Eyes of a Child (9 page)

Richie nodded to himself, as if deeply impressed by the judge's sense of fairness. Watching Flaherty return to her seat, Terri could not repress her fear. ‘He's buying Richie's act,' Terri whispered.

‘It's okay,' Flaherty murmured back. ‘Custody is a separate deal. A lot depends on Alec Keene.'

‘Next,' Sactena snapped, ‘is custody. Mr Arias?'

Richie walked slowly to the podium. ‘It's exactly as the court said,' he began. ‘I'm at home, and Terri isn't. At least in the near term, that should decide custody. But I want to take just a moment – because I know the court has people waiting – to talk about
why
I'm home.'

He paused to collect his thoughts. ‘For better or for worse, the last twenty years have been a time for social change. Women have been entering the workplace in greater numbers, for greater rewards. There are more two-worker families. And of course, there's more divorce.'

The message was subtle but unmistakable. Terri leaned close to Flaherty. ‘He's guessing Scatena doesn't like the women's movement . . .'

‘In this environment,' Richie went on, ‘there's been more experimentation with the family unit. In
our
experiment, I was the one to be with Elena. That's her security now.'

He drew himself up. ‘I love my daughter,' he finished softly. ‘I don't think we should experiment with her anymore.'

He gazed up at Scatena as if in search of understanding and then abruptly sat, his last obeisance to a busy man.

‘Make
him
the issue,' Terri whispered to Flaherty. ‘Don't let him get away with this.'

Flaherty rose with a look of introspection, prepared to give the argument that Terri had helped her craft. ‘As we know,' Flaherty began, ‘being a parent is very complex. It isn't any one thing. And it certainly isn't as simple as who's home between nine and five – a time during which, for most of the day, Elena Arias will be in school.

‘No, parenting is a number of things – love, understanding, stability, and financial support – which flow from a single source. A sense of responsibility.'

She paused, turning to look at Terri until Scatena's eyes followed. Terri tried to read his face.

‘Teresa Peralta,' Flaherty said slowly, ‘is the
responsible
parent. The one who calls Elena's teachers. Who takes her to the doctor. Who puts her to bed at night, drives her to day care in the morning. And, yes, who supports her.

‘Mr Arias talked about security. Ms Peralta
is
this child's security. She is the one who does everything.' Flaherty paused again. ‘Including take care of a man who has not, for whatever reason, provided for himself or his family.

‘To give Mr Arias custody would be to get things backward. Teresa Peralta needs help,
not
another dependent. Not still more burdens.' Flaherty paused again. ‘The reward for being the responsible parent should be the responsibility of parenting. That is what Elena needs, and that is what she has in Ms Peralta.'

Scatena held up a hand. ‘You pose me the same problem, Counsel. How do
I
know?' His voice became biting. ‘Frankly, if Mr Arias had hired you first, I'm sure you could make him sound as much like Walt Disney as Ms Peralta sounds like Snow White.'

From the corner of her eye, Terri saw Richie repress a smile. She rose from her chair without thinking.

Flaherty's voice sounded parched. ‘All that I'm doing, Your Honor, is addressing the facts –'

‘As
you
see them,' Scatena snapped. ‘They're not so apparent to me. Anything else?'

‘Yes, Your Honor.' The words were out before Terri heard the desperation in her voice, and then she forced herself to sound calm. ‘It is simply not possible for this court, or any court, to make an informed decision in so short a time, with so little information. I ask the court to defer any ruling until there's been some chance for Mr Keene to see Elena –'

‘Sit down.'

Terri froze, and then slowly sat. She was, by reflex, still a lawyer.

Scatena glowered from behind the bench. ‘Ms Flaherty speaks for you. Which, as an attorney, you know very well. I'll find you in contempt if you
ever
speak out again.' He leaned back, wincing as he wrung his hands. ‘You know, Ms Peralta, professional couples are the bane of this court, and lawyers are the worst. The child might as well be a football.' He paused. ‘I advise you to remember
that
if you can't work things out with Mr Arias.'

