But When She Was Bad Read online

  She sent some cooked meals our way—maybe half a dozen over the first six months of our new and improved dual-household arrangement. Otherwise, we had totally separate lives. I was back to caring full-time for Allegra, Jack, and Wolfie, while maintaining the house, shopping, cleaning, and cooking at least our main meal of the day.

  How did the three older kids react to all this? Outwardly, they were as relieved as I was that we had our home back. We spent a week or so after Annie and Todd left just cleaning and rearranging, as well as re-stocking the pantry and refrigerator with food that wasn’t macrobiotic or mini-biotic or whatever—food we could actually eat.

  But I worried about it nonetheless. This was the second time a woman had abandoned them and surely that had to hurt somewhere inside. Bad enough that they’d had only one parent for so much of their lives—but then to get a taste of the way things should actually be … and to lose it again … that had to have an impact.

  Later on I learned that the three kids saw their time with Annie White divided almost evenly into the Good Annie years and the Bad Annie years.

  For the first two or so years with us, she was apparently just what they needed: another full-time adult around to care for them and guide them and teach them. Despite Allegra’s very early episode of running away from Annie’s new sense of order and discipline in the house, the kids saw her as a relatively sweet, gentle, and attentive mom in those first two years with us.

  But then, after the marriage and the miscarriage and the new pregnancy with Todd, Annie effectively turned her back on them. She didn’t need them any longer; she had something better cooking in the oven. She barked at the kids, she sneered at them, she ignored their needs.

  Am I being too harsh? Too simplistic? Maybe. Step-parenting is an impossible, ridiculous situation in even the best of circumstances. If they’re not yours, kids are so unlikable that only a saint could put up with them—or as I suggested earlier, the 3% among us who are so whacked out that they genuinely like all kids.

  The Bad Annie was the one who’d been living with us for the last two-and-a-half years and the kids essentially said good riddance to her. After she left, they had no more need for her—and it showed. Neither Allegra nor Jack nor Wolfie ever called Annie without my urging them to; none of them ever spoke wistfully of her presence; and none of them ever evidenced the slightest interest in this second household of hers which was supposed to be simply the terminus of a very long corridor connecting a few more rooms in the house.

  For a long while, Todd became the nowhere kid because of all this. Allegra, Jack, and Wolfie had virtually been banned from ever interacting with their half-brother while he lived with us, so they had little feeling for, or attachment to, him. Once he went away, latched firmly to Annie’s hip, he became a non-person to them. Maybe they forgot about Todd because it was so urgent that they forget about this second woman who had abandoned them.

  40

  Over the next year, resentment built.

  Her resentment, that I seemed to want only occasional sex from her rather than a complete involvement in her new and improved two-person household. My resentment, in that I was paying even more now, both in monetary and emotional outlays, yet getting even less in return.

  There was still the occasional note but the tone was just a little different now, just a little more arch:

  Dear Gil,

  While searching through boxes I still haven’t unpacked (gee, how long has it been? a year already?), some old cards from you surfaced. Oh how our lives have changed since those cards were written.

  Change however is the nature of the universe so instead of mourning what once was the shape of our relationship, I thought about the novelty & freshness of its current incarnation.

  Since I don’t know other people in our situation, I don’t have any expectations. There are no guidelines or rules or examples. I only wish you were a little more interested in the home I am making here.

  Our contact with each other, whether it is by phone or in person, seems just a little too limited, a little too one-sided. It would be so, so nice Gil if you could at least make an effort to see things my way once in a great while.

  Definitely yours,

  Annie

  The problem was, I couldn’t see things Annie’s way. I couldn’t, for the life of me, see the point in the way our lives had changed and the way they were unfolding. Change may well be the nature of the universe, as Annie suggests—but I think you still have the option of stepping back from a situation and saying, Excuse me, but no. No, I don’t think I’ll be going along with this particular variety of change.

  In any event, Annie handed me this note on a Tuesday and on Wednesday told me that our sex together was “demeaning.” She was not, she said, just someone I could screw whenever I wanted and pay absolutely no attention to otherwise.

  Furthermore, Annie told me, given that we never went anywhere and never did anything together, I could no longer see Todd whenever I damned well pleased, nor take him out wherever I damned well pleased; nor do anything with him unless she approved of the particular activity and it happened to fit into their schedule.

  I see, I said.

  I turned on my heel and didn’t speak to her or see her for close to two weeks.

  Divorce.

  That’s when the word first came to mind. And once having thought of it, I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

  41

  In my defense, I’ll point out that I did give it one more try. I went over one night to Annie’s condominium after the three kids (and Todd) were settled down. We talked a while but it was clear that Annie was having none of it. She’d become her own person, she told me. She had new friends now and she had a new outlook.

  “A new outlook?” I repeated. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means that you can take it or leave it, Gil. You’re saying that you don’t like this arrangement, with me living here and you living there. Well, tough. That’s the way it’s going to be. I’m not going back there—I can’t stand that place and I can’t stand what it does to me.”

  “And just what does it do to you, Annie?”

  “It stifles me. It suffocates me.”

