261 he’d never forgive me if I didn’t go along. As it turns out, he
262 didn’t forgive me anyway. Though he’s not said so outright,
263 he’s not happy at Mather. Too much management and not as
264 great a variety of cases as in New York. So my unhappiness, of
265 course, is intolerable, a reproach.
266 Q. Who looks after Jane most of the time?
267 A. I look after her. It’s one of the reasons I’m a writing tutor.
268 It’s part-time. I can be home with Jane after school and on
269 holidays. We do have a housekeeper, Luz Garcia. She comes
270 in every day. We need someone full-time; she works 40 hours
271 a week for us, though not on an 8-hour-a-day schedule, and we
272 pay her Social Security—in case Daniel wants to head NIH
273 someday. Just kidding; I’d pay it anyway. This is being taped,
274 right? Luz is a resident alien. We helped her get her green
275 card. She’s wonderful. I have a younger sister, Cordelia, who
276 has Down’s and lives in Philadelphia, in a halfway house. I
277 visit her twice a month, sometimes more. I stay over in Philly,
278 Tuesday to Wednesday—that way I see her two days on each
279 visit—and Luz stays over in the house with Jane. It’s too
280 hard to rely on Daniel, though he makes a huge effort to have
281 dinner with her every night, and especially on Tuesdays when
282 I’m away. He works 90 to 100 hours a week, resident’s hours.
283 On weekends, which look like weekdays for him, he always,
284 or almost always, spends part of Saturday or Sunday doing
285 sports with Jane. Right now, he’s teaching her squash. Jane’s
286 a great athlete and Daniel’s a dogged one. Very competitive,
287 needless to say. He won’t fight me for custody—if that’s where
288 you’re going. He doesn’t have time, and he thinks, I think, I’m
289 a pretty good mom, or at least a devoted one. Since she was
290 born, I’ve loved her more than anyone else. [Pause] Well, that
291 says it all, doesn’t it. Well, maybe not all. In some way, it’s
292 been self-protective. Daniel has always needed “his children,”
293 those terribly sick and dying children, more than he needed
294 me or Jane. [Pause] But I’m not being fair. He adores Jane. He
295 calls us, or used to call us, the Three Musketeers. If we were
296 going somewhere, out to dinner or maybe a movie, the two
297 of them would go through this silly ceremony of departure,
298 a kind of Monty Python changing of the guard. I was the
299 audience. It started when Jane was about 3. He’d stand at
300 the side door and shout out, “Musketeers on the forecastle.”
301 Hearing those words, from wherever she was, Jane would fling
302 herself down the stairs to join him. When she got there, he’d
303 hold out his right hand and say, with a very solemn face, “All
304 for one.” Jane would high-five him and answer with an equally
305 solemn face, “And one for all.” Then he’d scoop her up, throw
306 her over his shoulder, and carry her out to the car. Jane was
307 in heaven in those moments; I think he was too. [Pause] The
308 Musketeers have disbanded.
309 Q. Was your husband’s decision to start divorce proceedings
310 a surprise to you?
311 A. No. Yes. He told me on January 3rd, three days into
312 the New Year, that he wanted a divorce. It threw me into
313 a tailspin. I thought we’d live unhappily ever after. I never
314 thought he’d go through with a second divorce. I asked him
315 if there was another woman. He said no but I don’t believe
316 him. I know his modus operandi, after all. I think he’s been
317 messing around with Dr. Stephanie Roth, a dermatologist
318 with a private practice in New York. They were in med school
319 together, and they’ve been intermittently in touch since.
320 She’s apparently the person to see for wrinkles in the City.
321 Her bread and butter is rejuvenating work, Botox, dermal
322 abrasions, and the like. She had a write-up once in Harper’s
323 Bazaar. Her face looks like it’s been ironed. [Pause] Do you
324 remember that scene in A Man for All Seasons, when More
325 confronts Richard Rich for betraying him in exchange for
326 being made Chancellor of Wales? More says to him, “I can
328 but for Wales?” That’s how I feel. I can understand Daniel
329 leaving me, but for Stephanie Roth?
330 Q. You seem very composed now.
331 A. Xanax. I took 3 mg. before I came. I’ve been seeing an
332 analyst from Northeastern Psychoanalytic, for 6 years. Isabel
333 Stokes. Over the years, she’s prescribed for me a variety of
334 antidepressants. Right now I’m on Wellbutrin. I’ve been
335 depressed since I was 10. I’m a pretty high-functioning
336 depressive, but a depressive nonetheless. Daniel hates it; he
337 takes it personally. I can’t blame him altogether. Depressives
338 are downers. Dr. Stokes gave me Xanax back in January. I
339 was so anxious, I couldn’t read, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t
340 eat. I took it pretty regularly in January and February, but
341 now I only take it when I think an occasion calls for it. Like
342 this. When I was given the summons at Golightly’s, I almost
343 passed out. Since then, I never travel without the Xanax. I
344 still haven’t gotten over it. I can’t believe Daniel would have
345 agreed to that, but maybe I’m being naïve. He might say in
346 his defense that I had provoked it. It was all my fault, as was
347 everything.
