Happily Ever After? (20 page)

Lynette was next. She smiled tentatively at me as she nervously took her seat. I didn’t think there would be any surprises.
She would tell the soap-carving story and the fire-building story, and that would be the end of it. I hadn’t expected her
to tell about the time Pete burned his hand during the Tiger Cub camping trip. “We tried to call home, but the phone was off
the hook,” she reported quietly. “My husband told me later that Val had had a visitor that day. A man.” Lynette looked at
me apologetically.

I felt my stomach drop.

“Relevance?” Omar demanded.

Sloan raised his hands in the air. “It goes to the question of negligence, Your Honor. She had listed her home number in case
of emergency, and yet there she was, entertaining
male callers, and disconnecting her phone, knowing full well that there would be no way to reach her in the event of an emergency.
Now, what kind of mother would do such a thing?”

Lynette jumped in. “But Valerie told me she had accidentally knocked the phone off the hook. That sort of thing happens all
the time. I never said she disconnected the phone on purpose.”

But I had done precisely that, I remembered with a guilty shiver. Eddie’s wife had called. I hadn’t wanted her to call again.
I took the phone off the hook. I’d completely forgotten that Pete might need to reach me.

Judge Brand rubbed his eyes wearily. “Mr. Sloan, you are making a tenuous connection at best. Mrs. Chase, you are excused.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” she said. Lynette gave me another one of her grief-stricken stares. I couldn’t bear to look at her.

Omar squeezed my hand. “Don’t panic,” he whispered. “It’s going great.” And you know what? For a minute I actually agreed
with him. For the first time since the hearing had begun, I’d actually allowed myself to feel optimistic. Until that point,
I’d assumed the worst: I was going to wind up childless, penniless, homeless. Now Omar’s confidence bolstered me like steel
beams. I felt bulletproof. We were going to win this thing. I knew it.

Omar reached into his briefcase and pulled something out. “Your Honor, I’d like to move on to our next
piece of testimony,” he said. He was holding a videotape.

I hadn’t even noticed the VCR on our table until Omar slipped the videotape inside. My pulse pounded as he leaned across the
table to switch on the TV. Omar pressed the play button on the VCR. There was nothing but deafening gray static. He fiddled
with a few more buttons but no picture appeared. “Where are those nerdy A/V squad guys when you need them?” Omar muttered.
Sloan rapped his pencil impatiently while Roger smirked. Kelia was still chewing her fingernails.

Omar haphazardly smacked a few more buttons. Finally a picture appeared on the screen. It was a woman, small but sturdy, perched
on the edge of a tall kitchen stool. She wore a baggy black shirt and black pants, the nylon kind with many pockets and zippers
and Velcro tabs. She held a cigarette between the thumb and index finger of her small hand, but over the next ten minutes,
she never brought the cigarette to her lips, not once, not even when she appeared visibly distressed.

“Zoom in on me,” she said. “No, not
that
button. The other one. I said, the
other
one.” She rolled her eyes exasperatedly. “That’s it. Get in close.”

The voice had the authority of a Marine Corps sergeant. I knew that voice. It was Mary’s aunt Esta. Now her face filled the
TV screen. Her black hair was cut short, like a man’s, and she wore a red beret at a rakish angle. Her face was shaped like
a heart but her mouth was drawn and severe, a taut, lipless razor blade line.

Omar paused the tape. “Your Honor, at this point I would like to introduce the videotaped testimony of Ms. Esta Domingo. To
quickly review, Roger Tisdale married Mary in a bogus ceremony, and kept her as a virtual prisoner in a condominium on Lake
Merle. When confronted with his bigamy, Mr. Tisdale attempted to deny any relationship—actually, he attempted to deny any
knowledge—of this girl. I believe that Esta Domingo’s testimony will settle the question of whether Roger Tisdale deserves
custody of Peter Ryan Tisdale.” The judge nodded and Omar switched the tape back on.

Esta stared into the camera. “I’m sorry I cannot be there in person to testify. As I explained to Mr. Sweet, we are in the
process of building a battered women’s shelter and I am needed here.

“She didn’t want to have sex with him,” Esta continued, in a vaguely British accent. “But he filled her head with useless
dreams. He said he would send her to nursing school someday. But the bastard never even registered her for bloody high school!
What kind of bullshit is that?” Esta stabbed the air with her cigarette. “Roger Tisdale wasn’t a husband. He was a man who
liked young girls. He was a pig!”

