Her lawyer was also considered to be good-though not as good as Victor’s. Her own attorney had told her that a good lawyer never asked a question for which he didn’t already know the answer.

Funny how a road-weary lawyer with a well-rehearsed client could still manage to make everything sound so spontaneous. Funny how the things you loved could turn so quickly into objects of scorn, she thought. It was a quality she had first admired, then learned to despise. Victor had said he was the best in Florida, which hadn’t surprised her. His lawyer was good, Donna admitted to herself. “What do you mean? She just stopped?” the lawyer probed. Obviously something beyond his comprehension. “She stopped driving the car,” Victor said, almost wondrously. But it was all still there to see-the conventionally handsome, even kind face, with its brooding blue eyes and almost black hair, the sensitive yet commanding set of his features, his full mouth, the imperious yet curiously respectful tone of his voice.

She looked at his face and wished she could be like some of those women she had often read about who, when they looked at a lost or former lover, wondered what they could have seen in him in the first place. She almost smiled-why should their divorce be any different than their marriage? Could you give us some examples of what you describe as your wife’s erratic behavior over the last few years.”ĭonna Cressy sat in the straight hard-backed chair, her back rigid, not touching the wood, and watched the man in the witness stand, the man to whom she had been married for six years, Victor Cressy, age thirty-eight and five years her senior, continue to grind what was left of her self-image into fine flecks of ash (human remains from the cremator’s oven), to dissect every phrase she had uttered during their life together, every tone, every nuance until there was nothing left but his interpretation of how it had been. The lawyer smiled with well-practiced patience, perfectly pitched understanding in his voice as he elaborated. “Could you be a little more specific when you say ‘erratic behavior’?”

Kiss mommy goodbye