  I got up. I had my hand on the doorknob. I knew that a quick, wordless exit was the only way to go. And yet it gnawed at me, the loss and the waste; the pointless jettisoning of a life together that could have been good, could have been happy. I blamed it on myself, letting the move to this condominium happen, but at the same time I knew I really couldn’t have stopped it. All the voices, all the books were telling her she had to liberate herself; she had to untangle herself from a man who was too dominant in her life.

  So leave it alone, I told myself. She’s gone, we’re gone. Leave it alone. Don’t say it.

  Then I said it anyway, just as I knew I would.

  “One day soon, Annie, you’re going to wake up in a cold, terrified sweat and look around you—at a cramped, shabby, falling-down little condominium you so desperately wanted all for yourself, at a kid who hates you for taking away his father and his family, at the empty-headed salesman who’s sharing your bed, and at the prospect of endless days ahead of having to make a buck by flashing your tits and teasing men with your ass—and you’re going to ask yourself, ‘What the hell did I give up?’”

  I held the look in her eyes. Then I said, very softly, “The answer, Annie? The rest of your life. And any future you could have had. That’s what you gave up.”

  She snapped her head away from me, her eyes blazing. I knew she hated me fiercely at that moment for the cruelty of the words, but she hated more the truth of what I’d said. Because she knew I was right in every single detail, in every hateful nuance of the way her life would unfold. It was empty and it would never be filled again. It would never again have the magic in it—the magic that came from two people trusting the future with each other, the way we once seemed to do together. But where was the choice? I wanted her back with me, she knew, but only on my abso
lutist terms—all or nothing. And was it worth that?

  No, said Annie White.

  42

  Let the games begin.

  The bookshelves in the new superstores are filled to overflowing with somber discussions of divorce and child custody and fathers’ rights and all the other signposts of a deteriorating culture. But I didn’t have to browse through of any of those volumes to pick up on what’s happening in America these days between men and women. All I had to do was sit back and watch our own scenario unfold.

  Annie went to see a lawyer shortly after that last confrontation at her condominium. Billy Greckle, queenly yet very efficient spy that he is, called me one evening and informed me of this.

  “She’s out to rip your heart out,” he announced, with barely repressed glee.

  “I didn’t know you and Annie were still speaking, Billy.”

  “When it is useful to me, I will speak to anyone.”

  Ah, I thought. So what am I useful for at the moment?

  Billy filled the pause. “Actually, I heard this from her brother Marcus. He lives nearby and we get together once in a great while. Annie called him out of the blue and asked for $10,000.”

  Good Lord, I thought. “Really?” I said, casually.

  “She wants enough to buy a halfway decent lawyer, if indeed such is not a contradiction in terms, because she wants half your house, half your income, and half your savings, along with massive support for her child. What is his name again?”

  “Todd.”

  “Todd. How apt,” said Billy. “His existence will indeed be the death of you yet.”

  I let out just a sliver of the anger I was feeling. “You’re really an asshole sometimes, Billy. Are you aware of that?”

  Billy chuckled. “Shooting the messenger and all that, Gil. I’m being your friend in this, or are you too much an asshole to see that?”

  We bit off a few more nasties at each other then calmed down enough so that I was able to learn what I could of Annie’s intentions. According to her brother Marcus, she was determined to initiate a divorce—and get as much as possible out of me in the process.

  “Did he give her the 10 grand?” I asked.

  “No,” Billy said. “Unhappily, Marcus is as improvident and impetuous with his funds as are some other people with the little Chuckie who dwells beneath the belt.”

  I hung up on him. Why should I listen to crap like that?

  I thought about it for a long while that night. I decided there was no way Annie was going to get any half of this or that—except maybe the condominium I’d been so foolish to buy upon her exit. But for the rest—no way. The house and studio had been mine all along; the money had been earned and saved well before a certain Ms. Annie White came on the scene.

  I knew, of course, that Todd would be the key.

  He would be the pawn, he would be the weapon, he would be the stumbling block. I’d seen it happen with other fellows I knew—denied contact with their children by an estranged wife, they fight it through the courts, pleading for full custody, or if not that, joint custody, or if not that, then at least free access to the kids. And they invariably lose. Nine times out of ten they’re sentenced to the visitation sham and they become strangers—bitter, defeated, angry strangers—to their children.

  Thankfully, my situation was a little different. I already had three very needy kids to deal with—and once again, deal with alone. Allegra, Jack, and Wolfie were enough to fill my time and capture my attention.

  On top of that, Todd was the child I never knew. He’d been so firmly latched onto Annie’s hip (and breasts) from the moment of his birth that I’d never really imprinted with him. He was pretty much a stranger to me at that point, a nice kid, an attractive kid, a cute kid—but he wasn’t really mine, was he? Not the way Allegra and Jack and Wolfie were mine.

  I agreed to Todd for all the wrong reasons and I knew that if I let it happen, if I played the ex-husband/ex-wife game with Annie, all those reasons could come back to haunt me. If I got too close to him, he would be Annie’s payback to me, her revenge against my refusal to play the marriage her way. As it was, Todd was the child whose very presence in our lives had helped bring to an end a functioning, relatively harmonious household. Todd was the child I was just too damned tired to fight for. So let him go, I decided that night. Let him go and don’t chase after him.

