Independence

I moved out on Independence Day.

Eight years ago today, I left the suburban home my wife and I had purchased three years earlier. She had not spoken to me since April, when I departed for a business trip she strenuously opposed. I had been offered an opportunity to write two related stories—one for a magazine to which I frequently contributed, the second for The New York Times—requiring a stay in Dubai.

I regarded these assignments as steps forward in my career. She regarded my consideration of them as idiocy. The invasion of Iraq was then underway, she argued; it was a dangerous time for Americans to travel anywhere in the world, much less to the Persian Gulf. I argued that I wouldn’t be remotely in harm’s way. She countered that I would be a “big dumb blond walking target” for “them,” all of whom “hate us.” If I went on the trip, she threatened, we were “finished.”

I had heard that threat before. By and large, I ceded to her preferences on day-to-day matters. I had learned that it was simpler to give way than to argue over the picayune. Yet now and then, I had strong opinions on matters, particularly those affecting my career. When I was accepted to graduate school, which she felt we could not afford, I was told that we were “finished.” When I took a job that paid more and demanded more time, she asserted we were “finished.” We had been “finished” so many times already, I felt I could write these articles and deal with the fallout later.

The trip was uneventful. The articles went over well and I was assigned more. My wife stopped speaking to me. She refused to acknowledge my presence. She constantly muttered to herself about the “asshole” she had married, never minding the listening ears of our three children. Her rage had surpassed concerns for putting forward any fronts. She fucking hated that “asshole” and made sure everyone knew it.

Her father came forward with a solution that he hoped would placate Lucy’s rage. He owned an apartment in the city that had gone unused since Lucy and I lived there with the children some years earlier. He urged me to move there, at least temporarily, until Lucy’s anger blew over. If Lucy has a problem with me, I said, perhaps she should move there. I saw no reason to leave my home. “She’ll never do that,” he said. “It’s up to you to create some peace in that house. Give her some time to get over this; she can’t be angry forever.”

When the school year ended, Lucy took the children on a trip. It was agreed that I would pack up some things and move to the apartment. I packed my car with the clothes I would need for work, a box of files and the iMac I used to write my articles, and drove off. I saw no reason to take more; Lucy’s rage would burn itself out, as it invariably did.

In the weeks leading up to my departure, as Lucy fumed, I confided in very few friends that I feared my marriage was ending. Dacia expressed sympathy, yet wondered if it might be for the best. Despite my efforts to keep my family intact, I was, she knew, exhausted by arguments and bitter silences. My long-time friend Marcus, himself recently divorced, encouraged me to look at the positive aspects of creating a new life. He still had conflicts with his ex-wife, he acknowledged, particularly over their children, but he was personally happier than he had been in years. “And then there’s the sex,” Marcus added. “Let me ask you a personal question: are you satisfied with your sex life with Lucy?”

“There’s no such animal.” It felt sad to acknowledge this out loud, as if confessing my shame at our utter lack of intimacy. “We’ve been through therapy and all, but she’s just not that interested in sex.”

“Are you?”

“From what I recall of it, yes.”

“Lucy’s giving you a gift,” Marcus said. “If she’s insisting on a separation, if she’s asking for divorce, she’s giving you freedom. Use it. Go get laid. See what freedom tastes like.”

I unpacked my car at the apartment I had once shared with my young family. I hung my shirts in a closet and set the rest of my clothes in half an empty drawer. My work files rested on a stack of boxes storing the remains of my father-in-law’s former office. I reset the clock radio next to the bed in which Lucy and I had conceived each of our three children. Dust covered its dark duvet.

I poured a bourbon and sat on the couch. Dusk settled. Two bourbons later, I picked up the iMac and put it on the dining table. I plugged the cord into an outlet, detached a nearby phone and ran the line to the computer. Before long, the modem’s familiar whines and belches echoed in the near empty room. I had mail. Ignoring that, I followed Marcus’s road map to chat rooms. ("It takes time to meet women," he had told me, "but hooking up with guys is easy.") It took a drink or two and several failed attempts, but I finally got into a chat entitled “M4MNYC.” Instant messages littered my screen with nonsensical terms:

sup

Pics?

Loc?

a/s/l?

Stats? Into?

I watched messages pile up in the main chat. I finally typed in one of my own.

My marriage ended today. I was exiled to an empty apartment. How does this begin?

An answer swiftly came. Wow, that’s hard. I’m sorry to hear about that.

Me too, I thought. Me too. What’s your name? I’m Jefferson.

Jim. Nice to meet you. Do you want company?

I twirled my glass and took a sip. Yes, please. Thirty minutes later, he was at my door. Jim was handsome, resembling Matthew Broderick. I offered him a drink.

“Can I have a kiss instead?”

I nodded and he came forward. Jim’s kiss was so warm, so inviting and so necessary. I had not felt desired in years. He tugged at my clothes. I tugged at his. “Where’s your bed?” he murmured into my mouth. I walked backwards, not daring to take my lips from his. We fell backward on the bed, sending up clouds of dust.

Sex, as it turned out, was much easier outside my marriage than it had been within. I knew that Lucy would eventually come around and I’d be invited back home. We would work it out and sustain a truce until the next time we were “finished.” There would remain this void in our marriage—one month, two, four—that we would refrain from discussing. She had given me this freedom, as Marcus pointed out, however temporarily. I had not been the one to put the brakes on our monogamy, but I intended to make the most of my freedom before being called back.

I was stunned when the divorce papers arrived.

The divorce was nasty and unnecessarily protracted. Not long after it was finalized, Lucy—stoned and drunk—proposed we get back together. By then, it was too late. Independence had taken hold. I had already begun to write about it here.

Years later, Lucy would discover my blog and sue for custody of our children. She shared my blog with her family, who read, in as much detail as they pleased, of my experience of Lucy’s mental illness, her problems with intimacy, and the impulsivity with which she ended our fifteen-year relationship. Lucy described the contents of my blog to our children, telling them that their father was bisexual and a bad man. A few months ago, Lucy took it onto herself to out me to my birth family.

If I enjoyed a new sex life, partly led in public, Lucy ensured that my public would include those I had chosen not to tell. It was a fitting punishment for my happiness without her, for abandoning her when she pushed me out the door.

But her rash behavior, as ever, backfired. No one really seems to care that I have a pretty great sex life. No one seems to care that the husband who loved her went on to love others. Her loneliness and rage weren’t mitigated by her destruction of my privacy. If anything, her outings only cleared my path to greater freedom. After all, who does she have left to tell?

Eight years ago today, Lucy sent me out the edge of the Earth, hoping I’d fall over. Instead, I found freedoms beyond her reach.

Family Picture

For spring break a couple of months ago, my ex-wife decided to take our two youngest children on a road trip to New Orleans. By saying “decided,” I mean to underscore that she didn’t consult me, or even tell me of her plans. She hasn’t said a word to me since Christmas. I heard of the planned trip when the kids mentioned it.

The trip took them through my hometown. Lucy asked our youngest daughter to contact my parents to ask if they could stop by for a visit. Of course, my parents agreed, and offered to arrange for other family members to visit as well. It would be the first time Lucy had seen my family since we separated eight years ago. We assumed this was a nice gesture. Presumably, Lucy had no special interest in being with my family, but she wanted to allow the children to see their Southern folks.

Afterward, Mom called to say that Lucy had been surprisingly pleasant. I was glad the trip went well. I had been a bit suspicious of it.

Last weekend, I went home for my high school reunion. I was sitting with my family when someone brought up how big my children have become since their last trip South. I said I had heard good things about the visit from the kids. I was impressed that my middle son had wanted to take so long a trip to see New Orleans as it recovers from Katrina and the Gulf oil spill.

My brother Frank looked at Mom. “Well, that’s not why they made the trip,” he said. He looked at me. “You want to know the real reason she came down here?”

“Do tell.”

“Brother, Lucy came down her to tell us about your blog.”

My jaw dropped. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Nope, he’s not,” Mom said. “She sat right there and told us you had a blog and were having all kinds of sex and writing about it.”

I shook my head. “Wow.”

