The Divorce Papers Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Susan Rieger

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to HarperCollins Publishers and Carcanet Press Limited for permission to reprint the poem “Telemachus’ Detachment” from Meadowlands by Louise Glück.

  Copyright © 1996 by Louise Glück. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers and Carcanet Press Limited.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Rieger, Susan, 1946–

  The divorce papers : a novel / Susan Rieger. —First edition.

  pages cm

  1. Divorce—Fiction. 2. Domestic relations—Fiction.

  3. Women lawyers—Fiction. 4. Divorce settlements—Fiction.

  5. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

  PS3618.I39235D58 2014

  813′.6—dc23

  2013027552

  ISBN 978-0-8041-3744-7

  eBook ISBN 978-0-8041-3745-4

  Jacket design by Anna Kochman

  Jacket photography Fredrik Broden

  v3.1

  For Maggie Pouncey,

  no writer could ask for a better reader,

  no mother a better daughter

  How these papers have been placed in sequence will be made manifest in the reading of them. All needless matters have been eliminated, so that a history … may stand forth as simple fact. There is throughout no statement of past things wherein memory may err, for all the records chosen are exactly contemporary, given from the standpoints and within the range of knowledge of those who made them.

  —BRAM STOKER, Dracula 1897

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  I. Intake

  II. Orders/Discovery

  III. Offer/Counteroffer

  IV. Negotiations

  V. Settlement

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  From the desk of Sophie Diehl

  TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI

  222 CHURCH STREET, NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555 (393) 876-5678

  I. INTAKE

  MARIA DURKHEIM

  404 ST. CLOUD STREET

  NEW SALEM, NA 06556

  February 1, 1999

  Dr. Stephanie Roth

  211 Central Park West

  New York, NY 10024

  Dear Stephanie:

  I need your help. Life is falling apart here. I’m sure you’ve heard our news. Daniel has asked for a divorce. It’s so wrong, for him, for me, for Tom, most of all for Jane. Our marriage has its problems, God knows, but there’s life in it yet, and I cannot bear the thought of putting our daughter through a divorce. You’ve been a close friend of Daniel’s since medical school; he listens to you and trusts your judgment. Would you ask him to slow down, talk things through, maybe give marital counseling a shot? We’ve been together 18 years; he shouldn’t throw it all away.

  I’d be grateful for anything you could do. Thanks.

  Yours,

  Stephanie Roth, M.D., P.C.

  THE BERESFORD

  211 Central Park West

  New York, NY 10024

  February 6, 1999

  Maria Durkheim

  404 St. Cloud Street

  New Salem, NA 06556

  Dear Mia:

  I am truly sorry you’re taking the divorce so hard but I can’t help you. Daniel’s decision wasn’t made on the spur of the minute. He has been unhappy in the marriage for years, and you have been too, if you could be honest with yourself. He is, of course, sad about the affect of the divorce on Jane, but he is confident she will be much better off in the long run. It’s not good for a child to grow up in a home where the parents don’t love each other and can’t get along. I believe in my heart he has made the right decision, for everyone’s happiness, including yours.

  You should think about the future and all its myriad possibilities. Don’t cling to the past. Put the bad times behind you and move on. Honestly, this is the best thing that could happen. You’ll see.

  I wish you well in all your future endeavors.

  Yours,

  MARIA DURKHEIM

  404 ST. CLOUD STREET

  NEW SALEM, NA 06556

  MARIA DURKHEIM

  404 ST. CLOUD STREET

  NEW SALEM, NA 06556

  CHAMBERS OF

  JUDGE ANNE HOWARD 185 CHURCH STREET

  NEW SALEM, NA 06555

  (393) 875-5511

  February 28, 1999

  David Greaves

  Traynor, Hand, Wyzanski

  222 Church Street

  New Salem, NA 06555

  Dear David,

  Thank you for hosting my retirement dinner. I love getting together with my former clerks (I was going to say “old” clerks, but Sophie hardly qualifies under that heading). You’re such a smart, interesting, decent bunch. And I was so pleased that Jared came up from D.C.

