against that judgment as best we can, and we have to start today. So forgive me if I seem to overstep my bounds here, but thing two, Helen, is that you file for divorce immediately, on grounds of infidelity. Ben will not contest it.”
Ben frowned. “Does it have to be infidelity, though?” he said. “Because, not to get all Talmudic about it, but, as Helen knows, I was not actually, literally unfaithful to her.”
“As Helen knows?” Helen said. “What the hell do I know about anything? I only know what you say.”
“It’s the truth,” Ben said. “No reason to lie anymore.”
“If I may,” Bonifacio said, tossing his Starbucks cup in the waste-basket behind his chair. “The two of you are straying down a path which, while of course I understand and sympathize, is not really constructive to our purpose. You’re getting worked up about how to know the difference between what appears true versus what is true. You might as well forget about all that for a while. Everything you say or do now, no matter how intimate, is being performed for an audience, namely the jury pool here in town and in the rest of the circuit. It would be good for you to get used to that as quickly as possible.”
“Look,” Ben said weakly; Helen could see he was tiring. “I know this isn’t a very lawyerly thing to propose, but just in terms of, as you say, softening the ground, I think if you could just get me in a room with her—”
Bonifacio was already shaking his head. “If what you want is to let everyone know how sorry you are,” he said, “then good luck, God bless, and get yourself a new lawyer. But I’ll tell you what I will do. Since you seem to need to get it out of your system like that, why don’t you say you’re sorry right now?”
“Right now?” said Ben.
“Right here and now. And then never again.”
Ben looked down at the floor, and then, with great difficulty, at his wife. He did seem changed, Helen thought, but only in a kind of animal way, wounded and in pain and without his usual instincts. “Please believe me,” he said to her. “Even though I don’t necessarily understand everything I’ve done, I take total responsibility for it. You and Sara don’t deserve any of this. I am so sorry.”
“I don’t know why,” Helen said quickly. “You got what you wanted. It’s all destroyed now. I don’t know why you don’t go back to the house and put up a big Mission Accomplished banner.”
“Feel better now?” said Bonifacio. “I didn’t think so. Still, if you get the urge again, you can repeat as necessary. Just as long as it’s always in this office, and always in front of me.”
Helen drove home (Ben’s license was now suspended) faster than she liked; she wanted to beat the school bus and be home when Sara arrived, and also to minimize the time spent near him. Ben asked tospeak to Sara alone when she got home, and Helen almost agreed to it, just to spare herself the guilt and agony of seeing her daughter’s face at the climactic moment of their betrayal of her, a betrayal the girl might have seen coming years ago if she hadn’t been so young, too young to anticipate or even, very likely, to imagine it. But it had to be borne, for her sake. Sara didn’t cry; instead she withdrew solemnly, deep inside herself, nodding at all the appropriate times, her face a mask, never once contradicting or mocking them, as she would have done in almost any other sort of conversation. Then she went into her room and closed the door and played music (nothing sad or angry, just the same pop music she always played) while Ben packed his suitcase to check in to Stages, and Helen sat in the kitchen and her anger gave way to a meditation on her own role in having failed to prevent the end of life as they had all known it up to now.
For the next few weeks, everywhere she went—which, she realized with the sad, clear vision brought on by misfortune, wasn’t really that many places (the Starbucks, the
Ben frowned. “Does it have to be infidelity, though?” he said. “Because, not to get all Talmudic about it, but, as Helen knows, I was not actually, literally unfaithful to her.”
“As Helen knows?” Helen said. “What the hell do I know about anything? I only know what you say.”
“It’s the truth,” Ben said. “No reason to lie anymore.”
“If I may,” Bonifacio said, tossing his Starbucks cup in the waste-basket behind his chair. “The two of you are straying down a path which, while of course I understand and sympathize, is not really constructive to our purpose. You’re getting worked up about how to know the difference between what appears true versus what is true. You might as well forget about all that for a while. Everything you say or do now, no matter how intimate, is being performed for an audience, namely the jury pool here in town and in the rest of the circuit. It would be good for you to get used to that as quickly as possible.”
“Look,” Ben said weakly; Helen could see he was tiring. “I know this isn’t a very lawyerly thing to propose, but just in terms of, as you say, softening the ground, I think if you could just get me in a room with her—”
Bonifacio was already shaking his head. “If what you want is to let everyone know how sorry you are,” he said, “then good luck, God bless, and get yourself a new lawyer. But I’ll tell you what I will do. Since you seem to need to get it out of your system like that, why don’t you say you’re sorry right now?”
“Right now?” said Ben.
“Right here and now. And then never again.”
Ben looked down at the floor, and then, with great difficulty, at his wife. He did seem changed, Helen thought, but only in a kind of animal way, wounded and in pain and without his usual instincts. “Please believe me,” he said to her. “Even though I don’t necessarily understand everything I’ve done, I take total responsibility for it. You and Sara don’t deserve any of this. I am so sorry.”
“I don’t know why,” Helen said quickly. “You got what you wanted. It’s all destroyed now. I don’t know why you don’t go back to the house and put up a big Mission Accomplished banner.”
“Feel better now?” said Bonifacio. “I didn’t think so. Still, if you get the urge again, you can repeat as necessary. Just as long as it’s always in this office, and always in front of me.”
Helen drove home (Ben’s license was now suspended) faster than she liked; she wanted to beat the school bus and be home when Sara arrived, and also to minimize the time spent near him. Ben asked tospeak to Sara alone when she got home, and Helen almost agreed to it, just to spare herself the guilt and agony of seeing her daughter’s face at the climactic moment of their betrayal of her, a betrayal the girl might have seen coming years ago if she hadn’t been so young, too young to anticipate or even, very likely, to imagine it. But it had to be borne, for her sake. Sara didn’t cry; instead she withdrew solemnly, deep inside herself, nodding at all the appropriate times, her face a mask, never once contradicting or mocking them, as she would have done in almost any other sort of conversation. Then she went into her room and closed the door and played music (nothing sad or angry, just the same pop music she always played) while Ben packed his suitcase to check in to Stages, and Helen sat in the kitchen and her anger gave way to a meditation on her own role in having failed to prevent the end of life as they had all known it up to now.
For the next few weeks, everywhere she went—which, she realized with the sad, clear vision brought on by misfortune, wasn’t really that many places (the Starbucks, the
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