  To make a long, very boring, all-too-familiar story short: With a lot of cajoling and tush-kissing on my part, we worked out a divorce with only minimal involvement from lawyers. I signed over the condominium to her and in exchange for that $150,000 windfall, she waived any further claims on what I owned or earned. Of course, I also committed to a couple of thousand a month in so-called child support. All in all, a rather expensive four-year interlude with a certain Ms. Annie White.

  End of story.

  Well, not quite. Over the year to come, I did something I wouldn’t have expected—something very unwise, something very self-defeating:

  I fell in love with Todd.

  43

  Because I didn’t need it, didn’t press for it, and didn’t particularly want it, Annie was very generous in continuing to give me time with my son—at least in the beginning. Our divorce agreement intentionally (on my part) had no reference to any “visitation” rights or time allotments with Todd or anything of that nature. It simply said Annie White had full custody, legal and physical, of Todd Wexler.

  Fine, from my point of view. Let’s move on.

  Soon enough, though, Annie was dropping Todd off for two- and three-hour visits with the four of us at the house, then overnights, then whole weekends at a time. I shrugged, said “Sure, why not?” when she asked (typically at the last minute), and we fitted him in to what was going on at that particular moment in our lives.

  I knew why she was doing it, of course. Not just because I didn’t ask for it—but also because this gave Annie more time with her on-again, off-again lover, Frank. She’d taken up with Frank almost from the moment I’d turned my back on her the day she decreed that our sex was demeaning and that my contact with Todd would henceforth be rationed.

  As I’ve mentioned, it wasn’t the first time for the two of them. This time, judging by what Todd let slip about them, it was a pretty tempestuous thing. Cooing like lovebirds one minute, then locked in frosty, sullen, crockery-shattering silences the next.

  So they apparently needed lots of time together to work it all out. They’d go off on weekends to God knows where and there little Todd would be, on our doorstep with his overnight bag haphazardly packed.

  The more I saw him, the more he melted me.

  He was all the things a two- and then three- and then four-year-old can be: a bouncy, buoyant, inquisitive chatterbox. He was a hugger, too. He was continuously grabbing onto me or the three older kids, wanting to be carried or cuddled, or just wrestled with on the floor. Unlike so many kids, he gave back, too. He’d look at me with rounded, attentive eyes when I was moody or distracted and he’d say, “What’s wrong, Dad? What are you worrying about?” I’d easily tickle him out of his concern but what stayed with me was his humanity.

  You don’t see a lot of that in kids his age and it worked on me. I started viewing Todd as a unique little guy, a pretty special little individual who’d been dealt a bad hand by picking the wrong parents at the wrong time—but who was playing that hand with a good deal of wisdom.

  Each time I’d see him, it got worse—the little pangs that nagged me afterwards, at seeing him go home to Annie. When you’re with someone who has something going for him, you want to see how it all unfolds; you want to be part of it.

  So, dammit, the love grew. The attachment grew.

  The worry grew apace. If Annie were to discern that Todd actually meant more to me than a mistake and a burden (and she was firmly convinced that was the case) then I would surely be in trouble. Because then she’d have the weapon that so many ex-wives seem to thrill in: she’d have my love for Todd to toy with. S
he’d ration out my contact with him like she used to ration sweets for Allegra and Jack and Wolfie. And with just as mean a spirit.

  And so it was, as time went on.

  If ever I should ask for Todd to spend the night or go with me and the other three kids on some outing, the answer was invariably No. Of course, Annie might turn around an hour later and ask me to watch Todd for the weekend, but that was because she and Frank wanted to take off somewhere. Whenever I asked, it was No. Whenever she decided, it was, Here’s Todd. By the time he was four, Todd was rationed down to Thursday evenings and whatever mid-day lunches I could steal with him. We might still have him for overnights on occasion—but as I say, these were always last-minute decisions on Annie’s part, and strictly according to her needs.

  Nonetheless, after our divorce, I didn’t really think too much on Annie White anymore, except where Todd was concerned. I wasn’t really jealous that some salesman named Frank was now dipping his wick into places I’d once been—no more than I give a particular thought to whom an old flame might be sleeping with now. What’s it got to do with my life? Besides, as I’ve surely let on, I’d never been that enamored of Annie White when it came to sex. It was most often nice … but it wasn’t anything to write home about. In any case, she was long gone from my day-to-day life; she was free to do what she wanted and so was I. Only if I were pining for Annie, would jealousy have entered in. And I wasn’t pining for her. Like my three older kids, I too thought good riddance. Given Annie’s oh-so-modern outlook, there really wasn’t that much choice, was there?

  Of course, all that I’ve just said is so much specious nonsense. It’s a lie from start to finish.

  How could I not feel disappointed that the life I had decided on—one with a woman named Annie White, with four kids in a real family—had not come about the way I wanted? Could I really be so shallow as to say, “Oh, well, what the hell?”