Chapter 48: No Longer Necessary

March 15, 1993, Chicago, Illinois

“Are you going to work?” Elyse asked from the door of the sunroom where I was cuddling my daughters.

“What do you think? Should I wait to see if she’ll talk to me?”

“I think that might be the best idea. We can postpone the leadership meeting until later, or even skip it this week if need be. Do you have anything on your calendar this morning?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll head in.”

“OK. Kara has to leave soon, too. The girls will need to move so I can hug her goodbye.”

“No!” all three of them pouted.

“Yes,” I chuckled. “I need to say goodbye to Mommy!”

I extricated myself from the chaise where I was cuddling my three daughters and went to find Kara.

“I’m going to stay home and see if she’ll talk to me,” I said.

“Will you go to work when she does?”

“Most likely, yes.”

We hugged and kissed, and she went out the back door. She walked on all but the coldest days, and despite the temperature only being in the teens she was walking. I thought about going with her but I really needed to try to talk with Jessica. The question was, did I go back downstairs and try to talk to her, or did I wait? I decided to be active, not passive, and went back to the basement.

“Jessica, we need to talk,” I said through the closed door. “Whatever you decide to do, we have to talk.”

“You MADE your decision!”

“You can’t simply reject reality and substitute your own! You presented me with an impossible ultimatum.”

“You chose your sister over me.”

I hadn’t done that. Jessica had decided it was either/or. And had refused to talk once she’d made that decision.

“Stop it!” I spat. “Quit acting like a spoiled little brat and a complete bitch and talk to me.”

I pulled out my keyring and used the master key to open the door to the guest room. Jessica was sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall.

“Get OUT!” she ordered angrily.

“No. Stop it! Right now! You’re acting like a two-year old! Jesse, Matthew, and Birgit don’t act this way on their WORST days. Now, quit being a selfish bitch and talk to me!”

“Drop dead!” she spat.

“Is that what you want? Shall I just go kill myself? Will that make you happy? Will that atone for whatever sin I’ve committed that you think is worth destroying our family over? Or shall I go call the hospital and tell them that you’re mentally unstable and a danger to patients?”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Oh yes I would! You ARE mentally unstable. You want impossible ultimatums? Here’s one. You talk to me or I call the hospital.”

“You can’t DO that!”

“Yes, I can. And I will. It’s your decision, Jessica. You decide if I call or not!”

“Oh no you don’t!”

“Shoe’s on the other foot now, isn’t it?” I asked smugly. “I am not going to roll over on this issue for you. Not after all the pain and suffering everyone has gone through over the past couple of years. You decide. Act rationally, or I make the phone call.”

I crossed my arms and stared at her. I knew I was being harsh, but there was no way I was going to let this drag out. I saw fire in Jessica’s eyes. She was angry with me now. Maybe that was enough to get her to talk to me.

“How can everyone just be so complacent about this?!” she asked angrily and in disbelief.

I shut the door behind me. I did not want the kids or Abbie to hear what was going to be said. I didn’t think they’d purposefully try to listen, but I didn’t want to risk it.

“Complacent about what?”

“You having sex with your sister! Bethany and Jennifer even had sex with the two of you! Kara condoned it! Elyse condoned it! Of COURSE they accept her just waltzing back in here like nothing happened!”

“That last part is not true and you damned well know it! The only thing which has changed is that we can start working on a proper relationship. She left and went home to Ed. I talked to Doctor Mercer this morning. She said exactly what I just said to you. We’re going to work on a proper relationship, step by step.”

“You can NEVER have a proper relationship with her!”

“Because she can never recover from this? Because I can’t? You spent two months in the clinic in Maine and got a second chance to be a doctor! She can’t recover after eighteen months of intensive therapy?”

“I don’t TRUST her!”

“No, you don’t trust ME. That is the ultimate source of this problem. That’s the core issue. Can we please reset to Saturday night and have that conversation? Just forget everything you’ve said and done and I’ve said and done and try to understand why there’s a trust issue?”

“How can I ever trust her?” Jessica asked.

