Chapter 67 Georgina
GEORGINA
Ilean back in my chair, blown away. Heartsick. Devastated. How am I going to remain angry with Reed after reading all of this?
I’m sitting in a conference room at Rock ‘n’ Roll, having just read the documents comprising the twenty-year-old legal malpractice suit filed by Eleanor Rivers against her divorce attorney—which, in turn, set forth the basic facts of the underlying divorce and custody battle between Eleanor and Terrence Rivers.
And I’m feeling like I’ve just been run over by a Mack truck.
I can’t imagine what Reed had to do—the fortress he had to build around his heart—to overcome the chaos and abandonments of his childhood.
It’s taken me half a day to read everything in the three boxes sent from the courthouse, all of which can be summarized as follows:
Two years before Reed came along, Terrence and Eleanor Rivers had a son named Oliver.
When little Oliver Rivers was born, Terrence and Eleanor hired a weekday, live-in housekeeper/nanny named Amalia Vaccaro.
Two years later, when Reed joined the family, a weekend nanny named Celeste was added to the payroll.
Why did Terrence and Eleanor feel they needed so much assistance with their two young children, when Eleanor didn’t work outside the home?
Well, according to Eleanor, it was because Terrence wanted his young wife to be able to “dote on their children” while also having plenty of time to “paint and nap, and read poetry,” and, basically, not have to worry about pesky things like cleaning toilets or making the family dinner, or anything else that might cause Eleanor a moment of worry or stress.
According to Terrence, however, he insisted on round-the-clock help for his “unstable and emotional” wife because he knew, from the start, she would make an “unfit mother, if she were left to handle the pressures of motherhood without a lot of help.”
Not so, Eleanor retorted in a deposition, pointing out that she’d grown up babysitting her younger sisters and her neighbors’ children.
“I’ve always adored babies,” Eleanor insisted.
“And I absolutely adored mine.” According to Eleanor, it was Terrence, not herself, who was the unfit parent.
“Terrence never showed any genuine interest in being a true father to our boys,” Eleanor claimed.
“He loves having a family for Christmas cards. But that’s about it.
” Moreover, Eleanor claimed, the reason Terrence “insisted” on hiring their weekend nanny, Celeste, wasn’t because Eleanor needed her.
But because Celeste was “young and beautiful, and Terrence wanted to get her into bed.”
But no matter what Eleanor argued in the divorce, it fell on deaf ears.
At least, that was my impression when reading the documents—and all because of one tragic fact, which Terrence and his army of lawyers relentlessly hammered on: it was Eleanor who was home alone with her two young sons on the fateful Saturday when little Oliver Rivers drowned in his family’s backyard swimming pool.
On that day, the weekend nanny, Celeste, had called in sick, and Terrence was off playing golf.
At least, according to Terrence. According to Eleanor, Terrence was off screwing Celeste, the “sick” weekend nanny, that fateful day.
In the legal malpractice case, one of Eleanor’s biggest beefs with her own divorce lawyer was that she hadn’t tracked down Terrence’s actual whereabouts that day, either through hotel receipts or witnesses.
Eleanor claimed Terrence was a liar and a cheater in the divorce—which, of course, isn’t a hard thing to believe, in retrospect, considering Terrence’s criminal conviction three years later.
She argued proof of Terrence’s infidelity on that particular Saturday, and his lies about it in the divorce, would have debunked his entire case, all of which centered on Terrence being a devoted and exemplary husband and father—a pillar of the community.
To Eleanor’s thinking, proving Terrence was an unfaithful husband and a liar under oath would have given her a fighting chance to retain the right to care for her son, Reed.
Personally, I’m not sure if Eleanor was right about any of that.
I have to think, even if the judge had ruled Terrence was a liar and a cheater in relation to his wife, it wouldn’t have made him decide Terrence was an unfit parent.
Otherwise, half the divorced people in the world would lose custody of their kids.
But, either way, I felt bad for Eleanor while reading the malpractice case.
