For Adam Coopersmith the process of divorce was more agonizing than anything he could have imagined.
Three days after their telephone conversation, Toni had gathered her emotional resources sufficiently to invite him back to the house that evening, so they could both tell Heather.
The experience was all the more difficult because everyone involved felt wronged or guilty—or both.
There had even been initial periods when Toni suffered fleeting pangs about not having been a good enough wife and mother, perhaps concentrating too much on her work to be what her family needed.
Yet she convinced herself that this was not a case of her own negligence, but rather Adam’s unilateral withdrawal of the love he had pledged at their wedding and had now transferred to another woman.
Heather’s reaction shook both her parents. Surprisingly, upon learning that he was leaving, she had burst into tears, thinking Adam was abandoning her for a nicer family.
Her anger, curiously, was aimed at Toni.
“You did this, Mom. You’re so caught up in your goddamn career. You blab about it so much, you never pay any attention to him.”
She then turned to her father and, lapsing from prosecutor to wounded child, implored, “You’ll let me live with you, Dad, won’t you?”
Adam melted with remorse.
During this entire conversation he was unable to look Toni in the eye. Yet she herself uttered not a single syllable in rancor. That is, not in front of their daughter.
Finally the wounded girl went upstairs to telephone her best friend, who had gone through the very ordeal Heather had just begun to suffer.
Adam was now alone with Toni, who did not raise her voice, but nonetheless spoke barbed words. “Just don’t let her farewell speech give you any ideas, Dr. Coopersmith.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s got as much chance of living with you and Mata Hari as a snowball in Hell.”
“Wait a minute—” Adam protested.
Toni continued and all but ignored him as she spoke with what sounded like a computerized voice. “The court always finds in the child’s best interests, and whatever you think of me, I’m still the primary parent. That woman’s not going to get near my child.”
Adam was baffled. “Toni, can you be honest with me—and yourself? Heather’s never been at the center of your life. Why are you so insistent on custody?”
“I’m her mother, dammit. Do I have to say anything more?”
“Yes. You could say you love her.”
“That goes without saying.”
“No, Toni. In your case, I don’t think it does. You regard her as a possession, and you’re hanging on to her just to spite me.”
She hesitated for a moment and then conceded quietly, “That’s part of it. But frankly, is it in Heather’s best interest to live with some Russian babushka she doesn’t even know?”
“Anya’s a caring person,” Adam protested. “She’d be good to Heather.”
“Does she have any experience with children?” Toni asked with an edge of cruelty in her voice.
“Do you?” he lashed back in anger.
His unexpected hostility was actually making it easy for Toni, hardening her resolve. “Don’t push me too far, Adam. You can’t win.”
“I’ll call character witnesses.”
“If it comes to that, the Boss will call everybody from the man in the Oval Office to the Pope himself. But you’ll end up damaging Heather more. And I know you’d never want to do that.”
Adam paused to weigh what she had said. She sensed she’d stopped his assault, and now began a velvet-gloved counterattack of her own. “Adam, believe me, the mere act of having people testify to our respective unfitness—which is what it all boils down to—will be a worse trauma than settling this privately. Because, even if it’s only in his chambers, the judge is going to make Heather choose between us in our presence.”
“Why are you being so vindictive?”
“Can’t you see, Adam? Can’t you even see that I’m the real injured party in this? My father was right after all. I should never have left Washington. And yet, do you know something? I’ve never had a moment’s regret … until now.”
Adam shrugged. “I guess you’ve got every reason to hate my guts.”
“Oh no, that’s putting it too mildly. All that’s stopping me from murdering you is that Heather still needs you to be a part-time father. And let me tell you, buster, if you step out of line, I’ll come at you with guns blazing.”
He gathered the strength for wrath that he did not have for apology. “Wait a minute! There are norms for parental visitation, and I expect us to go by the book.”
“Don’t count on it,” she replied in a whirlwind of hatred. “You may not have respected me as a lawyer up till now, but when you see what you’re left with after this litigation, you’ll be sorry we ever met.”
Adam slowly climbed the stairs carrying two old suitcases he had dusted off and brought up from the cellar. He shuddered as he passed Heather’s closed door, through which he could hear muffled sobs. And hated himself for what he was doing to her.
He knocked. There was no reply.
He knocked louder and called, “Anybody home?” And heard Heather’s hysterical voice: “Nobody important.”
“There’s you, darling,” Adam said affectionately.
“And nobody gives a damn about me.”
“I do. May I come in?”
“No. You can go to hell.”
Adam spoke quietly but firmly. “Listen, Heather, I’ll be leaving soon, and I want to talk to you before I go. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes and I expect you to open this door.”
In the quarter of an hour he was gone, she washed her face, combed her hair, and heroically pulled herself together. Her door was open.
Adam sat down next to her on the bed. “Hey, kid, I know it may sound terrible and self-serving, but this is going to turn out to be the right thing. Your mother and I were making each other very unhappy.”
“That was no secret,” his daughter muttered. “I wasn’t exactly overjoyed either.”
“Well, I guess we’ll all have to start to rebuild our lives.”