“You don’t have to. You have to trust ME. But you obviously don’t. Why?”

“Because you have all these girls who enabled your bad behavior! And they would again!”

“No they wouldn’t! First of all, I would never do that again. It was a mistake. I acknowledged that even before I went to see Doctor Mercer. And every single one of the girls agrees. Talk to Jennifer and Bethany! Talk to Kara! Talk to Elyse! We all know it was wrong! I don’t know what more you want from us. As for Stephanie, when she burned that towel, she was acknowledging just how wrong it was, AND making it clear to me that it was over. She’ll never make a request like that again.

“Even so, you don’t have to trust HER. You only have to trust ME. But that’s your issue. You don’t trust me. Nor Kara. Nor anyone for that matter. Well, no, you trust your dad. But here’s your problem. HE trusts me. Do you know what he said to me the other day? That you’ll be fine at Cook County, or wherever you go, because you have me. He said that I’m all you need; that I’m all you ever needed.”

“He doesn’t know about THIS!”

“You’re right, he doesn’t. And he can’t for obvious reasons. I’m STILL trying to figure out what it is that I’ve done to make it so you don’t trust me. Or have you NEVER trusted me? Is that it? From day one you have never trusted me? You trusted Al and did what he said? And THAT’s why you’re with me? Is that it? And now that the brass ring is there for you to grasp, I’m no longer useful to you?”

More silence followed and I was reasonably sure I’d hit on the core issue. I’d been the trophy husband. The prop. The support to get where she wanted. The issue with my sister was, then, just a convenient way to absolve herself from what she was doing. It wasn’t her; it was me. She wasn’t in error; I was. I actually was, but that was, surprisingly, beside the point. Jessica had never, ever moved past her initial plan, and everything that had happened in between was just window dressing. She had her Fellowship and was basically guaranteed her career goal. And now I could be discarded.

“You know,” I said sadly, “I really do love you.”

I turned, opened the door, and left the room, pulling the door shut behind me. I went upstairs and silently got ready to head to the office. I grabbed my leather satchel, and headed out the back door to the driveway where my BMW was parked next to the five-month-old minivan. The lease on the old one had run its course the previous November, and we’d simply replaced it with a nearly identical new one. I got into the car, and carefully backed out, steering around Jessica’s BMW.

When I got to the Dan Ryan, I saw traffic was barely moving, so I continued west to Halsted Street, then turned north. Traffic was moderate, but was moving at a reasonable pace, so my choice of an alternate route would indeed get me to work faster. I did my best to clear my mind and get focused on work, but I knew that was very likely a lost cause. The turmoil was still there when I pulled into the parking spot numbered ‘1’ behind the building.

I got out of the car, grabbed my satchel, and locked the doors of the car. I took my time, and walked slowly around to the front doors, rather than going in the side door. Doing so gave me a chance to talk to Lucas each day, which was something I thought was valuable. I looked at the clock on the wall behind him, and saw that I was a little over an hour late.

“Good morning!” Lucas called out as I came in.

“Hi, Lucas. Anything important for me?”

“Three calls. Dante, Stan Jakes, and one from Doctor Barton.”

If I had to put money on it, Gina, Kara, or Elyse had spoken to Al; most likely it was Gina. Her shift started at 8:00am.

“Was Dante’s call urgent?” I asked.

“No. He said he had something new to discuss with you. I told him you might not be in until the afternoon based on what Elyse said, and he didn’t seem bothered. Doctor Barton did say to have you call as soon as possible.”

“Thanks.”

I went through the security door and greeted people as I walked towards the stairs. I never used the elevators, and neither did most of the staff. They were handy for moving things like boxes of paper or other bulky items upstairs, but otherwise, mostly sat unused. They would come in very handy if we ever hired someone who was handicapped, but so far, that hadn’t happened.

“Hi,” I said to Elyse when I stopped at her office.

“Bad?”

I stepped inside her office and shut the door.

“Very. I have a phone message from Al. Did you call him?”

“No. Maybe Kara?”

“I’m guessing it was Gina. She could tell there was something wrong this morning.”

