My Beloved World (32 page)

It was somewhat in that spirit that I joined New York City’s Campaign Finance Board. Unlike PRLDEF and SONYMA, the Campaign Finance Board was a relatively new organization, founded in the wake of scandals that shook New York State in the mid-1980s, when certain vast campaign contributions, undoubtedly corrupting but some perfectly legal, were exposed. The need for oversight in the financing of the electoral process was dramatic, not only to guard against graft, but to ensure access for candidates who would be excluded if money alone determined the race. But before the board’s creation there were no regulations in place, no model for the disbursement of public moneys. New York was the first major American city to institute such reforms, the only other example being Tucson.

What appealed to me was the possibility of devising a structural solution to a long-entrenched problem simply by creating an appropriate set of rules. That’s as elegant as ethics gets. It was also an
exhilarating exercise in the art of crafting compromise between opposing interests, always my first response to political division. The fact that I had always registered independently, without a party affiliation, enhanced my credibility as a dispassionate mediator. But the board’s greatest asset in laying claim to evenhandedness and procedural transparency was its chairman, Father Joseph A. O’Hare. A Jesuit priest and the president of Fordham University, Father O’Hare was a man of such unassailable integrity that fairness seemed assured, even as his irreverent sense of humor banished every trace of sanctimony. Under his leadership the board exemplified how a government agency could rise above partisanship to work for a general good.

The CFB was my introduction to the city and state political scenes. Many lawyers I met working there would go on to become power brokers whose awareness of me and eventual support would matter to my career in ways that I couldn’t yet imagine. I had always thought my career would be devoted to principles that transcended politics, but the fact is there would have been no way to the federal bench except through such political channels. It would matter crucially that I was familiar to people of influence who, though recognizing I did not involve myself in partisan efforts, could see that I was at least an honest broker. The integrity I had cultivated so jealously out of personal pride would be my calling card when the time came. Or so I was later told.

Sometimes, idealistic people are put off the whole business of networking as something tainted by flattery and the pursuit of selfish advantage. But virtue in obscurity is rewarded only in heaven. To succeed in this world, you have to be known to people. Nevertheless, where politics is involved, associations and recognition can work both ways. Years after I left PRLDEF, my involvement with the organization would be raised as an issue when I was nominated to the Supreme Court. Critics charged that Latino Justice PRLDEF (as it was known by then) was a radical organization that no acceptable candidate should ever have been associated with. To hear PRLDEF’s activities so grossly distorted during the Senate hearings, with no regard for the good it had done the Hispanic community and the cause of civil rights generally, was painful to me and to everyone else who had served on the board generously
and honorably. But PRLDEF did not cower from the attacks. The entire staff and board, led by Cesar Perales, a founding member who is now New York’s secretary of state, worked tirelessly to rebut the charges and muster community support on my behalf, efforts for which I will be eternally grateful.

T
HIS IS DIFFICULT
for me,” my mother said. “He is like my son, Sonia. I watched him grow up. This is not easy for me.”

“Please, Mami. You think it’s easy for me?”

I can’t deny my portion of the blame. The vortex of the District Attorney’s Office was all-consuming, and I felt driven to do my utmost on every single case. How many nights had I spent poring over briefs I’d brought home, barely aware of his presence? But Kevin was also finding a new life of his own at Princeton, of which I had no part. One way or another, we had outgrown the first innocent bloom of love and its loyal attachment without having evolved new terms for being together.

On vacation together at Cape Cod in the summer of 1981, our first time there, an unseasonable chill hung in the air between us as tensions kept flaring up over nothing. It was a prelude to Kevin’s cautious mention of the changes that had come over us and of how he no longer felt connected to me. Talking about our relationship, about feelings, was not something we did naturally. Even in the early days in high school, when we could talk for hours on end, it was always about some shared interest, or nothing in particular, but never ourselves. How long had it been since we talked like that, like children? Even the memory of those days seemed increasingly distant.