I tried to read Brand’s expression. He had the pained and disgusted look of a man with a bad case of gastroesophageal reflux.
I found this encouraging. But I couldn’t understand why Omar was so excited. There was no news here. Esta’s testimony was
already in the file.

Esta straightened her beret. “I suppose I should get to the matter at hand,” she continued. “The issue, as I understand it,
is whether or not Roger Tisdale is fit to be a father.”

“Your Honor, this is ludicrous,” Sloan complained wearily.

Judge Brand instructed Omar to pause the tape.

“Your Honor, by her own admission, this woman doesn’t know Roger Tisdale,” Sloan went on, rubbing his head. “She is not a
child development expert. She knows nothing about the particulars of this case or the people involved. She is not qualified
to address the issue of Roger Tisdale’s paternal competence. I respectfully request that we go no further with this tape,
Your Honor. For God’s sake, Your Honor, do we really need to waste everyone’s time with this crazy woman’s testimony?”

“Sit down, Mr. Sloan.”

“But Your Honor, this testimony is based on hearsay and puffery,” Sloan whined, sounding very much like one of those fey prep
school boys I’d known in graduate school. Actually, he sounded quite a bit like my ex-husband. “It’s the biased testimony
of a wacky paramilitary man-hating feminist.” Sloan paused for dramatic effect and pulled out his trump card. “She is a
lesbian,
Your honor.”

“Sit down, Mr. Sloan,” the judge ordered. “And stay down. I want to see this tape. Please, Mr. Sweet.”

“My pleasure, Your Honor.” Omar hit the button again.

The frozen Esta was reanimated. “When Mary thought she was pregnant, she called me in desperation. She wanted an abortion.
But it didn’t make sense. Mary loved babies. She told me she had to do it for him. Roger Tisdale. He’s the one who told her
to get rid of the fetus. He told Mary he hated kids. I remember this precisely. Roger told Mary that children were a burden
and a nuisance. He said kids just get in the way. He said he never even wanted Pete. He told Mary that if she goes through
with the pregnancy, he would kill the baby himself, with his bare hands.”

“Hearsay, Your Honor! This proves nothing, Your Honor!” Sloan interjected. Omar paused the tape.

“I believe I told you to shut up, Mr. Sloan.” The judge turned to Omar. “Is that the gist of it, Mr. Sweet? Or does this witness
have anything more substantive to say on this issue?”

“Yes, Your Honor. One more thing, if you’ll indulge me just a moment longer, sir.” He switched on the tape.

“Okay. Now. Get a wide-angle shot,” Esta instructed. The unnamed cameraperson pulled back. Esta was holding something in her
hands. It looked like a Dictaphone. “We always tape our phone conversations. House rule.” Esta pressed a button and held
the tiny machine in the air. “Okay. Zoom in again.”

And then I heard Mary’s voice, the childlike quaver,
the pleading desperation. “You have to help me, Auntie,” Mary begged. I felt a lump rise in my throat. “Roger says I have
to get rid of my baby. If I don’t, he’s going to kill it. He said he would come in the middle of the night and grab the baby
by the throat and squeeze it dead with his own hands, Auntie! He swore it to God, Auntie! Oh, please, help me!” Esta clicked
off the machine and stared into the camera. “So if you want to know whether Roger Tisdale would be a good father, I think
you have your answer now.”

“That’s about the gist of it, Your Honor,” Omar said. “After this point we’re dealing with variations on a theme, sir.”

“In that case, you may turn off the tape. I believe I’ve heard enough.” Judge Brand removed his glasses and ran a hand over
his face. He stood up. “Please be back in this courtroom in forty-five minutes.”

Sloan and his assistants huddled among themselves. Omar reached for my hand and squeezed it. “Say a little prayer, Valerie.
Not that we need it now. We’ve got this one in the bag.”

Omar had enough confidence to dash out during Judge Brand’s deliberations for a pint of hot and sour soup. I sat alone on
a bench at the far end of the corridor, beneath the wide, dirty window, and felt the sun warm the back of my head.

I closed my eyes. I could hear Roger and Kelia talking—no, bickering. She must have told him to take deep cleansing breaths,
or maybe she suggested he “be
in the moment,” because all of a sudden I heard him bark, “Cut the Buddhist crap, okay? I’m not one of your suburban housewife
yoga morons,” and she winced as if he had slapped her. Roger’s tongue could sting sharper than any hand. Kelia must have discovered
that by now.

