Custody (19 page)

“Mrs. Anders.” Judge Spriggs shook her head. “You’re to sit on the opposite side from your brother.”

Tossing her head, the woman rose and walked to the middle of the bench.

Judge Spriggs wagged her head to the far end. “Little further. Little further. Oh, come on, Mrs. Anders.”

“I’m just trying to follow your instructions. I’ll sit anywhere you tell me. I’ll sit on the witness stand if you tell me to.”

“Right there will be just fine, Mrs. Anders.”

Kelly made a note on her pad, a question she’d ask the judge later.

The case went on and on. Rain slid down the windows. Kelly’s bottom went numb. Mrs. Herbert didn’t want Mr. Herbert’s girlfriend to pick up the children from school on Mr. Herbert’s day to have the children. Mr. Herbert didn’t want Mrs. Herbert to take the children to Disney World because he couldn’t afford to because he had to pay child support, so why should she? Mrs. Herbert didn’t like Mr. Herbert giving their daughter his mother’s emerald bracelet. She was only ten, and she’d lose it, and then everyone would be mad, and besides, it was just a bribe.

“Look!” Judge Spriggs snapped, her eyes flashing. “You should be able to settle these matters out of court. This is costing you both tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, as well as taking up much of the court’s valuable time. Quite frankly, I’m so displeased by your inability to reach agreement on the slightest matter that if I didn’t have the best interests of your children to consider, I’d make the two of you remain married! Honestly, now, how are you going to provide a tranquil and pleasant environment for your children if you can’t compromise on any one issue right now?” Sighing, she looked down at the enormous stack of papers in front of her. “I want the two of you to see the court clinic.”

“Your Honor,” one of the lawyers said, “they’ve already done that.”

“Then do it again! I want the children interviewed, and I want a report on how these children are doing.” She glared at the estranged couple. “Would you
please
consider your children? I’m worried about them. If you two can’t find some way to compromise, it’s your children who will suffer.” She rubbed her eyes. “All right. That’s all.”

In the judge’s chamber, as Kelly and Judge Spriggs removed their robes, Kelly said, “Judge Spriggs. You seemed awfully patient with all those relatives. I’m surprised you didn’t cite Mrs. Anders for contempt. She spoke so rudely to you.”

Judge Spriggs yawned. “She did. You’re right. But this is a tough enough case. These people are like a pack of rottweilers. If I’d reprimanded the sister, they would have said—if I ruled at all in favor of the mother—that I was prejudiced against the husband and his family. They’d appeal my rulings. Hell, they probably will, anyway.”

The judge sat on the edge of her desk, removed one of her pumps, and rubbed her foot. “I am always struck by the sight of a couple standing before me for their divorce.
Press rewind
, I think, and there they are ten or twenty years ago, standing together before a judge or minister, being married. Even the words they say—I do, I will—are similar.”

“You look tired,” Kelly remarked.

“I am. I’m beat. You’ve got to learn to pick your battles in court, Kelly. You’ve got to sniff out what you can do and what you can’t. What will work and what won’t. Your instincts
will sharpen after a while, and you’ll need to follow them as much as the rule of law.”

The register and secretary were shutting desk drawers, flicking off computers.

“Do you still believe in marriage?” Kelly asked as she gathered up her briefcase and purse.

“Sure do. I believe in divorce, too.” And, she said, smiling, “On Friday nights I believe in a pizza and a video with my husband!”

Ribbons were wound around all the poles supporting the sugary white tent shading the flower-strewn tables laden with carved meats, cheese, breads, salads, and fruits. The sun rolled through the bright blue evening, casting drifting light on the drinks table, making the champagne and liquor bottles so deftly handled by the bartenders in their crisp white jackets gleam and sparkle.

The wedding had been splendid—the reception, flawless. Muffy Holmes was now a rather disheveled and flushed Muffy Bendigen. Toasts had been made, the six-tiered wedding cake cut and devoured, the band had played, everyone had danced, and the reception was not over yet, for as soon as dark fell there would be fireworks.