“Yeah, she told us about the blog—what’s it called, ‘One Life, Take Two?’” Frank went on. “She said she found it and read about the things you do now. She took me over to Mom’s laptop and typed in the whatcha-ma-call-it and showed it to me.” He laughed. “You’ve got some hot pictures on there, man.”

“She typed in the URL for you? On Mom's laptop? Jesus. Well, what did you say, Mom?”

“Well, I told her I always knew you were a good writer. Your Dad said it sounds like you’re having fun.”

“That’s it?”

“Pretty much. Then I asked of they wanted to spend the night. They were planning to drive a few more hours, but I said that didn’t make any sense when we’ve got room.”

I stood up and put my hand on my brother’s shoulder. “Well, sorry you had to find out that way. Obviously, I didn’t see a reason to tell you. So know you know the dirt on why Lucy felt empowered to spend a year and two-hundred-thousand dollars chasing me through court.”

“There wasn’t any reason to tell us!” Mom said. “We don’t care what you do like that. You’re not married and you’ve been grown up for a long time.”

“Thanks.” I thought a moment. “Wait, you’re not still reading it, are you?”

“I read a little bit to see what she was talking about,” Mom said. “But honey, I don’t need to read about your sex life.”

“I mostly liked the pictures,” Frank laughed.

I can only imagine Lucy’s disappointment in my family’s reaction. Planning her drive to New Orleans, she must have rehearsed many scripts in her mind. When she outed me to her own family, Lucy found they rallied around her, severing ties to me and writing checks to her attorneys. When she outed me to our children—the youngest of whom was then eight years old—Lucy found they were frightened and confused as their mother wove dark tales about the father they adored.

My family shrugged off Lucy’s revelation and offered a place to stay for the night. Privately, they now told me, they felt pretty sorry for her. I suppose that’s how I feel about it, too.

It would be right to be angry. I began having sex at an early age, with males and females, and recognized my bisexuality at age nineteen. I went to college the following year and never returned home to live. I saw no reason to come out to my parents, particularly after I entered into monogamy and marriage with a woman. Now, as I near fifty years of age, Lucy took it onto herself to out me to my family. She did so by making it possible for them to read about my sex and sexuality in whatever ways I’ve reported it here.

It must have been a long, bitter drive back to New York.

“I still love him," Lucy told my family, “but I don’t like what he’s become.” As my Mom said in relating this to me, “I don’t know what that is, but it’s not love.”

Clearly, my family knows a few things about love.

A week before I returned home to my high school reunion, I attended the high school graduation of my eldest son. With our younger children seated behind us, Lucy kept her gaze trained to the stage, avoiding eye contact with me.

After the ceremony, everyone filed out of the auditorium to the lobby and street beyond, proud parents and family searching to congratulate the new graduates. We found Jason. Lucy pushed ahead to kiss his cheek, standing on her toes to do so. Collie shook his brother’s hand, smirking at his own staged formality. Lillie affected disinterest, saying, “Um, hello? Everyone just graduated. Why does he get all the attention?”

I laughed at her as I pulled Jason into a bear hug. “I love you, baby boy.” I pulled back and grabbed his shoulders. “And now, goodness, you’ve got two months until going off to college.”

“I know, “ he said, beaming as he does, his lips struggling to restrain a smile. “Guess I should start packing.”

“Not just yet,” I smiled, hugging him again.

We made our way to the sidewalk, which teemed with clusters of people, each centered on a graduate in a blue gown. I followed as Jason navigated through the crowd in search of his friends. Lucy and the kids trailed me. I took photos of Jason and his friends I shook hands with their parents, congratulating them as they congratulated me.

We found an empty space. Lillie goofed with her brother. I took more photos. Lucy had forgotten her camera, and I had promised to share mine.

Lucy came forward with Collie. “Let’s take a family picture,” she instructed our children. She gathered them together, wrapped an arm around Collie and looked at me expectantly. “Everybody say ‘cheese,’” she smiled.

I raised the camera to snap Lucy’s family picture.

A woman tapped my shoulder. “Would you like me to take a picture so you can all be in it?”

I smiled and handed her the camera. “Thanks, that’s very nice.” I showed her how to use the camera and took my place in the lineup. I beamed at the camera, our children arrayed between their mother and father. I thanked the woman and took back my camera. I turned to Jason. “Do you have any plans? Maybe we can all get an early dinner or something.”

“Um, no, no plans.” He paused. “Oh, I just realized I haven’t eaten today.”

“Oh, so let’s fix that.” I looked around. “Did you see where your mother went? Where’s Collie and Lillie?”

Jason peered around the families surrounding us. “Huh, I don’t see them.”

“They probably went inside to use the bathroom or something. I’ll wait by the door while you talk to your friends.”

Jason ambled over to pose in another photograph. I made my way to the door. Twenty minutes later, Jason joined me as the crowd thinned. “You see Mom?” he asked.

I shrugged. “No sign. You neither, I assume.”

“No.” He looked around.

“Why don’t you call her, then?”

He raised his gown to retrieve the phone from him pocket, pushed a few buttons and raised it to his ear. “Voice mail,” he reported. “I’ll try Collie.” Voice mail again.

“Maybe we should stand on the corner. Maybe they’re at the other exit looking for us.” We moved. They weren’t there. A few minute passed. I suggested Jason try his mother again.

“Hello?” He nodded to tell me she answered. “What did you say? . . . oh, okay . . . so what should I do? . . . okay, see you in a minute.” He hung up and look at me. “She said Lillie wanted to go home.” He began to walk down the street.

“Oh, okay. I’ll walk with you to say goodbye to them.”

“No, actually, I’m not meeting them. They’re already at home.”

“They left?” Not a word to me or our graduating son. “Okay, well, hmm . . . did you want to get a bite, or . . .”

“I’m hungry,” he said as we passed a diner. “But she said I should come home, and I can just eat there. Where are you going?”

“I guess I’m going to the subway.”

“Me too.” We walked along, talking about the graduation and fell to talking about movies. We rode the subway together until he reached his stop. I kissed him as the train door opened. “I love you, son. Congratulations.”

“Thanks, Dad.” He waved as the train pulled away.

I went home and downloaded the photographs. I sent them to Lucy’s family, my family, the kids and various friends. I posted our family picture on Facebook.

Madeline sent me a note, congratulating me on the graduation. “Nice-looking family, Jefferson. Lucy sure looks miserable, though.”

“She didn’t say a word to me, start to finish, and left without a word to Jason or me,” I replied. “She must’ve been pained to share that photograph with me.”

I may not like what’s Lucy’s become, but I do feel sorry for her.

Tenet

Given my ex-wife’s steadfast refusal to deal with me directly, extended phone conversations are rare. The three-hour marathon following her efforts on a custody crisis Tuesday returned me to the years I spent as Lucy's support system. Her mania routinely led to long, rambling monologues which we would together reassemble into useful touchstones, constructing ways to face reality that would anchor Lucy in her routines.

Perhaps in this conversation, she noticed that I declined to be drawn into my past role. I kept returning to a simple question we needed to address: what was happening with school pick-up the next day? I’m responsible for getting my kids home from school, but I’m no longer responsible for helping Lucy to order her mind.

It sickened me to worry that the children were now being assigned my former position. Playing nursemaid to Lucy’s illness wasn’t fair to me then, and it isn’t fair to them now. Still, as the custody case progressed, I wanted to remain optimistic. I wanted joint custody to work. Lucy is now, finally, being treated for her illness. The custody case felt like a relapse, with a return of all the familiar signs—Lucy’s raging tantrums and manic actions feeding on her family’s denial and placation—but as the court continued its work, I could hope that a renewed acceptance of reality would once more stabilize life.

I made a few notes on the conversation to share with my attorney. It had raised a number of things to discuss—my attorney was increasingly concerned with Lucy’s erratic behavior, which is so familiar to me that I sometimes fail to note it as unusual—but as I went through the following days, my mind kept returning to a certain thought:

Did Lucy genuinely believe that I watched pornography with my daughter Rachel?

After more than twenty years with Lucy, I have a reliable sense of her responses. When my denial of having watched pornography with my daughter was met with a sarcastic “yeah, sure,” I could be reasonably sure that Lucy didn’t believe me. If I hadn’t done so, she argued, then why had I written otherwise in my blog?

