Early Warning

CLAIRE’S TROUBLE NOW, a year and a half after she first tried to serve Paul the papers, was that no one she had talked to would take on Paul’s lawyer. Claire’s lawyer was someone she never would have dated. His father had spent the lawyer’s entire Chicago childhood at the racetrack, scaring the pants off the kid with big bets that often went wrong and angry language about crooks and gangsters. He was now a brawny, tough-talking specialist in divorce, but every time Paul’s lawyer issued some sort of ultimatum, Claire’s lawyer would shake his head in despair, and say that they had to abide by it. Claire had no idea if they really did or not. She should have gotten Paul’s lawyer, a colder, more genial type, and she would have if she’d had any advice, but she had opened the phone book, run her finger down the column, and decided probably they were all about the same. Oh no, not even in Iowa, one of the first states to grant no-fault divorce. The very words “no fault” enraged Paul.

This did not mean she was unhappy. She had succeeded in confining Paul to a small corner of her world, mostly because, unbeknownst to everyone other than her lawyer and Paul, she had gone to the stockbroker’s office the day after Paul punched her and, with the aid of the secretary, a woman about her age, she had transferred $240,000 worth of money-market funds into a different account, which only she had access to. This account was now earning almost 20 percent, so she had plenty of dough. Part of the reason Paul was so bitter was that she had beat him to the draw. When he thought of this strategy as a way of preventing her from departing, he went to the stockbroker himself, and both he and the stockbroker were dumbfounded. The secretary had done a wonderful job, Claire thought, of being unable to imagine why she should have been at all suspicious or failed to cooperate with Mrs. Darnell.

Her apartment was very nice. And her car was running beautifully. Paul had trained her to adopt a strict maintenance schedule for every single aspect of her life, from hair to transmission, no matter how she felt, and it worked just the way he said it would, giving her something to do and preventing unforeseen breakdowns of every kind. She was forty-two now. Same age as Ali MacGraw, Lily Tomlin, and Tina Turner. Sometimes she decided that, while their careers were ending, peaking, or over, hers was just beginning. Other times, she envied them, that they had known what their careers were going to be, whereas she did not. Still did not.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she picked the boys up at school, took them to their after-school classes (Gray took German, Brad took Latin and driving). Then she took them out to eat and back to Paul’s, where she oversaw their homework. When Paul came in the back door, she went out the front door. At sixteen and thirteen, the boys, she thought, were old enough to stay by themselves, especially since they were both taller than she was, and Gray outweighed her by twenty pounds, but Paul most assuredly did not agree. On Saturdays, Paul dropped them at the skating rink at nine, and Claire picked them up at noon. In the afternoon, she dropped them at a movie or took them shopping, then out to supper again, then she dropped them at home unless Paul had a date, in which case she went in the front door while he went out the back door, and she stayed until he returned (always before midnight). Paul would not allow them to come to her apartment downtown, or even to know the address (which seemed especially absurd, given how old they were). It might have been uncomfortable if they were girls, or if they were not the sons of Dr. Paul Darnell, but following protocol had been so drilled into them over the years that protocols were comfortable if laid out carefully in advance. They were also not in the habit of asking questions, at least of her. She did not know what they asked their father. She was sure that, whatever it was, he lied through his teeth in response.