The War of the Roses

two Maalox tablets into his palm and chewed them quickly.

'I guess not,' he said, confused.

'Why disrupt their lives? I told them that we were going to live apart, but that you'd still be easily accessible. I assumed that. You are their father. I hope I didn't overreach.'

'I don't want them to suffer,' Oliver said lamely, feeling the palpitation subside. He swallowed repeatedly to get rid of the chalky taste in his mouth. She's torpedoing my life and making me a party to it, he told himself. He felt helpless. Utterly defeated.

'So that's it, then?' he asked. His ear had been groping for a single shred of contrition. He hadn't found a minute sign of it. Her response to his question was silence.

'If only I had been prepared. Seen a sign. Something. I feel like I've been shot between the eyes.'

'Don't get melodramatic, Oliver. It's been disintegrating for years.'

'Then why didn't I ever see it?' 'Part of you probably did.'

'Now you're a psychiatrist?' He had no urge to check his sarcasm. If she were in the room at that moment, he was certain he would have hit her. He wanted to smash her face, obliterate those innocent Slavic features, gouge out those hazel eyes, surely mocking him now.

'Bitch,' he mumbled.

'I expect you'll be coming by for your things,' she said calmly.

‘I suppose . ..' What more was there to say? He dropped the telephone into its cradle.

'Fini',' he whispered to the empty office, putting on his rumpled jacket and going out to keep his appointment with Goldstein.

Goldstein had a benign, Semitic face. He talked like a rabbi, an idea embellished by diplomas in Hebrew lettering hanging next to his law degree. He had a fringe of curly black hair, ringing a broad, shiny bald pate, and thick horn-rimmed glasses behind which droopy-lidded eyes offered lugubrious comments on the human condition. He wore a white-on-white shirt, Yemeni cuff links, and a striped Hermes tie. He lit up a large cigar as Oliver settled into a soft chair at the side of the desk.

Goldstein was rotund, with puddles of chins, and his fingers were short and squat as they tugged daintily at the cigar. Staring out from the top of a low bookcase was a framed picture of what was undoubtedly the Goldstein menage in younger days, three rotund children and an obese wife.

'I hate divorce,' he said, shaking his head and directing his gaze to the family portrait. 'Broken families. A shanda. I'm sorry. It means a 'shame' in Yiddish.'

'I'm not too pleased with it myself.'

'Whose idea?' Goldstein asked. 'Hers.'

Goldstein shook his head and blew smoke clouds into the air. He looked contemplative, sympathetic, wise. Oliver pictured him in a beard and skullcap, dispensing solace. A priest would have inhibited him with vague, unspoken guilt feelings. What he needed most was confession. Confess what? He felt his mind begin to empty in a long stream-of-consciousness narrative heavily larded with justifications, recriminations, and revelations, all of which seemed designed to give Goldstein a distorted, self-serving, self-pitying portrait of his eighteen-year marriage.

Goldstein listened patiently, puffing and nodding, his cigar dead center between his lips, his fat fingers cast in a delicate cathedral.

When he was finished, Oliver popped a Maalox into his mouth. The ex-rabbi destroyed his cathedral and put his smoldering cigar into an ashtray. Nodding, he stood up, reached for a yellow legal pad, and began to shoot questions at Oliver.

'Is there another man?'

'I don't think so.'

'Whoever thinks so? And no other woman?' 'None.'

'And joint property?'

'The house, of course, and all the antiques and other possessions in it. That's where we put everything we had. I'd say the house might fetch at least a half a million, with probably another half - or more - in antiques. God, did we lavish love on that place.' His eyes misted.

Goldstein noddedj as if he were a psychoanalyst listening to a patient unreel his life.

'What are you prepared to settle for, Mr. Rose?' Goldstein asked, the gentleness gone.

'I'm not really sure. I haven't had time to think about

it. I really don't know. I don't think the kids will be a problem. I earn a good living. I want them to be comfortable. I'm prepared to offer reasonable support.'

'And the house?' Goldstein asked.

'I don't know. Say half the value. After all, we did it together. Half of everything is okay with me.'

'You want a good divorce settlement or do you want to be sentimental? If you want to be sentimental, then you shouldn't get a divorce. In fact, I would rather you didn't. I hate these situations where children go from pillar to post like punching bags. Children are supposed to be a brucha.^’ He looked at Oliver and shook his head. 'A blessing.'

'Look, Goldstein. It's not my idea.' He felt the blood rise in his face.

'I understand.' Goldstein flapped a pudgy hand. 'You must be calm. Don't excite yourself.' Oliver felt him taking