The fact that I had not written that in my blog was immaterial. What mattered most was Lucy’s need to believe that I had written it. If I wrote it, it was true. If it was true, then I had done a bad thing, providing evidence that I was a bad person and thus, a bad father. If I denied it now, I was lying, as bad people will. It was important to Lucy that people believe me to be bad. Perhaps not so bad that I rape our children, as she had come to say casually to others, but certainly bad enough to warrant her actions against me.

In their motion, Lucy’s legal team asserted as fact that I had watched pornography with Rachel, citing my blog as evidence. Still, I didn’t expect that Lucy truly believed it. The motion so relied on misrepresentation that it appeared rooted in cynicism. There was no special interest in establishing the truth; rather, the goal was to help Lucy to use my sexuality to finally “get” me.

Take for example this passage from my blog post Tourists, reprinted here as cited in the motion. It describes an encounter while walking on Saint Mark’s Place with my daughter Rachel and her friend Stevie.

"Jefferson?"

I turned. It was Thomas.

Thomas: the sex party twink who loves the trannies.

"What brings you to my neighborhood?" he asked.

"I'm here with my daughter," I replied, pointing ahead. "And her friend."

"Really? Huh. Man, I have to meet your daughter."

"If you behave," I intoned.

I was kidding, but half serious—for two years he has admired Rachel's photographs on my refrigerator door. He stands naked in my kitchen and asks, "So how long before she's legal?"

This passage was central to my ex-wife’s case against me. Her attorney stood in court to read it aloud, bringing special attention to certain words and sentences. Her voice punctuated with disgust, the attorney went on, “Your honor, the defendant, a self-avowed pervert, is a friend of this man described as ‘Thomas,’ a self-avowed lover of trannies, meaning transsexuals. The defendant admits that he has had sexual relations with this man who loves trannies, meaning transsexuals. This so-called ‘Thomas’ is allowed to come into the defendant’s home to admire photographs of the plaintiff’s underage children so that he can select the child he wants. This is clearly a danger to the children, who should be removed from his home.”

Lucy’s attorney thus argued that my seemingly homely refrigerator door in fact operated as a catalogue for those shopping for sex with minors.

I made notes as the attorney spoke, wondering at the ease with which she could knowingly misrepresent a text to the court. The passage had been shorn of context, overlooking mention that at the time, I had known Thomas for over two years. Over and again in the blog, I wrote of my teasing relationship with Thomas, an aspiring comedian who routinely made jokes at my expense.

Most blatantly in her misrepresentation, the attorney had refrained from reading the two sentences following the highlighted passage:

I usually reply that I am not setting up my daughter with anyone I've blown, so eyes off, faggot.

Perverts are lost without scruples.

With those sentences restored, it was clear that I had written the exact opposite of what the attorney alleged. I wasn’t offering my children to Thomas; I was telling him to stop being silly.

The entire text had been attached to the motion, which sat before the judge. The attorney knew that a simple reading of the restored text would prove she had misrepresented it. Lucy knew there was no genuine cause for concern that these allegations were true. Yet there she sat, pretending otherwise and paying her attorneys eight hundred dollars an hour to further the pretense.

Taking notes, I felt once more in the role of the graduate student in a seminar on textual analysis. But now, I was the author called before a court. If we were going to evaluate my writing, we would be able to do so with my expert opinion on it.

The attorney’s argument seemed lazy, really. She pursued a perceived shock value in repeating the word “trannie” aloud in court. She wanted to link me to a man who loved trannies. I chewed my pen and wondered: gosh, surely I must’ve blogged about my own love for my trans friends. Why bother with one degree of separation?

If Lucy could allow her attorneys to make awful allegations they knew to be based on nothing, I assumed that she was simply guided by her ongoing desire to “get” me. She had told me that winning was everything, saying she would “go the final mile, no matter what it takes” to do so.

By this time, she had spent over fifty thousand dollars to prove her determination. Before long, she would be one hundred and fifty thousand more dollars closer to the final mile.

Lucy was not above misrepresenting a text. As she made clear in court and the court-ordered psychiatric evaluations, she would even knowingly lie about facts if lying fed her need to win.

Yet after our extended phone conversation, I wondered if Lucy was even all that concerned with facts. She seemed to be guided more by belief. She believed that I had watched pornography with Rachel. She needed this to be true. Therefore, it must be true. She asserted that my blog supported this belief and seemed genuinely convinced of this.

And yet it isn't true, and my blog doesn't say that it is.

Here’s the relevant passage, from my post On Her Own, reprinted here as cited in the motion. The story concerned Rachel’s move out of her family home and a visit in which I had helped her to settle in to her new place. She wrote to thank me for a coffee carafe I’d given her.

Hey Dad,

It was so great to see you and everybody last week. I am writing this on my patio with some great coffee—thanks!

I’m so sorry I couldn’t go south this year. When can I come up to New York? Maybe for my eighteenth birthday. Then we can smoke cigarettes and watch porn—you know, the usual, but now it will be legal.

I love you Dad. Call me!

Rachel

In posting this note, I had cut-and-pasted it as written. It seemed clear to me, in the context of the story and my writing about my relationship with Rachel, that my daughter was joking in this email. I saw no reason to add further elucidation. At the risk of bruising dead horses, I’ll say that we did not actually make plans to smoke cigarettes and watch porn prior to her eighteenth birthday, nor have we done so since. Rachel’s joke refers to things many people have done prior to their eighteenth birthdays that become legal at that age. I do know Rachel has an on-again, off-again smoking habit. I don’t know what experience, if any, she has with viewing pornography.

If Lucy had been genuinely concerned about the veracity of her claim, she could have confirmed it with Rachel. Being concerned with refuting Lucy’s claim, I asked Rachel to write an affidavit affirming that the note made a joke. But confirming veracity was apparently beyond Lucy’s interests, as is speaking with Rachel. Lucy wrote off Rachel over two years ago, as she disapproved of my daughter’s engagement to marry. The girl who grew up considering Lucy her stepmother has since been a non-entity to my ex-wife.

Still, in her motion, Lucy found it useful to profess concern for Rachel. My relationship with my eldest daughter could be considered a precursor for my relationship with our three children. If I used photographs on my refrigerator door to offer Rachel to a boyfriend who loves trannies, then could my other children expect the same fate? If I smoked cigarettes and watched pornography with Rachel, then how long before my other children were reaching for ashtrays and surfing smut with the old man?

In the case of Thomas and the refrigerator door, I am confident of Lucy’s cynicism. She didn’t really believe this claim to be true. There was simply a hope of courtroom shock value in citing that passage from my blog. But Lucy’s sarcastic “yeah, sure” response to my refutation of her claim about watching porn with Rachel seemed genuine. True or not, Lucy needed to cling to her belief. She needs to believe such things in order to quash her feelings for the husband who had loved her. Sharing cigarettes and pornography with one’s underage children must be bad; anyone can see that. Lucy’s belief became, in her mind, an unshakable tenet.

She couldn’t allow this tenet to be taken away. She couldn’t risk reading the text too closely or asking too many questions of it. It had to mean what she needed it to mean.

In Lucy’s mind, at some point near the end of Rachel’s seventeenth year, my daughter and I settled in for yet another evening of chain-smoking and watching hardcore porn. That evening may always be remembered by Lucy.

Rachel and I can’t share that memory, as we weren’t there. We can’t provide Lucy with the facts she needs to make her world right, so she is left to create them on her own.

If a selective misreading my blog anchors Lucy’s sense of reality, Rachel and I will have to accept that. Lucy’s mental health is not our responsibility.

Custody Crisis Tuesdays

On a cool Tuesday evening last April, I went with a friend to see John Waters in conversation with curator Robert Storr at the Ninety-second Street Y. This was a nice reunion for me, as I used to work with Robert Storr and John Waters and I have long been friendly.

(By “work with,” I mean that Robert Storr may have noticed me occasionally stalking him at museum openings. By “friendly,” I meant that I can recite every conversation I’ve had with John Waters since nineteen eighty-four; with prodding, he might politely pretend to remember me before inching away.)

My friend and I went back to her apartment afterward. She went to the kitchen to open a bottle of wine. I sat at her desk to check my email. “Ah, the Tuesday tradition continues,” I called.

