The War of the Roses Read online

  He made an appointment for the same day – professional courtesy. But before he left the office he tried Barbara again, just to make sure he hadn’t dreamed all this. She answered the phone.

  ‘Still mad?’ he asked gently. At what? he wondered. Hell, he thought, you don’t just throw your life away. He was willing to forgive.

  ‘I’m not mad, Oliver.’

  ‘And you’re still’ – she was making him say it -’thinking about divorce.’

  ‘Didn’t Thurmont call you?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘It’s not a question of mad. We have a lot of practical details to iron out. The District has a no-fault provision.’

  The legalese angered him. So she was already getting educated.

  ‘God damn it, Barbara,’ he began, feeling his chest heave. The memory of his hospital stay invaded his mind. ‘You just can’t do this.’

  ‘Oliver, we went over that last night.’ She sighed.

  ‘Have you told the kids?’

  ‘Yes. They had a right to know.’

  ‘You could have at least waited for me. I mean I don’t think that’s quite fair.’

  ‘I thought it was best they hear it direcdy from me, with all my reasons.’

  ‘What about my reasons?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll offer your own explanations.’ She paused. ‘We’re not going to have needless custody problems, Oliver?’ Her calm reasonableness irritated him. He felt burning begin again in his chest, a spear of pain. He spilled two Maalox tablets into his palm and chewed them quickly.

  ‘I guess not,’ he said, confused.

  ‘Why disrupt their lives? I told them that we were going to live apart, but that you’d still be easily accessible. I assumed that. You are their father. I hope I didn’t overreach.’

  ‘I don’t want them to suffer,’ Oliver said lamely, feeling the palpitation subside. He swallowed repeatedly to get rid of the chalky taste in his mouth. She’s torpedoing my life and making me a party to it, he told himself. He felt helpless. Utterly defeated.

  ‘So that’s it, then?’ he asked. His ear had been groping for a single shred of contrition. He hadn’t found a minute sign of it. Her response to his question was silence.

  ‘If only I had been prepared. Seen a sign. Something. I feel like I’ve been shot between the eyes.’

  ‘Don’t get melodramatic, Oliver. It’s been disintegrating for years.’

  ‘Then why didn’t I ever see it?’

  ‘Part of you probably did.’

  ‘Now you’re a psychiatrist?’ He had no urge to check his sarcasm. If she were in the room at that moment, he was certain he would have hit her. He wanted to smash her face, obliterate those innocent Slavic features, gouge out those hazel eyes, surely mocking him now.

  ‘Bitch,’ he mumbled.

  ‘I expect you’ll be coming by for your things,’ she said calmly.

  ‘I suppose…’ What more was there to say? He dropped the telephone into its cradle.

  ‘Fini’,’ he whispered to the empty office, putting on his rumpled jacket and going out to keep his appointment with Goldstein.

  Goldstein had a benign, Semitic face. He talked like a rabbi, an idea embellished by diplomas in Hebrew lettering hanging next to his law degree. He had a fringe of curly black hair, ringing a broad, shiny bald pate, and thick horn-rimmed glasses behind which droopy-lidded eyes offered lugubrious comments on the human condition. He wore a white-on-white shirt, Yemeni cuff links, and a striped Hermes tie. He lit up a large cigar as Oliver settled into a soft chair at the side of the desk.

  Goldstein was rotund, with puddles of chins, and his fingers were short and squat as they tugged daintily at the cigar. Staring out from the top of a low bookcase was a framed picture of what was undoubtedly the Goldstein menage in younger days, three rotund children and an obese wife.

  ‘I hate divorce,’ he said, shaking his head and directing his gaze to the family portrait. ‘Broken families. A shanda. I’m sorry. It means a "shame" in Yiddish.’

  ‘I’m not too pleased with it myself.’

  ‘Whose idea?’ Goldstein asked. ‘Hers.’

  Goldstein shook his head and blew smoke clouds into the air. He looked contemplative, sympathetic, wise. Oliver pictured him in a beard and skullcap, dispensing solace. A priest would have inhibited him with vague, unspoken guilt feelings. What he needed most was confession. Confess what? He felt his mind begin to empty in a long stream-of-consciousness narrative heavily larded with justifications, recriminations, and revelations, all of which seemed designed to give Goldstein a distorted, self-serving, self-pitying portrait of his eighteen-year marriage.