348 Q. What do you mean by provoking it?
349 A. I had a brief correspondence with Dr. Stephanie, which
350 may have stirred the pot.
351 Q. Could you be more specific?
352 A. I brought copies. I wrote to her; she wrote back; I wrote
353 back. Here.
354 [Extended pause. Note to Hannah: I am placing the three
355 letters in the file.]
356 Q. I see. Anything else?
357 A. Yes. About a week after he told me he wanted a divorce,
358 I asked him to rethink his decision or at least consider
359 mediation or counseling. He wasn’t interested. I then asked
360 him to hold off doing anything definitive, such as hiring a
361 lawyer, until I had gotten more used to the idea. He agreed.
362 He saw how upset I was. We talked about telling Jane. I asked
363 him if we could consult a therapist to find out the best way of
364 telling her. He agreed very quickly, and two days later we had
365 an appointment with Dr. Rachel Fischer, a child psychiatrist
366 at the Mather Child Study Center. I don’t know where he
367 found her; he’s very anti-shrink, thinks psychiatry is voodoo.
368 He believes in willpower—it’s the Ayn Rand in him—and he
369 disapproves of mental illness. Also obesity. He thinks of them
370 as mental slovenliness. Anyway, we went to see her on January
371 25th. She gave us some pointers, nothing surprising. She said
372 we should sp
eak to her together and reassure her that we were
373 only divorcing each other, and not her. She advised holding
374 off telling Jane until I could talk about divorce without crying.
375 Even Xanaxed up the wazoo, I was a wreck the first two
376 months, on or over the verge of tears all the time.
377 Q. Have you told Jane?
378 A. There’s a story. Two days after I was served at
379 Golightly’s, when I was in Philadelphia visiting my sister, I got
380 a call at 8 p.m. in my hotel from Jane. She was sobbing. Daniel
381 had told her we were getting a divorce. He got it into his head
382 that she knew somehow, and he thought he should reassure
383 her. I drove home immediately. Jane was a mess. And I didn’t
384 get to see Cordelia the next day, which was her birthday, and
385 which was very upsetting to her and to me. What a prince,
386 what a perfect prince. [Pause] The next day I told my father,
387 who encouraged me to consult his lawyers. A month later,
388 armed with meds, here I am.
389 Q. Are you both living in the same dwelling?
390 A. Dwelling, I like that. Yes, we’re in separate bedrooms
391 in our house. It’s a new house, 404 St. Cloud. We built it two
392 years ago, probably to ward off divorce. Isn’t that what people
393 do? They have a baby or build a new house. It’s a nice house,
394 modern, horizontal, clean-limbed, wood and windows, very
395 un–St. Cloud, which is a stew of English Tudor, American
396 Craftsman, and Tuscan Villa. Neighbors objected at first, but
397 we planted some full-grown trees in the front, and they subsided.
398 Daniel worked on the designs with the architect. He had thought
399 of becoming an architect at one point; in college, he went to
400 Columbia, he double-majored in chemistry and art history.
401 Q. Do you have a mortgage? Do you know its value?
402 A. I’m good about money. I pay the bills, I keep the tax
403 records. The house cost $375,000, more or less, including the
404 land and our very expensive Mather School of Architecture
405 architect. Its current value is about $525,000. I called a
406 Realtor, Laura Bucholtz, yesterday, to get a quick estimate.
407 She was the agent on the land sale and knows St. Cloud Street
408 from Germyn Street to Allerton. We have a 30-year mortgage
409 for $250,000 at 8%. Carrying costs, including local taxes but
410 not utilities, are about $3,500 a month. Daniel will want to
411 keep the house. I suppose that gives me some leverage?
412 Q. It may. Is there any other real estate?
413 A. My father and I own a house on Martha’s Vineyard,
414 on the water in Aquinnah. It was my mother’s house, and
415 she left it to us in a trust; the survivor gets it all. There’s a
416 special name for that. This creates problems for my father. Of
417 course, he doesn’t want me to predecease him, but his wife,
418 my stepmother, Cindy, would like to be able to use it and to
419 decorate it. The house is a wreck. Nothing’s been done to it
420 since 1920, except the bare minimum to keep it from falling
421 down, and the Vineyard in those days wasn’t what it is today.
422 It has no inside toilets, only an outhouse with a row of 4 WCs
423 off the back porch. And my father and I have to agree on any
424 changes because we own it together, and we can’t so we don’t.
425 [Pause] We don’t agree on much, except Jane.
426 Q. Do you know what it’s worth?
427 A. When my mother died in 1979, it was valued at $90,000.
428 It’s probably worth $3 million now. Maybe more. The land,
429 not the house. The site is spectacular.
430 Q. Do you use it? Does your father?
431 A. My father never goes up. He finds the toilet situation
432 unacceptable. Oh, and there are no showers, only bathtubs.