  The upside of senior status is the lighter docket, and I’m ready for that; the downside will be the diminishing quality of my clerks. I have to face it (without complaining): I’ll no longer get the very best. I shall miss that. I loved working with you, the original who set the standard, and all your descendants down through Sophie, and I’ve taken pride and pleasure in my role as a Supreme Court feeder. At last count (and I do count), I’ve sent 10 on to clerk for the Court. Ruth will still take my calls, no doubt, but the others are likely to plow greener pastures. I don’t blame them. I’ve had a great run.

  Sophie seems at sixes and sevens. She and I have lunch once a month. We take turns treating each other at Golightly’s. It was her idea. “I’m a tonic for you,” she said when she first called. “Clerks are worshipful, and if not worshipful, then calculatingly sycophantic. Lawyers, they’re toadies. Which explains, of course, why judges are tyrants, looking down, literally, on everyone in the room. You need a little roughing up now and again, a little humbling.” Does everything she thinks come out of her mouth?

  I wonder what she’ll end up doing. I had her pegged as a professor, like her father, but when I said that once, she looked at me as though I were out of my mind: “Can you imagine anything worse than reading and writing all day, and then only being allowed out to lecture to a class of entitled, fledgling Gordon Gekkos who expect an A for showing up? Whose parents call when they don’t get one? I’d rather defend meth heads. Which I do.” I’m glad she’s under your wing while she tries to figure out what she wants. She’s so quick, so lively. Prickly too, of course. She told me she regularly goes down to your office at the end of the day, to “take off my shoes and take down my hair—metaphorically.” It was good work I did, making this connection—for you both. You missed out on a daughter, with those fine, handsome, brainy sons of yours, and now a grandson. And she missed out on—well, you’ll figure that out, if you haven’t already.

  The oysters were wonderful, especially with the Champagne. Why eat anything else, as Isak Dinesen believed. A splendid feast in all respects. My best to Mary.

  Fondly,

  Crankiness Abides

  * * *

  From: Sophie Diehl

  To: Maggie Pfeiffer

  Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999
1:30:07

  Subject: Crankiness Abides 3/1/99 1:30 AM

  Dear Mags,

  I will turn 30 in 6 months and I don’t know what I should be doing. You know what you want to do; Matt knows what he wants to do; my sibs know what they want to do, except of course Francoise, who just likes kicking around the world. But still, that’s something. I’m treading water. Do you remember swim class at Brearley, the 30 minutes of drown-proofing, as if we might find ourselves one dark night floating on a mahogany plank in the Atlantic with Leonardo DiCaprio?

  I know I shouldn’t write emails after midnight, but I can’t fall asleep; I drank too much tonight and I’m feeling sorry for myself. (I promised myself I wouldn’t gripe to you before I sat down at the computer, but as you know better than almost anyone, I can be a self-pitying drunk, which is a step above a mean drunk, but not much. I apologize.) I will pull up my socks in proper Diehl fashion and try to find the silver lining. One bit of news: I saw Andrew Bellow on the street on Friday with the chickie he’s taken up with, looking tired and unhappy. Chickie wasn’t looking so good either. Roots showing, black tights with a run. I can’t say my spirits lifted at the sight of them (Andrew smiled brightly and said hello as we passed. I nodded.), but I may have walked on with a lighter step. I updated my bad boyfriend list earlier: Andrew makes 5.

