The Divorce Papers: A Novel (5 page)

237  Q. You said your husband was in oncology?

238  A. He’s chair of the Department of Pediatric Oncology,

239  which is one of Mather Medical School’s great departments,

240  and Dowling Professor. He’s a big star, both as a clinician and

241  a researcher, and he’s very ambitious. He won the Freeman

242  Prize, and was nominated for the Lasker. I’d guess he’s

243  gunning for a MacArthur and, in his late-night fantasies, a

244  Nobel. His specialty is brain tumors. He’s the best there is,

245  even though most of his patients don’t make it. They just

246  make it longer than other docs’ patients. It’s given him a Jesus

247  complex. He’s so used to being admired, starting with his

248  parents, that he expects it from everyone, even Jane and me.

249  Mather recruited him very heavily; so did Harvard, Stanford,

250  and Yale. He’s been generously funded by NIH for the last

251  13 years, and his current grant has 4 years to run. When

252  he left Columbia, he brought his grants and lab with him,

253  including four researchers. I was wretched about the decision.

254  Who with any sense would live in New Salem when they

255  could live in New York? I had close friends, a nice social life,

256  a
good job. I didn’t want to be a chair’s wife. I didn’t want to

257  be unemployed, I didn’t want to come back to New Salem. In

258  ’88, I’d left
Femina
and gone to work for Monk’s House as a

259  nonfiction editor, and I loved it. I wanted him to turn it down,

260  but he said the offer was one he couldn’t refuse and I thought

261  he’d never forgive me if I didn’t go along. As it turns out, he

262  didn’t forgive me anyway. Though he’s not said so outright,

263  he’s not happy at Mather. Too much management and not as

264  great a variety of cases as in New York. So my unhappiness, of

265  course, is intolerable, a reproach.

266  Q. Who looks after Jane most of the time?

267  A. I look after her. It’s one of the reasons I’m a writing tutor.

268  It’s part-time. I can be home with Jane after school and on

269  holidays. We do have a housekeeper, Luz Garcia. She comes

270  in every day. We need someone full-time; she works 40 hours

271  a week for us, though not on an 8-hour-a-day schedule, and we

272  pay her Social Security—in case Daniel wants to head NIH

273  someday. Just kidding; I’d pay it anyway. This is being taped,

274  right? Luz is a resident alien. We helped her get her green

275  card. She’s wonderful. I have a younger sister, Cordelia, who

276  has Down’s and lives in Philadelphia, in a halfway house. I

277  visit her twice a month, sometimes more. I stay over in Philly,

278  Tuesday to Wednesday—that way I see her two days on each

279  visit—and Luz stays over in the house with Jane. It’s too

280  hard to rely on Daniel, though he makes a huge effort to have

281  dinner with her every night, and especially on Tuesdays when

282  I’m away. He works 90 to 100 hours a week, resident’s hours.

283  On weekends, which look like weekdays for him, he always,

284  or almost always, spends part of Saturday or Sunday doing

285  sports with Jane. Right now, he’s teaching her squash. Jane’s

286  a great athlete and Daniel’s a dogged one. Very competitive,

287  needless to say. He won’t fight me for custody—if that’s where

288  you’re
going. He doesn’t have time, and he thinks, I think, I’m

289  a pretty good mom, or at least a devoted one. Since she was

290  born, I’ve loved her more than anyone else. [Pause] Well, that

291  says it all, doesn’t it. Well, maybe not all. In some way, it’s

292  been self-protective. Daniel has always needed “his children,”

293  those terribly sick and dying children, more than he needed

294  me or Jane. [Pause] But I’m not being fair. He adores Jane. He

295  calls us, or used to call us, the Three Musketeers. If we were

296  going somewhere, out to dinner or maybe a movie, the two

297  of them would go through this silly ceremony of departure,

298  a kind of Monty Python changing of the guard. I was the

299  audience. It started when Jane was about 3. He’d stand at

300  the side door and shout out, “Musketeers on the forecastle.”

