593 Riverside Drive - 14. Chapter 14

After New Year’s Day and despite Joe’s continued reluctance, Ella began to see the doctors recommended by her family doctor, David Felberbaum. At first, my mother went with her, but when Mama mainly found herself sitting in the waiting rooms, Ella realized she didn’t need to waste her sister’s time.

“Actually, the examinations aren’t as humiliating as I thought,” she explained. “They usually take less that a half-hour and are often far shorter. Then we sit and talk.”

“Do the doctors offer suggestions?” I asked.

“Yes – though they’re mainly to see other doctors – what they call ‘specialists.’ But all of them give me the same advice – ‘continued separation and rest.’ And that’s what Dr. Felberman first said.”

“It seems to have helped,” Mama acknowledged. “You’re calmer and more the way I always think of you.”

“My friends have noticed that, too, especially Marie, who’s known me the longest. They say I seem to enjoy lunches again, and dinners, and I more openly appreciate what we hear at concerts or see in a theater or at the opera. And I’m crocheting. For more than a year, I didn’t have the concentration.”

Maybe because of her progress, one of the specialists suggested that she see a psychiatrist.

“Now how will that be useful?” my mother objected. “The problem isn’t in your mind. It’s with Joe. And from what he’s told us, he’s not seeing any doctors, let alone specialists.”

“Maybe he will,” Ella reasoned, “when his lawyer suggests it. Though just yet, neither of us have chosen lawyers.”

“Are you hoping something will make that unnecessary?” I asked.

Ella didn’t seem to have an answer. “I don’t know,” she finally allowed. “You know I love Joe – even with these complications. But as things are, I can’t see living with him again – not as his wife.”

So she met with the psychiatrist and then reported. “That was even more talking – he devoted his entire afternoon to me. But as with the others, Dr. Gregory mainly asked short questions and then listened.”

“Were his questions any different?” Mama inquired.

“He used longer words,” Ella said smiling, “and words I had to keep asking him to explain. I’ve never thought of myself as poorly educated, but some of the words were in German, and none that I remember hearing our parents use.”

“I forgot that you both speak German,” I told her and Mama.

“It’s been years since we needed it,” Mama responded. “And that was at dinner, growing up, supposedly to be civilized. Still, it’s in my memory.”

“I read better than I speak,” Ella admitted. “But that was always true.”

“And this doctor spoke in German?” I went on.

“No, he spoke in English, though with a recognizable German flavor. And he kept changing so easily from one language to the other, and I think even using a bit of French. But no matter the words, he had no answers, only questions, and he couldn’t – and said he didn’t want to – prescribe any medicine that might help me sleep. He just repeated ‘separation and rest.’”

“I didn’t realize you were still having trouble sleeping,” I told her.

“Not as much as when Joe and I were sharing the same bedroom. But it’s been over two years since I could easily fall asleep and stay that way through the night. I wake up several times and have to read, or crochet, before I can sleep again.”

I couldn’t imagine that. Sleep was easy for me.

In February, Ella asked Joe to dinner again, so she could find out if he’d gone to a doctor or wanted to see one of hers. Instead, he spent the evening asking her to come home.

“Is it only the intimacy?” he questioned. “My father seems to be – not getting better, because you were right, that no longer seems possible. But now that Katie’s been able to spend more time with him, talking and playing cards, he seems to remember his manners. And you and Daughtie seem to be friendlier again, almost the way you were when you were writing her at school and at camp.”

“Yes, we can be pleasant with each other when we happen to meet. And I like that.”

“And if Katie and I persuaded my father and Laurie to share a bedroom, and you took my father’s, would that help?”

Ella gently answered. “It might. But probably not.”

“Could you try?” Joe went on.

Ella smiled. “Joe, what’s the sense of trying to be your wife if you can never come into my bedroom? It’s not the room that matters. It’s...”

She didn’t need to finish because everyone at the dinner table understood. So Joe left unhappy, and Ella again started to meet with possible lawyers. Then she chose one she’d spoken with in December – Max Steuer. He was close to her age and had some experience with divorce. “But he’s not so old that he seems uncomfortable with the idea.” Following her example, Joe – still reluctantly – finally asked a friend of his who occasionally took on “those kinds of cases.” “On the chance Ella and I really need to go to court.”

Pic listened to both men’s names then quickly commented, “They’re well respected but also very traditional. Neither is going to change divorce law.”

