What falls away : a memoir (39 page)

material wealth to their upbringing . . . She is sensitive to the needs of her children, respectful of their opinions, honest with them and quick to address their problems.

• There is no credible evidence to support Mr. Allen's contention that Ms. Farrow coached Dylan or that Ms. Farrow acted upon a desire for revenge against him for seducing Soon-Yi. Mr. Allen's resort to the stereotypical "woman scorned" defense is an injudicious attempt to divert attention from his failure to act as a responsible parent and adult.

• Ms. Farrow's refusal to permit Mr. Allen to visit with Dylan after August 4, 1992 was prudent. Pier willingness to allow Satchel to have regular supervised visitation with Mr. Allen reflects her understanding of the propriety of balancing Satchel's need for contact with his father against the danger of Mr. Allen's lack of parental judgment.

• In a society where children are too often betrayed by adults who ignore or disbelieve their complaints of abuse, Ms. Farrow's determination to protect Dylan is commendable.

• Ironically, Ms. Farrow's prmcipal shortcoming with respect to responsible parenting appears to have been her continued relationship with Mr. AUen.

DYLAN FARROW

• The credible testimony of Ms. Farrow, Dr. Coates, Dr. Leventhal and Mr. Allen does prove that Mr. Allen's behavior toward Dylan was grossly inappropriate and that measures must be taken to protect her.

CUSTODY

• None of the witnesses who testified on Mr. Allen's behalf provided credible evidence that he is an appropriate custodial parent. Indeed, none would venture an opinion that he should be granted custody. When asked, even Mr. Allen could not provide an acceptable reason for a change in custody.

• After considering Ms. Farrow's position as the sole caretaker of the children, the satisfactory fashion in which she has fulfilled that function, the parties' pre-litigation acceptance that she continue in that capacity, and Mr. Allen's serious parental inadequacies, it is clear that the best interests of the children will be served by their continued custody with Ms. Farrow.

VISITATION

• The common theme of the testimony by the mental health witnesses is that Mr. AUen has inflicted serious damage on the children and that healing is necessary. Because, as Dr. Brodzinsky and Dr. Herman observed, this family is in an uncharted therapeutic area, where the course is uncertain and the benefits unknown, the visitation structure that will best promote the healing process and safeguard the children is elusive. What is clear is that Mr. Allen's lack of judgment, insight, and impulse control make normal noncustodial visitation with Dylan and Satchel too risky to the children's well-being to be permitted at this time.

• It is unclear whether Mr. Allen will ever develop the insight and judgment necessary for him to relate to Dylan appropriately. My cau-

tion is the product of Mr. Allen's demonstrated inability to understand the impact that his words and deeds have upon the emotional well being of his children.

• I believe that Mr. Allen will use Satchel in an attempt to gain information about Dylan and to insinuate himself into her good graces. I believe that Mr. Allen will, if unsupervised, attempt to turn Satchel against the other members of his family. I believe Mr. Allen to be desirous of introducing Soon-Yi mto the visitation arrangement without concern for the effect on Satchel, Soon-Yi, or the other members of the Farrow family. In short, I believe Mr. Allen to be so self-absorbed, untrustworthy, and insensitive, that he should not be permitted to see Satchel without appropriate professional supervision until Mr. Allen demonstrates that supervision is no longer necessary.

• Because Mr. Allen's position has no merit, he will bear the entire financial burden of this litigation.

After so many months of fear and horror it would take time before I could believe we were really safe. I telephoned the older kids at their schools and returned to the apartment where the younger ones were just coming home. I held them tightly. They didn't know what this day meant or how much had been at stake. I never told them that they could have been taken away from me, and from their brothers and sisters. All those mornings when I had left them to go to court, I said only that there were "problems" that had to be dealt with; that Woody Allen was not happy about certain things, but that all would be well.

That night Sascha and his wife Carrie, Matthew,

Fletcher, Daisy, Lark, Moses, and I gathered around the table after the little kids went to sleep. The atmosphere was subdued as we shared our emotional exhaustion and immense relief. It had been so long since we had awakened to an ordinary day.

