Twilight Child (23 page)

 After more
questions, the lawyer inspected their faces, his large brown eyes as intense as
spotlights.

 “The picture
I get is of a marriage barely held together. About the only real common
denominator is the child. Any judge will see that. So why deny it? That fact is
that, whatever the marriage was like, it's still not totally relevant. Your
relationship with her was a good one, wasn't it?”

 “As good as
any,” Molly said. “We never really had arguments. Maybe mild disagreements. And
we spent time with her and Tray on weekends.”

 “She just
didn't like being alone,” Charlie said.

 “No woman
likes that,” Molly snapped. “You men out there playing with your toys. Your
special games.” She caught herself up short. No, she never did like that.

 “And the
child? Always a good relationship with the boy?”

 “Not just
good,” Molly said, as if to make up for her previous outburst. “Wonderful.”
There was more to it than just being with the boy, filling time, even in a
loving way. Wasn't he also getting the benefit of their experience in life, the
gift of wisdom that only a gray head and an unselfish loving heart could
convey? Surely there was a benefit to the boy in being exposed to living ties
with the past? Quality time was what they gave, Molly thought, reviewing the
ways in which they had spent it with Tray. It was a loss for the child as well.

 “And being
deprived of that relationship has been traumatic?”

 It came as a
kind of general question, but it instantly confirmed her suspicion that the
benefits of grandparenting on the child would be difficult, if not impossible,
to prove, no less defend. The lawyer looked pointedly at Charlie.

 “You've been
very depressed about this separation, especially since it comes at a time of
comparative idleness. Haven't you?”

 “I don't know
what you mean by that,” Charlie said helplessly.

 “I mean it's
had a devastating effect on both of you, especially you, Mr. Waters.”

 “We were
pretty close,” Charlie mumbled defensively. He hated to show any signs of
weakness. “I don't see what that has to do with it.”

 The lawyer
was leading him now.

 “What I want
to establish is not only the effect on the child, but on you as well. The
deprivation of the loving relationship with your grandchild has also had a
profound and debilitating effect on you.” Charlie squirmed in his seat. He
looked at Molly and seemed uncertain about a response. “Well, has it, or hasn't
it?” Forte pressed him. “Why would you be here otherwise?”

 “I guess you
have a point.”

 “Have you had
trouble sleeping? Have you been irritable, nervous, or depressed? Has it
interfered with your well-being, your physical health, your mental capacity?”

 “I don't see
what that has to do with it.” Again, Charlie glanced helplessly toward Molly.
“What about Tray?” he snarled. “How has it hurt Tray to be away from us? I saw
him. He definitely wasn't the same boy I said good-bye to two years ago.”

 Molly could
see that the lawyer had taken this unsubtle shifting of the spotlight to Tray
as a kind of affirmative answer to his questions. She could see immediately the
problems that they would have to face in court. How could the benefit derived
by Tray from his grandparents' company be adequately explained through lawyers,
with their trick questions and procedures?

 “Like what?”
the lawyer asked, accepting the shift.

 “Like he
wasn't himself.”

 “In his
attitude toward you?”

 “Like he was
frightened.”

 “As if you
had been painted to be someone unsavory? A bad influence?”

 “No. Not like
that.”

 “As if he
didn't know you?”

 “Not that
either. It was as if—as if he saw me as a stranger.” Charlie nodded vigorously.
“That's it. Like I was a stranger.”

 Molly felt
uncomfortable with that analysis, but she held her peace.

 “I was
already feeling lousy. And on top of that they threatened to call the cops if I
came around again. It was pretty terrible.”

 “Who
threatened?”

 “Frances
did.” He grimaced and shook his head. “I think she got a little frightened. I
must have been in a state.”

 “He had a
very bad reaction to the experience,” Molly said, also remembering how she had
found him on that day he had visited Crisfield.

