Then She Found Me (29 page)

“Is it more money?”

“Much,” I say. “He was getting paid less than a teacher in Quincy.”

Bernice takes out a cigarette and taps it on the wooden
arm of the living room rocker. I remind her of my no-smoking rule.

“I’m cutting down. I shouldn’t let myself slip because I’m agitated.”

“About this?” we ask. About Dwight changing careers?

“Not that.”

“About the JFK part?” I ask.

“About my divorce,” she says. She tells us Jack has filed. She needs a good lawyer and she needs our emotional support.

Dwight and I shift into our humor-Bernice mode. Does Jack’s filing surprise her? Hasn’t she considered herself a common-law divorcée for thirty-six years? Hasn’t she ever considered filing herself?

“Of course I have; every time someone proposed to me I made a mental note to file. Which doesn’t mean I have a divorce lawyer on retainer.”

“Any lawyer will do for a no-fault divorce as long as he or she can file the right papers and sit with you in court that day,” I say. “That’s the whole point—it’s a routine legal procedure.”

“I want the best,” says Bernice.

“Why?” asks Dwight. I can hear the annoyance in his voice.

“I have a career, property, investments, reputation—”

“And you think Jack is going to go after you?” I demand.

“His lawyer might!”

“Look,” says Dwight. “We watch ‘L.A. Law,’ too. It’s not out of the question, but I would be willing to bet that Jack just wants to make it official and be legally divorced. He probably has some woman up there he wants to marry. He hasn’t given anyone the slightest reason to accuse him of going after alimony or a settlement.”

“He could have more money than you do!” I said. “We don’t know how he lives or what he’s got in the bank.”

“I’m not taking any chances,” says Bernice. “I want a good divorce lawyer representing me and that’s that. You don’t go out and hire some
schlemiel
just because you think your husband is a nice, simple guy. It’s his lawyer you worry about. And you tell me that some divorce lawyer is going to open this file and see ‘woman abandons husband and baby and becomes television personality’ without seeing dollar signs?”

Okay,
we say. Do what you want.

“He started it,” she says.

“I’m neutral,” I say. “Don’t expect any cheerleading. Pretend I’m six years old and you’re bending over backwards to protect me from the ugliness of divorce.”

“Pick a nice eligible divorce lawyer,” says Dwight. “Charm him in your inimitable fashion and kill two birds with one stone.”

“You think you’re the first one to think of that?” she asks.

“Just make it clean,” I say. “I don’t want to hear what Jack’s doing to you and what you’re doing to him.”

“I’ve done more shows on divorce than I care to remember. I know all about children of divorce, and how parents line up the kids on their sides.”

“Good,” I say. “I think.”

“You’re being ridiculous, you know,” she says.

“I’m getting married. I don’t want this aggravation.”

“You’re right,” she says, “I won’t mention it ever again.”

I am subpoenaed by Bernice’s lawyer, Sumner Lebow, to appear at the divorce hearing at Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge. I call his office and am unable to get past his secretary. She says Mr. Lebow is in court and will
return my call. “Tell him I’m Bernice Graves’s daughter,” I add. He calls back quickly.

“Why do I have to be there?” I ask.

“Just in case we need you.”

“What would that be contingent upon?”

“The plaintiff. Just in case he talks about mental anguish, raising you himself, and being deprived of educational opportunity while fulfilling his role of father.”

“He won’t do that. You can take it from me.”

Attorney Lebow allows himself a condescending chuckle. “We won’t take any chances, though, will we? We’ll have you there to testify to the degree to which your biological father exercised his paternity.”

“I have to do it?”

“You have to do it.”

“I asked Bernice to keep me out of it.”

“You’re a grown woman, Miss Epner. You’re not the object of a custody battle. It’s the little ones under twelve we most worry about when it comes to testifying. I can assure you that you won’t incur any emotional scars at the hands of the defendant.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Dwight and I take a personal day and go to the hearing. Jack is seated in the front row with his lawyer, a fat white-haired man in a navy blue suit. Jack sprints back to our row, his face both eager and embarrassed. “Didn’t expect to see you here,” he says. I can see he is worried: If I’m here, it must be at Bernice’s invitation. I must be taking sides.