301  Hearing those words, from wherever she was, Jane would fling

302  herself down the stairs to join him. When she got there, he’d

303  hold out his right hand and say, with a very solemn face, “All

304  for one.” Jane would high-five him and answer with an equally

305  solemn face, “And one for all.” Then he’d scoop her up, throw

306  her over his shoulder, and carry her out to the car. Jane was

307  in heaven in those moments; I think he was too. [Pause] The

308  Musketeers have disbanded.

309  Q. Was your husband’s decision to start divorce proceedings

310  a surprise to you?

311  A. No. Yes. He told me on January 3rd, three days into

312  the New Year, that he wanted a divorce. It threw me into

313  a tailspin. I thought we’d live unhappily ever after. I never

314  thought he’d go through with a second divorce. I asked him

315  if there was another woman. He said no but I don’t believe

316  him. I know his modus operandi, after all. I think he’s been

317  messing around with Dr. Stephanie Roth, a dermatologist

318  with a private practice in New York. They were in med school

319  together, and they’ve been intermittently in touch since.

320  
She’s apparently
the
person to see for wrinkles in the City.

321  Her bread and butter is rejuvenating work, Botox, dermal

322  abrasions, and the like. She had a write-up once in
Harper’s

323  
Bazaar
. Her face looks like it’s been ironed. [Pause] Do you

324  remember that scene in
A Man for All Seasons
, when More

325  confronts Richard Rich for betraying him in exchange for

326  being made Chancellor of Wales? More says to him, “I can

327  understand a man giving up his soul for the world, Richard,

328  but for Wales?” That’s how I feel. I can understand Daniel

329  leaving me, but for Stephanie Roth?

330  Q. You seem very composed now.

331  A. Xanax. I took 3 mg. before I came. I’ve been seeing an

332  analyst from Northeastern Psychoanalytic, for 6 years. Isabel

333  Stokes. Over the years, she’s prescribed for me a variety of

334  antidepressants. Right now I’m on Wellbutrin. I’ve been

335  depressed since I was 10. I’m a pretty high-functioning

336  depressive, but a depressive nonetheless. Daniel hates it; he

337  takes it personally. I can’t blame him altogether. Depressives

338  are downers. Dr. Stokes gave me Xanax back in January. I

339  was so anxious, I couldn’t read, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t

340  eat. I took it pretty regularly in January and February, but

341  now I only take it when I think an occasion calls for it. Like

342  this. When I was given the summons at Golightly’s, I almost

343  passed out. Since then, I never travel without the Xanax. I

344  still haven’t gotten over it. I can’t believe Daniel would have

345  agreed to that, but maybe I’m being naïve. He might say in

346  his defense that I had provoked it. It was all my fault, as was

347  everything.

348  Q. What do you mean by provoking it?

349  A. I had a brief correspondence with Dr. Stephanie, which

350  may have stirred the pot.

351  Q. Could you be more specific?

352  A.
I brought copies. I wrote to her; she wrote back; I wrote

353  back. Here.

354  [Extended pause. Note to Hannah: I am placing the three

355  letters in the file.]

356  Q. I see. Anything else?

357  A. Yes. About a week after he told me he wanted a divorce,

358  I asked him to rethink his decision or at least consider

359  mediation or counseling. He wasn’t interested. I then asked

360  him to hold off doing anything definitive, such as hiring a

361  lawyer, until I had gotten more used to the idea. He agreed.

362  He saw how upset I was. We talked about telling Jane. I asked

363  him if we could consult a therapist to find out the best way of

364  telling her. He agreed very quickly, and two days later we had

365  an appointment with Dr. Rachel Fischer, a child psychiatrist

366  at the Mather Child Study Center. I don’t know where he

367  found her; he’s very anti-shrink, thinks psychiatry is voodoo.

368  He believes in willpower—it’s the Ayn Rand in him—and he

369  disapproves of mental illness. Also obesity. He thinks of them

370  as mental slovenliness. Anyway, we went to see her on January

371  25th. She gave us some pointers, nothing surprising. She said

372  we should speak to her together and reassure her that we were

373  only divorcing each other, and not her. She advised holding

374  off telling Jane until I could talk about divorce without crying.