“You’re kidding,” she said, looking around the corner. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Nope. She wouldn’t miss a Tuesday. This time she had Collie do it.” I read the email aloud.

Hi dad it's Collie and Lillie,

The new schedule began this Monday. This means that your five days in a row starts Wednesday, April 8th. This week so far has been mom's nine days in a row which ends Tuesday April 7th. To make it so Jason, Lillie, and I have the same weekends together we were wondering if it was O.K. if Jason spent this weekend with you, like normal, and then next weekend with you and Lillie and I.

Thanks.

Love,
Lillie and Collie
P.S. tomorrow ours field trip to the farm house!!!! 9:15 at the lobby!

“What new schedule?” my friend asked. “Is this referring to the schedule Lucy proposed in January? The one that everyone rejected as unnecessary?”

“I suppose,” I said, rereading the email. “I honestly had a hard time understanding Lucy’s scheme then. It was so complicated. Yet, by some miracle, my twelve-year-old son has conceived of the exact same plan and, by fiat, declared it in effect as of yesterday.”

“Oh, please,” my friend said, handing me a glass. “Lucy is obviously behind this email.”

I took the glass, shaking my head. “No, that can’t be. We were told not to discuss specific custody proposals with the children. Lucy would never disobey a judge’s directions, or manipulate the children.” My friend chortled. “No, I’m serious,” I continued. “No caring parent would ever put a child in such an awful position. Lucy is a caring parent. Therefore, the only possibility is that Collie was somehow, miraculously, possessed of precisely the same notion that preoccupied his mother a couple of months ago. It must’ve been a part of the collective unconsciousness. You know, just something in the air.”

“Yes, and somehow, he came up with the same plan, excluding his older brother . . .”

“ . . . thereby dividing the children, further hacking up the family. That didn’t fly when Lucy proposed it. It was clear then that Jason simply wanted nothing to do with her scheme. But now than this idea has miraculously returned . . . well, the only possible explanation is that Jason missed the Rapture.”

She leaned forward, staring at the screen. “Wait, look at that last sentence again.”

I read it over. “Right. This refers to a field trip I’m joining tomorrow morning with Lillie’s class. I mentioned it to you. She’s very excited about it.”

“Right, I remember. I’m sure she’s excited that you’ll be there. But look. The sentence reads, ‘lower-case “t” tomorrow ours, with an “s,” field trip to the farmhouse, two words, quadruple exclamation points. Nine fifteen at, not in, the lobby, exclamation point.’”

I nodded. “Sure, that’s how kids type.”

“I’m sure it is,” she agreed. “Read the paragraph above. It describes a complicated idea, with specific dates. Collie tells you, his father, that he, your child, has changed the custody agreement, effective immediately.”

“Right.”

She pointed at the screen. “This was not written by a twelve-year-old child. Not without help.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed that discrepancy in earlier emails from Collie that curiously echo his mother’s positions. Collie swears that his mother doesn’t write these notes. Lillie says her mom just ‘puts the words in them.’”

“Never mind that his mother has been trying change the custody agreement to her advantage for—what? ten months?—to no avail. He just decided it, purportedly on his own.”

“Right.”

“This is awful.” She shook her head. “What a mean, cruel thing she’s doing to her children.”

“Kidding aside,” I nodded, “It really is awful.”

Mean, cruel, awful. Yet wholly predictable.

When Lucy discovered this blog in March of last year, surprise quickly gave way to opportunism. At last, she felt she had the means to finally win the one-sided battle she had waged against me since she ended our marriage five years before. At the time of her discovery, Lucy was pushing to have my family removed from an apartment her father owned. Once that was accomplished, she planned to land the coup de grace: with the help of her family’s money and the high-profile legal team it bought her, she would sue for full custody. She had done so in the original divorce, and remained bitter that we shared joint custody.

Surely, she felt, my blog changed everything. My writing about my sexuality would give her what she needed to deny me our children. Not only would the court grant her full custody, she was sure, but I would also be ordered to shut down my blog and instructed to never again to write about the children.

While my right to keep a blog would seem to be protected by the First Amendment, parents often have their constitutional rights curtailed in custody cases, where the legal standard is expanded to include the best interests of the child. As I would later learn, this dual standard has led to contradictory rulings. Parents have been ordered to prevent their children from hunting; parents have been ordered to provide shooting instruction to their children. Parents have been ordered to provide their children with religious instruction; parents have been restricted from taking their children to certain churches. Gay parents have been forced to come out to their children; gay parents have been prohibited from coming out to their children. Run through the Bill of Rights and it’s not hard to find a custody case in which some parents have had their constitutional rights curtailed.

To up the ante, Lucy made sure the filing was made on an emergency basis, so that I would be forced to scurry for money and representation with little notice. If I failed to accomplish that, she felt, her court case would be quick work.

Lucy’s plan was upset when I showed up to court with an attorney experienced in custody cases concerning sexuality. Following a hearing in which our children were not immediately yanked from me and put into her protective care, Lucy banged her hand on the table, repeating, “No, no, no!” As she exited the courtroom, she fell into a violent tantrum. Her lawyers rushed her into a disused pay phone vestibule, frantic to hide her tantrum from view. Still, her shouting could be heard, echoing along marble hallways to reverberate in the courthouse’s domed entryway.

“Wow,” my lawyer said. “Never seen anything like that. Have you?”

The children’s law guardian stared at the vestibule, stunned. “Let’s give them a moment,” she managed.

As the case progressed, Lucy’s anger and anxiety deepened. Her entire case against me rested on my sexuality as described in this blog. To her chagrin, she saw little traction where she had expected a steamroller to crush me. The State of New York didn’t seem too concerned that my sex life had become more interesting after our divorce. Judging from the case evidence supplied pro bono by Lambda Legal, the State had heard such arguments before. Despite her expensive legal team, Lucy seemed unaware of such precedents.

Lucy’s legal team requested that I undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Bisexuality has not been considered a potential sign of mental illness for over thirty years, but involvement in BDSM remains listed as a possible symptom of paraphilia in the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). Given this, a psychiatric evaluation was ordered for me, and also for each member of our family.

As our sessions with the psychiatrist loomed, Lucy saw a final chance to gain advantage. She was already in the hole over one hundred thousand dollars, with nothing to show other than the court’s apparent satisfaction that I am a good father. On top of that, the economy had tanked without warning, diminishing her family’s ability to fund her second custody battle. In her heart, Lucy knew there was no reason to question my mental health. She worried about her own evaluation, given that she was diagnosed and treated for generalized anxiety disorder and depression. Having been in therapy more or less continuously since adolescence, she worried about her files being pulled and her own mental health and competence being called into question.

Given the failure of her legal team’s plan to this point, Lucy took matters into her own hands. She resorted to manipulating the children.

I took care to avoid putting the children in the middle of our conflict. It is not in a child’s best interest to be used by one parent against another. Never mind that it is a foolish strategy: there are no tricks that haven’t already been tried in custody cases. The manipulation of children is routinely detected by courts, legal guardians and psychiatrists.

Lucy surely knew this. Yet apparently, in her state of mind, she couldn’t help herself.

Lucy now alleged that the children were frightened of me, as I could not control my anger. She alleged that I routinely lost my temper and used expletives in front of the children. “This is cut from whole cloth,” I complained to my attorney. “I put up with Lucy’s rage and abuse for fifteen years and I never responded in kind. How can she make such an assertion? It’s like she is attributing her own anger to me. If I have such a problem, then why wasn’t it noted in the original motion just a few months ago?”

Soon, I saw what Lucy was doing. On the eve of the psychiatric evaluations, ordered because of my involvement with BDSM, Lucy was trying to depict me as someone unable to control an essentially violent nature. If I hit people with flogs or canes, as I had written in my blog, then surely I was capable of hitting my children.

This depiction required a crude leap of logic, in which BDSM play among consenting adults is equivalent to child abuse. But more, selling this depiction required deep cynicism. Lucy knew for a fact that there was no cause for concern that the children were in any physical danger in my care. If she had any cause for actual concern, she could have brought these concerns before the court. The court would have assuredly taken such allegations seriously and investigated accordingly. If Lucy had any evidence whatsoever of abuse—photographs, testimony, witnesses, medical records, or any signs of ill effect on the children’s behavior—she would have offered it in building a case for her full custody.

