Sweet Christmas Kisses (93 page)

"It'll be all right," Cecilia assured her, but her smile was as brittle as old parchment. She didn't know exactly how to explain a divorce to a six-year-old. To Yvonne, a “Vorce” was a monster that someone big and strong should be able to conquer. "They'll have fun as long as they're with you."

She stooped to hug and kiss her children, promising she would pick them up at Stephanie's apartment later. They walked away, Yvonne clinging to her aunt's hand, chattering fiercely as if to cover nervousness. Ryan looked back, and she gave him an encouraging smile even as she thought,
What am I doing to my children? How will they be able to deal with this? How will they ever recover?

Once they were out of sight, Cecilia allowed herself to slump bonelessly onto the bench where the children had been sitting. Her attorney would be here in a few minutes and they would appear before the judge. She would finally be at the end of the road down which she had been journeying for months now.

She struggled to look back and pinpoint the exact time when things had begun to go wrong, but she couldn’t see it. She tried to think of ways she could have changed things, improved things, fixed things, fixed herself, but everything was a jumble.

She knew that security, both financial and emotional, had always been hugely important to her. She knew that Jim liked to take risks. Had she known those things when she’d married him? When she’d fallen in love with him?

In the first eight years of their marriage, Jim had been gone, sometimes for months at a time, halfway across the country or halfway around the world on one job or another. When he had come home, they’d had to get to know each other all over again. A chance to fall in love all over again, she thought now, if it hadn’t been so unsettling.

Finally, two years ago, Jim had decided to start his own engineering firm. He could stay home, he told her, spend more time with her and the kids, and hire others to go out on the jobs. Cecilia had never complained about his trips, but she’d looked forward to having him home more often. Opening his own business seemed like the perfect solution.

At first Jim had liked the challenge of owning his own business, but he’d begun to grow restless. He wasn’t taking the physical risks he’d once enjoyed, so he started taking financial ones. It gave him a rush of excitement to gamble on the next deal he could make, the next expansion, the next big thing.

And each time, it was Cecilia who lay awake nights worrying they were going to lose everything while Jim slumbered peacefully beside her, his hand resting comfortably on her thigh, so sure of her, so sure things would never change.

Six months ago, he’d made his biggest gamble—and lost a large share of their savings on a project that had blown up in their faces along with the peace in a central African nation. And Cecilia had known she couldn’t go on as she’d been doing for so long. She’d asked him to move out and then filed for divorce.

Jim had been stunned. She was making a huge mistake, he said. At least it was
her
mistake, she’d retorted. She couldn’t live with his anymore.

“Cecilia.”

Cecilia looked up to see her attorney, Faye Ryan, standing over her. It was time. The actual divorce proceedings, Faye had told her, would take only a few minutes.

So surreal, she thought. Her marriage would be over in less time than it took to cook a hard-boiled egg.

****

Cecilia and Jim stared, dumbfounded, at the judge.

"Excuse me, Your Honor?" Jim wheezed. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as if he were about to choke. "Could you repeat that, please?"

The ten-year-long habit of looking to her husband when faced with a crisis had Cecilia glancing at Jim, then away, as she reminded herself she couldn't do that anymore. Instead, she looked at Faye, whose eyes, behind round, dark-framed glasses, were as stunned as Cecilia's.

Faye cleared her throat. "Yes, Your Honor. I don't believe we heard you correctly."

"Sure you did." His Honor, Judge Dallas Carpenter, folded his hands over the pile of papers on his desk. "The divorce is denied. The custody arrangement between these two people is not satisfactory. Temporarily, the property is divided as requested with the exception that the family home at 110 Lark Drive, formerly owned jointly by Jim and Cecilia Warwick, will be owned jointly by Ryan and Yvonne Warwick."

"But they're
children,
Your Honor," Jim's attorney blurted.

The judge gave the man a searing look over the top of his reading glasses. "I'm aware of that, Mr. Gandy. I just arranged their custody agreement, remember?"

