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procedures,' she said and looked up at me quickly. 'A no-fault, incompatibility,' she added. Before I could respond, her car phone rang and she had to pick it up and talk.
"I didn't wait around. I went inside and ran to my room where I sat on my bed staring at the wall, wondering how anything like this could happen to me. What had happened to all the perfection? Where was my protective bubble? I was thinking about the embarrassment, of course, but I felt very frightened, too, like a bird that's been flying and flying and suddenly realizes all her feathers are gone and any moment she's going to drop to earth, hard.
"My mother came into the house but just called up to me to tell me she would talk to me more later; she had to return to work for a big meeting. She said, 'Don't worry. It will be all right. I'll take care of you.'
"She'll take care of me? I nearly broke out in hysterical laughter, but instead I sat there and cried.
"Of course, I thought the real reason they were divorcing was either my mother or my father had fallen in love with someone else and one or the other had found out. I envisioned it to be someone with whom they worked. I almost wish that was the reason now. At least I might be able to understand that better than incompatibility. How could two people who had been married as long as they had and were as smart and talented as they were not realize until now that they didn't like each other? It made no sense. It still doesn't."
"That's what I thought about my parents, too," Misty said.
"I never thought that about mine," Star added.
Cat just looked from them to me and remained her silent self.
"When my father returned from Denver the next day, he was furious that she had told me about it all without him being present.
"I was already home from school. My mother was at work and my father came directly from his office. He knocked on my door. I was still feeling dazed and numb and had just flopped on my bed and was lying there, staring up at the ceiling.
"'Hi,' he said. 'How are you doing?'
"'Peachy keen,' I told him.
"I wasn't any angrier at him than I was at her. I was furious at both of them for failing. You know," I said, pausing in my tale, "that's something I've been wanting to throw up at them for some time now. Parents have so many expectations for us, demands, requirements, whatever. We have to behave and do well in school and be sure to make them proud of us and never embarrass them. We have to be decent and respectful and respectable, but-why is it that they can go and destroy the family and drag us through all this to satisfy themselves?
"What about that, Dr. Marlowe?"
"It's a fair question to put to them," she said.
Star laughed.
"My momma and daddy would just feel awful if I asked them," she said. "First, I'd have to find them and get Momma while she was sober enough to understand."
"I thought of that question, too," Misty said. "I just haven't asked it."
I looked at Cat and she looked away quickly. What was her story?
"My father didn't even seem to recognize my anger. He had his own to express first," I said, getting back to my story.
"'We were supposed to do this together,' he said, 'but it's just like her to do what she did. Just in character for her to take control. Don't you worry. It's been duly noted,' he assured me. He was already keeping a legal diary for his lawyer to use in court."
I sighed, crossed my legs and sat back.
"So from the very beginning, the divorce was to be bitter and I was the battleground. Suddenly, I, who had been nothing but an inconvenience, became important, but believe me, I wasn't flattered. On occasion, I've told both my parents they shouldn't love me so much. They both looked confused, but I think deep down in their hearts, they knew what I meant, they knew what they'd buried.
"Dinner that evening was under a cloud, but neither of them would give the other the satisfaction of knowing he or she was terribly upset. They ate like there was no tomorrow just to