soaked up your secrets, and who had then brought you here to be stripped naked again.

  Such a weapon, intimacy.

  Arnold crossed his hands over his belly, making Lucia think of Rooster Cogburn. “You’ve been in therapy for quite some time, haven’t you?” he asked.

  Enough, thought Lucia.

  “Objection, Your Honor,” she said. “Privileged. Move to strike.”

  She was sustained, of course.

  “You’re depressed, aren’t you, Mrs. Leles?” Arnold tried again.

  Dick.

  “Your Honor,” Lucia said, “you just ruled on this issue.”

  “Sustained.”

  “I move to strike,” Lucia said.

  Arnold shot her a look, and she held back a smile. It was amazing how a few interruptions could rattle someone.

  Arnold rubbed a hand over his slicked-back hair. “Don’t you want this divorce—despite your husband’s desire to remain married—because you—”

  “Objection,” said Lucia. “Your Honor, we have not heard Mr. Leles’s wishes. That question presumes a matter not in evidence.”

  The husband stared openly at her now. The sad look he had kept pasted on his face slipped long enough to let the rage show. It stings, doesn’t it, she thought at him, to be shut up over and over again.

  He fixed his face. But she could see under the table where his hands were in fists, pressing his thighs so hard that his pants were a mass of creases.

  Lucia smoothed her skirt and enjoyed her view of his knuckles. She had not been honest with Rachel—she did not merely accept the need for conflict. She did not play some halfhearted role. When she saw a fight coming, she ran at it, landing with both feet, waiting to see how the pieces flew up around her and what shape they might take.

  VII.

  The days and the meetings and the faces did not exactly blur, but the edges overlapped. The shaking of hands. The settling into the chairs. The questions and answers and regret and resentment. The man now in front of Lucia had fired his lawyer and asked to meet with her directly, which was unusual, but he was a high school principal, soft-spoken, and she’d seen his paycheck stubs. They had left her sympathetic.

  He was a tall man, knees touching the front of her desk and elbows overhanging the chair.

  “I know my wife,” he said. “I know what she wants, and I know what I’m willing to do. So, as I said, I think I can save us all some time.”

  “All right,” Lucia said. “Why don’t you tell me what you think she wants?”

  “She wants me crucified,” he said. “She wants me to suffer, and there is no amount of money that will satisfy her.”

  Lucia straightened a pen on her desk. He was not wrong. His wife would rather have his bloody pelt than alimony.

  “Affairs do make people angry,” she said.

  “I know,” he said, running a hand over his thin hair. “I was angry when she had her affair, too. But she’s not mad about my cheating. She’s mad because I left, which is the strange part. I don’t know how she can possibly want our marriage to continue.”

  Again, Lucia couldn’t find a flaw in his thinking. “So far,” she said, “you don’t seem to feel very accommodating.”

  “Kelly is not my favorite person in the world,” he said. “But I’d like to think I can be fair. I’ve drawn up a budget showing what I need to live. I’ll give her the house. I’ve listed a child support figure that I think is generous. I can’t magic up money where there is none. If she insists on going to court, that will eat up money, and she’ll get less. She needs to decide whether punishing me is really worth the financial loss.”

  Lucia took the folder he passed to her. She hated to admit it, but he was more reasonable than his wife. More fair-minded. You didn’t like to think that sort of thing—you needed to stay firmly on your client’s side—and maybe that was why these meetings were meant to be between lawyers. You wanted to keep your focus narrow. Too much perspective could paralyze you.

  * * *

  • • •

  A different day.

  Donna Lambert’s main liability was her face, which brought to mind Bo Derek, all gorgeous cheekbones and eyes. Her hair was a problem, too, dark waves of it past her waist, although she could pin it up for court. Still, no judge would look at her and see a victimized woman. A judge would see a woman who was used to hearing “yes” more than “no,” and the judge would be right.

  “I wanted to ask you about Jerry,” Donna said, hair falling over her shoulder.

  Lucia had wondered why she wanted an appointment now when her court date was three months away. “The man you met at the barbecue? The one from Atlanta?”

  “Yes. I wondered—”

  “You can’t see him,” Lucia said. “Not if you want this to come out in your favor. The last thing you should do is start another relationship in the middle of a divorce.”

  “I visited him last weekend,” Donna said. She smiled, and it was well practiced. “We’d been talking on the phone every night. It’s not—it’s not casual.”

  Lucia lay her pen down. She let the silence expand.

  “I told you not to see him,” she said at last. “I told you that you could talk by phone occasionally. You told me you wouldn’t see him. You lied. I told you that if you lie to me, we’re done.”

  “I only—”

  This is what it’s like to hear “no,” Lucia thought.

  “We’re done,” she said.

  * * *

  • • •

  A different week.

  “I want them,” the man said. “Is there any way—any way at all—that I could get custody? I take them to school most days, and I help them with their homework. More than she does. I’m a good father.”

  Lucia sighed. The same answer, always, no matter what man sat in the chair.

  “I’m sure you are,” she said. “But unless your wife has some very problematic behavior that leaves her unfit, she will get custody. The courts believe that children are better off with their mother.”

  He ran a hand over his forehead, pulling his eyebrows high, skin stretched tight.

  “You believe that, too?” he asked.

  “I don’t,” she said. “Not universally. I don’t think your legal rights should be based on your sex. If a woman makes more money than a man, she should be the one asked for child support. If a father is the more involved parent, he should be considered for custody. But that’s not the way the courts work right now.”

  He’d dropped his hands to his thighs. His fingers tapped against his khaki pants so lightly that it seemed more like trembling.

  “I’d hoped,” he said, “that with a woman lawyer, it might help—”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll do what I can, but the courts are very set in their ways, unfortunately.”

  “You ever read Hop on Pop?” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  “We read it every night. Maybe a hundred nights in a row at
this stage. I’ve been begging them to let me try something new, not to make me read about Mr. Brown and Mr. Black one more dang time, and I’m getting my wish, aren’t I?”

  He dropped his head so that she couldn’t see his face, and she was glad.

  Rachel

  I.

  I had ten minutes before the homeroom bell would ring, and I was passing my old middle school. I was going forty-five, maybe fifty, and it took me a few seconds to realize that the police car was following me. When I pulled over, the policeman called me young lady and lectured me about school zones. He said I could run over some little girl and it would haunt me forever. I wanted to say, hey, I spent three years at that school, and trust me, most of those girls would not be a huge loss.

  I wound up avoiding a ticket and getting sixteen hours of community service at Oak Park. Two Saturdays. Eight hours each.

  I wasn’t concerned when Mom dropped me off that first day. (We’d driven over the day before, making sure that she was comfortable with the route.) The park was green and leafy and familiar. As a kid, I’d fed stale bread to the ducks here, and I still remembered the big slide, and how if you didn’t put your hands down to brake yourself, you’d land on your butt.

  I stopped by the information booth, and soon enough a soft-bellied, gray-haired man with matching navy shirt and pants came walking across the grass toward me. When he got close enough, I could see his badge. A security guard. I smiled, but he didn’t smile back. He only asked for my name, and then he led me down a dirt path, thick with trees on both sides, until we hit a sidewalk. He didn’t say a word. We wound up at a picnic pavilion with a concrete floor and benches attached to the tables. Another man, balding and tanned, was inside the pavilion, wiping down tables with a gray rag.

  The security guard stopped.

  “Now then, Rachel,” he said, looking at me, finally. “This is—what’s your name again?”

  The man with the rag looked up, still wiping. “Luther.”