  Goldstein listened patiently, puffing and nodding, his cigar dead center between his lips, his fat fingers cast in a delicate cathedral.

  When he was finished, Oliver popped a Maalox into his mouth. The ex-rabbi destroyed his cathedral and put his smoldering cigar into an ashtray. Nodding, he stood up, reached for a yellow legal pad, and began to shoot questions at Oliver.

  ‘Is there another man?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Whoever thinks so? And no other woman?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘And joint property?’

  ‘The house, of course, and all the antiques and other possessions in it. That’s where we put everything we had. I’d say the house might fetch at least a half a million, with probably another half – or more – in antiques. God, did we lavish love on that place.’ His eyes misted.

  Goldstein noddedj as if he were a psychoanalyst listening to a patient unreel his life.

  ‘What are you prepared to settle for, Mr. Rose?’ Goldstein asked, the gentleness gone.

  ‘I’m not really sure. I haven’t had time to think about

  it. I really don’t know. I don’t think the kids will be a problem. I earn a good living. I want them to be comfortable. I’m prepared to offer reasonable support.’

  ‘And the house?’ Goldstein asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Say half the value. After all, we did it together. Half of everything is okay with me.’

  ‘You want a good divorce settlement or do you want to be sentimental? If you want to be sentimental, then you shouldn’t get a divorce. In fact, I would rather you didn’t. I hate these situations where children go from pillar to post like punching bags. Children are supposed to be a brucha.’ He looked at Oliver and shook his head. ‘A blessing.’

  ‘Look, Goldstein. It’s not my idea.’ He felt the blood rise in his face.

  ‘I understand.’ Goldstein flapped a pudgy hand. ‘You must be calm. Don’t excite yourself.’ Oliver felt him taking charge.

  ‘I know what that means,’ Oliver huffed. ‘You want it short and sweet. No problems. No headaches. A nice fat fee.’

  ‘From your mouth to God’s ears.’

  ‘I hope she feels the same way.’

  ‘Never be sure,’ Goldstein said. ‘It is the first rule of domestic law. Never be sure. Divorce makes people crazy.’

  ‘Well, it won’t make me crazy,’ Oliver muttered. ‘If it’s meant to be, then let’s get it over. You just proceed along the fastest track.’

  ‘There’s a waiting period for a no-fault divorce in the District of Columbia. Six months if the parties don’t contest. That’s the quick way. If there’s problems, there’s a year wait. A divorce you get either way. But the property settlement is separate. It could go on and on. If it goes to court, there’s more waiting. A judge decides.’ Goldstein bent over, blowing smoke. ‘All judges are putzes.’

  Oliver nodded. It was going too fast. ‘It won’t come to that.’

  ‘You hope.’

  ‘We’re reasonable people.’

  ‘That was yesterday.’

  ‘I know lawyers. They can fuck things up. They call Thurmont the Bomber.’

  ‘Personally, I have mixed feelings. A court battle can help make me an even richer man. I have a loving devoted family, Mr. Rose.’ He looked longingly at t
he picture of his rotund children and obese wife. They are all going to college now. I have a very large house in Potomac and a maid that lives in, two Mercedes, and I go to Israel twice a year. Harry Thurmont has all these things and, in addition, an airplane and a house in Saint Thomas and he’s always very tan, which means he gets away often.’

  ‘I don’t need the lecture, Goldstein. I’m also a lawyer.’

  ‘The worst kind. You need the lecture more than a plumber. We can chop up your estate like scavengers and leave you nothing but the bare bones.’ Goldstein’s cigar had gone out, and Oliver caught a whiff of his bad breath.

  ‘All right, you’ve scared the shit out of me, Goldstein. I already told you I want to settle this amicably. No hassle. I detest the idea of anyone getting rich from my misfortune.’

  Goldstein relit his cigar, puffed deeply, and exhaled smoke clouds into the atmosphere.

  ‘I’ll talk to Thurmont and get back to you,’ Goldstein said, getting up. ‘From here on in, we talk to your wife only through Thurmont.’

