Kramer vs. Kramer (23 page)

“No, I—”

“Did you send anything?”

“I was still living through my experience with my husband.”

“You sent the child nothing at all to express your love?”

“I sent them in my heart.”

“In your heart. Did this small child grasp the symbolism?”

“Objection. Counsel is attempting to intimidate the witness.”

“Can we hear the question again?” the judge said to the steno­grapher, and Ted leaned forward in his chair. Was the judge not listening? Was he sitting up there, his mind drifting while this important issue was being decided? Or did he want to make certain of his ruling? He was the judge, though. He could do anything he wanted in his courtroom. The stenographer read back the question.

“Overruled. The witness can answer.”

“All I know is that Billy has always been happy to see me.”

“How long do you plan to live in New York, Mrs. Kramer?”

“Permanently.”

Shaunessy picked up on the word permanently, using it as a weapon.

“How many boyfriends have you had—permanently?”

“I don’t recall.”

“How many lovers—permanently?”

“I don’t recall.”

“More than three, less than thirty-three—permanently?”

“Objection.”

“Overruled. The witness will answer, please.”

“Somewhere in between …”

Shaunessy had told Ted there was little to be gained from making an issue of a mother’s promiscuity, unless it was extreme, which they would have difficulty proving. He obviously had other intentions here.

“Do you have a lover now?”

“I have a friend.”

“Is he a lover? Do we need a definition of terms, or are you the Virgin Mary?”

“Objection!”

“Sustained. Mr. Shaunessy, do you really expect an answer to a question of that nature?”

“I would request a direct answer to the direct question, Does she at present have a lover?”

“I’ll allow that. The witness will answer, please.”

“Yes.”

“Is that permanently?”

“I … don’t know.”

He pressed on. How many jobs had she held permanently, what had she done permanently, when she went to California was that permanently, when she came to New York to see the child was that permanently, when she went back out to California was that permanently, when she came back to New York was that permanently? He was taking a run at her stability and Joanna was faltering, she began to stammer, she became vague, “I didn’t … know at the time …” She lowered her voice so that the judge had to ask her to speak up.

“We don’t really know, then, do we, when you say permanently, if you’re really planning to remain in New York or even keep the child, for that matter, since you’ve never really done anything in your life that was continuing, stable, that could be regarded as ‘permanently’?”

“Objection! I must ask that Counsel be prevented from harassing the witness!”

“Well, there is an admissible question in there,” the judge said. “Do you intend to remain in New York permanently, Mrs. Kramer?”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“I have no further questions at this time.”

Gressen was entitled to a redirect examination of the witness, and he carefully reconstructed their motherhood position—“mother” their key word; “As a mother, I felt …” “Being a mother, I could tell …” used throughout by witness and lawyer as if to trigger an automatic response in the judge. They went over the steps Joanna had taken to gain custody of the child, her return to New York, her search for a job, her finding an apartment where “As a mother …” she knew Billy would be comfortable, the legal procedures she undertook—hiring the lawyer, filing the petition, down to appearing in court on this day—all because of her longings as a mother, details presented to prove the deep commitment to a young child by a stable, responsible mother.

Shaunessy had a last recross-examination.

“Mrs. Kramer, how can you consider yourself a fit parent when you have been a failure in virtually everything you have ever undertaken as an adult?”

“Objection!”

“Sustained.”

“I’ll ask it another way. What is the longest personal relationship you have ever had in your life other than parents and girl friends?”

“I’d have to say—with my child.”

“Whom you’ve seen twice in a year? Mrs. Kramer, your ex-husband­—wasn’t he the longest personal relationship in your life?”

“Yes.”

“How long was that?”

“We were married two years before the baby. And then four very difficult years.”

“So you were a failure at the longest, most important relationship of your life?”

“Objection.”

“Overruled.”

“I was not a failure.”

“What else do you call it? A success? The marriage ended in a divorce!”

“I consider it less my failure than his.”

“Congratulations, Mrs. Kramer. You have just rewritten matrimonial law. You were
both
divorced, Mrs. Kramer!”

