Every Fifteen Minutes (16 page)

“Aren't you going to say ‘pleasant dreams'? That's what you always say.”

“Whoops. Pleasant dreams, honey. Good night.” Eric hung up, navigating with one hand while he pressed the number to call Susan. He kept his eye on the road, leaving the hospital campus, but his thoughts were racing. If he hadn't made the decision about custody yet, he had made one now.

“Eric?” Susan asked, picking up. “Glad you called.”

“Hi, listen, I made a decision. I want to go for primary custody, but I don't know about quitting my job at the hospital yet. I might've jumped the gun on that.”

“Whoa, you sound different.”

“I'm furious, that's what I am.” Eric stopped at a red light. “Hannah just told me I can't take her to school in the mornings anymore. Caitlin is seeing someone, by the way.”

“I know, I talked to Daniel today. I was going to tell you when you called me. She was very unhappy that you came over uninvited.”

“Did she tell you that she took Hannah to an emergency room without telling me? Because she hurt herself playing the stupid softball? I was worried and I called but they didn't answer.” Eric stared at the red light, hearing himself and hating in his own voice the tit-for-tat fighting that he'd seen in couples he counseled. Almost uniformly, the wives found him first, looking for support. They didn't know it when they came, but they were all looking for the support to get a divorce. He realized that Caitlin must have been just like those wives, wanting out, looking for the opening, trying to find the courage.

“Okay, relax. Changes are coming, Eric.”

“Like what?” Eric tried to keep his temper. “Like that all of a sudden I can't take Hannah to school?”

“That, for one.”

“But why? I just want to take my kid to school. I've been doing it since she started school!”

“We didn't provide for your right to do that in the agreement.”

“Seriously?” Eric hit the gas as the light turned green. “How many things didn't we prepare for in this agreement?”

“This isn't on me.” Susan's tone stiffened. “We have a standard custody agreement, but you two have been ignoring it, as a past practice. Now Caitlin is reverting to the agreement, going to go strictly by the letter. In other words, your informal practices are going to be null and void. It's a fairly typical pattern.”

“What do you mean, a pattern?” Eric switched lanes, newly angry. Eric drove home, and the neon signs of the CVS, Gap, Walgreens, McDonald's, and Wendy's became a suburban blur.

“You and Caitlin were working well together, having a pretty informal custodial relationship and keeping things in place, which involved your being around the house more. That's why you didn't exercise your right to have overnights during the week, correct?”

“Right. I wanted Hannah to sleep in her own bed during the week.”

“Well, I spoke with Daniel, and Caitlin is taking the position that it's not going to work for her anymore for you to come by the house in the morning, be in her kitchen, make breakfast with her pans, and then take Hannah to school.”

“What if I came by in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and took Hannah
out
to breakfast? I get up early. It's not a problem for me, and she likes to get up early too.”

“That doesn't solve the problem.”

“Why not? Why doesn't it?” Eric felt a tension around his chest he hadn't felt in ages. He realized he was driving distracted, so he turned into a CVS parking lot and braked, leaving the engine and air-conditioning on.

“You have to look at the facts the way a court would, and what your ex is requesting is reasonable. We both know that she's seeing someone, and I don't think he's staying over there now, but one day he will. The current custody arrangement is conventional in every way—”

“I want to change it. I absolutely want to change it. I want primary custody.”

“Don't do this rashly, Eric.”

“Susan, I never do anything rashly. I've never done a rash thing in my entire life.” Eric flashed on how he'd turned Kristine away, in the parking garage. Any other man would have had her against the car.

“So you considered it, over the weekend?”

“I did nothing
but
consider it. Every decision I make is the most endlessly well-considered decision you can ever imagine, analyzed every which way from Sunday, including relevant pros and cons, research data, family-of-origin, barometric pressure, bloodwork, and the status of my own bowel movements.”

Susan chuckled. “You're funny when you're mad.”

“I don't feel funny, I feel like I'm being shut out of my own daughter's life. If this is the shape of things to come, then I want to file for primary custody.”

“Fine. I'll draft and file the papers quickly serve them on Daniel, and copy you. It's a form, and I want to move before the court approves the previous agreement we filed.”

“Go for it.” Eric knew it was the right thing to do. He didn't relish the combat for Hannah, but he would help her get through. Eric felt as if he had crossed a line, and there was no going back. “As for my hospital job, I don't want to give it up yet. What do you think?”

“It can wait. You offered to quit the job, and I agreed because it makes your case for custody stronger. It makes it a closer case if you have a big job, but I'm not afraid of a close case. If you only win the easy ones, what kind of lawyer are you?”

“Okay, good.”

“After I file, we all go by the agreement. On your nights, you should take Hannah to your house to sleep over.”

“Okay, good. So I pick her up when it says in the agreement and take her over to my house?”

“Yes, exactly. The agreement provides that you take her to school the next morning, so you'll get your mornings with her that way, eh?”

“Good point.” Eric considered it. “So I'll have her alternating Tuesday and Thursday mornings, plus two weekends a month.”

“Exactly. Meet all the terms and times of the agreement. Caitlin thought you would be the only one to lose time, but now, so will she.”

“It sounds like a war, with Hannah in the middle.”

“Get used to it, Eric. I'm advising you to take her because not only will it give you more time with her, but it would look better to the court. You don't want to be asking for more time when you haven't utilized the time you've been given.”

“Right. I see, we're making a record.”

“Exactly. You also don't want to be in a position where the fact that you haven't been taking her overnight is somehow used against you, suggesting that you weren't interested.”

“True, and school is almost over anyway.” Eric could envision it, and it eased his heart. “I already painted the room.”