Lucy had no such evidence, as no such evidence existed. She was fully aware that the children were safe with their father. Yet this truth had little to do with the story she needed others to believe. She needed others to fall back on facile stereotypes about BDSM. Someone who would flog or cane another person must be deeply disturbed, no doubt acting on uncontrollable psychosis. Lucy could conjure stereotypes, but she could not conjure evidence. As there was no abuse, there were no photographs, testimonies, witnesses, medical records or behavioral issues.

Only on the final item—the children’s behavior—could Lucy hope to gain influence.

Suddenly, our youngest daughter began to express anxiety about being in our home. This anxiety would only be manifest when she was coming from an extended stay with her mother, never when she was coming home to me after school.

It turned out that Lucy had told her stories about me, stories designed to scare our daughter, stories that left our brave and vivacious nine-year-old child in tears on her mother’s bedroom floor. Lucy told her daughter not to repeat these stories to me. On this and other matters, our daughter would later reveal, Lucy instructed our child to lie to her father.

Suddenly, our twelve-year-old son became anxious about being away from his mother. Lucy had long referred to him as her “rock,” the anchor of her emotional wellbeing. To the law guardian, she repeatedly referred to our son as having the maturity of a “forty-five-year-old man,” attributing to a boy the precise age of her ex-husband. Lucy had long ago stopped dealing with me as co-parent of our children. She refused to speak to me, preferring to have Jason act as our go-between. Now that Jason had declined to support her goal of seeking full custody, she discarded him in favor her “rock.” She knew she could count on Collie to take care of her.

I felt for Collie. I used to have his job. As Lucy’s husband, I knew that she was always to be placated. When Lucy is unhappy with life, people around her are supposed to change life until it suits her. Her family had raised her to expect that. Her family placated her in the usual way, by writing checks, but I no longer fulfilled my role, as I declined to roll over and surrender our children. Lucy turned to Collie. He was her rock, her more reliable forty-five-year-old husband. On this and other matters, our son would later reveal, Lucy encouraged our child to do what she needed him to do to recast life to her liking.

As the two children began to exhibit signs of Lucy’s manipulation, my attorney sat me down. “If it becomes necessary,” she asked, “Are you prepared to take full custody of the children?”

I wasn’t expecting her question, but I wasn’t entirely surprised, either. “I want joint custody to work,” I answered.

“I know, and if that’s how you feel, then that’s our goal,” she answered. “Still, I’ve never seen anything so blatant. Lucille is really out of control and the children are suffering as a result. The court may direct you to take full custody. I’ve seen it happen before. Are you ready for that?”

“Yes, of course,” I nodded. “I want what’s best for the kids. Lucy was abusive when we were together, but now she’s on medication and getting treatment, so I want to be optimistic.” We sat quietly for a moment. “Anyway, this assumes Lucy can keep it together while we’re in court.”

My attorney looked at me for a moment. “Well yes, it does. Let’s see if she can.” She paused. “Look, I have to say this: manipulating children in this way is abusive. I’m your lawyer and we’ll stay this course if you want. But it’s pretty clear to anyone observing that Lucy is out of control. You aren’t still worried that she can hurt you, right?”

“No, that’s not it. I just . . . look, the kids have been through a lot. This custody thing is awful on everyone. I’d rather be optimistic and hope Lucy calms down when it ends.”

“Then let’s hope it ends soon,” my attorney said. “In the meantime, I’m investigating psychological abuse in custody cases.”

My attorney researched the free speech restrictions requested by Lucy’s legal team. To the best of my attorney’s knowledge, this was an instance of “first impression,” meaning that no other case had previously presented this mix of parental custody, sexuality and the First Amendment. If the court ruled to censor my blog, I would be able to appeal. As this was a constitutional issue of first impression, my attorney told me, it could ultimately be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Heady stuff!” I replied. “Well, my activist side says, ‘bring it.’ But as a parent, I really, really hope it doesn’t go that way. I won’t be bullied by my ex-wife but still, appeals would take so much time. So I can only hope Lucy develops some liberal shame about being so fixated on my sexuality and speech.”

“Then let’s count on Lucy’s shame,” my attorney said. “In the meantime, I’m renewing my credentials to appear before the Supreme Court.”

By this point, I felt that the writing was already on the wall. I was eager for life to return to normal for my family. I didn’t want anything to prolong the case.

Lucy, however, felt differently. She had come to fear that she had little hope of winning full custody due to my sexuality or my writing. In her desperation to win something, Lucy grasped at straws, doing what she could to turn the kids against me while making scattershot accusations.

Lucy alleged that I was unable to control my anger. She was unable to provide any evidence to that effect. The psychiatrist did not concur. It was a dead letter.

Lucy alleged that I did not care about the children’s academics. School records were offered, showing that the children were thriving in school. All had perfect homework completion records, regardless of which parent had them on the previous night. Our eldest son had recently taken the PSATs, scoring very high among college-bound students a grade above him.

Lucy compiled complaints from the children, whom she bribed to give her reports on me. She asserted that I did not do laundry often enough. I sometimes ran out of fruit juice. I failed to change the cat litter with satisfactory frequency.

We sat with the children’s law guardian. Lucy listed her complaints. I offered to try to be a more perfect housekeeper. We had come a long way, I noted, from Lucy’s original motion. She had brought me to court on an emergency basis claiming that my sexuality and writing were an immediate danger to our children. Now, we were sitting in an office in midtown Manhattan paying a lawyer six hundred dollars an hour to mediate a discussion about cat litter.

In time, the case was resolved. The law guardian was satisfied that the children were well and content at home with each parent. The court saw no reason to modify joint custody or to censor my writing. Life should have gone back to normal.

By the terms of our custody agreement, the children come to me on Wednesdays after school. After the court reached its decision, Lucy began to contact me every Tuesday with some reason why she should have the kids the following day. None of these reasons was pressing. She might have contacted me well in advance of Tuesday nights. I generally pointed this out and each week, the children came to me as usual. Her efforts were so predictable that my attorney and I began to refer to her “Custody Crisis Tuesdays.”

Finally, Lucy turned to Collie. She knew her rock wanted her to be happy. He knew that he could take care of her, so that she wasn’t so unhappy all the time. So when she told him that she wanted him and his sister to spend weekdays with her, she knew he would take care of her. Maybe he could give her what I did not. Maybe he could give her what the State of New York did not.

So it was that on a Tuesday night in April, my son’s email arrived in place of my ex-wife’s, using the words that his mother had “put in.”

I replied to Collie that his note confused me and we would talk about it the next day. I looked at the time. It was not yet ten thirty. The children would be up until eleven. “Hey, do you mind if I make a quick call?” I asked my friend. “I want to straighten out plans for tomorrow.”

“Sure,” she said. “Do you want me to leave the room?”

“No, that’s cool,” I said, opening my cell. “This won’t be long.”

For the next three hours, my friend sat nearby, her expression changing from disbelief, to shock, to dismay.

When Lucy answered, I explained that I was calling to clarify the confusion in Collie’s email. There was no change to custody, I reminded her; the court had already ruled on that. It was unfair to confuse the children by suggesting otherwise.

“It’s not me, Jefferson,” Lucy said. “It’s the kids. They really want this.”

“And Jason? He’s not included among the kids anymore?”

“Jason . . . I can’t deal with Jason anymore. He won’t do what I say. He lies to me. Did you know what a liar he is now?”

“No, I haven’t encountered that. And I don’t believe the children have suddenly generated a sui generis preference in custody—particularly one that just so happens to echo your own previous proposal.”

“It’s true, Jefferson. It’s true.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she walked into the backyard. “I tried so hard. You have to believe me. I sat the kids down and begged them not to do this. I told them to consider your feelings; I said, ‘This is really going to hurt your father’s feelings.’ They wouldn’t listen. They didn’t care. They are scared of you, Jefferson. They are so scared of you. You don’t see that, but I do.”

