On the day before Bert and his soon-to-be second wife, Beverly, were to drive from California to Virginia, Bert came by the house in Torrance and suggested to his first wife, Teresa, that she should think about moving with them.
“Not with us, of course,” Bert said. “You’d have to pack, sell the house. I know it would take some time, but when you think about it why shouldn’t you come back to Virginia?”
Teresa had once thought her husband to be the handsomest man in the world, when in fact he looked like one of those gargoyles perched on a high corner of Notre Dame that’s meant to scare the devil away. She didn’t say this but it was clear by his change of tone that the thought was written on her face.
“Look,” Bert said, “you never wanted to move to Los Angeles anyway. You only did it for me, and not, if I may remind you, without a great deal of bitching. Why would you want to stay here now? Take the kids back to your parents’ place, get them started in school, and then when the time is right I can help you find a house.”
Teresa stood in the kitchen they had so recently shared and tightened the belt of her bathrobe. Cal was in second grade and Holly had started kindergarten, but Jeanette and Albie were still home. The children were hanging on Bert’s legs, squealing like he was a ride at Disneyland, Daddeee! Daddeee! He patted their heads like drums. He patted them with a beat.
“Why do you want me in Virginia?” she asked. She knew why but she wanted to hear him say it.
“It would be better,” he said, and shot his eyes down to those dear tousled heads, one beneath each hand.
“Better for the children if both of their parents lived near each other? Better for the children to not grow up without a father?”
“Christ, Teresa, you’re from Virginia. It’s not like I’m suggesting you move to Hawaii. Your entire family is there. You’d be happier there.”
“I’m touched to hear you’re thinking about my happiness.”
Bert sighed. She was wasting his time. She’d never had any respect for his time. “Everyone else is moving forward except for you. You’re the one who’s determined to stay stuck.”
Teresa poured herself a cup of coffee from the percolator. She offered one to Bert, who waved her away. “Are you asking Beverly’s husband to come with you too? So he could see more of his girls? It would be better for them that way.” Teresa had been told by a mutual friend that the reason Bert and the soon-to-be second Mrs. Cousins were moving back to Virginia was that Bert was afraid the new wife’s first husband would try to have him killed, that he would find a way to make it look like an accident and so never be caught. The first husband was a cop. Cops, some of them anyway, were good at things like that.
It was a brief conversation which ended in Bert’s being demonstrably irritated with her in the way he was always irritated with her, but that was all it took for Teresa Cousins to spend the rest of her life in Los Angeles.
Teresa had gotten a job in the secretarial pool at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. She put the two little ones into day care and the two older ones into an after-school program. The lawyers in the DA’s office had a small, collective sense of guilt about having covered for Bert during his long affair. They thought they owed Teresa a break now that he was gone and so they offered her the job. But it wasn’t too long before they were talking to her about going to night school and becoming a paralegal. Teresa Cousins was exhausted, angry, and misused, but they had come to find out she was no dummy.
Bert Cousins had made very little money as a deputy district attorney, and so he had been obliged to pay only a modest alimony and child support. His parents’ wealth was not his wealth and therefore did not figure into the settlement. He petitioned for custody of his children for the entire summer, from school’s end to school’s start, and his petition was granted. Teresa Cousins had fought hard to give him only two weeks, but Bert was a lawyer and his friends were lawyers who were friends with the judge, and his parents sent him enough money on the side to keep the case in court for all eternity if that was what the situation required.
When Teresa was told that she had lost summers, she made a point to curse and weep, but she wondered silently if she hadn’t just been handed the divorce equivalent of a Caribbean vacation. She loved her children, there was no doubt about that, but she could see that one season out of four spent without having to deal with every sore throat and fistfight, the begging for ballet classes she couldn’t afford and didn’t have the time to drive to, the constant excuses made at work for being late and leaving early when she was just hanging on by a fingernail anyway, one season every year without her children, though she would never admit it, might be manageable. The thought of a Saturday morning without Albie jumping over her in the bed, back and forth and back and forth like he was skiing some imaginary slalom course, was not unappealing. The thought of him jumping over Bert’s second wife, who no doubt slept in a cream silk negligee trimmed in black lace, a nightgown that had to be dry-cleaned, the thought of Albie actually jumping on her, well, that would be just fine.
For the first few years the children were too young to travel alone and so arrangements were made for their supervision. One year Beverly’s mother flew them out, the next year it was Beverly’s sister. Bonnie was anguished and apologetic in front of Teresa, never exactly able to meet her gaze. Bonnie had married a priest and was capable of experiencing guilt about all sorts of things over which she had no control. Another year it was Beverly’s friend Wallis who played chaperone. Wallis had a loud voice and a big smile for all of them. She wore a bright-green cotton dress. Wallis liked children.
“Oh, kiddos,” she’d said to the four little Cousinses. “We’re going to eat every peanut on the plane.” Wallis acted like she just happened to be flying to Virginia herself that day, and wouldn’t it be fun if she and the children could all sit together? Wallis had made it so easy that Teresa didn’t even think to cry until she returned to the house alone.
It was one of Teresa’s people who accompanied the children on the return flight: one year her mother, another year her favorite cousin. Bert would buy a ticket for anyone willing to brave six hours on a plane with his children.