  I did have a good time tonight, though it’s triggered all these anxieties. David had a dinner party for Judge Howard and her clerks. She’s retiring. Great food (oysters, lobster, the finest trayf in the land), great stories, great toasts. The judge was so happy with the occasion and all of us. As a group, they seem pretty happy with their lives and work. They’re also pretty impressive, a deputy U.S. AG, the New York State AG, the deans of Mather and Narragansett Law, the managing partner of THW (and these were just the locals). David got us all T-shirts, with the Judge’s great line from Ernest v. Farago: “What has become of us? When did we start fencing unicorns and foddering wolves?” Judge Howard is wonderful in every way. I worship her. Truth be told, I want to be federal circuit judge (“Decroche la lune,” as Maman always says) but I can’t say that to people (except you, of course) and I don’t know how to get from here to there. (Give piles to the Narragansett Democratic Party?) Geez, it is 1:30. I will settle now for getting from here to bed.

  Love,

  Sophie

  TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI

  222 CHURCH STREET

  NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555

  (393) 876-5678

  MEMORANDUM

  Attorney Work Product

  From: David Greaves

  To: Sophie Diehl

  RE: Mrs. Maria Durkheim

  Date: March 15, 1999

  Attachments:

  I’d like you to interview a prospective client in a divorce case this Wednesday. I know you haven’t done a matrimonial, but the situation calls for white-glove service and there’s no one else available that day. Fiona is out of the office this week, Felix will be in court, and I’m trying to close the Pericles deal. The downside of a boutique firm. But the upside too; we all become utility infielders.

  The client’s name is Maria Durkheim. She is Bruce Meiklejohn’s daughter. She’s coming in at 10:30 a.m. He called me last night to ask us to talk to her. He’d like us to take her case. He said he thought his daughter needed “heavy artillery.” I know what he means, but I don’t know what she wants. The husband is a big star at Mather Medical School, an oncologist, chaired professor, department head, Freeman Prize winner. Meiklejohn doesn’t like him one bit, and he made it clear he’s glad they’re breaking up. He said the marriage was a mistake from the start—“water and oil,” he called it, using standard Meiklejohn-speak for “Jew and Gentile.” He described Dr. Durkheim as “one of those people, you know the kind, overly aggressive and ambitious, striving, someone who tries too hard to fit in.” Bruce Meiklejohn is straight out of the Darien of Gentleman’s Agreement. I once heard him say, “Mather College was never the same after the GI Bill.” Too many physicists? Anyway, I want to give you a heads-up. I have no reason to believe the daughter subscribes to any of this, but Meiklejohn says the divorce could be ugly. There’s a child, a ten-year-old girl, Jane. She was uppermost in Meiklejohn’s mind. “Now, hear this, Greaves, you look out for my granddaughter, Jane.” I don’t know if the ugly part involves money or Jane, or the couple’s dynamic. Probably all three, if experience means anything.

  Let me know if you’re free Wednesday morning. It’s only a couple of hours of your time, and you might even enjoy it. Divorcing couples harbor murderous thoughts; they just have better impulse control than your regular clients.

  TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI

  222 CHURCH STREET

  NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555

  (393) 876-5678

  MEMORANDUM

  Attorney Work Product

  From: Sophie Diehl

  To: David Greaves

  RE: Mrs. Maria Durkheim

  Date: March 15, 1999

  Attachments:

  I’ll do the interview, of course, if you need me to do it, but I can’t believe you don’t have better choices. Proctor? Virginia? I have two serious deficiencies, both of which make me a lousy candidate for the job.

  1st. My rank inexperience as a lawyer who’s never done a civil case, let alone a divorce, should stop you in your tracks. I put into evidence Sophie Diehl’s CV Lite:

  1969: Sophie is born

  1987–91: Sophie attends college

  1991–92: Sophie spends the year paralegaling at the Southern Center for Human Rights

  1992–95: Sophie attends law school

  1995–97: Sophie clerks on the 13th Circuit

  1997– Sophie begins working at THW doing criminal defense work (1½ yrs! That’s it.)