Dwight says, “Nice to see you, Jack. I’m coming up for a golf lesson as soon as the ground thaws.”

“Just say the word. We’ll start at the driving range and work from there.”

“Me, too,” I say.

“Great!” says Jack. “It’s a great sport for teachers. A lot of our members are teachers. They play late afternoons.”

Dwight tells him he’s not long for the teaching ranks. Soon he starts his new job at the Kennedy Library.

“No kidding! He was my congressman, you know,” says Jack. “He was a personal hero of mine. I didn’t go to sleep the night of the election in ’sixty, not until all the votes were counted and I knew he’d won. The Republicans tried to make people think that if a Catholic was president, he’d take his orders from the pope.” He smiles as if he’s been reminiscing foolishly. “I’d like to see the place myself someday, see the rocking chair and all. They say he would’ve liked the spot because he was a sailor.”

“You and I can go there someday when Dwight’s started; we’ll have lunch. Maybe Dwight can give us a private tour.”

Jack says, “You mean it?”

“Sure.”

“It’s a date, then. You just say the word.” He looks toward the front row where his lawyer is watching us talk. Jack motions he’ll be right there. When he takes his seat, the lawyer asks him questions I can’t hear. I assume he’s being warned about fraternizing with a possible enemy.

“Wonder why he’s doing this?” I murmur to Dwight.

“Doing what?”

“Getting divorced now.”

“Maybe he wants to get married.”

“You keep
saying
that.”

“Because I can imagine a scenario where he’s been going with a woman for years—she never knew he was married or had a grown daughter—and then Bernice locates him and he’s exposed.”

I could picture Jack’s girlfriend; she wasn’t nice enough for him. She would be one of those teachers who golfed; a
short, culotted gym teacher, forty-five, with pompons at her heels and overdeveloped calves. Not the stepmother type; not sweet enough for Jack. I ask Dwight if he’s sure he doesn’t know something I don’t know. Have he and Jack had a man-to-man talk?

Dwight says no, he’s just exercising his fertile powers of supposition.

“Good,” I say.

Doors open in the back of the small hearing room. I know it is Bernice from the citrus blast of Liz Claiborne. She is dressed soberly in a designer cowgirl outfit of navy suede. Sumner Lebow leads. He is small and tanned, starched French cuffs protruding from his pinstripe suit jacket. The strain of representing Bernice is already apparent. She whispers in his ear as soon as they are seated, and he silences her with monosyllables.

“Oyez, oyez,” we hear from a man in uniform I hadn’t noticed before. The judge rushes in, head down, as if he could do without the ceremonials, and jumps into his chair on the bench. He is a handsome combination of several possibilities, and, because the sign says “Judge Franco Willson” I guess black and Italian.

“Okay!” he says and smiles. “What have we got here?”

The lawyers stand, Attorney Lebow on his feet in seconds, Jack’s after smoothing his shiny tie and patting his jacket pockets. They move forward to the bench and confer jovially as if today’s business is routine indeed. The lawyers part and look toward their clients.

“Mr. Remuzzi!” the judge booms.

“Yessir?”

“This is your signature on the affidavit?”

Jack looks at his lawyer, who nods. “Yes, sir.”

“It says here that your marriage of … thirty-
seven
years
has suffered an irretrievable breakdown and you seek its dissolution.”

Jack nods.

“You’ve reviewed this with advice of counsel and signed it freely and knowledgeably?”

“Yes.”

“You expect me to believe that you’ve made it this far—thirty-seven years—and you can’t go any further?”

Jack’s lawyer opens his mouth to direct the judge to the extenuating circumstances, but the judge raises a silencing hand without taking his eyes off Jack.

“Your honah,” says Jack, “it’s not what you think. We got married thirty-seven years ago, but we didn’t stay together more than a couple of months. We’ve been outta touch for something like thirty-six years. It’s not like we’re breaking up a home or anything.”

