A Woman's Place: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

exact dates if you want. The last time was in August. I said we should separate when the kids got back to school." He had been upset. A deal he'd been working on had just fallen through. At the same time, compounding his humiliation, the second quarter figures for Wicker Wise had come through looking better than ever. So he had threatened to move out. He did that when he was upset, or humiliated, or frustrated. It was part of the pattern.
    "I didn't think you were serious."
    "I was. Very."
    "Dennis."
    "Claire," he mocked me and settled against the doorjamb, calm again. It was the calm that got to me, I think. It suggested that Dennis truly had the upper hand here. It put a distance between us, made his voice cold.
    "I want a divorce. Since you haven't been willing to hear me, I had to resort to this."
    My thoughts were flying every which way-questions, fears, long-term meanings hitting each other. I struggled to slow them, to separate them, to think sentence by sentence, one step at a time. Even then I was breathless. "Okay. If you're serious about separating, we can talk about a trial something, but what is this about custody of Johnny and Kikit?
    And an order to vacate?"
    "I want the house. I want alimony. I want sole custody of the kids."
    "What?"
    "You aren't a responsible mother."
    "What?"
    "Good God, Claire, do you want me to spell it out?"
    "Yes, I want you to spell it out." I was getting angry. Enough was enough. "I'm a perfectly responsible mother. What in the world could you say to a judge to convince him I'm not?"
    "Between your mother and your work, you're in a state of personal crisis. The children are suffering."
    "Suffering how?"
    "You're never here, for one thing. For another, when you are here, you're so preoccupied with your work you forget the kids."
    "Kikit's ballet class. We've been over that a dozen times. The store lost electricity. The clocks stopped."
    "What about the parent-teacher conference you missed?" It was a minute before I realized what he meant. "The meeting with Mrs. Stanetti? I didn't miss it. We had to reschedule twice, and then we got our signals crossed."
    He held up a hand. "She was waiting. You didn't show. And then there's the accident you had last month. The car was totaled. It was a miracle Page 19
    Barbara Delinsky - A Woman's Place
    the kids weren't killed."
    "Dennis, that accident wasn't my fault. I was hit by a man who was having a heart attack. The police agree. The insurance company agrees."
    "The judge doesn't. He agrees with me that if you'd been more alert you could have swerved out of the way and not risked your kids' lives, speaking of which, Kikit had a whopper of an allergy attack while you were gone."
    My insides lurched. "When? To what?"
    "Tuesday night. To the frozen casserole you left. What did you put in it, Claire? If anyone is supposed to know what Kikit can and cannot eat, it's you-and that's not the worst of it. There was no Epi-pen. You must have left it in Cleveland."
    "I didn't. I packed it. It was right in her bag."
    "No, it wasn't. I looked. There was nothing there and nothing here. I had to rush her to the hospital. She was wheezing and swelling up the whole way. By the time we got there she was nearly blue." I pressed my chest. More than anything else, this took my breath. Medicine or no medicine, any attack Kikit had was serious. "There was antihistamine and a spare Epi-pen. I always keep extras." He shook his head. "We looked everywhere."
    "It's in the basement refrigerator. I've told you that. Is she all right?"
    "They stabilized her, but it took a while. She was crying for you, only you weren't there."
    I felt a swift fury. "I was only as far away as the phone. Why wasn't I called?"
    "I tried to call. You had the cell phone turned off, and your sister's line was busy."
    "Then later. Or the next day. I used my phone. It was on. And Rona's line couldn't have been busy that whole time. The operator would have cut in if you'd said it was an emergency--or