Seesaw: Love/Hate 5 of 7
“No, I don’t want to do it that way!”
“Marsha, he did hit you! Didn’t he?”
“Uh, yes…” She had gone too far and said too many things to admit that she’d hit him first, twice. “He did, uh, slap me,” she said unconvincingly. “But I don’t want to use that as a reason for this.”
“Honestly, Marsha, I don’t understand you!”
“Rhea,” straightening his body, placing the pen onto the desk, “I’m getting paid to handle this, so let me do my job!” Noticing Marsha’s hesitancy in speaking with her mother there, “matter of fact,” Bruce Berman said, “why don’t you wait out there,” pointing to the closed door, “and let me talk to your daughter alone.”
“Bruce, really, I’d rather…”
Punching a button on the intercom, “Harriet, Mrs.. Goldman is going to wait with you. Get her a cup of coffee, please.” Rising, walking around his desk, “I’m being paid by the hour, Rhea, and we’ll get through this much faster if I talk to your daughter alone.” Taking her by the elbow, the lawyer steered Rhea to the closed door, opened it, and all but shoved her through. Closing the door, he returned to his place behind the desk.
“Marsha, you’re my client, not your mother! What you tell me is strictly between you and me! Tell me the truth! Did Mitchell really hit you?”
Sighing, “well, yeah,” she said, adding quickly, “but I hit him first… two times, I think.”
Bruce Berman had been the Goldman family attorney for a number of years. Early in their attorney-client relationship, Rhea had “approached” him, and at that time he emphatically informed her that, first off, he loved his wife, and secondly, that he never mixed business with pleasure…especially that kind of pleasure!
Being legally involved with Rhea on a number of occasions over a number of years, he knew something of not only her business affairs but, as some were co-joined, her amorous affairs, too. Berman also knew how manipulative she could be.
Actually, Bruce Berman thought of Rhea Goldman as a “bitch on wheels” and was sure she had more than just a little to do with the separation of her daughter from her husband—whom he had met and did like—and now intuitively sensed a strong feeling of hesitancy from Marsha.
“Marsha,” Bruce said kindly, “sometimes newlyweds go through, to say the least, a tough period of adjustment.”
“We’re not newlyweds! We’ve been married more than a year and half now.”
“Yes, I know, but,”—having been married thirty-five years— “trust me, you are newlyweds! And sometimes things can be kind of tough.” Thinking, especially with a bitch of a mother sticking her nose into your life! But saying instead, “you know, Mrs. Berman and I were at your wedding, and we both agreed that we’d never seen a better looking couple than you two kids and I really don’t want to see this happen to you, Marsha!”
He waited for her to respond but, staring at her folded hands on her lap, she didn’t. “I know sometimes things can pile up on you: bills, the baby…” Wanting to get her talking, “how is Michael, by the way?”
“Oh,” looking up, the shadow of a smile crossing her face, “Mikey’s fine! Just great!”
“That’s good, Marsha.” Then, “Marsha,” he asked bluntly, “do you really want to go through with this thing?”
Momentarily hesitating, “yes!” Finally becoming animated, “I do, Mister Berman! He lets his parents, especially his mother, run his life! We’re buried in bills and he does practically nothing to get us out of it!”
Thinking, Christ! His parents, too! They’re getting it from both sides! “He’s not working, Marsha?”
“Sure! He works for his folks, but they’re not paying him enough and he refuses to leave them and look for another job, and what he makes on his part-time job isn’t enough!”
“He’s got two jobs?”
“Yes. But he’s on what’s called a draw with his folks. That’s when they pay you and you’ve got to…”
“I know what a draw is.”
“Oh! Well apparently he’s not a good enough salesman to make even enough to cover his draw and he just doesn’t make enough money there. And he makes straight commission on his other job, where, so far as I know, he’s only made two sales. And when he does that job, it’s always at some woman’s home, and I don’t know if he’s, uh, you know, fooling around with any of them.”
“Do you any reason to think he is fooling around with any of them?”
Her mother having planted that seed in her daughter’s mind. “No, I don’t,” Marsha said. “But who knows?”
“Marsha, just because his job causes him to be with women,” thinking specifically of her mother and himself, “it doesn’t mean he’s fooling around with them.”
“Okay,” begrudgingly, “maybe not.” Now harshly, “but I didn’t feel good and he refused to help me with the baby! And all he ever wants from me…” looking to her lap again, “is, uh, for us to make love,” she said softly. “And I can’t do it!” Her voice rising, “I won’t live like this any more! Yes, Mister Berman,” she said emphatically, “I do want a divorce!”
Divorce, huh? Berman thought, what you need is a spanking. “Well, in the state of Illinois,” he said, “there are only two grounds for divorce: physical cruelty, and so long as you’ve ruled out anything physical, we’ll have to go with…”
***
“Desertion! What do you mean, desertion?”
Early into the second week of their separation, Mitchell had received a letter from Marsha’s lawyer—the same lawyer that was handling their accident claim—informing him that he was liable for all of Marsha’s bills. He’d already sent her a money order, through his lawyer, for thirty of his weekly $80.00 pay check—before tax—along with a terse note informing her that he’d quit his job at Sierra Marketing and that, “of course I’m still responsible for the purchase of my samples, and if you will send our monthly statements to me, I will pay our bills.”
By the end of the second week… “Desertion! What do you mean, desertion?”
“Abandonment! The grounds are abandonment!”
Thinking, sounds about the same to me. Switching the phone to the other ear, “okay, abandonment! But I don’t understand, Mister Hoffman. I didn’t desert… abandon them! I’m here if they need me!” Stuffing what was left of the fried egg sandwich that Myra had made for his lunch—that suddenly tasted rancid—back into the brown paper bag. “And I didn’t abandon them! She threw me out!”
Donald Hoffman was also eating lunch at his desk. “Look,” he said kindly, while spearing a wedge of tomato with his fork, “Illinois has only two bases for divorce: physical cruelty and abandonment. And so long as you didn’t beat her, she’s got to have something to run with, so it’s abandonment. And after all, you did leave your martial domicile!”
Though he did not remember meeting him, Mitchell was sure he’d been introduced to his family’s attorney at his wedding. In an effort to save money, most of their conversations had been by phone.
“Leave it? When I got home that day all of my stuff was packed in boxes and left in the middle of the floor with a note telling me to get the hell out!”
“Doesn’t matter, Mitchell. You left your marital domicile!”
Bruce Berman and Don Hoffman knew each other. As a matter of fact they and their wives had shared the same “friends of family” table at the wedding of Marsha and Mitchell.
Recognizing the indecisiveness of their respective young clients, during one of their conversations both attorneys agreed that it was the influence of the mothers that had orchestrated the events that led to the separation of these two “likable kids.”
Sighing, “okay,” Mitchell asked, “what’s next?”
“The preliminary hearing is scheduled for…” ruffling through the pages of his appointment book, “three p.m., Friday, June, twenty-one.”
Through this and other conversations with his lawyer, right up to the time he’d discovered that Marsha had moved into the home of her parents, right up to that time he had felt there was hope for them.
***
On the night of June twenty, feeling the hopelessness and finality of the situation like a lead weight in the pit of his stomach, thinking, at least they’ll set some sort of a schedule for me to see Mikey, Mitchell Lipensky attempted to sleep. As on the other side of the hundred-mile chasm—less than a half-hour away—so, too, did Marsha Lipensky.