“Right. I think we covered this back in the ‘Jefferson can’t control his anger’ days. Anyway, we need to clarify the plan for tomorrow. The existing plan is that I pick up the kids from school . . .”

“They won’t go with you,” she interrupted. “They’ll run away. You won’t be able to catch them. They’re fast. They will run away from you.”

“They’ll run away from me?” I looked at my friend. Her jaw hung open. “You’re saying that Collie and Lillie will run away when I pick them up at school? Why? Nothing like that has ever happened before.”

“I wouldn’t try it if I were you,” Lucy warned.

“Collie and Lillie are scared of me that they will run away, you say. But Jason isn’t scared?”

“Poor Jason,” Lucy sighed.

“Why do you say, ‘poor Jason?’ I don’t get that.”

“Poor Jason,” she repeated.

Lucy was luring me into some circular reasoning that I could not follow. It was after ten, so it was possible she was pretty stoned. I wasn’t getting anywhere with her. “Lucy, let me speak with Collie, please.”

I heard a drag on a cigarette. “He doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“He’s never refused a conversation with me before. Can you give him the phone, please?”

“I can try, but I’m telling you, he doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Thanks for trying.” I heard the phone land on metal, presumably the wrought iron bench in the backyard. We had inherited lawn furniture from Lucy's late grandmother. When we moved into the house, I sanded the set and repainted it white.

“What’s she doing?” my friend asked.

“She’s getting Collie,” I said. "Well, she says she's getting Collie."

“Is this normal?”

“Normal is relative,” I said.

She offered me my wine, but I waved it off. A long time passed. Finally, Lucy returned to the phone. “I told you, he doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“You told him I was on the phone? What did he say?”

“He said, ‘I don’t want to talk to Dad.’”

“I see. Well, may I speak to Lillie?”

Lucy returned to her cigarette. “She doesn’t want to talk to you. None of the children want to talk to you. They are scared of you.”

“Do you mind asking, please?”

“It won’t work.”

“Please.”

“Fine.” Once more, the phone was placed on the wrought iron bench. Once more, an inordinate amount of time passed. Lucy picked up the phone. “It’s like I said. She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Just to reiterate,” I said. I motioned for my friend to pass a pen and paper. “You are saying that the children are awake at, um, eleven eighteen, and they each refuse to speak with me.”

“Yes. That is correct.”

“Okay. Well, this creates a conundrum. They are supposed to come home with me tomorrow after school . . .”

“They won’t.”

“ . . . and it is your responsibility to be sure the children are returned on my custodial days.”

“I have no control over the children, Jefferson.”

I took notes. “Are you saying you have no control over our two youngest children?”

“None of them, Jefferson,” she sighed. “Not one. Jason lies to me. Collie and Lillie do nothing I say. I have to pay them to do their homework. They don’t do anything.”

I shook my head, bent over the notepad. “I have a very hard time believing that. Now, tomorrow, you have time to talk with them as you drive to school. You can explain that they are going home with me that afternoon, as usual.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not, Lucy?”

“They don’t listen to me. I’ve told you. I was practically on my hands and knees begging them to go home with you tomorrow. They just refused. They don’t like you, Jefferson. They don’t. They don’t want to stay with you. They are scared of you.”

I drew a breath. I was not taking Lucy’s bait. I circled her main points on my friend’s notepad. “Okay, so to reiterate . . . you contend that Collie and Lillie refuse to come home with me, per usual, because they are scared of me. They will run away if I pick them up at school. Meanwhile, Jason is fine with coming home to our apartment. Also, Jason is a liar, you have no control over the children and you have to offer bribes to get them to do homework. Is that all correct?”

“Yes.” She exhaled, sarcasm in her voice. “That is all correct.”

“Okay. Well, it’s late and I don’t see any other solution. You should take Collie and Lillie tomorrow. We’ll talk after school and work this out. Okay?”

“Thanks. Maybe they’ll feel better about you tomorrow.”

“We can hope. Well, I guess we’ll talk then . . .”

“It’s just so sad they feel this way, Jefferson,” Lucy went on. “I think you are a really good dad. I really do.”

“Oh,” I replied. “Well, thanks. It’s nice to hear you say that.” I caught my friend’s eye. “What?,” she mouthed. I held up a finger.

“This has just been a really bad year, hasn’t it? Just so hard.”

“That’s right, it’s been a very bad year.” I held back my thoughts: it’s been a bad year because you dragged us all into court, my mind wanted to shout. But I sat, listening, responding only to what she said.

Lucy rambled on. Her tone became accusatory, then, on a dime, nostalgic. She laughed about the way Jason used to chase Collie around the coffee table when the baby was learning to walk. Did I remember that, she asked? I did, I said. I remembered it all. We shared other memories.

“What happened to you?” she asked finally. “You used to be so different.”

“I’m still me,” I said.

“No, you’re not. The old you wouldn’t have watched porn with your daughter.”

“Lillie?” I winced. “Lucy, I’ve never watched porn with Lillie.”

“No, I mean Rachel. You watched porn with her when she was seventeen.”

“No, I didn’t. I’ve never watched porn with Rachel. What makes you say that?”

She sighed. “It was in your blog.”

Now I was really confused. My blog is nonfiction and I only write actual events in it. “That’s not possible,” I replied. “Why would I write something that didn’t happen?”

“It was before her birthday. She was coming to visit you and she said you were going to smoke cigarettes and watch porn.”

“But I’ve never been a smoker . . . ” I began before recalling an email from Rachel that I had posted. “Oh geez, now I remember. Lucy, that was a joke. Rachel was joking. She was referring to things that she would be able to do legally once she was eighteen. She wasn’t saying we did those things together.”

“Yeah, right,” Lucy said facetiously. “Sure.”

I coughed back a laugh. “I suggest you reread that. Rachel is clearly joking. If you don’t believe me, you can ask her. I can’t believe you couldn’t see that.”

“I’m not talking to Rachel, no way,” Lucy said. She drew on her cigarette and exhaled. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Your blog is useless. Apparently I can’t get you on sex unless you rape the children.”

I caught my breath. “What?”

“It’s true. I can’t get you on sex unless you rape the children.”

I gripped my chair rail. “Are you insinuating . . . ?”

“No, of course not.” She drew another puff. “No one is saying you rape the children.”

“You sound almost disappointed.” I paused. “Actually, this sounds like something you’ve said before, the way you say it so easily. Is that true? Is that something you say to people?”

“So what? So what if I’ve said it? Look, it’s a joke, okay? Sorry I mentioned it.”

“It’s grotesque, Lucy. Really awful. Never mind that you think sex is something you can use to ‘get’ me, like you hope you can find something to ‘get’ me one day.”

Lucy was silent. “I didn’t mean to say that, that thing about ‘getting’ you.” She seemed to feel she had revealed too much. She changed the topic. “Look, here’s the thing. I read your blog and I think, why now? Why couldn’t we do fun things when we were married? I like to be touched. I like sex.”

I stared at a blank wall. I couldn’t process this.

“Plus, why do you write that I’m ‘miserable?’ I’m not miserable. Look, I’ve got a house and a car. I’ve got a full-time job and a four-oh-one-k. I’m happy. You’re the one who should be miserable. You don’t have anything.”

I started to answer that I had a nice Toyota, but that seemed beside the point. “I’m not really sure how to answer that, Lucy. Look, it’s late. It’s after one. Are the kids still up?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I need to get to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow. Good luck with the kids tomorrow. We’ll talk.”

“Okay.” She waited. I had nothing to add. “Okay, then.” She exhaled. “I guess that’s it. Good night.”

“Night.” I closed my phone.

“Oh my God,” my friend said. I’d almost forgotten she was in the room. She sat on the couch, her knees pulled up under her chin. Her face was stricken. “Are you okay?”

The phone was limp in my hand. “If I didn’t know better,” I said, “I’d swear Lucy was expecting me to end that conversation by saying ‘I love you.’”

Sequestered

The call from Lucy’s lawyer was my first indication that my ex-wife was taking me to court. “There’s going to be a court appearance tomorrow morning, at which time a judge will decide whether or not to hear the case.”

“Okay.” I picked up a pen. “So what does that mean?”

“That means that tomorrow, we’re presenting our motion to the court and at that time, it should be decided if a judge will hear the case.”