  2nd. If, despite the clear and convincing evidence presented above, you persist in your request, I would ask for an ironclad dispensation from anything beyond the intake interview. I cannot do a divorce. I am not only ill equipped legally; I am ill equipped temperamentally. (i) I don’t like client contact. I suspect it’s why I settled on criminal work. I like that most of my clients are in jail. They can’t get to me; I can only get to them. (ii) I don’t like divorcing parents. I had my very own set, both of whom behaved very, very badly in ways that would make your hair stand on end.

  How’s this for a rewrite of Anna Karenina: “Every divorcing family is unpleasant in its own way.” Poor Anna K, so heartbreakingly 19th century. No one dies for love anymore; only love dies and then they get a divorce. Perhaps I’ll write the modern update of Anna; she gets divorced and loses custody, but she has visitation every other weekend. Then she goes back to school and gets an MSW and works with troubled children. She doesn’t throw herself under the train; she simply takes the subway. (She can’t afford a cab: bad settlement.) Could that be Mrs. Durkheim’s story? Is there a Vronsky? Do I have to find out things like that, for damage control? What else do I need to find out? Is there a checklist? Do I interview or do I just listen? What do I do? (Do you hear the anxiety in my voice as I write, rising to a near screech?)

  Gentleman’s Agreement?

  TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI

  222 CHURCH STREET

  NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555

  (393) 876-5678

  MEMORANDUM

  Attorney Work Product

  From: David Greaves

  To: Sophie Diehl

  RE: Maria Durkheim

  Date: March 16, 1999

  Attachments: Divorce Work Sheets Narragansett Code, Sections 801ff., Title 33 Divorcing USA excerpts

  Data: There is a Divorce Work Sheet. I am attaching a copy to this memo. It asks about income, deductions from income, assets, liabilities, and monthly expenses. If you think she’s up to it, send it home with Mrs. Durkheim to fill out. It’s long—four densely packed pages—but a divorcing person needs to think about all these things, especially if she doesn’t have any independent savings or income, which I suspect is the case here. The
first page, Income & Deductions/Assets & Liabilities, is a snapshot of the marriage’s wealth, the resources to be divided by the couple. The next three pages itemize monthly living expenses, providing a basis for spousal and child support. Other things to do in preparation:

  (i) Get from the library copies of the Divorce Work Sheet: Summary Biographies, and fill one out for both Durkheims during the interview.

  (ii) Take a look at a negotiated settlement; I recommend the Haberman divorce; it will give you an idea of how the upper-middle classes divide the spoils.

  (iii) Cast an eye over Sections 801ff., Title 33, of the Narragansett Code, the Narragansett divorce and custody statutes. I’ve made a list of the most relevant sections. I’m assuming you took a course in Family Law at law school, yes? And you must have taken Civil Procedure.

  Intake: As to what to expect at the intake interview, in my experience, women who’ve been left or betrayed (and I’m not being sexist, merely observant) spend the hour venting—he’s the most selfish man in the world (or New Salem)—or crying. The wives who do the leaving are another story; they’re racked with guilt. They’ll offer to give up everything but the children. I’ve attached a handout, excerpts from an article in Divorcing USA (awful name) that Fiona has given to clients on the psychology of divorcing. It’s basic but accurate. (I have vowed I’ll never get a divorce no matter how awful things get; I’ll shoot myself—or Mary—first. I have no interest in finding out how loathsome I can be. Or Mary, for that matter.)

  Your job is to think and listen like a lawyer but talk to her as a kind acquaintance, someone who doesn’t know her well but is nonetheless warmly disposed toward her. (You’ve got to drop the criminal lawyer’s skeptical demeanor.) Prompt her, encourage her to answer your questions, but don’t press. It may take an hour; don’t let it go much beyond that. Nothing new will be said after that. (Shrinks stop after 45 minutes, on the same basic theory, I believe, and they do it with a level of ruthlessness that is the envy of appellate judges.) Take notes, of course; there’s no other way to remember the details (wherein God and the Devil reside). Then write it up. Or you can tape it. You’ll be off the case after that.