G hapt er Twelve

A month after the court's decision, Moses, Tarn, Dylan, Satchel, Isaiah, and I left for Ireland, where I would make Hugh Leonard's Widow's Peak in the Wicklow Mountarns. I joined an old ftiend ftom England, Joan Plowright, and two new ones, Natasha Richardson and her fiance, Liam Neeson, with whom I'd worked only a year and a half earlier, a lifetime ago it seemed, in Husbands and Wives. To focus on something other than the trial came as a relief and a pleasure, and after thirteen years with the same director and crew, it was exhilarating to be at work m an atmosphere so entirely different.

I was returned that summer to long-ago memories of Ireland, of mystical tales told to me by Eileen, my mother, and my grandmother; and of my grandfather's house that moaned in the wind, the black bogs pelted with rain, and the heavy smell of turf fires. Now, in the welcoming of aunts and cousins, after decades of wandering, I was wrapped in a deep sense of belonging. It was as if I had come home.

Far from troubles and scrutiny, Dylan, Satchel, and Tarn chased woolly lambs across the hillsides, and in the village they happily blended with the local kids. The previous year, in the midst of all the turbulence, Dylan had chosen another name for herself, a lovely one, and she had asked us not to call her Dylan again. We respected her wishes. Now Satchel, because he had been teased in the school yard as a "book bag," and perhaps inspired by Dylan's name change, chose a fine new name for himself.

Our time in Ireland was only momentarily marred by news that Woody Allen had appealed the custody decision; and then again in midsummer, when he came to Dublin, shattering our newfound peace and privacy with more headlines and loud accusations. In the newspapers we read that he had brought Soon-Yi with him. No one in the family had heard from her since 1992.

As sure as death, Soon-Yi was gone from our lives. Long months ago, her brothers and sisters had begun the painful process of hardening their hearts toward her. Soon-Yi Farrow Previn, schoolgirl, sister, daughter, had metamorphosed into something none of us could comprehend or think about. Knowing my sorrow, a friend urged me to think of her not as a daughter but as a child who had lived among us, without ever understanding what a family is, or what a mother is; she was unable to love us, and felt no commitment to us. She was not a daughter the way Lark, Daisy, Tam, and Dylan are; I tried to think this, to make the betrayal less terrible, the loss more bearable. But in the end, whatever her feelings, or lack of them, I can only love her as my child, and there is nothing to be done about that. I no longer want to see her, but for the rest of my life I will miss her.

We returned to New York in the fall of 1993, still not knowing whether Woody Allen would face criminal prose-

cution for his conduct with Dylan; the police investigation had gone on for a year. My own position in this matter had never shifted: my responsibility was to secure the necessary protection for Dylan. I had always hoped this could be achieved without putting her through a trial. Now, with the supreme court decision, I felt confident that, at least for the immediate future, she would be safe.

On September 24, 1993, Connecticut state's attorney Frank Maco announced his decision. "I have reviewed an arrest warrant application submitted by the state police," he said. "As to the allegations ... I find that probable cause exists." Despite this finding, he would not initiate prosecution because of "the risk of exposing the child complainant to the rigors, uncertainties, and possible traumatization of such actions ... I cannot identify a compelling community interest or expectation that justifies my risking the well-being of the child-victim by exposure to the criminal process ... I have conferred with the child and her mother and they concur with my decision."

In order to undo Woody's adoptions of Dylan and Moses, we needed to prove that, unbeknownst to the court, a relationship between Woody and Soon-Yi had already existed prior to the adoptions, a fact both had freely admitted at first, but that they now denied under oath. Long before the proceedings began, a housekeeper Woody and I shared told me she had seen Soon-Yi in his apartment and changed the sheets and emptied the wastebaskets after her visits.

To the same Judge Roth who had approved the adoptions, we brought proof of fraud including hundreds of calls between Woody and Soon-Yi, as well as witnesses who saw Soon-Yi entering and leaving his apartment alone and other witnesses who saw them in Woody's apartment throughout 1990 and 1991. There was even the photographer who had taken a widely published photograph of

Woody and Soon-Yi holding hands at a Knicks game in 1990.