 She had
worked late, and when she came home, he was sitting in the dark in the living
room, his coat still on. She had put on the light and he had tried to hide it
with his arms, but in the brief flash she had seen him and, in his face, the
etched pain, the eyes puffy with tears, helpless in his despair.

 She looked at
Charlie to see how far she should go. He had turned pale, and she could see the
protest in his eyes.

 It would
humiliate him to hear it said aloud, she knew, the way she found him in the
den, with the loaded gun on his lap.

 The fabric of
his manhood had been unceremoniously unraveled, and he was momentarily
disoriented, his identity challenged. He had lost most of the things that
defined him as a man, his work, his son, his grandson. His collapse had seemed
total, and it panicked her momentarily, since his stability and manhood were
also the bedrock of her own life. She had had little choice but to go back with
him to helpless babyhood and play the mother as he sobbed away the substance of
his life.

 He had clung
to her like a helpless infant, sputtering out his confessions of despair, the
failure of his aspirations, the overwhelming wave of events that had brought
him down. She had held him in her arms for days, it seemed, until finally she
had entered the cage with him and slowly led him out. Now her fear was that he
might become suspicious that this revelation of his weakness and vulnerability
had actually diminished him in her eyes. More than ever, lately, she had made
an effort to stroke his sense of manhood, wondering if her ministrations were
transparent. Above all, she did not want him to feel dependent on her strength,
or challenged by it.

 “I don't see
what that has to do with it,” he had said a few moments ago. She clearly
understood the coded message to her.

 “It would
have a bad effect on anybody,” said Molly.

 “It was one
lousy birthday, I can tell you,” Charlie said, somewhat relieved. The lawyer
did not pursue the issue further, choosing instead to break for lunch.

 They went up
the elevator to a dining club on the penthouse floor, with high windows that
offered a spectacular view of the harbor and surrounding skyline. It was
obviously a place of privilege, Molly observed, an enclave for the power elite
that ran the city. It was both impressive and awesome, and she felt out of
place and intimidated, feelings mirrored by Charlie, who looked forlorn and
uncomfortable. The opulence of the room and the apparent arrogance and
self-confidence of the diners only made his personal sense of failure more
acute.

 “Drink?”
Forte asked after they were seated at one of the better tables alongside the
window.

 “A beer,” Charlie
said.

 “Make it
two.” She looked toward Charlie and winked. Mostly to comfort him. In this
place, they were as good as aliens.

 “Campari and
soda for me,” Forte told the gray-haired, black waiter.

 “Nice place,”
Charlie said after a long, awkward silence while all three studied the menu.

 “Not bad,”
Forte said. “And you can't beat the crab cakes.”

 The drinks
came, and they placed their order, but they had barely had their first sips
when a large man with a floppy bow tie and round steel-rimmed glasses came by
and shook Forte's hand.

 “Looks like
we got another one, Bob,” the big man said.

 “Looks like
it.” He looked nervously at Molly and Charlie.

 “Always a
pleasure to lock horns with you downtown hotshots.”

 “You guys in
the suburbs are the ones with the horns,” he smiled thinly. “By the way, I'd
like you to meet—”

 “You playing
Saturday?”

 Forte nodded.

 “He's a
scratch golfer. We're a perfect pair. I've got a ten handicap.”

 Ignoring the
banter, Forte cleared his throat.

 “This is Charles
and Molly Waters. Meet Henry Peck, a worthy opponent.”

 The name
meant nothing to Molly, who shook the man's hand when her turn came.

 “He's
representing your daughter-in-law and her husband,” Forte said. If he was
discomfited, it didn't show. But Molly felt strange.

 Peck was
polite, made no references to the case, and went away with nods and smiles.
When their silence became awkward, Forte broke the ice.

 “He's one
shrewd bastard, that one.”

 “But you're
friendly,” Charlie said, his response predictable. Molly had held herself back
from offering the same comment.

 “We're just
professionals,” Forte said patiently. “One thing has nothing to do with the
other.”