“Okay, so there’s a motion? What's in that?”

“If the case is assigned to a judge, you will be served with papers. Then we’ll have a court date.”

I took notes. “These papers will tell me what this motion is about?”

“Yes, the papers are the motion. They will tell you why the plaintiff has filed, and what the claims are.”

“’Claims?’ What’s that, like child support? And the plaintiff is Lucy, correct?”

“Uh, yes, the plaintiff is my client. I’m getting another call and need to be going.”

“Wait, just a few more questions, please.” I sat down. “I’m sorry, but this is only my third custody case, so I’m still getting down the process. Now, we’re supposed to be in court tomorrow morning? Am I supposed to have an attorney?”

“Well, um . . . you aren’t required to be there, but you may want to be there. Of course, it’s up to you whether or not you have counsel.”

“But I should, shouldn’t I? I mean, if Lucy does, I suppose I should, correct?”

“It’s not really my responsibility to advise you on the advisability of obtaining counsel.” Her voice was growing irritable.

“Oh right, of course, you represent the other side. But tomorrow morning is soon. It’s already late afternoon. Is there any way to get a postponement so I can have time to get an attorney? I mean, I don’t even know the claims being made.”

“If a judge takes the case, you’ll be served papers and then you’ll know the claims. We won’t ask for a postponement since we filed that this was an emergency situation . . .”

“An emergency? What emergency? What’s happened?” I stood up.

“Again, you’ll know that if a judge agrees to take the case. Then you’ll be served. Now, I really do need to take this other call. If a judge takes this case, I’m sure I’ll be able to clarify this with your attorney.”

“So I’m going to need an attorney.”

“Yes, if a judge takes the case, you will need an attorney. You can’t represent yourself in this court. Now, as I’ve said, I really do need to take this call. If you are served papers, you’ll have my contact information to relay to your attorney. Bye.”

“Bye.” I hung up. The day before, I had still been on vacation with my kids. Just the night before, I had spoken with Lucy and she had made no mention of this. Now there was an emergency? And I needed an attorney in less than twenty-four hours?

I called Lucy. No answer. I left a message and called her cell. No answer. I left a message and called my son. No answer. I left a message and tried Lucy’s cell again. No answer. I made a few other calls to my family and to friends who are lawyers. I was advised that I should not go to court without knowing what claims are being made against me. I collected leads on family lawyers.

I again tried the circuit of numbers to reach Lucy and my children. All went directly to voice mail. After an anxious evening, I went to bed.

The next morning, I tried to call Lucy and my children. Again, I only got voice mail. I made coffee and checked my email. I was surprised to see a note from my eight-year-old daughter.

im srry im not supposed to be emailing you so make this our secret please please please i just want to tell you what ever happens i love you very much! i have to go im srry

She wasn’t supposed to email me? What did she mean by “whatever happens?” Why was she apologizing? Why was her email a “secret?”

I wrote back:

Honey, that's silly. No one can tell you that you can't email your father, or talk to him on the phone, any time you like! So write notes any time.

I love you very, very much.

Dad

Oh, and your M magazine has arrived! Gossip galore.

If my daughter was under the impression that she was not permitted to write to me, I suspected that this prohibition extended to phone calls. I wasn’t getting anywhere trying Lucy’s numbers. I decided to call Lucy’s mother to see if she knew what was going on.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Bucky, it’s Jefferson. I’ve been trying to call Lucy and the kids for a day now and I can’t get through. I’m worried. Do you know what’s going on?”

“Yes, they are here,” she stammered, surprised by my call. “And you can’t talk to them. Bye.” She hung up.

I looked at the phone in my hand. I called back. She answered. “Bucky, it’s Jefferson. Are you telling me that you have my children and you are not allowing me to speak to them? That’s not acceptable.”

“Well, that may be, but you can’t talk to them until Lucy gets back. Bye.” She hung on me again. I called back. The phone rang and went unanswered. I tried calling my son’s cell again. It went to voice mail.

I felt helpless. Evidently, my children were being sequestered on Long Island, kept from me by my ex and her mother. I had no idea what was going on, but I did know how to phone tree Lucy’s family. When Lucy was uncommunicative, I could try her mother. If her mother was unresponsive, I could go to her father or her brother. There, cooler heads generally prevailed. I called her brother in California.

“Richard, it’s Jefferson. I’ve been trying to call my kids and your sister, but I can’t get through. I just called your mother and was told that she has the kids, but she refused to allow me to speak to them. I got an email from my daughter saying she wasn’t permitted to talk to me. Now, I have my car. Should I drive out to your mother’s house to get to the bottom of this?”

“No, you don’t want to do that.” He paused. “You don’t want to do anything that might upset the judge.”

“The judge? So what’s happening here? Has a judge ordered the kids not to speak to me?”

“No, I don’t know anything about that,” he said. “Though, Lucy was meeting with a judge today, and I haven’t heard the latest. But it should be clear to you what’s going on. You’ve written about it many times. Your double life has been revealed and now Lucy is suing for custody.”

I sat down. “My double life,” I repeated.

“Yes, your double life and your blog. Lucy found out about it in the spring and showed it to all of us. Now she’s suing for custody.”

I sat for a moment. “Okay. Well, thanks for letting me know. No one has really told me anything, so this comes as a shock.”

“You haven’t seen anything? No court papers?”

“Lucy’s lawyer spoke to me yesterday, but she declined to tell me what this was about. This is the first I’ve heard.” I paused. Richard was silent. “Okay, anyway, thanks again. If you would please talk to your mother and tell her I want to talk to my kids, I’d appreciate it.”

“Sure. Take care.”

Richard was right. I had written many times that my greatest concern in keeping this blog was that Lucy would discover it and file for full custody.

She had sought full custody in the original divorce. At that time, she had no reason to expect that I would be denied joint custody. Still, she had dug in her heels, defying the advice of her family and even her own attorney. She resisted any compromise and sought every opportunity to protract the case. The more time we spent in court, the more she could hope that, despite all evidence to the contrary, she might prevail.

Further, she wanted to control and punish me. Her family’s money made it possible to pay for unnecessary legal fees. The more expensive she made the process, the more she could bully me. I lacked her resources. She knew she could use financial intimidation against me. Money or no, she knew that her bullying had worked in the past.

Now, she had discovered my blog. For the previous four months—even as she worked to have my family removed from her father’s apartment, never expressing any concern about where the children and I would go—she had been going through my blog, searching for evidence she could use in once more seeking full custody. With twenty-five thousand dollars of her mother’s money, Lucy had retained lawyers to take this blog and turn it into her desired vindication—full custody for her, ruin for me.

I would not see the assembled evidence until that afternoon, after a judge had agreed to take on the case and I was subsequently served papers. My “double life” had been revealed and Lucy was rushing me to court. She was hurling her family’s money into an emergency filing, knowing I would have to struggle to keep up.

What I didn’t yet realize was that Lucy had already broken with the original custody settlement. No judge or legal authority had given her permission to deny me contact with the children. We had yet to appear in court and Lucy had already defied an existing court order.

I wondered what must have been going through the children’s heads when their mother told them they couldn’t speak to their father. How did that feel to them, particularly after two entire weeks of vacation with their father?

I didn’t yet know what the children knew. I wouldn’t know for several months. Lucy had already outed their father. Lucy had told the children that I am bisexual. She had told the children that I go to orgies. She had told the children that I spank people. She had told the children that I write pornography on the Internet. She had made the children understand that I am a bad man and they are not safe with me. She was going to protect them from me, which meant going to court. In the meantime, the children would not be seeing their father and they were not to speak to him.

Saying these things to the children may have satisfied Lucy's rage, but saying them was clearly not in the best interests of the children.

It would be months before anyone involved in the case would know what Lucy had told the children. Even her own attorneys seemed to be in the dark. By that time, Lucy had sworn in a court document that the children had learned about my “double life” when they encountered my blog on the family computer. I asserted that this was highly unlikely. The children’s law guardian visited our home for a private tour of the computer’s security features. She agreed that they were formidable. Still, better safe than sorry, she said: better to get another computer for the kids and keep them off the shared one. Already financially strapped by Lucy’s emergency filing, I was now out of pocket for a new computer.