433 I go up at least once a year with Jane, who loves it. When
434 she was smaller, she thought the outhouses were great fun,
435 but now she’d like a proper inside toilet. I think she’s been
436 lobbying my father. My father wants to fix the whole place up,
437 make it an Edgartown kind of house. That or nothing.
438 I want inside toilets and a shower and a dishwasher and cable,
439 but I want to keep the house’s essential character. It’s all I
440 have left of my mother. Daniel went up once, never again. He
441 is hugely resentful that I haven’t put him on the deed. I keep
442 explaining that I can’t, but he refuses to understand, seeing it
443 as a deliberate act on my part. And he, too, hated the toilets.
444 I think in some ways men are more fastidious than women.
445 Q. Any other property?
446 A. The usual detritus of middle-class acquisitiveness. The
447 only things I think we’d argue over are a Persian rug, which
448 was a wedding present from my grandparents, an early Cindy
449 Sherman photograph, and a Jenny Holzer sign, “Abuse of
450 power comes as no surprise.” They’re the only things we’d
451 both want.
452 Q. Are you likely to inherit any money, property?
453 A. I suppose I’m likely to inherit money from my father
454 when he dies, if he dies, but I can’t count on it. For one thing,
455 I might easily predecease him. My mother died young, 46,
456 and so did her mother. For another, he’s only 68, and the
457 Meiklejohns live forever. He’s got a brother who’s 87 and
458 still sits on the federal bench. Both his parents died in their
459 90s. For a third, he’s controlling. And he’s always rewriting
460 his will. Ask his lawyer, Proctor, as in The Crucible. He’s a
461 member of your firm. I think he does a new one every three
462 months. He recently said he created a trust for Jane and me,
463 but he’s the trustee. What does that mean? He won’t tell me
464 anything else. This may change with the divorce. He doesn’t
465 like Daniel. He doesn’t exactly think he married me for my
466 money, but he doubts he would have married me without
467 it. But that could be said for my looks as well. Daniel likes
468 tall blondes with irregular features, bluestockings with trust
469 funds. Helen, his first wife, had serious money. Do you know
470 the Fincher Galleries at the Fine Arts Museum? A gift of her
471 grandparents. Dr. Stephanie is a bit of an outlier, not a WASP,
472 no family money, too short. Her dad was only a doctor, also a
473 dermatologist. But he was frugal and he believed in real estate.
474 He left her, free and clear, two apartments in the Beresford.
475 She lives in the smaller one, eight rooms. [Pause] I’m not sure
476 she’ll get to walk down the aisle. [Pause] You shouldn’t think I
477 was brought up to talk about money. I wasn’t. My mother, who
478 was a rigorously honorable, straightforward person, imposed
479 an absolute embargo on money as a subject of conversation;
480 she thought talking about money was common. It offended
481 her, the way Nixon’s hate list and anti-Semitism offended her,
482 as a sign of bad breeding. I was never allowe
d to say how much
483 anything cost. I must have looked an idiot. I went to school
484 with the children of professors and lawyers. They knew what
485 everything cost, including their parents’ psychiatrists. [Pause]
486 I don’t talk about the price of things, that lesson has stuck,
487 but I am prepared to acknowledge certain obvious facts about
488 my life and my upbringing. I was brought up rich and I have
489 the exaggerated sense of entitlement that money confers. I
490 don’t always get what I want, but not because of money. That
491 makes me very different from most other people, including my
492 husband. He never had money until recently. He likes it, having
493 it and spending it, but success is more important to him.
494 Q. What about other assets? Savings and the like?
495 A. Daniel makes the money, and he handles the
496 investments. I don’t think he’s hiding anything. He has
497 retirement funds with TIAA-CREF in the neighborhood
498 of $600,000. He also has a 401(k) plan with approximately
499 $300,000 in it. Other assets include about $700,000 in stocks,
500 $90,000 in treasury bills, and $80,000 in a savings account.
501 He does a quarterly accounting; I got the figures from the one
502 he did in early October.
503 Q. Any insurance policies?
504 A. Daniel is insured for $1.5 million; I’m insured for
505 $200,000—to pay Luz’s salary in case I conk. He’d need
506 somebody.
507 Q. Could you provide a salary history? And a few other
508 particulars? [Note to Hannah: I handed Mrs. Durkheim
509 copies of the Divorce Work Sheets: Summary Biographies for
510 her and her husband.]
511 A. Of course.
512 Q. Does your husband have any separate assets? Any
513 inheritances?
514 A. Daniel’s an orphan. His father died in 1992, his mother
515 in 1998. He inherited a 1989 Honda Accord and $16,000.
516 His parents owned a printing business. They never made
517 much money, but they saw that their son, their only child,
518 was well educated. And praised, praised for everything
519 he did, every bowel movement, every report card, every
520 titration. They didn’t much care for the grandchildren. They
521 couldn’t hold a candle to their father. And they certainly had
522 no use for me or Helen. We weren’t worthy of him; we didn’t