It was undisputed she’d been alone with her two boys the day Oliver died, which was a tragedy, in itself—and one she was desperately trying to grapple with and explain.
But, unfortunately, for Eleanor, that horrible tragedy was all the judge in the divorce case needed to know about, seven years later, to grant Terrence full legal and physical custody of Reed.
What did Eleanor get? Once-weekly supervised visitations with her son, for two hours at a time.
Honestly, I have no idea if Oliver’s death was Eleanor’s “fault,” as Terrence claimed.
Maybe it was. But I can’t help thinking children die tragically in swimming pools every day—sometimes, even in the presence of lifeguards.
Sometimes, at a party, when a bunch of parents are standing nearby.
Are all parents whose children slip silently underwater, never to rise again, de facto unfit parents to their surviving children, based on a few seconds of tragic inattention?
And if so, are they still unfit parents, a full seven years after the tragedy?
I don’t pretend to have answers. I’m just saying, from what I just read, I feel like the judge in the divorce case believed Terrence’s version of events, hook, line, and sinker, without giving Eleanor’s version of events, and her desperate pleas for him to listen to her, a moment’s sincere consideration.
And, in light of what we’ve since learned about Terrence, one of the world’s most notorious liars, I feel in my bones Eleanor was probably given a raw deal.
In Eleanor’s version of events, she had the stomach flu the day Oliver died and could barely keep her eyes open.
Eleanor testified she “begged” and “pleaded” with her husband to stay home and help her with their children, since the weekend nanny, Celeste, had called in sick.
“But Terrence told me to ‘suck it up, Buttercup,’” Eleanor testified in a deposition, an excerpt of which was attached to a motion in the malpractice case.
“So that’s what I did. I put the boys down for their regular morning nap, the same as always, set an alarm so I’d wake up before them, the same as always, and then, I crawled into bed and crashed. ”
Tragically, when Eleanor woke up and went to check on her boys, she found Reed still fast asleep in his crib.
.. and Oliver nowhere to be found. She testified she looked high and low for her missing son, becoming increasingly panicked, and finally found him in an unthinkable spot.
The poor woman described her desperate dive into the swimming pool.
She testified about how she pulled Oliver from the water and tried frantically to resuscitate him.
.. But it was too late. She testified, “I had no idea Oliver knew how to open the lock we’d put up high on the sliding door.
He’d pulled up a chair to reach it. He’d never done that before! ”
A week after Oliver’s death, Eleanor tried to commit suicide.
She was hospitalized thereafter for a week, and, then, sent to a long-term “mental care” facility in Los Angeles for the better part of a year.
While she was away, Terrence was Father of the Year, according to him.
Although, according to Eleanor, it was Amalia, not Terrence, who cared for Reed during this period.
But since nobody called Amalia as a witness in the divorce case—yet another grievance for Eleanor in the later malpractice lawsuit—the divorce judge, once again, sided with Terrence, even going so far as to praise him for being Reed’s “rock” during this time.
Poor Eleanor. She testified in the divorce, “I fully admit I wasn’t capable of caring for Reed during the first year after Olly’s death.
But I knew Amalia was there for him, and that I needed to focus on getting better so I could get out and be a good mother to him.
So that’s what I did. I got the help I needed.
And then I came home and took care of my son for the next six years.
I’m not a perfect mother, but who is? Judge, I want to be with my son.
I want to be his mother. Please, please, let me do that. ”
It wasn’t enough to convince the judge. Not when Terrence, a man regarded as a “pillar of the community” testified that Eleanor was “useless and non-functional” when she returned home from her year away, and then remained that way for the entirety of the six years preceding the divorce.
In the end, Eleanor got bitch-slapped at every turn by Terrence and his team of lawyers.
And then by the divorce judge. And then she got bitch-slapped again in the legal malpractice case.
The same way, it seems to me, if I’m reading between the lines correctly, she’d gotten bitch-slapped by Terrence during their marriage.
After the judge in the divorce case granted Terrence full legal and physical custody of Reed, Eleanor swallowed a bottle of pills.