“So could your daughters. They had no clue what it was, but they were all worried about you. I am, too.”

“I appreciate it. I need to talk to you as soon as I return the three phone calls. Go ahead and cancel the leadership meeting for this week, unless there’s some major issue.”

“There isn’t. I’ll have Kimmy distribute the financial and sales reports by email.”

“Thanks.”

I left her office and went to mine. I dropped my bag, greeted Penny, and then went to the small ‘Hull’ conference room to call Al Barton. Victoria put me right through, which told me he was waiting for me.

“You could have called my cell phone, Al,” I said.

“I didn’t, because I didn’t know where you were or what you were doing. I figured calling the office was the best approach. What happened?”

“Did Gina, I mean, Doctor Swanson, talk to you?”

“She was concerned something bad had happened. She said you weren’t yourself this morning and were completely distracted.”

“Do you have every doctor and nurse spying on me?” I asked, making sure my tone was light.

Al laughed, “I don’t need to! They know about our relationship and volunteer information!”

“Figures. Yes, there’s a problem. Jessica has apparently decided that now that she has her Fellowship, she no longer needs me.”

“What?!” he exploded.

“The details of what caused the conversation aren’t important, but in the end, it’s clear she doesn’t trust me and never has. She got what she wanted, and now she’s done.”

“She told you this?!”

“Not in so many words, but when I told her what I was hearing, she didn’t deny it. I’d seen small changes after she was selected for the Cook County position. You remember me asking if she was going to be OK? That was me feeling something was wrong. I just didn’t know what it was.”

“Has anything else changed?” he asked.

“Bethany moved out, but that was late last year. Elyse’s boyfriend from ten years ago moved back to Chicago from Spain and they’re restarting their relationship. Other than that, it’s been unbelievably calm in the Adams household!”

There was also the Lisa Glass situation, but that hadn’t really affected Jessica or Kara, and even Samantha seemed to be OK. Jeri was more upset about it, but my interactions with her were mostly about work or the Foundation, and she rarely visited the house except for Girls’ Night Out, which Jessica and Kara had agreed to because of Howard.

“And other women?”

“That’s more under control now than it’s ever been. We’re actually settling into the situation which Jessica asked for when we first discussed getting married.”

Something popped into my head just then. Samantha. Was SHE part of the problem? Or, and this was the crazy thought, did Jessica see Samantha as someone she could leave me with, so to speak? A few things would make more sense if that were true. Allowing Samantha to sleep in our bed, even though there was no sex. Allowing Samantha to, in effect, set the rules as Jessica had once done. The only thing which threw a monkey wrench into that thought was my vasectomy. I could never, ever give Samantha children, and that would be a major impediment.

“What set this off?” Al asked. “I know you said it was unimportant, but I’d like to know.”

“My sister finished her court supervision, and her therapist says she’s at a good point. It’s just taken her longer to work through the same issues I’ve had. She was seeing Doctor Fremd, though in the end, she chose to see our old counselor in Milford, Doctor Mercer, because of a bunch of stuff that happened when we were teenagers. Doctor Mercer helped her through those issues, which were very similar to mine.”

“And that set Jessica off?”

“It wasn’t the cause, Al. It was an excuse, a pretext. We talked about my sister taking over as CEO in a few years, and about how she could, now that her court supervision was over, simply get on with a normal life. She and Ed set a wedding date for next May, and I’m guessing they’ll be planning kids soon, too. You know how close I was with my sister before the bovine excrement hit the air-circulation device!”

Al laughed, “You can say ‘before the shit hit the fan’ to me.”

“Anyway,” I chuckled, “now that my sister has worked through her issues, and now that her horrible mood swings, which were worse than mine, are under control, we’ll be doing more stuff together. Jessica gave me some grief about that, but like I said, it was an excuse. The real issue is that she doesn’t trust me and never got past the part about me being a trophy husband and a prop for her career. Now she thinks she doesn’t need me.”

“She’s terribly mistaken,” Al said. “I told you that back in January. She needs you. If you aren’t there for her, she’ll never, ever make it.”

“Somebody will have to convince her of that,” I said.