  ‘And I pay for both?’

  ‘I don’t make the rules.’

  ‘Just the money.’

  ‘I don’t make the divorces, either.’

  ‘But it wasn’t my fault,’ Oliver protested.

  ‘It was mine?’

  Oliver, sorry now he had engaged Goldstein, was more confused than ever.

  ‘Have you moved out yet?’ Goldstein asked as Oliver rose.

  ‘No. Perhaps tonight. I can’t seem to manage it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Oliver replied, wondering about his candor. ‘It’s my nest. I can’t seem to fly away. It’s my place, Goldstein. My orchids. My wines. My workshop. My Staffordshire figures are there.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘Little porcelainlike figures, beautifully painted. There’s a cobalt blue -’

  ‘I don’t understand this, Rose,’ Goldstein interrupted.

  ‘I don’t either. None of it.’ Never in his life had he been racked with such indecision. He searched Goldstein’s eyes for direction. Through droopy lids, they stared back lugubriously. Their look depressed him.

  ‘I need time,’ Oliver said after a long pause.

  ‘Time we got.’

  ‘Have we?’ Oliver asked. It seemed his first rational thought of the day. ‘I just threw out nearly twenty years.’ He felt too overcome to continue. ‘When you speak to Thurmont, call me,’ he muttered as he left the office, not certain of his destination.

  9

  I can’t believe it,’ Eve said. She had intruded on Ann, who was working on a bibliography for her thesis, ‘Jefferson as Secretary of State,’ just at that point when the number of books to read and sources to check seemed overwhelming. Ann was in no mood to be provoked by the perpetual crises of a teenage girl and had learned not to be panicked by Eve’s propensity for dramatic overstatement.

  But she looked up and saw in Eve’s misty-eyed face an agitation that engaged her attention. Eve bent over her seated form and embraced her, putting her cheek against her own. Patting her head, Ann waited for Eve to unburden herself.

  ‘They’ve split,’ she said, unable to hold back a chest-racking brace of sobs.

  ‘Hey, what’s this?’ Ann said, turning and embracing the troubled girl. She waited until her caress soothed her.

  ‘Mom and Dad. They’ve decided to go their separate ways,’ Eve said when she was able to speak.

  Ann, of course, knew what had happened. But the idea hadn’t quite sunk in. It was the unthinkable incarnate. She continued to deny it to herself. No one is prepared for a suddenly realized fantasy. She began to feel the full impact of her guilt.

  ‘I’m sure it’s temporary,’ Ann said quietly. Some secret, transient tension, she decided, not being privy to what really went on between them. ‘Married people are always having spats/ She had never seen them raise their voices to each other.

  ‘Not a spat, Ann,’ Eve said, finding her self-control. She seemed to be teetering on the edge of maturity. Such events, Ann knew, could be a catalyst, forcing adulthood. Eve sat on the edge of the sleigh bed and lit a cigarette, picking an errant tobacco crumb from her tongue.

  ‘It was a declaration of independence, Ann,’ Eve said, clouds of smoke pouring out with her words. ‘I didn’t know who she was, although I knew what she meant. She said it wouldn’t affect my relationship with Dad, that it was all going to be very civilized and understanding. She was sure of that.’ Eve shook her head and sighed as Ann waited for her to continue. But what was the real reason? she wanted to ask. Eve seemed to read her mind.

  ‘She said it was her idea. She said that I was a woman and would be sure to understand. What she wanted was to be free to fulfill her own aspirations and didn’t want to be an appendage anymore. She said Dad was strong and time would heal his hurt.’ She looked up fiercely at Ann. ‘I didn’t know what she meant, so I asked her and she explained.’ She paused and her face seemed bemused. ‘I never knew she was "an appendage." For me, the worst part was the thought that she wasn’t happy with Dad.’

  ‘Maybe he wasn’t happy as well,’ Ann blurted out, instantly sorry. In her heart she was fishing for another explanation.

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  ‘I’m sure there are reasons on both sides.’