“Good. Tomorrow morning when you go over there, don't start any discussions with Caitlin about not letting you take Hannah to school. She told Daniel that she wants all communication to be between the lawyers, and that's right. You may have been able to work together before, but for now it's radio silence.”

“Whatever, fine.” Eric had founded his entire professional life on the notion that talking could heal people and solve problems, but now he had to
not
talk to his own wife, about the most important problem in his life.

“Finally, don't breathe a word to her that we're going to file for primary custody. Be nice to her. Act like you're working with her. In terms of strategy, I want to spring it on her. I'm hoping to file our papers and serve Daniel right away, to surprise her before the weekend.”

“What's the thinking there?” Eric's stomach flipped over, his loyalties mixed. As angry as he felt at Caitlin, it was strange to be conspiring against her. He lost focus a minute, feeling himself enter uncharted emotional territory.

“Look, Eric, no more Mr. Nice Guy. This is litigation, and we want to win. If we file before the weekend, we give her the weekend to worry.”

“But how does that help us win, if she worries?” Eric rubbed his face. Caitlin was becoming his enemy. He'd never had an enemy before, especially not one he loved to the marrow. His
wife.

“We win when we have our adversary off-balance, off-kilter. Winning is not a passive act. You actually have to
beat
somebody and you beat them before you even enter a courtroom, by dominating them. Especially your ex. She's a prosecutor, for God's sake. She wins for a living and she loves Hannah, too.”

“You're right, but she doesn't
like
Hannah, though she'll never admit that to herself, much less in court.” Suddenly Eric knew the truth, one that he'd never faced before. “Hannah isn't the kid she wanted, it's as simple as that.”

“There you go.” Susan didn't miss a beat. “Right now she has the upper hand. She's calling the shots and shutting you out. We have to get the upper hand and do some shutting out of our own. Litigation is always about power. We're about to right this imbalance of power.”

Eric flashed on Kristine, talking about how she had the power, and now here was Susan talking about how he needed to get the power. It struck him as strange that he'd never thought of who had the power in his own marriage. He'd analyzed it in the couples he counseled, but that was an abstraction. That was them, not
us.

“It's your weekend with Hannah, isn't it?”

“Yes, it would be.”

“So she'll be at your place for the weekend, overnights on Friday and Saturday and home Sunday by seven o'clock. When I file the papers, I'll let them know that, commencing immediately, you will be there to take her for your weekend with her. You don't have to communicate that, I will. Got it? Don't be late with the pickups or the drop-offs. Judges hate that.”

“I'm never late.” Eric didn't add,
for anything.

“That's good for Hannah to be with you this weekend. When Caitlin is upset, she'll be insulated from it.”

“Right.” Eric felt reassured that Susan was concerned for Hannah's well-being. “I really want to minimize the effect on Hannah. It's bad enough I'm going to be her mother's adversary, and she picks up on things. That will really bother her.”

“I'm aware. Finally, I want you to keep your nose clean.”

“My nose couldn't be cleaner.”

“You know what I mean. Imagine that a court will find out everything you do, every misstep, because it will. You're not dating, are you?”

“No.”

“Don't. Let's keep the record clean.”

“Okay.” Eric thought maybe it wasn't the worst thing that he hadn't had Kristine against the car.

“You won't be lonely forever,” Susan added.

And Eric thought,
Bingo.

 

Chapter Eighteen

4. I grasp quickly what motivates others.

Circle one: Doesn't apply to me. Partially applies to me. Fully applies to me.

Okay, so not everything is going according to plan. I already threw my temper tantrum. I broke my best controller by throwing it against the wall, cracking the casing.

I feel angry deep down. It's eating away at me, gnawing at my gut like a pack of rats.

What is it they say about the Serenity Prayer? You have to learn what you control and let go of what you don't. Or something like that.

Okay, so I don't control everything.

Evidently I make mistakes.

I called it wrong.

I thought it would work, but it didn't.

I thought he would go for it, but he didn't.

It pisses me off so much. I'm pacing in my bedroom, walking back and forth across the floor, probably wearing a line in the wood. Maybe if I keep pacing I'll turn into a chain saw, destroying the floor, then butchering the earth itself, then falling to the center and burning alive.

I thought I understood what motivated him, but I guess I was wrong.

This is going to be tougher than I thought.

But part of me likes that. It gets my juices flowing. I'll try to focus on that part. The part that appreciates the challenge. The part that wants an adversary who is truly worthy, not one I can crush quickly.

There's no fun in that, and I'm in it for the game, too.

That's the weird thing about gaming, nobody likes it when it says Game Over, even the winner.

That's why we play the next game, try to get to the next level, hit the button for a rematch, playing hour after hour into the night.

We never want the game to stop.

Suddenly, I'm not pacing anymore.

I feel better, like myself again.

The game is still on, and I really am good at knowing what motivates people. I always have been. It was never hard for me, it always came easily even when I was little. That's why I did so well even in elementary school, especially at math. I'm smart enough that I didn't have to study that hard to get good grades, but that wasn't what got me great grades.

Being a sociopath got me great grades.

I was the kid who deserved the A-, but got the A. I was even the kid who deserved the A, but got the A
+
. If there were extra credit questions, I answered them and got all the points, not just partial credit. Every grade that could possibly be rounded up, got rounded up in my favor.

Why?

My teachers liked me. By fifth grade, I could see what the teachers wanted, because it was so obvious. They wanted us to shut up, sit down, and do what they said when they said it. In other words, they wanted us not to be kids.

I learned this in fifth grade math class from Mrs. Cushing, whose left arm ended at the elbow, so she always wore a jacket and tucked her empty sleeve into her jacket pocket, like a fake hand. That year there was a weird bulge in the school enrollment, so Mrs. Cushing had thirty-five kids in her math class, which was seventeen more kids than a teacher with even two arms could handle.