Jason had a headache. Horrible changes took place in one’s thirties, he was beginning to realize: at Buster’s bachelor party and today as well his body had clearly informed him that he couldn’t consume the amplitude of alcohol he’d imbibed in his twenties and get away with it. At the drinks table he asked for two Perriers with ice and lime, which he carried over to the far table where his mother sat with Bud and Alyssa Worth and a number of other parental types.

“Darling. How did you know?” Eloise took her glass gratefully. She looked peerless in a lavender silk dress and a creamy straw hat adorned with a cluster of silk lilacs. “Sit with me awhile.”

She didn’t have to ask twice. Even in his summer-weight blazer, he was hot, and his headache made him so cranky he didn’t trust himself to talk to anyone but his mother just now.

“Great wedding!” Bud Worth announced heartily across the table to Jason.

“Right, sir. Great wedding.”

“Lovely couple,” Alyssa Worth added. “Just lovely.”

They’d said exactly these words at least seven times before, Jason thought muzzily, and each time the slurring of their words grew more pronounced. It occurred to him that perhaps his
words were slurred, as well. Or perhaps the Worths’ words weren’t slurred but his hearing was! The thought made him bark with laughter.

“What?” his mother inquired.

“Nothing,” he told her, adding, “I think I’m a bit tipsy.”

The band had advertised that it played a broad spectrum of music, from big band all the way to pop rock, and it was true they performed a variety of songs, but since they sugar-coated every note and set it to a Lawrence Welk beat, everything sounded pretty much the same. Still, when the twist began, Bud Worth hauled himself up from his chair and led his wife to the dance floor where he clasped her to his chest and steered her around the floor in a jaunty two-step.

Across the table several of the older people were engrossed in a heated debate over Hillary Clinton. Caleb Livingston, a widower and old chum of Eloise, sat by himself at the foot of the table, watching the dancers, drinking steadily, his nose turning redder with each swallow.

Sotto voce
, Eloise said to her son, “And to think I once had thoughts of seeing that man, after Helen died.”

“Really!” Jason was shocked, not at what Eloise said but that she said it at all. She must be a bit tipsy herself, he decided, to tell him something so personal.

“You seemed to be having rather a good time with the Hudson girl,” Eloise remarked.

“Mother,”
Jason said warningly.

“Well, Jason, she
is
beautiful, and refined, and well educated, and sweet. I can’t help but think what a lovely wife she’d make.”

“Yes, for someone else. I’m not attracted to her, Mother.”

“Well, you should be. Look at her.”

Jason looked at her. Bobbie Hudson, in bridesmaid peach silk, was at the moment being transported around the dance floor by her father. She’d tossed off her hat hours ago so that her brown hair curled around her face, floating seamlessly over her extremely tanned and slightly bulky shoulders—Bobbie was a jock.

“Mother. Perhaps you’ve forgotten. I’m engaged to marry Kelly.”

“Engagements can be broken.”

“And why would I want to do that?” Jason had known for a long time that this was coming and decided it might as well be now, while he was fairly well anesthetized by alcohol, and so that tomorrow his mother could forget what she’d said—or claim to have said it because she wasn’t thinking clearly.

“Because Kelly is not the right woman for you.”

“Go on.”

“What worries me most is the matter of children. She’s already thirty-five. You haven’t even set a date for your wedding yet. By the time you two are actually married, she may not even be able to conceive.”

Unwittingly—or perhaps wittingly, for Eloise
was
his mother, after all—Eloise had hit upon a real concern for Jason. “I thought you liked Kelly.”

“Well, I don’t. I find her opinionated, aggressive, argumentative, and
hard
.”

Jason ran his hand over his forehead. “Kelly likes
you
. She thinks you’re fond of her.”

“Then Kelly is not very perceptive and will make a mediocre judge.”