It was the same thing she’d done after Oliver died seven years prior.
And, again, it ultimately led to her institutionalization in a shitty facility in Los Angeles.
Against all odds, she bounced back after about a year and came out with her boxing gloves on.
She filed a legal malpractice action against her divorce attorney, the one I’ve just read, as some sort of last-gasp attempt to prove she’d been railroaded in the divorce, and that she did, in fact, have the wherewithal to care for Reed.
But when the judge in the malpractice lawsuit ruled against Eleanor, the same way the divorce judge had, it was game over for Eleanor’s mental health.
She snapped for the last time. Once again, she tried to end it all.
And wound up in that same, shitty Los Angeles institution.
This time, for good, until her hard-working, loyal, and generous son moved her to a posh facility in Scarsdale.
Was Eleanor capable of caring for Reed at the time of the divorce, as she insisted vehemently at trial?
I have no idea. All I know is it strikes me as awfully unfair that Terrence had Amalia’s full-time help with Reed, and yet the judge expressly commented in his ruling against Eleanor, “A woman shouldn’t need a paid nanny to help her care for her own children. ”
Also, I can’t help feeling irate that the judge believed everything Terrence said, without question, given that, a mere two and a half years later, the FBI raided Terrence Rivers’ sprawling mansion at dawn and arrested him in his underwear for staggering, truly evil financial crimes, thereby rendering his thirteen-year-old son, Reed, whom he’d fought so hard to claim for himself in the divorce, an effective orphan.
Was Terrence Rivers any less of an “unfit parent” for mercilessly stealing from countless innocent families who’d trusted him, as Eleanor was for taking a nap, along with her two sons, when she had the stomach flu?
I mean, assuming Eleanor’s version of the story was true. Which, granted, I don’t know.
I scrub my face with my palms, overwhelmed and aching for Eleanor.
And Amalia. And Oliver. And, of course, for my beautiful liar, Reed.
I’ve always found his hard outer shell immensely attractive, because it’s what makes the rare glimpses of softness and vulnerability all the more breathtaking.
But now, I’m realizing Reed’s patented poker face, the steely mask he wears so well and often, must have been forged early on in his life as a coping mechanism.
A way to survive the chaos. The abandonments.
The lack of control he must have felt, at all times.
Even though I lost my mother at a young age, I nonetheless had the good fortune to observe her passionate, happy marriage with my father before she died.
But what has Reed observed of marriage that would make him believe it’s possible for one to be happy?
If I’d experienced everything Reed has, I’d probably have ten layers of cement around my heart, too.
Frankly, after reading all this, I’m in awe of how kind and generous Reed is.
.. exactly as Amalia said to me, that time we were cooking together in the kitchen.
I love him so much.
The thought pops into my head and streaks through my heart.
I love Reed. Even though I fervently wish I didn’t.
But so what if I do? I simply have to get over it.
Because loving Reed isn’t enough. For our relationship to work, I need to love and trust him.
And I don’t see how I could ever get there.
Not really. If I were to give Reed another chance, I know, deep down, I’d slowly become jealous, paranoid, and possessive.
I’d grow to despise the woman I’d become with him.
And he’d despise her, too. Which means it really is time for me to move on.
Ciao, stronzo.
It’s what my brain keeps telling me to do.
The thing I know is for the best. Move on, Georgie.
There are other fish in the sea. You’re too young to have met the great love of your life, anyway, no matter what your foolish heart is telling you.
Yes, Mom met her Prince Charming at nineteen.
But Mom and Dad’s fairytale was the exception, not the rule.
I tell myself all of these things, as I stare at the conference room wall in a daze.
I tell myself these things and stuff down the urge to call Reed and tell him I miss him.
I love him. I forgive him. But no. I can’t wave a magic wand and make everything the way it was before.
Even as my heart wants to hug the tragic, neglected, abandoned little boy who grew up to be a wildly successful, sexy, breathtaking man, my brain knows it’s time for me to move on.