“Counselor, do you have a question of the witness?” the judge asked.

“I’d like to ask what this model of stability and responsibility has ever succeeded at. Mrs. Kramer, were you a failure at the longest, most important personal relationship of your life?”

She sat silently.

“Please answer the question, Mrs. Kramer,” the judge said.

“It did not succeed.”

“Not
it—you.
Were
you
a failure at the most important personal relationship of your life?”

“Yes,” she said barely audibly.

“I have no further questions.”

Joanna left the witness stand, looking exhausted.

“Motherhood is tough to score against,” Shaunessy said to his client. “But we drew blood.”

A
FTER A LUNCH RECESS,
the hearing continued with Joanna’s father, Sam Stern, taking the stand for the petitioner. His function for Joanna was to serve as an eyewitness to the mother-son relationship. Gressen restricted his line of questioning to this one area, with an even narrower emphasis on the recent Saturday when Joanna took Billy for the day, and Sam and Harriet joined them. As he heard Sam describe the pleasant afternoon and the ease with which Joanna dealt with her child, Ted realized he had been had. That day was an ambush. The grandparents had been there for the specific purpose of providing this particular testimony. Shaunessy attempted to cross-examine, but he could not make inroads on the limited testimony. This is what the man saw with his own eyes—mother and son got along very well.

As he came off the witness stand, Sam tried to slip past Ted at the table without looking at him. Ted reached out for Sam’s arm.

“Sam?”

Sam Stern’s head was down. Without ever looking up, he said, “Ted, you would do the same for your child, wouldn’t you?” and he moved on quickly.

Gressen did not call any other witnesses. He had assembled a highly compact case. Motherhood was the main issue. The mother was the main evidence.

T
HE ARGUMENTS FOR THE
respondent began. Charlie was the first witness, Shaunessy referring to him constantly as “Doctor” to give more weight to the testimony. The doctor vouched for Ted’s character and for his excellence as a parent.

“Would you trust your child in his care?”

“I already have. Many times.”

He described outings in the city with the children, his firsthand observations of the boy’s affection for his father, and the father’s for the boy. With emotion in his voice, he said, “I don’t think I could have been as good a father in these circumstances.”

Gressen declined to cross-examine. With a smile, he virtually dismissed the testimony as inconsequential. He adopted the same tactic after the testimony of the next witness, Ted’s sister-in-law, Sandy, who described Ted’s concern for Billy’s welfare, which she had observed, and said, “The boy adores him.” Thelma took the stand next and was overwrought. When Shaunessy asked her:

“What have you been witness to that would attest to Mr. Kramer’s competence as a father?”

“Their relationship,” she said and she nearly cried.

“Objection, Your Honor. The answer is, to be generous, rather vague.”

“Sustained.”

“Can you recall any particular incident that relates to Mr. Kramer’s care of his child?”

“He reads to Billy, he bathes him, he plays with him, he loves him, he’s a very kind man … and if you ever saw them together … there wouldn’t be a trial at all …” and she started to weep.

Shaunessy said he had no further questions. Gressen looked for a second as though he might like to move in on her, but a man who was building a case on motherhood must have thought better than to confront a mother’s tears and he declined to cross-examine.

Jim O’Connor said Ted Kramer was “highly regarded in his field” and “a man I deeply respect.” When he had completed his support of Ted as a competent, respected professional, Gressen decided to not let this witness pass.

“Mr. O’Connor, this person you say was so excellent in his work and such an outstanding professional, didn’t you fire him—twice?”

Ted spun around to look at Shaunessy. Where did they get that information?

“Not exactly,” O’Connor said.

“What exactly?”

“The companies failed. We were all terminated.”

“Even our miracle worker here?”

“Objection!”

“Sustained.”

“I have no further questions.”