"But…but how can children own property?"

"Are you saying they're not citizens of this county the same as their parents?"

"Well, no, Your Honor," Gandy sputtered. "But this is highly irregular."

"Perhaps." Judge Carpenter pursed his lips. "But here’s the rub: Mrs. Warwick says she needs the house because she'll be living there half the time with the children. Mr. Warwick says the same thing. The truth is, neither of them actually needs this house or they would have worked harder to maintain the family
in
the house. No, the ones who need this house are the children. They need to stay in their own rooms with their friends, school and familiar activities close by, especially at this time of year. Christmas should be associated in their minds with happiness, not the breakup of a family."

He lifted his hand and pointed from Jim to Cecilia. "You two figure out how you're going to make this work." His stern look softened as he gazed at the two stunned people sitting before him. "You both are loving and responsible parents. I have no doubt of that. And even though in your minds your marriage is irretrievably broken, your children's welfare must come first. I will expect a report in two months from the two of you to tell me what you have arranged and how it's working. If, at that time, your joint custody is working smoothly, your divorce will be granted."

The judge instructed his clerk to set a date for the Warwicks’ return to court and then left the bench, leaving his audience to scramble to their feet, staring open-mouthed after him.

Cecilia finally located her voice. "Can he do that?"

"He just did," Faye sighed, gathering up her papers and placing them carefully inside her briefcase.

"Can we appeal or something?" Cecilia's mind could barely grasp the idea of Ryan and Yvonne owning the house, much less having to work out a care agreement with Jim. She had planned on having him pick the kids up on weekends, or for overnight stays, perhaps take them for alternate holidays. That's what other divorced couples did, wasn't it?

Except that she and Jim weren’t divorced. They had to continue in this limbo of separation for several more weeks. Two months!

"I wouldn't recommend appeal, at least not until you and Jim have given this a try. Judge Carpenter is smart and powerful. No other judge will touch this case if it looks like you made no effort to follow his instructions," Faye said.

Cecilia glanced over Faye's shoulder and shook her head in resignation. Jim was apparently having the same conversation with his lawyer.

How were they going to do this? They hadn't agreed on anything in months. Besides, Jim never even got home before eight in the evening. He had no idea how to prepare a meal for the children, where to take Yvonne for her dance lessons, which team members' mom would be picking Ryan up for soccer practice. Cecilia had always taken care of the details of daily life.

She straightened her shoulders. Well, he was going to have to start helping out. He didn’t have a choice. The judge had ordered it.

She had asked Jim to help around the house more, many times—but she hadn’t insisted, she reminded herself.

And she hadn’t insisted because she’d felt guilty, felt she didn’t have a right to ask. Through all the years of their marriage, she’d never asked Jim to consider taking a job where he could be home more. Quitting his job to start his own business and be closer to home had been all his idea.

Don’t go there,
she told herself. There was nothing she could do about that old secret now except keep it hidden.

As if she had called his name, Jim glanced up and met her eyes. The cool expression he'd worn whenever he’d looked at her over the past few months was gone, replaced by annoyance. He walked around the table toward her. She braced herself for the clipped tone that seemed to be the only one he used with her anymore.

This would be so much easier if she didn't still care what he thought, she mused, if she didn't have to look at his snapping green eyes and remember other times when they had been filled with laughter.

In many ways Jim still looked the same as the man she had married ten years ago. His black hair had a faint dusting of gray now, but it only made him look more distinguished. He was also as tall and lean as he’d ever been, but he seemed to have more substance, more solidity, than he’d had in the early days of their marriage. Funny,  Cecilia thought—she sometimes felt as insubstantial herself as a wisp of smoke.

"I'll come over this evening and we can talk about this," he said.

At one time, not long ago, Cecilia would have simply agreed, then sat at home waiting for him. Not anymore. "No, let's settle this now."

He lifted a dark eyebrow at her. She wished he wouldn't do that. It always made her feel defensive, feel as if she needed to rush into speech, give reasons and justifications. But she didn't say anything. She waited him out.