  ‘After she told me, I felt like I was in a car accident. I’m still in shock. I mean everybody, all my friends, even me, believed they had the best relationship of any married couple anywhere. The way they did things together. Doing all the things with this house.’ Her voice rose and she mashed out her cigarette in a dish of paper clips. ‘She asked me to understand, to try to understand. I said I’d try. But I lied. I don’t understand this at all. What does she want to be free from?’

  Ann blew out a long gasp of air.

  ‘Well…’ She was groping for words of explanation. ‘Maybe it’s too complex for us to understand.’

  ‘She has everything. Absolutely everything. And she’s just started out on a great new business. Certainly we’re no bother.’

  ‘Did she tell Josh?’

  ‘He got it first. But you know Josh. When something hurts, he goes off into the corner like a whipped dog. Just like Benny when Dad yells at him. I saw him leaning against the tree in front of the house, just bouncing his basketball. I knew something was wrong. But this?’

  ‘Have you discussed this with your father?’

  ‘He was long gone. He slept in the guest room last night. No, I haven’t discussed it with him. I’m afraid to. Considering what he’s just been through. Thinking he was dying and none of us coming up to be near him.’

  It had confused Ann as well. She had watched Barbara’s initial agitation when she first got the news. Then, with uncommon speed, it subsided. She hadn’t after all, heard the other end of the conversation and the way Barbara had gone about filling the casserole dishes with the cassoulet for the Paks one would have thought that Oliver had only a mild indisposition. ‘He’ll be fine,’ Barbara had said, and she was right. ‘It can’t be a heart attack. He’s too young. And the Roses have the genes of longevity.’

  ‘I can’t blame him if he was upset,’ Eve said. ‘But I didn’t expect her to be the one who…’ She was obviously still confused by her mother’s announcement.

  ‘Maybe it will all come out in the wash,’ Ann said, disturbed by her own conflicting emotions. She was wondering, as well, how it would affect her own status in the house. Would they keep her,on? Surely now Barbara would need her more than ever. But the thought of not being near Oliver filled her with sudden anger, and she could not resist a vague, utterly illogical sense of betrayal. He will be leaving me, she thought, shocked at the depth of her feeling.

  ‘She’s already gone to see a lawyer, I’m afraid this is the end of the happy Rose family,’ Eve said with adolescent sarcasm.

  ‘He hasn’t moved out yet?’ Ann asked, wondering if she had missed something.

  ‘Not yet.
’

  ‘He’s a very resourceful man. He’ll be fine.’

  ‘Will he?’ The tears rolled over the lower lids of Eve’s eyes, wetting her cheek. Her nose reddened. ‘Poor Daddy.’ She reached out and Ann was there to embrace her.

  But who would soothe her? Ann wondered.

  Sitting at her desk, she had been listening for his familiar step. Although she was growing drowsy and had difficulty keeping her eyes open, the sound of his key in the downstairs lock quickly restored her alertness and set her adrenaline charging. She heard Benny’s bark and the click of his nails against the marble as they came into the house. Barbara would not let Benny in except when Oliver came home. Did her disgust extend to the animal as well? Ann wondered. She waited to hear the sound of Oliver’s ascending step. None came. Then she moved through the doorway of her room to the head of the landing, peering into the darkness of the second floor, listening to the sounds of the sleeping house. She wondered if the others were listening as well, secretly observing with their senses what was, to all of them, a considerable household trauma. She waited until she was certain that no one had stirred and, after a longer wait, walked soundlessly down to the second floor, listening first at Eve’s door, then at Josh’s, although she dared not move to the front of the house and Barbara’s door. An alibi had already been concocted in her mind. She wanted a cup of tea, which she often made for herself when she studied late. Those previous occasions would make her story plausible. All she did was pop a tea bag into a cup and drown it with hot water from the Instant Hot tap.

  In the kitchen, she deliberately placed the cup on the saucer with enough force to produce an audible tinkle. If anyone was listening, she wanted to dispel the impression that she was sneaking around. She had to see him, she decided. How could this have happened to such a man? How could Barbara possibly reject Oliver?

  She took another teacup off the shelf and dropped in a tea bag, filled the cup with hot water, and put both cups on a tray. Something was missing, she decided, looking around until she spotted a ceramic cookie jar in which Barbara placed her chocolate-chip cookies. She laid out some cookies on the tray and carried it to the library.