Judge Willson shuffles blue-bound papers. “Bernice Graverman?” She waves daintily from the front row. “And do
you
believe that this union has suffered an irretrievable breakdown?”

Bernice ponders the question and the adjective as if it were newly minted for her divorce hearing. She hesitates, then answers as carefully as if it’s her round in a spelling bee: “I don’t know if I would use the word ‘irretrievable.’”

“What word would you use?” asks Judge Willson.

“That seems rather extreme, what you might say if one of us were dead. I might say, ‘Unworkable. Impractical.’”

Attorney Lebow asks if he might have a word with his client. He bends over and whispers in her ear. She straightens and says to the bench, “But I do believe our marriage has suffered an irretrievable breakdown. That’s what I signed, and that’s what I sincerely believe.”

Judge Willson glares at Bernice’s attorney. “Ms. Graverman can speak for herself, Counselor. She makes her
living doing just that.” Bernice beams with pleasure. A viewer, possibly a fan. “Let me ask the parties a question: Have they attempted to reconcile their differences or seek marriage counseling?”

Jack’s attorney harrumphs noisily.

“You’re kidding, right?” answers Bernice.

“I assure you I am not.”

“We haven’t lived together since we were teenagers! We haven’t even talked to each other since we were teenagers.”

“Mr. Remuzzi?”

“She’s right,” says Jack. “It would be like you’re ordering two strangers to go and live together, or go into therapy together. We have no relationship to speak of!”

“You have a daughter, I understand.” He finds me in the back rows. I nod. Judge Willson smiles as if to say, Thanks, I might need you yet. He reads further and begins to shake his head from side to side, slowly, slowly, so I think I’m hearing the rasping of his neck against his collar.

“May I say something?” Bernice asks.

“Go ahead.”

“If you can become someone’s common-law wife by living with them for seven years, shouldn’t you automatically be granted a divorce if you’ve lived apart for five times that long?”

“No,” says Judge Willson unhappily. He asks her why neither has filed for divorce in all these many years.

“I was busy putting my life together and establishing myself,” she says. “It was procrastination. I knew I’d get around to it sooner or later.”

“But you didn’t. Mr. Remuzzi was the petitioner.”

Bernice frowns at his invoking a mere technicality.

The judge reclines on one elbow as if settling in for a long spell. “Mr. Remuzzi? Why haven’t you petitioned the court before this time?”

Jack stands and bounces on the balls of his feet. “I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t want to go to court and have to hear the story of my life rehashed. I didn’t want to see Bernice because that meant bringing up the whole mess of the adoption, and God knows what else. I just wanted to bury the whole damn thing.”

“Is there a compelling reason why you did it now?”

Jack grins. “I met my daughter. She’s getting married…. She’s not angry at me. Bernie’s life is going good—her show and everything. I thought it was the right thing to do at this point in time.”

“What you seem to be telling me is that you took this action now, ironically, because everything’s fine—or at least better than it’s been for thirty-six years. Some of the pain has been eased with these reconciliations.”

“They don’t even live in the same state,” Jack’s lawyer tries.

“This is patently ridiculous,” says Attorney Lebow.

Judge Willson stares off somewhere above our heads and squints thoughtfully. He turns to the court stenographer and speaks slowly: “I am denying this writ of divorce and recommending that Mr. and Mrs. Remuzzi seek mediation or counseling for the purpose of further exploring the viability of this marriage. The court is not convinced that this union has suffered an irretrievable breakdown, and until and unless I am convinced, I remand this to the parties.” He touches his gavel to the block of wood and says, “Good luck.”

Jack looks to his lawyer to confirm that he’s actually heard what he thinks he’s heard, that Bernice G. is still Mrs. Jack Remuzzi.

“All rise,” says the court officer. Judge Franco Willson steps down and exits.

I hear Bernice’s squeal above the angry buzz: “That’s it?

That’s his decision? Does he think this is going to get his name in the papers?”

Dwight does the sensible thing—he laughs, what I would do, too, if I hadn’t just been sentenced. Instinctively, I slip down smaller in my chair to hide, as if an officer of the court will handcuff me and lead me away to a very small cell.