"How?" he finally said, then glanced over as his attorney joined them. The four adults stood, sizing each other up, but the main participants, Cecilia and Jim, were the ones who would have to do the talking.

"Well, apparently, the kids own the house now, but one of us has to be with them all the time."

"Fine,” Jim said. “This is Monday. You take them this week, and I'll take them next week."

"And where will I go when you're in charge? I'm the one who's living in the house with them now. You've been at Doug's house, remember? I can't very well go stay with your friend while you have the kids." Cecilia folded her arms and tilted her head as she anticipated his answer.

"Could I interject something?" Faye asked before Jim could say anything.

The other three looked at her.

"It's a big house, with maid's quarters no one uses. Why don't you move in there, Jim? You could be on hand when it's your turn."

Everyone stared at her for a few seconds, then Jim shook his head emphatically. "No. It won’t work."

"Why not?" his attorney asked. "It would be only until you could make other arrangements. Until Judge Carpenter grants the decree." His glance moved from one to the other of them. "Financially, it makes sense."

"But the whole idea is to not have to live together anymore," Cecilia burst out. "I mean, it’s a
divorce,
right?"

"But you
aren’t
divorced,” Gandy said. “Judge Carpenter just guaranteed that you won’t be for at least the next two months."

Jim and Cecilia looked at each other. They were no longer a couple, no longer together, but just as it had been since the moment of Ryan's birth, and then Yvonne's, their first thought was for the children’s welfare.

"Take the maid's quarters," she said. "You can move in tomorrow." Without waiting for his assent, she turned and left the courtroom, her attorney hurrying after her.

She had twenty-four hours to shore up her defenses. That would be enough time, wouldn't it?

****

Jim stared into his nearly empty glass and fought a losing battle with self-pity. Things hadn't worked out at all the way he’d thought they would today. For one thing, he had wanted to be able to spend time with Ryan and Yvonne without the reality of his failure as a husband staring him in the face. Now here he was, going straight back into the fire—in the house with Cecilia, and, no doubt, still not measuring up to her idea of what a hands-on father should be.

After he and Cecilia had agreed on joint custody, he had thought he might have a good chance of keeping the house and having the kids stay there when it was his turn to care for them. He had been perfectly willing to help Cecilia find a place nearby, one that would accommodate her and the children when they were with her half the time. Apparently, he and their mother hadn't given as much consideration to what was best for them as they should have. Or so Judge Carpenter thought.

He still couldn't believe his house now belonged, even temporarily, to a nine-year-old and a six-year-old. He didn't begrudge them the house. They were his kids. He loved them and wanted what was best for them, but still….

Jim didn’t finish the thought. He didn't begrudge the house to his children, period. That was it, pure and simple.

He picked up the glass, drained the last of his beer and set it down carefully. He had stopped by Stoney's Grill because he'd always liked their steaks and the atmosphere was lively without being raucous. Something was wrong, though. The place was dead, with only a few customers and no one at the piano in the corner. The tinsel garlands hanging from the ceiling were spaced in awkward loops, as if the person doing the decorating had been indulging in too much Christmas cheer, or didn’t care how it looked. There were too many wait staff for the number of customers, and his waitress hovered over him like a mother hen with a lone chick. Maybe she saw how depressed he was and felt sorry for him.

Jim winced. How low had he sunk to be grateful for a waitress who felt sorry for him? He gave her a glance and she looked over with a smile. Maybe she felt more than sorry for him, he thought. Maybe she liked what she saw.

He nearly snorted up the beer he'd just swallowed. Not hardly. Besides, he wasn't ready to get involved with another woman. That was the last thing on his mind. Getting involved with a woman was exactly how he'd ended up in this mess in the first place.

"Would you like another beer, hon?" the waitress asked, still with that sympathetic look.

"Sure," he began, then changed his mind. "Nah, I'd better not. I'm driving. Just the check, please."