After hearing all that, Judge Rene Roth sidestepped the issue of fraud and requested an additional hearing on the "best interest of the children." But I had already spent a half million dollars on the fraud hearing. Faced with a choice between higher education for my children and continuing this litigation, I let it go, at least for the time being. Moses, almost of age, was no longer an issue, and Dylan was protected by the state supreme court.

Woody lost his appeals, the photographers receded, and we found ourselves surrounded by good friends. But as we went about the city, walking, or waiting for buses or cabs, it was hard to ignore the possibility that Woody or Soon-Yi or the limo with the tinted windows might cross our paths. When the older kids settled in to watch a Knicks game on television and the camera suddenly cut to Woody and Soon-Yi, Moses got up and silently left: the room. Minutes later the others switched off the set. Even the view I had loved from our apartment windows for thirty years had become painful. I had to break a twelve-year habit of glancing to see which lights were on in the penthouse across the park.

Over the Christmas holidays Fletcher got a job in the packing room at a chic Manhattan clothing store. One day his supervisor, not realizing he was Soon-Yi's brother, asked him to carry packages out to the waiting limo of Woody Allen's girlfriend. Fletcher declined.

That winter the rent-control laws were changed, and our rent was about to be quadrupled. So we let go of the apartment that had been my family's since I was a teenager, to live full-time at Frog Hollow, where, after all, we were happiest. The older kids were in college, graduate school, or law school, and they came home only on weekends or the holidays. Moses, at sixteen, still had two years of high

school ahead, so for him it would be more difficult, but he was willing to make the transition to a Connecticut school. As a family we were certain that life in the country would be easier, healthier, and more fun for the younger kids. Although Woody took us to court to prevent us from moving, the judge said we could go. I have lost count of how many times Woody has brought me back into court to challenge the custody decision or to dispute its visitation restrictions. But as of this writing we are still safe, and the children are happier than they have ever been.

So while carpenters fixed up Frog Hollow, during the winter of 1994 we went to Florida, where we rode dolphins, and I made Miami Rhapsody with Sarah Jessica Parker and Antonio Banderas.

I wrote to my childhood friend Maria Roach: "This is a time for healing; time to acknowledge the strengths that have seen us through and to be grateful for our blessings. So much has been lost; people I loved dearly and my belief in them, daily life as we knew it and our privacy and peace. We reached a point where we no longer knew what was probable. We did not bring these troubles upon ourselves, but through them I determined to define myself to myself, to others, and to God. This was the goal I set, and so each laceration became a test, a trial I needed to be worthy of. Each scalding survived was a purification. Each plunge into darkness left me struggling for light. Every separate fear and personal humiliation endured served to strip away what was nonessential in me and made me understand: it is by that which cannot be taken away that we can measure ourselves.

"During these last months, my entire orientation has shifi:ed: emotional pain, suffering of the soul, and all the falling away seem to have led me into a deeper consciousness, an awareness, toward a state of (^i{ I may use this word) transcendence, through which we experience our own

existence as a part of the greater whole; as both a non-self and as a far-greater self, not defined by transitory landmarks or finite boundaries, but existing purely in relation to an infinite whole. Through this awareness, and the falling of the walls, and the evolution of self comes meaningful direction, strength, and serenity. It is also the ultimate weapon against nothingness.

"I am bonding myself to these thoughts, drawing courage fi-om them, and, carrying only what is essential, I will travel lightly into an unknown future, trusting we will all be safe and that a meaningful new life will create itself."

In February the phone in our New York apartment rang: an agency was telling me about a little girl for whom they had been unable to find a home, and whom they thought would be right for us. The kids and I talked it over, and in March we welcomed an exquisite one-month-old baby girl into the family. Already smiling and cooing, Kaeli-Shea was a "Gerber's baby," except that, for reasons no one could explain, she was unable to move her arms.

In May, Woody lost his first appeal of the state supreme court decision. The court recognized Woody's "tendency to place inappropriate emphasis on his own wants and needs and to minimize and even ignore those of his children." While the five judges stated that the allegations of sexual abuse of Dylan were inconclusive, they also stated that the testimony at the trial suggested that abuse did occur.