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the front of the lawn adjacent to the driveway; apparently they had taken up too much space in the basement.
And it was less pleasant, and outrageous, to bring my daughter home to the house in which I used to live, only to be greeted at curbside, repeatedly, not by Rachel’s mother but by Rachel’s mother’s boyfriend, who would proceed to sweep Rachel up into his waiting arms and to bestow kisses and hugs directly in front of me, with full knowledge that I was a captive audience.
And, at about the same level of outrage is the feeling that I had when I received a phone call from my ex-father-in-law on Yom Kippur in which he screamed, screamed at me, that I had no right to keep his grandson (who had come into the City to run with me and keep me company) “captive” and ordered me to “let Danny go,” because Harry was, as between him and me, the man who was entitled to be with Danny on this, the holiest of days.
But the moment that epitomizes the loneliness, helplessness, and sense of loss that attended to the divorce was not near the house or in my apartment: I was driving Rachel and Peter to Scarsdale one Saturday night in my parent’s very old Oldsmobile when it decided that it could take it no more—and stopped in the center lane of the Major Deegan Expressway, south of Yankee Stadium. There was no way in which I could restart the engine, and cell phones were still waiting to be invented. Hoping against hope, I decided to somehow attract a tow truck, should one arrive, and, having disposed of the car, to find some way to let Phyl- lis know that the kids were safe but would be late. I would then figure out a way to get from the Bronx to Westchester.
So, like a matador, I entered the arena and started to wave at any- thing resembling potential help. An unbelievable stroke of good luck! A tow truck pulled over and the driver told me that he would take care of everything for fifty dollars, which I dutifully handed the highwayman with a great deal of relief and, within a trice, he dutifully relieved me more—of the fifty dollars, that is: he drove off, leaving me there to curse (who else?) Phyllis. My confidence in man and my good fortune at an
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