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being naïve. He might say in
    346  his defense that I had provoked it. It was all my fault, as was
    347  everything.
    348  Q. What do you mean by provoking it?
    349  A. I had a brief correspondence with Dr. Stephanie, which
    350  may have stirred the pot.
    351  Q. Could you be more specific?
    352  A.I brought copies. I wrote to her; she wrote back; I wrote
    353  back. Here.
    354  [Extended pause. Note to Hannah: I am placing the three
    355  letters in the file.]
    356  Q. I see. Anything else?
    357  A. Yes. About a week after he told me he wanted a divorce,
    358  I asked him to rethink his decision or at least consider
    359  mediation or counseling. He wasn’t interested. I then asked
    360  him to hold off doing anything definitive, such as hiring a
    361  lawyer, until I had gotten more used to the idea. He agreed.
    362  He saw how upset I was. We talked about telling Jane. I asked
    363  him if we could consult a therapist to find out the best way of
    364  telling her. He agreed very quickly, and two days later we had
    365  an appointment with Dr. Rachel Fischer, a child psychiatrist
    366  at the Mather Child Study Center. I don’t know where he
    367  found her; he’s very anti-shrink, thinks psychiatry is voodoo.
    368  He believes in willpower—it’s the Ayn Rand in him—and he
    369  disapproves of mental illness. Also obesity. He thinks of them
    370  as mental slovenliness. Anyway, we went to see her on January
    371  25th. She gave us some pointers, nothing surprising. She said
    372  we should speak to her together and reassure her that we were
    373  only divorcing each other, and not her. She advised holding
    374  off telling Jane until I could talk about divorce without crying.
    375  Even Xanaxed up the wazoo, I was a wreck the first two
    376  months, on or over the verge of tears all the time.
    377  Q. Have you told Jane?
    378  A. There’s a story. Two days after I was served at
    379  Golightly’s, when I was in Philadelphia visiting my sister, I got
    380  a call at 8 p.m. in my hotel from Jane. She was sobbing. Daniel
    381  had told her we were getting a divorce. He got it into his head
    382  that she knew somehow, and he thought he should reassure
    383  her. I drove home immediately. Jane was a mess. And I didn’t
    384  get to see Cordelia the next day, which was her birthday, and
    385  which was very upsetting to her and to me. What a prince,
    386  what a perfect prince. [Pause] The next day I told my father,
    387  who encouraged me to consult his lawyers. A month later,
    388  armed with meds, here I am.
    389  Q. Are you both living in the same dwelling?
    390  A. Dwelling, I like that. Yes, we’re in separate bedrooms
    391  in our house. It’s a new house, 404 St. Cloud. We built it two
    392  years ago, probably to ward off divorce. Isn’t that what people
    393  do? They have a baby or build a new house. It’s a nice house,
    394  modern, horizontal, clean-limbed, wood and windows, very
    395  un–St. Cloud, which is a stew of English Tudor, American
    396  Craftsman, and Tuscan Villa. Neighbors objected at first, but
    397  we planted some full-grown trees in the front, and they subsided.
    398  Daniel worked on the designs with the architect. He had thought
    399  of becoming an architect at one point; in college, he went to
    400  Columbia, he double-majored in chemistry and art history.
    401  Q. Do you have a mortgage? Do you know its value?
    402  A. I’m good about money. I pay the bills, I keep the tax
    403  records. The house cost $375,000, more or less, including the
    404  land and our very expensive Mather School of Architecture
    405  architect. Its current value is about $525,000. I called a
    406  Realtor, Laura Bucholtz, yesterday, to get a quick estimate.
    407  She was the agent on the land sale and knows St. Cloud Street
    408  from Germyn Street to Allerton. We have a