“I’m not trying to do that,” Ella protested. “I just want my marriage to end in the simplest, most polite way.”

“I appreciate that,” Pic replied. “And I’m sure so does Joe.”

After I asked Dr. Gildersleeve about the men, she did some research and almost entirely agreed with Pic. “They’re well-schooled but conservative, and not reported to be have much imagination.” Still, Ella felt comfortable with her choice.

One of the first weaknesses Max Steuer noted was that Ella was giving Joe an advantage by refusing to give up custody of Laurie. Ella rejected even considering that or talking about it at all.

“Well, what do you want more?” Steuer had gone on. “Your adopted son or a divorce?”

Ella said that, separate from the fact that she dearly loved Laurie, she might never have the chance to marry again, let alone have a child. “And if I’m not even given permission to live by myself, then how am I expected to find a husband?”

“Couldn’t you do that and then adopt?” Steuer asked.

“Why replace what I’ve already have?”

“I know. I just needed to warn you.”

Pic also cautioned Ella that she couldn’t depend on a judge ruling in her favor just because that seemed the reasonable thing to do. “Judges can only be guided by the present laws and precedents, and they have to obey their limits.”

“I don’t suppose there are women judges,” Ella almost teased, and Pic smiled but didn’t bother to reply. In the same way, I sensed that he really didn’t agree with what Ella was doing, and Lewis confirmed that. “Under all his education, my father’s still strongly Catholic. And I’m not sure anything could change that.”

Dr. Gildersleeve offered something similar. “Is your aunt so certain that she and her husband can’t compromise? She seems to be giving up a lot of what she values – much more than he is.”

I had to laugh, but not in front of my advisor. “I’m not sure she’s ever been with a man – or even thought about it,” I told Howard.

“Is she that old fashioned? How old is she?”

“No more than my parents’ age – or yours.”

“And we know how they felt.” He grinned. “I, at least, could almost truthfully be called a ‘bastard.’”

I tickled him. “That’s not possible. It’s not even part of the way you were brought up.”

“But I seem to have the same leanings as my parents. And God knows what your father learned out west.”

“He was barely a boy.”

“At first. And what better time to learn?”

My father tried to arrange a compromise, too. He and Herbert took Joe to dinner, and they talked through the evening. I’d wanted to go along, but even Herbert disapproved. “And you know that’s against my usual thinking.”

“That’s normally ‘Stumble-Forward-Herbert,’” my father joked. “Rationalize later.”

In the end, Joe thanked them both but decided that if he had to, he’d depend on the judge. Afterward, Mama wondered if Joe no longer had any feelings for Ella.

“We asked him that, too,” Papa assured her, “and he wouldn’t answer.”

“Wouldn’t or couldn’t?” I pressed.

Papa shrugged.

“Maybe he doesn’t know, either,” I suggested.

Herbert said he’d told Joe that. “And added that if he knew – or even suspected – what he did about his abilities that he never should have remarried – no matter how much he missed the company of women.”

“Could he answer that?”

“He insisted he didn’t know. But no man doesn’t know.” Herbert laughed. “It’s the first thing he checks in the morning.”

When Howard immediately chuckled, my father just stared.

“At least, coffee didn’t come out of my nose,” Howard told me later. “I didn’t completely embarrass myself.”

I said nothing.

In early March, a court date was chosen. “Is a two-month wait typical?” Ella asked Pic.

“For this type of trial, usually more than that – divorce is considered peripheral so has no priority. In fact, the court seems to have wanted to clear your case before the summer’s heat. If you’d delayed your request by another month, the trial may have been postponed till fall.”

“Then I’ll be patient.”

As expected, the trial was assigned to a closed courtroom. Ella could have several friends with her, so she could look out on sympathetic faces, and it was decided that Mama and I would go. Since the testimony could take up a week, I arranged with my professors to make the hearing part of my coursework. I’d use my shorthand to take notes and then write a report that could be discussed in class.

“Divorce isn’t so common that we can’t afford to study it freshly,” one of my teachers asserted. “And maybe it’s time for you to do more than sit at the side of the classroom.”

“That’s a victory,” Dr. Gildersleeve complimented when I told her. “However small.”

And once our family knew I’d be taking notes, they insisted I transcribe and then type them every night before dinner, so we could discuss what was happening then. So that’s what I promised.