And all I could think was, the bloom must be off the fucking rose. Now
she
can deal with Roger’s sniping remarks, the cold wars, the public humiliations. I remembered the time we’d had some people
over for dinner, Alexis something, a colleague from the Learning Attic, and her husband, Stephan, a classical pianist. We
were sipping wine and talking about movies. I remember feeling unusually happy and relaxed. I happened to mention
Das Boat,
the one about German soldiers in a submarine.

“
Das Boat
?” Roger sneered. “You mean,
Das BOOT
?” He pronounced
boot
with a German accent, while I’d merely said Das Boat, half German, half English, the half-assed attempt of a girl who had
never mastered languages, who had never traveled abroad, who felt like an algae among these cultured pearls of academia.

“Boot, boat, whatever.” I hoped my husband wouldn’t make a scene. “What do I know? I took Spanish.”

“Okay, then, say boat in Spanish.” Roger folded his arms and smiled at his friends.

After seven years of Spanish, I couldn’t remember how to say boat. Crazy sounds and stray Spanish words
bumbled in my head.
Película.
Manzana. Man of La Mancha. Chimichanga.

“I’m waiting, Señora Ryan.”

I felt myself blush. I thought I heard Alexis giggle. And then a miracle happened.
“Barco,”
I said, amazed that I’d remembered, but also angry that I’d debased myself by indulging him in his cruel little game.

Roger clapped his hands. “Bravo! Now why don’t you toddle into the
cocina
and fix us some
café?
” He tossed his head back and roared. Alexis and Stephan looked embarrassed for me.

I looked at my watch. The judge would be ready with his decision in six minutes. I began to torture myself with the possibility
that Roger might have full custody of our son. What would I do? Then I remembered that little verse I learned in my brief
stint with Overeaters Anonymous: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change …

How had we gotten to this place? I remembered the joy on Roger’s face when I called him into the bathroom to see the pregnancy
test dip stick, which, by the way, he had matted and framed. I thought of the way he retrieved Ben & Jerry’s fudge brownie
frozen yogurt for me, just because I mentioned I had a hankering for it. How he massaged my swollen legs in those final weeks
of pregnancy, how he kissed every toe and lettered each one: P-E-T-E-R and E-M-I-L-Y. We didn’t know whether we were having
a boy or a girl until Pete finally entered
the world, and when he did, Roger cried like a baby himself.

Every promise and hope for the future, these were not idle promises or vain hopes, were they?

A cellophane-wrapped fortune cookie suddenly appeared in my lap. “Go ahead. See what the future holds.” Omar towered above
me, sleek as a fox and fully refreshed while I sat there like a sweaty Easter egg in Lynette’s maternity jumper.

I unwrapped the cookie and cracked it open. It was empty. I stared into my lap. I felt like crying.

“Empty, huh?” He seemed to be suppressing a grimace. “Hey, you know what that means, don’t you?”

“No, Omar, what does it mean?” I said, knowing he was making something up on the spot.

“That just means the possibilities are infinite.”

“Really? I always thought it meant I was going to die.”

“We’re all going to die, Valerie. But I have a hunch you’re not going anywhere anytime soon, and I’m just as confident that
empty fortune cookies are not a reliable predictor of one’s mortality—it just means someone was falling down on the job at
the fortune cookie factory. So ease up on yourself, okay?” He squatted in front of me, and I marveled at his flexibility.
My own legs were half as short and I couldn’t spontaneously squat if you paid me. “Valerie?”

“What?”

“Listen to Uncle Omar. Everything will be fine.” Omar looked at his watch and quickly sprung to his feet (equally impressive).
“It’s time.” He grasped my hand and pulled me up. “Let’s get in there before Judge Brand does. He hates waiting.”

When we got back into the courtroom, Roger was already there but Kelia was not. Brand hoisted himself into his seat and cleared
his throat. He looked tired. He shuffled and scanned some papers on his table. He took a deep breath and just stared, first
at Roger, then at me. I wished I could read his mind. I wanted to get this over with.

“I’m not one of these judges who believes in the sacrosanct authority of all mothers,” he began, and my heart sunk like an
stone. “Yes, it’s true that mother and child have a unique relationship. The mother carries and nurtures a child in her womb.
She brings him into the world. She feeds him with her own body.” Judge Brand leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling
as he continued. “But there is so much more to motherhood beyond this process of gestation and birth and the act of breast-feeding.
Who answers the child’s cries at night? Who creates a neat and orderly home for this child? Who gives him the spiritual and
emotional guidance he needs to become a fine young man? Who?”