The courtroom was still. Scatena wheeled on Flaherty. ‘You can sit down too, Ms Flaherty. Seeing how your client doesn't seem to need you.'

Flaherty walked back, mouth a grim line. Scatena did not wait for her to sit. ‘Here's my order,' he snapped. ‘Interim custody to petitioner, Mr Arias. Interim spousal support to Mr Arias: one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars until the final hearing. Interim child support to Mr Arias: a thousand dollars.' The judge looked back at Terri, his face glowering with the residue of ill temper. ‘Visitation to Ms Peralta: alternate weekends. Friday evening to Sunday evening. Work out the details with your husband – this court doesn't have time for that.' He turned to his deputy. ‘Next case.'

Terri sat there.

Flaherty touched her shoulder. ‘Come on,' she said gently. ‘Let's go.'

Scatena cracked his gavel. Terri started, rising from her chair like an automaton. She did not see the courtroom as she left it. She felt numb.

Outside, Terri found herself leaning against a wall. Flaherty was next to her, she realized. ‘I'm sorry,' Flaherty said in a chastened voice. ‘He's like that.'

‘It's okay. You did everything you could.'

Flaherty squeezed her hand. ‘Are you all right?'

‘Fine. I'll call you later.'

The lawyer hesitated. ‘Go ahead,' Terri told her. ‘You've got other cases. Please.'

Flaherty nodded. Terri listened to the tap of her heels as she left.

Less than a month, and Elena was gone.

Terri felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned ready to face Richie. It was Alec Keene. ‘Things like that should never happen,' he said.

‘Shouldn't they?'

‘No, they shouldn't.' He began fidgeting. ‘And I shouldn't tell you this, either. But that wasn't what I recommended. Half the time, the man doesn't listen to us.'

Terri stared at him. ‘“The man,” ‘ she said tersely, ‘doesn't know anything about my daughter.'

‘He doesn't need to.' Keene's tone mingled weariness and disgust. ‘He's had a lifetime of experience – just ask him. He can tell more about the parties from their decorum in his courtroom, he told me once, than by reading our reports.'

It made Terri feel sick. ‘Then Richie won that one. He's a con man. I'm just a fool.'

Keene watched her a moment. ‘Try this for three, four months,' he said. ‘Then come see me.'

He left.

Terri took a deep breath. Put one foot in front of the other, she told herself. Get out of here and think about it later.

She left the way she had come, down the elevator and out the glass door, alone.

Terri huried to her car.

She made it to the passenger side, cracking open the door. Then she bent forward over the pavement and vomited.

Chapter
8

The look in Elena's eyes, frightened and inconsolable, made Terri fight back tears.

They stood in Rosa's living room. ‘I don't
want
to just live with Daddy,' Elena said. ‘I want to live with
both
of you.'

Terri hugged Elena before the child could look at her. When Terri glanced up at her mother, standing beside them, Rosa's face was stone. Rosa turned and left the room.

‘It's just for a while,' Terri said to Elena. ‘Only for a while.' Said it almost like a mantra, to herself.

‘But
why
?' The little girl pulled away. ‘Why don't you want to be with me?'

Elena's defensiveness of Richie had vanished: she was a child who needed her mother. But all that Terri could do for her was not to cry. ‘I
do
want to be with you,' she said, and then spoke the lines she had rehearsed. ‘But Daddy's at home right now, and I have to work. So we decided he should take care of you. Just for now.'

‘But who's going to take care of Daddy?'

In her bitterness, Terri wished she could take the child to Scatena, demand that he answer her himself. But the custody trial would not be for at least nine months, and after yesterday Terri could not imagine winning. ‘I'll still help him,' Terri said quietly. ‘Daddy will be fine, and some weekends you'll come live with me. Next weekend, if you want, we can go to the zoo.'

It did not seem to reassure Elena, and Terri wished she had not said it: the image that came to her was of driving Elena and Richie to Tilden Park and thinking that – whatever their own problems – she did not envy the weekend parents she saw there, could not imagine accepting a few hours of pushing a swing in exchange for the constant presence that, without any schedule or sense of moment, would make Elena who she was.