It was late when we got home to the apartment in Princeton after a four-hour drive in uncomfortable silence. I tripped over the mail that had piled up. Tomorrow’s business. I fell into bed.

In the morning, I opened an envelope from the DMV. It had taken the whole five years we’d been married for them to send me a new driver’s license with my married name on it.

“You know, Kevin, if we break up, it will probably take another five years for them to change my name back again.” I was joking, sort of.

“I’m sure they do it all the time.”

There are things you may know in your heart for a long while without admitting them to conscious awareness, until, unexpectedly, something triggers an inescapable realization. In that unhesitating matter-of-fact reply was a truth that I could no longer shut out: our marriage was over. When Kevin left for work, I picked up the phone. I had never complained about him to Mami, never mentioned any problems between us. To me relationships are private. In my experience when a friend unloaded about a boyfriend or spouse, the listener soaked up the complaint and remembered it long after the speaker had forgiven the offense. Unless something was really serious, my mother didn’t need to know. As this was the first she had heard of any trouble, I was especially grateful that she didn’t argue.

“Can I come home?”

“
Siempre
, Sonia.” Always.

Kevin and I talked through the details without rancor. We agreed that I would assume our credit card debt, since I was the one bothered by it. In return I got custody of the Honda Civic. The only problem was that I didn’t know how to drive a stick shift.

Never take driving lessons from someone while you’re breaking up with him. Every time I popped the clutch, Kevin was apoplectic, and neither of us needed the added stress. But it was unavoidable, especially since I was running out of time. Marguerite and Tom would soon be coming to Princeton to help me move out. Though overwhelmed and sad and frustrated at still being unable to drive that stupid car, I was determined to get out of the apartment that same weekend, even if they had to tow me all the way to Co-op City. I packed late into the night before finally collapsing in a troubled sleep. I had an extraordinarily vivid dream: I’m in the car, engine idling. I put it in gear, lift my foot off the clutch very gently till it engages, a little more gas, the wheels are rolling. Nice …

The next morning, Marguerite and Tom arrived. It was clear from her sighs and the strained conversation that this was painful for them too. We loaded up their car as well as the Civic with boxes of books and precious little else. I hadn’t accumulated much of a life if you measured it in stuff. Five years of marriage and barely two carloads. Marguerite, it turned out, knew how to drive a stick, and so she offered to take the wheel. But I insisted on doing it and asked her just to ride with me. As I started the car, the knowledge I possessed in the dream seemed to be real. My sleeping brain must have learned the lesson my waking mind couldn’t master because of the tension between Kevin and me. In a hyperalert state, I made it onto the highway and into fourth gear. From there it was a long, clear glide with plenty of time to gather my wits before I had to face traffic in the Bronx.

Mami greeted us with grim cheer as we unloaded boxes from the elevator. The house felt strange in spite of the old familiarity, empty somehow without Junior. He had graduated from medical school and moved to Syracuse for his residency. Mami cooked us a welcome dinner of
chuletas
, and the smells from the kitchen were more comforting than I could have imagined. Soon enough she and I would start pushing each other’s buttons, but that night it was a relief to be home.

AFTER I MOVED OUT
, Kevin and I began to talk in earnest. We dated intermittently for a year or so and spent the occasional weekend together. It was, in part, an unspoken effort to rekindle a spark, though as such it never took. In the end, it amounted to more of an extended attempt at understanding what had gone wrong.

One night, Kevin really opened up. “I was always proud of you,” he said, “but it was hard not being able to keep up. While you were acing Princeton, I was partying at Stony Brook. But I always figured that I was smart enough to make it up. I always had an excuse, always believed I could fix things later. Now I’m working as hard as I can. I love where I am, and I like what I’m doing. It’s a struggle in a couple of classes; overall, though, I’m doing okay. But it’s finally sinking in: even doing the best I can, I’m not going to catch up with you.”

It was a painful admission, and I was touched by his generosity in putting it like that. Many men, feeling as he did, would have lashed out to soothe their egos. Certainly, the idea of a wife outshining her husband was something neither of us had been brought up to expect in marriage. But there was more, too. “I want to be needed,” he said. “I knew you loved me, but I felt you didn’t need me.”