Lucy may have gloated about the added expense—another “win” in her campaign of financial intimidation—but the gloating wouldn’t last long.

In describing my sexuality to the children, she had defied another order of the original custody settlement: parents are not to disparage one another to the children. What’s more, Lucy had claimed in the original motion and a subsequent filing that the children had learned about my blog on our shared computer. In fact, she had told the children about my online writing about sex. There was no evidence that the children knew the URL or had ever seen it on our computer.

In her haste and rage, she had once again perjured herself before the court.

All of that was yet to come. A few days after our vacation and one day after I had learned of the custody filing, Lucy appeared with her lawyers before a judge. The judge agreed that the charges in the motion deserved consideration on an emergency basis and ordered an appearance for the following week.

Lucy was ecstatic as she left the courthouse and retrieved her car. She chain-smoked as she drove to her mother’s house, her mind racing as she calculated how well this was going. She had really stuck it to Jefferson this time! She was going to get him, finally. Where was that loser going to get twenty-five thousand dollars in less than a week? He’d fail to get a lawyer, fail to show up in court, the kids would see what a failure fucking asshole he is, and finally, she would be vindicated for divorcing him. Everyone would see what a loser he is!

That afternoon, I got a call from our daughter. Her mother had given her permission to call. “Hey Dad, guess what?” she said excitedly. “Mom totaled the car. We get to get a new one!”

In the background, I could hear Lucy talking to her mother, a mile a minute, her voice racing to keep up with her thoughts.

Seymour Glass

Help!

“Help” was her first word to me. “Help” was typed into the subject line of a long email. It was followed by an exclamation point.

Help!

The email was signed “Seymour Glass.”

The email concerned “Seymour’s” recent decision to take up casual sex. She thought this would be a good strategy for combating the alienation she felt in most human interactions.

A few days into her project, she lost her virginity to “some kid” she found on Craig’s List. He came to her dorm, fucked her, and left—all within the space of minutes.

She cried in the shower, and scrubbed his name from her memory.

She met another guy, "some bald guy.” He came to her dorm, undressed and announced that he had forgotten condoms. She told him to come back when he was less forgetful.

He came back the next day. He came fast. He offered to train her to be his sex slave. She said she would get back to him on that.

She cried in the shower, but his name stained.

The second guy had mentioned my parties, saying he would be glad to take her to one. “You can read about them on his blog,” he told her. “I’ll put in a good word for you.”

She ignored the offer, having already decided that she would never again see the first two men she had fucked. Nevertheless, she took the advice to read my blog.

She wrote to me, asking for my help.

I thanked her for writing, saying I was unclear about how I could help, or what she needed help to do. I’m a pervert, I told her, not a therapist. The best I could offer was a sounding board as she worked out her thoughts on this new pursuit of sex with strangers.

She took me up on the offer.

“Seymour” wrote long notes to me, often late at night. She wrote about the discomfort she felt in even the most basic social interactions, saying she only felt comfortable with her parents, her cousin, her close friends, and her dog; the interactions and acquaintances of college life left her feeling awkward and raw.

She had decided that sex might be a way to break through that wall of alienation. She wasn’t looking for an emotional commitment. She hoped that sex would allow her to feel something physical and “real” when so many other things felt phony.

Seeking the genuine and real, she set out to fuck strangers.

In our notes, she expressed her anxiety that no one would find her attractive due to her scars.

That revelation gave me pause. I asked about her scars—were they the result of an accident or surgery, or were they self-inflicted?

“Yes,” she replied. “The scars are self-inflicted.”

It struck me that “Seymour” was behaving somewhat compulsively, and I said so. I asked if she had a therapist she trusted. I was concerned that she signed her name as a fictional suicide, given her history of self-injury.

“Oh, you know Salinger!” she wrote. “I really like him, maybe too much.”

“I don’t think it’s possible to like Salinger too much,” I replied. “Unless you’re Joyce Maynard.”

“Oh, you know Maynard, too? That’s great. Of course, none of the kids here would know anything about that. But yeah, I have a therapist, and I’m on lots of yummy pills, so don’t worry about that.”

I asked to elaborate on her rationale for approaching sex as she did.

“I'm honestly not sure if I think sex is a big deal or not,” she wrote. “I don't think it is, truthfully . . . but . . . I'm just scared of people. I wouldn't be able to sleep with someone I care about. I'm too afraid of getting hurt . . . I'd rather sleep around. I'm just trying to feel better, which I know isn't a good reason to engage in casual sex. But I'm also terrified of being alone. If I can't connect with people on an emotional level, at least I can connect on a physical level . . . as is my rationale. And just to talk with someone is nice, whether I'm fucking him or not. Even very trivial, casual talk—it's nice, it's something . . . you know? And to be held is nice, though it means nothing.

“It's a nice escape, although I can't relax enough to even feel pleasure from it, but it's something. It's better than drinking. Or various other escapist behaviors.

“I don't know what to do . . . because honestly, I think of how I need to fuck someone. I've been trying to resist it, but I keep thinking about it. Luckily, my week is busy . . . but Monday I'll probably be with someone else. I don't know why; I'm not sure if I dislike it or not—I don't know what to make of any of this.”

This girl was a piece of work.

And yet she was so cognizant of her state of mind, and so articulate about it. She was, in the current parlance, an emo kid, someone who mulls things over, fretting about the basics of being human.

We used to have other names for young people like that, but these days, “emo kid” seems to work.

“Seymour” presented herself as at a loss about what to do about her anxiety, and chose what would appear to be an odd solution—she dreaded the tepid waters of simple social intercourse, so she dove into the deep end of anonymous sexual intercourse.

As we corresponded, “Seymour” came to trust me, at least as much as she could let herself trust me. She encountered me as words on a screen, in my blog and in our emails, and I took her words seriously. The fact that we interacted in text and not in person kept me at a reasonably safe distance. She could open herself to me, as flesh and blood didn’t interfere.

Still, she was getting under my skin. I thought about her as I went through my day, remembering things she had written and formulating my next response. I came to care about her, in a way; I wanted to do what I could to make her feel less alienated from people. If that meant being an online friend, I thought I could manage that.

I forgave myself certain responsibilities. I could not keep her from hurting herself by fucking strangers any more than I could keep her from digging razors into her muscle tissue. I could only tell her, from experience, that if she wanted to distinguish the genuine from the phony, she was employing methods that might only confuse the two.

If I’ve learned nothing else in life, I do know this: you can’t always save people.

I also know myself: I’m compelled to try.

Reading “Seymour’s” notes, I recalled my early life with Lucy.

We worked together in a bookstore. I was drawn to the information desk. I enjoyed helping people find titles they couldn’t recall, or matching a desire to read with a book that might fit the bill. Lucy gravitated to the stock room, where she could open boxes, type ISBNs into a computerized inventory and chain smoke.

One day, I invited Lucy to lunch. At the time, she weighed under a hundred pounds. No one at the bookstore had ever seen her eat. I suggested we order sesame chicken from a take out place. I liked that it was too much food for four dollars and ninety-five cents, including an egg roll and a soda.

She liked it. She began to order it every day.

We slept together, eventually. I learned how that worked.

If I woke to find her missing, I got up to look for her. She was often in the bathroom, naked on the tile floor. One night, I pulled her face from the cat box. I plucked litter and turds from her lips and eyes. I wet a washcloth. When she was clean, I picked her up and carried her back to bed.

The next morning, I called in sick to stay by her side.

I thought that was how I should take care of her.

Fifteen years, three children and one divorce later, Lucy finally got medical treatment for her depression. Now that she was alone, by her design, she had to do something.

I hope it works.

Meanwhile, I’m the boy raised by my father to care for my mother, the husband trained by experience to care for his wife, the single father who cares for lovers when his young children are gone.

I’m a piece of work.

I couldn’t bear the thought of “Seymour” crying in the shower come Monday, her self-imposed deadline for fucking yet another stranger.

We were passing notes when I made a proposal.

“Look, you say you are going to fuck someone on Monday, and you don’t even know who that is. Can I make a suggestion? Meet me instead. In the flesh.”

She agreed to take a risk.

We both did.