Ellen took the stand, and speaking as an elementary school teacher testified that Billy’s brightness and spirit, which she had been witness to, came as a result of Ted’s excellence as a parent. Gressen let her pass. Shaunessy then placed in evidence the psychologist’s report, which held a positive view of the respondent, as well—the apartment was “comfortable for the child,” and Ted was deemed “a competent parent.”

Etta Willewska was called. Shaunessy asked a series of questions about her observations of the household. Nervous, uncertain of language, she spoke in simple terms of the atmosphere in the house. “He is a very sweet boy.” “You should see how he loves his daddy.” “I could take him to school, but they like to be together.”

Gressen, concerned about this testimony, decided to cross-examine.

“Mrs. Willewska, you are in Mr. Kramer’s employ, are you not?”

“Excuse?”

“He pays you, doesn’t he?”

The sarcasm that he was developing, that she had been bought for her remarks, escaped her entirely.

“Yes, but my sister takes care of Billy today while I am here.”

“This man gives you money, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, but I don’t know about today,” she said, confused. “Maybe he should pay my sister.”

When the lawyer noticed both the judge and the court stenogra­pher smiling at the unassailable naïveté, Gressen withdrew, rather than engender more sympathy for the witness.

“No further questions,” and he mustered a slight smile of his own in Shaunessy’s direction, professional respect—You got me on that one, John.

Ted Kramer was to be next, the final witness in the hearing. They would begin in the morning.

A
T NINE-THIRTY, THE TESTIMONY
began. It ran for the length of that day and through half of the next. What passed in the courtroom was a description of nothing less than a man’s life. They went back to the time of Joanna’s departure, to the decisions he made to keep the boy, to find a housekeeper, to keep the household stable, on through the day-to-day concerns of being with the child, winter viruses and a small boy’s social life, rainy Saturdays and 4
A.M.
monsters. Shaunessy’s questions were delivered with feeling and compassion, as though a career of handling the niggling arguments of people in hate had suddenly been elevated by this one client who had become his cause. Give the man his kid, he seemed to be urging the judge. Look at what he’s done. They covered the long weekends, the clothes bought, the books read, the games played, the constant commitment, the depth of his caring, and somewhere in the closing hours of the testimony a change took place in the courtroom. Joanna Kramer, who had sat without expression throughout, modeling her indifference after her lawyer’s, began to listen, drawn into the testimony, the accumulation of detail, unable to take her eyes off the witness. Ted Kramer answered the last question—as to why he wanted custody, and he said, “I have no illusions about it, or that my boy will be grateful. I only want to be there, as I have been, because I love him.” A recess was called prior to cross-examination, the judge withdrew to his chambers, and Ted Kramer came off the stand, embraced by his lawyer and his people.

I
N CROSS-EXAMINATION, JOANNA’S LAWYER
began to fire questions at Ted about hours, days, nights spent away from Billy, how often did Ted hire baby-sitters, leave the child to sleep with women, the lawyer attempting to impugn the witness on both his morals and his commitment to the child.

“I don’t think, and do you agree, that we should add in as child care the time when you’re home and the child is asleep?”

“You’re on duty then, too.”

“Unless you have a woman in your bed then, too.”

“Objection!”

“Sustained.”

“Mr. Kramer, have you ever had a woman in your bed while your child is in the next room asleep?”

“I suppose.”

“So do I.”

Ted thought it was crude, an attack of innuendo and half-truth, but his lawyer had taken a low road with Joanna also, and it was as Shaunessy had said, a dirty game. Gressen now attacked Ted’s employment record with dates and places. Ted realized now that they had hired a private detective to find information to use against him. “How many months was that, Mr. Kramer?” “How many jobs does that make in the last two years?” What Ted had believed was an achievement, finding work, the lawyer was trying to turn into a character defect by stressing that Ted had been out of work in the first place.

“I’m at
McCall’s
now. I don’t believe they are going out of business.”

“How long have you been there?”

“Two months.”

“We’ll give you time.”

“Objection, Your Honor!”

“I’m only examining the man’s employment record, Your Honor. He pretends to fitness when he cannot hold a job. If the witness wishes to challenge these dates—”