He wasn’t wrong about that, but it wouldn’t have occurred to me as a problem. I’d never seen need as an essential part of love. Weren’t caring and affection, mutual respect, and sharing a life really more the point? If anything, need seemed to make the feeling contingent, less genuine, almost as if there were an ulterior motive to loving someone. In retrospect, maybe I was looking at it too rationally. The truth is that since childhood I had cultivated an existential independence. It came from perceiving the adults around me as unreliable, and without it I felt I wouldn’t have survived. I cared deeply for everyone in my family, but in the end I depended on myself. That way of being was part of the person I would become, but where once it had represented salvation, now it was alienating me from the person I had vowed to spend my life with.

It might be that if I’d been in more relationships before getting married, I would have understood a bit more of what it takes to make one last. Being with someone never seems simpler than it does when you are very young. The ease of companionship, the familiarity of knowing each other for half our lives, had been a glue between us. But as a certain lopsidedness in our natures and our degrees of success became more pronounced, with neither of us paying much attention, that glue dissolved. I have feared, at times, that my self-reliance, even more than my prominence, might prove hard for any man to take. My friends and family are incredulous, sometimes annoyingly so, that I could be as content as I appear to be without someone. But whatever security or comfort I find in being single, a happy relationship remains an alluring alternative, and I’m actually optimistic about the chances of having one.

In the spring, Kevin called to say that his thesis adviser was moving to Chicago. There was no one else at Princeton doing the work that interested Kevin, and so he had to follow. He knew there’d be no question but that I would stay behind. My work at the DA’s Office mattered
to me at least as much as his research did to him. Besides, at that point I couldn’t see what I’d be giving it up for even if I’d been willing to. And with that, our efforts to work things out came to an unofficial end.

Kevin’s mother, Jean, was heartbroken by our breakup. As rocky as my relations with her had been initially, her prejudice had been worn down by the fact of having a daughter-in-law, and a real friendship had grown up between us over the years. She would later tell me that she realized only after I’d gone how many gestures on Kevin’s part—holiday gifts or a thoughtfully timed phone call—had been prompted by me.

In the end, I sold my wedding ring to pay the lawyer who handled our divorce. Saddened though I was at seeing Kevin leave, I was no more sentimental about the formal trappings of marriage than I had been on our wedding day. When I told Judge Rothwax that I was getting divorced and wanted to revert to my maiden name, he started using it instantly and made a point of correcting anyone who still referred to me as Ms. Sotomayor de Noonan. The DMV would take longer to straighten out.

M
Y ABILITY TO
compartmentalize leaves my friends incredulous and sometimes even a little frightened. But it works for me. When I’m focused on a project, nothing else intrudes. It’s only when I stop on an evening or a weekend that I look down to realize I’ve walked off a cliff. Fortunately, those same friends are usually down there waiting to catch me.

Every weekend for almost a year, Jason Dolan, with whom I shared cramped office space, and Ted Poretz, our pal from another bureau, made plans for us three: Sunday brunch, a movie, a party. We never talked about my divorce or what prompted our regular socializing. It was simply their kind impulse to stand by a friend and minimize the possibility of loneliness.

Girlfriends, of course, had a different approach.

Nancy Gold, now Nancy Gray, had been my friend ever since taking the seat next to mine during orientation on our very first day at the District Attorney’s Office. By lunchtime we were racing over to the Citibank on Chambers Street together to take advantage of a great promotional offer she’d seen advertised. Later, when Nancy learned I was commuting from Princeton, she offered me the use of her fold-out couch whenever I had a jury sequestered overnight. And then, through the uncertain months when Kevin and I were coming apart, the haven she provided included not only that sofa but easy conversation and moral support. “It’s perfectly obvious to everyone but you, Sonia,” Nancy would say in
her capacity as a natural practitioner of talk therapy. She drew me out, gave me the full Freudian breakdown, and even tried Kevin in absentia.