A Good Divorce (25 page)

“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 won 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.

I called Mr. Washington to ask for his help. He'd given me his home number and that's where I reached him. “I've decided to amend the divorce decree to take custody of the kids away from Jude.”

“Now you're talking, counselor.” I could hear the television news in the background. “I'll tell you this. If you didn't do something, the school district was ready to file an action for parental deprivation against your ex. You can still use the district's reports to hang her.” He gave me the name of an attorney who used to do parental deprivation hearings for the Attorney General's office. Someone who knew the in's and the out's of these kinds of cases.

Then I called Jude.

“I thought we'd salvaged enough respect that at least we wouldn't stab each other in the back.”

“If I didn't do this, the school district would have tried something worse.”

“Tell the school district to go screw itself.”

If there was any doubt in my mind as to the wisdom of taking this course of action, Jude's belligerence quickly dissolved it. “You left a pretty good trail. All their people had to do was follow your droppings. What did you expect?”

“Why don't they blame you for this? You're as divorced as I am.”

“I'm not having sex with a live-in man, Jude. The social workers said you flaunted it.”

“What did you want me to do, lie? This is a witch hunt”—her phone must have hit the wall and I pulled my ear away from the receiver—“and why did you let them get into Justine's medical records? That was none of their damn Nazi business.”

I didn't want to get diverted. “The point is the kids, Jude.”

“Quit blaming it on the kids.”

“Look, I'm as distressed as you. Strike that. I don't know how distressed you are, but I'm very distressed. And I'm simply not convinced the kids' living with you is good for them.” I could hear her cussing under her breath. “I'm willing to help work something out so we don't have to go to court.”

“Fuck your good intentions. I'm not going to stand by and watch you cut my heart out. I'll fight it every step of the way.”

“How much checking have you done, Jude? Have you talked to any professionals?”

There was a pause, a silence that sometimes followed the spewing of the venom. Maybe she was just reloading. “God, this is so overwhelming, Cyrus. I'm not trying to scar them. Honest. But I can't stand the idea of our kids living in a world where this kind of shit goes on.”

We were back to dogma and I was tired of dogma. I wanted to get past that. “I don't have anything more to say, do you?”

“As a matter of fact I do. I think you should stop hitting on the mothers of Justine's school friends.”

We hung up and I flopped out on the couch, wondering whether I could get back into the book the Group Health doctor had recommended, but I was too stirred up. Jude had a way of making all of my ideas seem like leftovers from a medieval banquet. She was always the one fighting for enlightenment.

I put on a jacket and headed out for a walk. Talks with Jude were like pot; they made me paranoid and restless. I was starving for a walk on Broadway, to see punks with greasy hair, Hari Krishna chanters with red and green paint on their faces, scatological messages on the tile at the Safeway. People who had nothing to do with me or Jude.

Through a reliable source in the bar, I found out that Charlie Johnson had refused to represent Jude. “Bad for business to represent a lesbo,” he'd told a friend, who told my friend. Charlie apparently preferred the more predictable and slack waters of heterosexual adultery. Instead, Jude had hired Gloria Monroe, the lawyer who'd previously represented my construction contractor client, Leo Pescara. My overall assessment: Gloria could deliver the goods. I'd have hired her myself.

The family decision-making machinery had broken down with the filing of my petition to amend the divorce decree. Jude wouldn't speak to me. As far as she was concerned, a faceless reaper was working his way up her row with his scythe.

It wasn't that I didn't trust the adversarial process. I'd lived off it, I'd defended it against detractors. It was a system that allowed each side to throw its best stuff and let the crucible of twelve good people or one learned judge sort the wheat from the chaff. The truth would win out. But being an advocate for someone else's cause was qualitatively different than choosing sides in a family fight. I had to use conscience instead of rhetoric and live with the results afterward. Our dirty little family secrets were threatening to break out the bottom of the bag I'd been carrying on my back.