There was a knock at the door.

‘It's your daddy.' Terri mustered a smile. ‘It's time now.'

‘How's my princess,' Richie exclaimed, and swooped to pick up Elena. Then he turned and asked Terri in a businesslike voice, ‘Got her stuff?'

Silent, Terri handed him the suitcase.

‘I'll need my check,' he told her. ‘The whole amount.'

Terri stared at him. ‘It's not the first yet.'

‘Well, I need it, and that's just how it is.' He kissed Elena on the cheek. ‘I promised Lainie we'd go to the movies, and there's not enough food.'

Terri saw Elena's eyes fearful and confused. In silence, she hoped that there was a special place in hell for men who made their daughters worry about them.

She went to her purse and wrote him a check.

‘Okay, Lainie,' Richie said in a cheerful voice. ‘We're off.'

He walked briskly away, Elena looking over his shoulder.

Terri made herself watch them go. It was not until the car disappeared that Terri climbed the stairs to her old bedroom and closed the door behind her.

The next night, after Carlo was in bed, Terri came to Chris.

For a time, they stood in his darkened living room, Chris holding her in silence. And then Terri took his hand and they walked upstairs to his bedroom.

They stood facing each other a few feet apart, as they undressed. The sheets felt cool on Terri's skin. Only their fingers touched.

Until he reached for her.

He seemed to know her. There was no fear, no haste or overeagerness: in the last moment before she became part of him, Terri thought with a shade of ruefulness that Christopher Paget had made love far too often, to too many women, for him to feel these things as she did.

And then nothing else mattered.

Terri felt his mouth and hands moving across her face and nipples and body, stopping where they would as she became caught up in their discovery, his partner, doing as he did until she told him, in every way but speech, the one thing that was left for him to do.

She felt him with an intensity that shook her.

Conscious thought stopped: all Terri knew was that he could not be close enough, unless she pushed still harder. Time vanished. And then her body tightened, thrusting against the length of him as the first shudder ran through her. She barely recognized the woman's voice, crying out with passion and release, as hers.

‘Stay inside me, Chris,' she whispered. ‘Lose yourself.' And then Terri realized that he had.

Silent, he held her.

Terri let her mind go free, feeling the breeze through Chris's windows, listening to the rustle of trees outside, The city sounds drifting from below. A foghorn sounded. All at once she felt disoriented: her child was gone, the life she had lived was over, she was lying in the darkened bedroom of a strange house. It seemed that Teresa the mother had vanished, and the woman she had left behind did not know who or where she was.

‘I know you feel lost,' Chris murmured.

It was as if he had read her thoughts. ‘I do,' she said simply.

Chris brought her closer. Near dawn, she fell asleep in his arms.

In the days and weeks that followed, Chris tried his best to give her a life she could cling to without Elena.

They found Terri a place she could afford, a bright five-room apartment in a sunny part of the city, Noe Valley. Terri enjoyed the outdoors; on a weekend without Elena, they drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County in Chris's convertible, with the top down and the stereo blasting – he liked the Gin Blossoms, REM, and the Spin Doctors, Terri found to her surprise – to hike to the beach. They both enjoyed modern art, so the next day they went to galleries along Hayes Street. As a child, Terri had imagined herself as a dancer; Chris got them tickets to the ballet. Most of all he gave her his time, without demands or even plans beyond the moment.

As for Carlo, he was far too secure to resent Terri's presence. And he was good to Elena. At moments, Terri felt so close to Chris that it scared her, but then, as always, Elena pulled her back. Terri devoted her weekends with Elena to the child alone; they would visit Chris and Carlo only for a few hours, and only when Carlo would be there. Chris and Terri did not touch in her presence. But as gentle and nonassertive as Chris was, Elena would say little to him; angry that the loss of Elena had not detroyed Terri's relationship to Chris, Richie had made it clear to their daughter that Chris was his enemy, a source of hurt. Carlo was different: to his seeming embarrassment, the little girl worshiped him.