 Charlie drank
a gulp of beer.

 “Doesn't seem
right somehow,” he said. “I mean, you're opponents.”

 “So are
boxers. Many of them are friends or acquaintances. In the ring, they're out to
kill each other. Same with us.”

 Molly knew
what Charlie was thinking. They hadn't, after all, had much experience with
lawyers. The situation came as a shock, to her as well, to see how impersonal
and unemotional it was for them. How can they possibly be touched by our sense
of outrage? she thought.

 “Do you ever
discuss cases between yourselves? I mean on the golf course?” she asked,
glancing at Charlie.

 “Not
usually,” Forte answered. “When we play golf, we want to get away from
business.”

 “That's a
hard one to swallow,” Charlie said. He was clearly becoming agitated.

 “Legal ethics
prohibits our discussing cases where we are on opposing sides.”

 “But you get
yours, win or lose,” Charlie said.

 “Do I detect
a note of apprehension?” Forte replied, frowning.

 “I don't
understand it, is all,” Charlie mumbled, looking into the beer, which had
flattened. “I'm from a different side of the tracks. When we take sides, we
take sides.”

 “It does
sound odd, I know. But we're nothing more than paid advocates.”

 “I know that,
all right,” Charlie said. “Hell, you could both get together and stall this
thing and stretch the payments out to the next century.”

 “The entire
system depends on trust, Mr. Waters.” The lawyer looked toward Molly for
alliance. Finding none, he shrugged and lapsed into silence.

 “I never did
trust lawyers,” Charlie said, upending his glass. Thankfully, the waiter
brought their orders, and they began to eat in studied silence. “I just think
it smells,” Charlie said abruptly, after swallowing a bite of crab cake and
washing it down with water. The lawyer put down his knife and fork.

 “What smells,
Mr. Waters?” Forte began pointedly. Molly held her breath, her heart pounding.
“Is it the botched-up relationships that families get themselves into? The fact
is that a court of law is not the place to sort out personal relationships. It
is a last resort, a recognition of the failure of human beings to work out
their own problems. You hired me because you and your daughter-in-law and her
husband cannot work out the most simple and basic impulses of human
understanding. You don't blame the messenger for the bad news, Mr. Waters. Peck
and I sell time and legal expertise. We both know our jobs. Mine is to get a
legal order that permits you to visit your grandchild. Peck's is to prevent
that. We're both going to do our damnedest to win because the business we get
is based on how well we do for our clients. A doctor who persistently kills off
his patients by negligence, stupidity, or ethical lapses soon finds his waiting
room empty.”

 It could only
be classified as an outburst, although the words came out as if they had been
heated on a pure blue flame. Charlie was obviously cowed. His eyes seemed like
loose marbles rolling around in their whites. Molly knew she had to somehow
fill the breach.

 “That's what
we're paying for, counselor,” she said. “You convinced me.”

 Charlie
looked down at his food, picking at it with his knife and fork. The lawyer
glanced at her and nodded understanding. He had, she realized, just fallen
short of telling them both what to do with their case. She tried some small
talk about the view and the weather, soliciting Charlie to join in, but he
appeared too busy nursing a bruised ego, a daily occurrence these days. Forte's
lecture, she could tell, had unnerved him. When he started to play with his
food, rearranging it without eating, she became concerned.

 “Want another
beer, Mr. Waters?” the lawyer asked with a stealthy glance at Molly that did
not conceal his anxiety. Charlie shook his head, then put down his knife and
fork and stood up.

 “Back in a
minute,” he mumbled, ambling off.

 They watched
his receding back.

 “He's
beginning to really worry me,” the lawyer said with obvious concern. “I hadn't
intended to be so tough.”

 “He'll get
over it,” Molly replied, unconvincingly. She was, indeed, worried.

 “If they see
his weakness under pressure, they'll exploit it.”

 “It's been a
couple of rough years.”