Chapter Thirty

BACK IN THE COURTROOM after the break, they waited for the judge to return. Will and Mr. Bell were turned around in their chairs, carrying on a whispered conversation with Olivia. Ina had left. Bennie smiled to herself as she imagined an uncomfortable scene in which Olivia tried to explain to the receptionist exactly why she was needed in court.

“All rise,” the bailiff ordered.

Judge Stone took his seat. “Mr. and Mrs. Grant, my concern in reviewing this custody petition is the welfare of your child. In cases such as this, it would be customary to assume that the mother is the natural custodian of a female child of this age.”

Bennie sat up straighter in her chair, with a surge of hope.

“However, Mrs. Grant, by your own admission, you have engaged in unnatural, inappropriate, and illegal behavior. My job here is not to punish you for that, but to consider how your behavior might bear on what is in your child’s best interests.”

The judge turned to Will. “Mr. Grant, you are a successful businessman and a responsible provider for your family. You clearly are proud of your daughter and devoted to her. Having the support of your mother, your child’s grandmother, is also an important factor. However, you have acknowledged that your daughter has a deep bond with her mother. We must assume that severing that bond would harm the child. One additional step that I might take is to talk with Olivia Elizabeth directly. You say she is bright. She could be old enough to express a choice, if she were asked.”

“No!” Bennie shouted, rising from her chair. “No, I won’t agree to that. You told us how harmful all this could be for her. I won’t put her through it.”

“Mrs. Grant, I must insist you control yourself,” the judge said.

August stood, put her arm around Bennie’s shoulder and encouraged her back into her seat.

The judge gathered the papers in front of him.

“In the absence of any more facts, I’m ready to rule.” He paused and looked from Mr. Bell to August. “I am granting the father’s petition for sole physical custody, with the provision that the mother be given unlimited in-person visits with the child in the company of either Mr. Grant, or his mother.”

The judge turned his penetrating gaze to Will. “Mr. Grant, I’m ordering that you make all efforts to facilitate Olivia Elizabeth’s spending time with her mother.”

The judge turned to Bennie. “Mrs. Grant, it’s my understanding that psychotherapy can be effective in certain cases of disorders like yours. You can come back to this court for reconsideration if your situation changes.

“That’s all,” he said, handing the stack of papers to the clerk.

Bennie sank in her chair and covered her face with her hands.

August searched in her bag for a tissue. “Hold yourself together until they leave.”

Bennie heard the screech of the hinge on the waist-high gate separating the principals’ tables from the viewing area.

“They’re gone,” August said. She handed Bennie the tissue. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know.”

“We can appeal. The judge left the door open a crack. It would mean that you’d have to let Livie talk to him. It wouldn’t necessarily be in open court.”

Bennie shook her head. “I won’t be the reason she has to go through that. Can you imagine him asking my child to choose between her father and me? Thank you, August. I know you did everything you could. Let’s get out of here.”

In front of the courthouse, she and August watched as Will helped his mother into the backseat of their car. He turned toward Bennie and raised his hand in a tentative gesture that seemed to Bennie to be a mixture of regret and farewell.

In spite of the heat and humidity that made the air shimmer off the sidewalk, Bennie decided to walk uptown rather than share a taxi with August. In a mental fog, she turned north and let the swirl of foot traffic carry her mindlessly past shops and cafes, dry cleaners and delis through the village. After several blocks, she walked beside the new red brick multi-storied apartment buildings of Stuyvesant Town, built for men returning home and women returning to kitchens after the war. Bennie thought the buildings looked more like a middle-class prison than a sanctuary for families.

She crossed west on a quiet residential street lined with brownstones. A horse-drawn ragpicker’s cart clopped past her, the sleepy horse lazily swatting flies with her tail. Farther on, she passed a candy store where three little girls only slightly older than Livie burst from the door onto the sidewalk, giggling and clutching their prizes of penny candy.

At the corner of Broadway and 44^th in Times Square, the realization of the morning’s events overwhelmed her. She ducked into a drugstore where a waitress in a starched pink uniform, apron, and cap took her order for coffee. She sat staring across Broadway at a Camel cigarette billboard with a giant picture of a man’s head that blew a five-foot smoke ring every few seconds.

Lining one wall beside the drugstore’s cash register were four telephone booths. Bennie fished in her purse for phone change and pulled out the psychiatrist’s business card. She stared at it, tore it in half and dropped it in the ashtray. She went to a phone booth and dialed Laura’s number.

“Bennie, where are you? What happened in court?” Laura asked.

She let out a sob when she heard Laura’s voice. “I lost utterly.”

“You sound terrible. Tell me where you are. Wait there. I’ll come to you,” Laura said when Bennie told her the name of the drugstore.

While Bennie waited, she counted the smoke rings coming from the billboard, and watched the drugstore fill with office workers stopping in from the surrounding office buildings for the ‘Sundries and Sundaes,’ the sign in the front window advertised. Across the crowded store, Laura appeared at the door and stood a moment looking over the crowd until she located Bennie, and then rushed over to sit down at the small table across from her.

“What do you mean, you lost utterly?” Laura asked.

“The judge awarded sole custody to Will. I can have visits with Livie, but they must be supervised by Will or his mother, which is almost worse than not seeing her at all. Can you imagine Livie beginning to treat me as some kind of distant relation? I’d rather wait until she can make her own decisions about seeing me.”

“Can’t you appeal it?” Laura asked.

“I’d have to let them involve Livie. I won’t put her through that.”

“You may change your mind.”

Bennie shook her head.

Laura lit a cigarette and picked up the business card from the ashtray and read it. “Yours?” She arched her eyebrows.

“In court, the judge recommended psychotherapy for my disorder,” Bennie said, shaking her head.

“Oh, my darling. How perfectly horrible this has all been for you.” Laura took Bennie’s hand. “This may not be the time, but, well, these last few weeks, I’ve been looking at apartments, on my own, away from Charles. I was thinking that maybe you’d want to live with me. You wouldn’t have to worry about anything. You can work as many hours as you need to. We’ll have a housekeeper, and a cook if you want. We can go to New Canaan as often as you like.”

“Laura, stop.” Bennie put her hand over Laura’s. “You’re moving away from Charles? What’s behind this?”

“I want you, Bennie, and I want to help you with your daughter, however I can. I want a life with you. I want to live with you. You’ve given me the courage to recognize it.”

“Yes.” Bennie’s answer was fast and unequivocal.

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Well, all right. All right. I’m delighted. Let’s go find our apartment.”

 

THE END