“And that was the end of it?” Meredith looked surprised that his wife had been so adamant about it. San Francisco didn't seem like a bad place to live, and she assumed there had to be entertainment lawyers there too, though maybe not of the magnitude of those in L.A. But Callan smiled as he answered her.
“No, that wasn't the end of it. She commuted. It was a crazy existence. We were never in the same city at the same time, and when we were, we were either annoyed about something, out of touch with each other, or exhausted. The only surprising part of it is that that was when we decided to have children. Maybe decided isn't the right word exactly. The first one was an accident, and the next two were a result of my convincing her that it wasn't fair to have an only child.”
“I'm an only child,” Meredith said with a look of amusement.
“So am I,” Callan said, and didn't really surprise her. He had the kind of intensity and drive and urge to succeed typical of only children. “It's all right now, but I didn't think it was much fun as a kid. And I thought that as busy as we were, it would be better for them to have siblings.”
“I'm surprised she went along with that theory.”
“She was a good sport. She really tried for a while. We both wanted to make it work, but I guess I wasn't very realistic. She was never very maternal, and she was far more interested in business than in her children. She hired a nanny, and as soon as she had each of them, she headed back to L.A. on the next plane she could get on. She acted more like a visiting aunt when she came home on weekends, when she did, than their mother. And eventually, she came home less and less often. She said it was too noisy and too confusing. The truth is, I'd never say it to them, but the kids drove her crazy.” It sounded sad to Meredith, and exactly what she didn't want to happen in her life. She wondered how they were now, and how high a price they had paid emotionally for their mother's bad behavior.
“Where is she now?”
“That's another story. What I didn't realize in the midst of all that was that she and her partner had been romantically involved for several years before we met, and for most of our marriage. We'd been married for seven years before she told me. And by then, we had three kids, and she wanted out. She gave me custody of the children without batting an eye, they closed their practice in L.A. a year later, and moved to London to open up an office there. We've been divorced for eight years, and she finally married him a few years ago, and I think they're very happy. Needless to say, they don't have children.”
“Does she ever see the kids?”
“She flies over a couple of times a year for a few days, usually if one of her clients is making a movie in L.A., and then she comes up to see the kids. And she takes them to the South of France for a few weeks every summer.” She sounded heartless to Meredith, and she couldn't help feeling sorry for his children.
“Do they hate her for it … or are they just heartbroken?”
“Neither one. I think they accept her as she is. They've never known anything different. And I'm around most of the time. I try not to work too late usually, and they can always call me at the office if they have a problem. My house is only about five minutes from the office. Weekends are sacred, and I take a month off to be with them in Tahoe every summer. It's worked out pretty well, though not exactly what I had in mind in the beginning. I thought we were going to have one of those perfect little families with a mommy and a daddy and a flock of little children. Instead, it's just me and the flock … or rather, the flock and I.” He smiled at her. “We have a good time together, and they keep me pretty busy, mostly on weekends.”
“I'm surprised you never remarried,” Meredith said honestly. “It can't be easy bringing up three kids on your own.”
“In some ways it's easier,” he said with surprising candor. “You don't have to argue with anyone about how to bring them up. There are no battles over what's right or wrong or good for them. You get to make all your own decisions. We have a good relationship, and I think they respect me. And to be honest, I think Charlotte cured me. I've never been anxious to get into that kind of relationship again. There's something incredibly artificial and dishonest about marriage.” Particularly if your wife spent the entire marriage sleeping with her business partner. But Meredith was careful not to say that. After all, they may have been friends, but he was still a client.
“You must have been pretty badly hurt when she told you the truth,” Meredith said gently. “Were you surprised, or did you suspect it?”
“I never suspected it for a minute. I thought she was the most honest woman alive. And so did she. In fact, she was very proud of herself that he was the only ‘other’ man she had ever slept with while we were married. In her eyes, that was almost as good as being faithful. I didn't see it quite that way. I was pretty bitter about it for a long time.”
“And now?” Meredith asked, as they finished their first glass of wine and started on dinner. It had been an interesting conversation, and a surprising glimpse into the private man. It was a story that made her sorry for him. If Steve ever had an affair, she knew she would have been heartbroken. In Steve's case, she knew he never would. But Callan's wife sounded like a different breed completely. “Do you think you're still bitter about it?”
“Bitter? No, not now. I still get angry about it sometimes when I think about it. It wasn't exactly fair play, but that's the way it works sometimes. I'm just not inclined to do anything as foolish as that again. I don't need to put my head on the chopping block and offer someone the opportunity to knock it off, or rip my heart out. Marriage can be kind of a tough playing field at times, kind of like the Colosseum. I just don't have the urge anymore, to offer myself up to the lions.” The images he used were strong, and so was the picture he painted with them. He had been betrayed by the one woman he had loved and trusted, the mother of his children, and it was obvious that he had never forgiven her for it, or entirely recovered from it either. And Meredith wasn't sure she blamed him.
“How old are your kids now?”
He smiled as soon as she asked the question. It was easy to see that he was crazy about them. “Mary Ellen is fourteen, not an easy age, I might add. She thought I was great until about a year ago, according to her my IQ has been slipping ever since then. She thinks I'm senile. Julie is twelve, and still thinks I'm okay, but she's starting to slip into that same red zone. In another year I'll be heading downhill with her pretty quickly. And Andrew is nine. By some miracle, he still thinks I'm terrific. I hope you meet them sometime, Merrie.” Without prompting, he had adopted the same nickname Steve used, but she didn't mind it.
“I hope I do too. They sound like nice kids.” But she couldn't help wondering how hard it was for them not having a mother figure around, particularly for girls going into their teens. She couldn't imagine that it was easy for them, or for Cal either. And it was a very intriguing story. He was a man of many faces, and it was interesting knowing something more about him. She didn't want to ask, but she wondered if he had a girlfriend, or if he was one of those men who, once bruised, was satisfied to have a chorus line of temporary companions, maybe even one at a time, to be disposed of any time they got too close to him. He didn't sound like a man who was willing to entertain the idea of commitment, not after what he'd experienced the first time, and in a way, she felt sorry for him.
But he surprised her with his next question. “Why do you think you don't want kids, Meredith? You're missing out on a wonderful experience, but people who don't have them don't know that.”
“I've never had time to have a baby. I'm just too busy. It wouldn't be fair to my children. I don't want to do what your wife did, hire a nanny, and rush back to my office. I think children deserve to have full-time mothers, and to be honest, I think I'd hate that. I have too much fun doing what I'm doing.”