Jason shook his head. “I’m getting another drink. One with booze in it.”

Jason rose and headed toward the drinks table. Bobbie Hudson was already there, and when she saw him coming, she gave him a great big smile.

Five

S
UNDAY MORNING
,
THUNDERCLOUDS ROLLED OVERHEAD
, muttering threats, darkening the sky, and as Kelly drove through the sleeping streets of Cambridge toward the cemetery, fat raindrops began to drop, one at a time, then slid with a kind of languor, slowly, down her windshield.

Probably he would not come today. A storm was predicted. It wouldn’t be sensible to come today.

She wanted to see him so much she could scarcely breathe. All week she’d thought about him, his massive gentle size, his honest face, his laughter, the way he listened to her and then was quiet, thinking, before responding.

All during this past week, even in the midst of all its new challenges, she thought of him. She didn’t even have to close her eyes; it took only the brush of fabric across her palm or the scent of flowers to transport her instantly, helplessly, back to the moment when she stood in the sunshine saying good-bye to the man, when a flower of heat blossomed between their hands. Every night as she lay in bed, waiting for sleep, his face would appear before her, the aura of his presence would surround her, and she would have to pull a pillow against her and squeeze it hard.

By the time she arrived at the cemetery the wind was rising, dancing through the trees,
then vanishing. She parked behind the chapel and walked up Mulberry Avenue past the Bell Tower and around until she reached Lilac Path and her mother’s quartz-and-granite rock.

She looked down the slope toward Magnolia Path. No one was there.

“Oh,”
she said aloud, disappointed.

She sank down onto the grass, folding her legs sideways beneath her so that she leaned a little, in a companionable way, on her mother’s stone. She tugged at the hem of her short dress, smoothing the lime-colored cotton over her lap, noticing with a little sigh how pale, right in the middle of the summer, her legs were.

It felt lovely, really, simply to sit. To have the time to think about something as insignificant as a tan.

She was glad her first week of training was over. It had been exhilarating and frustrating. The more she saw of custody and divorce cases, the more she saw of negligent and even harmful parents, the more she realized how fortunate she’d been as a child.

So now she folded her hands, bowed her head, and said a prayer, beginning her own ritual. Occasionally she’d wished she had some rules to follow, some established ceremony. Most times she was comfortable simply talking to her mother, aloud or silently, in a casual, spontaneous way, as if she were speaking with her on the phone over a very long-distance satellite connection that she wasn’t sure really worked. Odd, perhaps, but still somehow satisfying.

Here, where only her mother and God were witness to her thoughts, she felt both free to be truthful and obligated to do so. Certainly her mother of all people would understand this powerful, irrational attraction Kelly felt for a man. Would her mother help her think through to some solution?

“Mom,” she said now, “I’m confused.”

A gust of wind tossed a spatter of raindrops at the trees around her, making brisk popping sounds. One drop splatted, a quick shock, against her bare arm.

A man called out: “You’re here!”

At the sound of his voice, her heart lifted. Was his arrival, at this exact moment, some kind of answer to her question? Certainly her confusion had evaporated, replaced by utter joy.

He came walking up the hill toward her, wearing khakis and a pink button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Around his neck hung a red-and-blue-striped tie with the knot tugged down. He looked weary, his hair more silver than she’d remembered, and completely wonderful.

“You’re here, too,” she remarked idiotically.

He sat down on the other side of the rock, crossing his legs Indian style, resting his arms on his ankles, and peered across the two feet of ground separating them. “I’m very glad to see you.”

“I’m very glad to see you.”

They smiled at one another, pleased.

“I thought about you all week,” he said. “And I had an idea.”

“Oh, yes?” She felt positively radioactive with happiness.

“I like it that we can talk to one another the way we do, without the kinds of limitations normal conversations hold, but I can’t keep thinking of you as”—he lowered his voice into a humorous portentous bass—“the Woman at the Cemetery.”