375  Even Xanaxed up the wazoo, I was a wreck the first two

376  months, on or over the verge of tears all the time.

377  Q. Have you told Jane?

378  A. There’s a story. Two days after I was served at

379  Golightly’s, when I was in Philadelphia visiting my sister, I got

380  a call at 8 p.m. in my hotel from Jane. She was sobbing. Daniel

381  had told her we were getting a divorce. He got it into his head

382  that she knew somehow, and he thought he should reassure

383  her. I drove home immediately. Jane was a mess. And I didn’t

384  
get to see Cordelia the next day, which was her birthday, and

385  which was very upsetting to her and to me. What a prince,

386  what a perfect prince. [Pause] The next day I told my father,

387  who encouraged me to consult his lawyers. A month later,

388  armed with meds, here I am.

389  Q. Are you both living in the same dwelling?

390  A. Dwelling, I like that. Yes, we’re in separate bedrooms

391  in our house. It’s a new house, 404 St. Cloud. We built it two

392  years ago, probably to ward off divorce. Isn’t that what people

393  do? They have a baby or build a new house. It’s a nice house,

394  modern, horizontal, clean-limbed, wood and windows, very

395  un–St. Cloud, which is a stew of English Tudor, American

396  Craftsman, and Tuscan Villa. Neighbors objected at first, but

397  we planted some full-grown trees in the front, and they subsided.

398  Daniel worked on the designs with the architect. He had thought

399  of becoming an architect at one point; in college, he went to

400  Columbia, he double-majored in chemistry and art history.

401  Q. Do you have a mortgage? Do you know its value?

402  A. I’m good about money. I pay the bills, I keep the tax

403  records. The house cost $375,000, more or less, including the

404  land and our very expensive Mather School of Architecture

405  architect. Its current value is about $525,000. I called a

406  Realtor, Laura Bucholtz, yesterday, to get a quick estimate.

407  She was the agent on the land sale and knows St. Cloud Street

408  from Germyn Street to Allerton. We have a 30-year mortgage

409  for $250,000 at 8%. Carrying costs, including local taxes but

410  not utilities, are about $3,500 a month. Daniel will want to

411  keep the house. I suppose that gives me some leverage?

412  Q. It may. Is there any other real estate?

413  A. My father and I own a house on Martha’s Vineyard,

414  on the water in Aquinnah. It was my mother’s house, and

415  she left it to us in a trust; the survivor gets it all. There’s a

416  
special name for that. This creates problems for my father. Of

417  course, he doesn’t want me to predecease him, but his wife,

418  my stepmother, Cindy, would like to be able to use it and to

419  decorate it. The house is a wreck. Nothing’s been done to it

420  since 1920, except the bare minimum to keep it from falling

421  down, and the Vineyard in those days wasn’t what it is today.

422  It has no inside toilets, only an outhouse with a row of 4 WCs

423  off the back porch. And my father and I have to agree on any

424  changes because we own it together, and we can’t so we don’t.

425  [Pause] We don’t agree on much, except Jane.

426  Q. Do you know what it’s worth?

427  A. When my mother died in 1979, it was valued at $90,000.

428  It’s probably worth $3 million now. Maybe more. The land,

429  not the house. The site is spectacular.

430  Q. Do you use it? Does your father?

431  A. My father never goes up. He finds the toilet situation

432  unacceptable. Oh, and there are no showers, only bathtubs.

433  I go up at least once a year with Jane, who loves it. When

434  she was smaller, she thought the outhouses were great fun,

435  but now she’d like a proper inside toilet. I think she’s been

436  lobbying my father. My father wants to fix the whole place up,

437  make it an Edgartown kind of house. That or nothing.

438  I want inside toilets and a shower and a dishwasher and cable,

439  but I want to keep the house’s essential character. It’s all I

440  have left of my mother. Daniel went up once, never again. He