“Are you already involved with someone?” Heather asked. It was clear she dreaded the answer.
He hesitated and then said softly, “She’s a very good person. I think you’ll like her.”
“Is it that Russian woman I heard you and Mommy fighting about?”
Adam nodded.
“Why is she so important that you have to abandon us?”
“But I’m not disappearing from your life, honey. On the contrary, I’m going to put up the best custody fight I can, because Anya really wants you to come and live with us too.”
“Really?” she asked. “Why?”
“Well, I’ve told her so much about you that she almost feels she knows you. Trust me, Heather. She’s a lovely, gentle, caring woman.”
There was a pause. Finally, Heather found the courage to ask, “Tell me, Dad. Why did you marry Mom in the first place?”
He hesitated for a moment, and then answered, “To have you.”
Suddenly they were embracing, Heather in tears, he crying inwardly.
“Please, Daddy, don’t leave me,” she begged. “I’ll be good, I swear. I won’t make any trouble for anybody.”
Adam felt as though he had been kicked in the stomach. For a moment he even thought of capitulating and remaining. Anything that would not hurt his daughter more. But then he thought of Anya and the words exchanged with Toni, which could never be taken back.
After a final moment, he closed his eyes and hugged her. He could feel her heart pounding.
Half an hour later he came down the stairs with new resolve. Toni was in the living room, reading. She looked up as he entered.
“Well?” she said calmly. It was clear she had regained some mastery over her emotions.
“I’ll see you in court,” he answered.
Toni was true to her word. In the negotiations with her lawyers—no doubt quarterbacked by the Boss—Adam was almost skinned alive.
Naively, he had chosen an old friend, Peter Chandler, to represent him, unaware that compassion and sentiment are not positive traits in divorce lawyers. Adam had testified as expert witness for Peter in two malpractice suits. This very fact should have warned him that the attorney’s specialty was fighting on behalf of patients who had been maimed, crippled, and killed—the victims.
Adam’s only instruction to him was to ensure his visitation rights. For many reasons, he wanted Toni to have everything.
“Let her keep the house, the cars—I don’t give a damn. I’m pretty sure the court won’t give her alimony since she earns more than I do. But I’ll pay Heather’s tuition and some child support—as long as it doesn’t break my back.”
“Hold it, Adam,” Chandler intervened. “I don’t want to make you into a monster, but I have to negotiate with her people. If you walk in and surrender everything right off the bat, they’ll take that as a starting point and we’ll get hit for even more.”
“I don’t believe it, Pete. I mean, Toni’s a reasonable person. She’ll see that I’m being decent.”
“Decent? Since when did the law have anything to do with decency? You’re just laying yourself wide open to be raped and pillaged.”
“Listen,” Adam answered emphatically, “I’m completely in the wrong. If you must know the truth, I’d feel relieved if Toni did take me to the cleaners.”
“Maybe,” Peter commented. “But Boston winters can be awfully cold if you haven’t got a shirt on.”
His attorney proved to have a keen insight into the implacable anger of the injured. For not only did Toni petition the court for complete custody of their daughter, ownership of the house, and massive child support, she even sued for loss of earnings.
Two senior partners from the law firm in Washington that represented the Boss testified that had she stayed in the nation’s capital, her income would have been more than twice what it was in Boston.
Peter objected. He protested. He argued himself dizzy. But the court upheld the relevance of the testimony, and ultimately, its validity.
But the most egregious injustice was when the magistrate openly asked Heather which parent she would prefer to live with, and after she explicitly responded, “Dad and Anya,” granted full custody to Toni, on the grounds, however antiquated, that an adolescent girl was far better off with her mother.
Battered and bruised, Adam was granted merely one weekend a month with Heather and only four weeks during the summer vacation. No Christmas. No Thanksgiving. No Easter.
Hearing the verdict, Adam gasped audibly. “Jesus, I bet an axe murderer would have done better.”
“We could appeal,” Peter offered tentatively.
Adam grimaced. “No. All I’ve got left is my balls, and I’d probably lose those in a rematch.”
Heather was devastated. “I don’t understand it, Dad,” she sobbed. “You’re a much better parent.”
“Yeah,” Adam replied, smoldering. “But your mother’s a much better lawyer.”
Adam’s suffering was far from over.
The night their divorce decree was granted, he received a savage telephone call. It was from Thomas Hartnell.
Adam had long dreaded this moment. In fact, he sensed that it was part of his former father-in-law’s strategy to wait until the last possible moment to add his boot to the others that had already kicked him.
The Boss spoke with an icy calm. “Dr. Coopersmith, you have lived up to my worst expectations. You have caused irreparable harm to the two things I love best in the world—my daughter and granddaughter. I intend to make absolutely sure that you regret your actions. Now, I have not as yet decided how, but I assure you that from this time forward, I will be concentrating my life on finding a suitable vengeance. Do you read me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Remember this, you heartless bastard. Even if you don’t hear from me for a long while, never draw breath and imagine I’ve forgotten that we have unfinished business. Now you go back to that Russian gal, and I hope she gives you all you deserve.”