Page 118 of Hello, Summer
Toddie’s smile was bitter. “Have you met that woman? What Vanessa wants, Vanessa gets.”
Conley scribbled notes in her reporter’s notebook, because she didn’t really trust tape recorders and because she wanted to detail observations about Toddie’s demeanor.
“Can I ask you something?” she said, looking up. “A couple of people who were close friends of yours, back before the divorce, say that when it happened, you just packed up and moved out. Overnight. Your oldest friends and neighbors told me you’d vanished, and they had no idea where you’d gone or why. They were blindsided.”
“That was a condition of our divorce settlement. Symmes’s attorney, a man I thought of as a very close friend—his wife was Hank’s godmother—showed up and handed me a piece of paper. Wesley told methat it was a good offer. I’d get child support, the children’s college education would be taken care of, and I’d get health insurance and alimony for the rest of my life or until such time that I remarried. I’d get my car. Symmes would keep the house in town, which was important, because it was in the district, and the children and I could move into the farmhouse at Oak Springs.”
“That does sound generous,” Conley commented.
“Except that I got no share of our investments, or cash assets, which I’m pretty sure he hid from me, no property of my own—he got to keep the title to both, and my alimony was capped. It was barely enough to pay my bills. Everything was contingent on my settling quickly, without any fuss. And most important, keeping my mouth shut.”
“And you agreed?”
“What else could I do? I had no money of my own to hire a lawyer to fight him, and I hadn’t worked since I had the children, didn’t even have a college degree.”
“Whose idea was that?”
“Symmes was always adamant that he didn’t want his wife to work outside the home. His own mother was widowed when he was a young child, and she’d had to go to work at a textile mill here. He was ashamed of that.”
“You were what, nineteen, when you married?.”
“Eighteen. Symmes was a year older. I took some night classes at the community college, before I had kids, and worked days at an insurance company. I’d always wanted to be a veterinarian. Right after we got married, Symmes moved us to Tallahassee so he could finish his undergrad degree. I got another job, but then I got pregnant with Hank during his first year of law school. Two years later, Rebecca came along.”
“Must have been tough times,” Conley said.
“We were as poor as church mice,” Toddie said. “Especially when he was in law school. We lived in married student housing, and he had the GI Bill to pay tuition. My parents helped us out. They even gave us the money for our first house here in Silver Bay. They loved Symmes. Thought he could do no wrong.”
“How did he get into politics?” Conley asked.
“Symmes always had a knack for making friends with the right people, for making you think you were important. His law practice in Silver Bay took off right away. He got the job doing all the legal work for the railroad. That was huge for a young lawyer. He ran for an unexpired term in the state senate and won easily, because he had the backing of people like Miles Schoendienst. So then he was in politics, and the law practice was thriving, and he was making a good living. For the first time in our marriage, he bought me a new car of my own.”
Conley raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“It sounds absolutely quaint today, but back then, I had a weekly allowance. I didn’t even have my own checking account or credit cards.”
“And then he decided to run for Congress,” Conley interjected. She was aware of the minutes ticking by. She needed to derail Toddie’s sentimental journey and steer her back toward current events.
“People were telling him he was a ‘rising star on the political firmament.’ For his birthday that year, I got him a sterling letter opener engraved with that,” Toddie said. “I wonder what ever happened to that? Probably Vanessa melted it down years ago.”
“What happened when Mr. Robinette went to Washington?” Conley asked.
“It was the biggest fight of our marriage. The only fight, really. I thought we had a good marriage. Not perfect, but good. Solid. I was an idiot.”
“According to Vanessa, you hated Washington and refused to step foot there.”
“Another lie,” Toddie shot back. “Symmes didn’t want me there. The children were still there, and we’d just bought the house in town. It was such a financial stretch that my parents gave us the down payment as a gift. Symmes said we couldn’t afford the house here and a place in D.C. that would be big enough for the whole family. We fought over it, but he won.”
Conley nodded as she scribbled another note. “When did you find out about Vanessa?”
“Ahhh,” Toddie said, thinking back. “I’d gone up to D.C. for the National Prayer Breakfast. I flew up a day early because I wanted tosurprise Symmes. He was renting a pretty drab ‘bachelor apartment,’ so I even booked us a room at the Willard, thinking we’d have a sort of lost weekend.”
Conley paused from her note taking to watch Toddie’s face, anticipating the story to come.
“I cabbed over to his place and talked the maintenance guy into letting me in, which he was clearly reluctant to do. I had to show him my driver’s license to show him that I really was Mrs. Robinette—which should have been my first clue.”
Conley waited.
“The place was neat as a pin—which was my second clue. Symmes was always a slob. His clothes were hung up, and the bed was made.” Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. “There was a makeup bag in the bathroom and a filmy pink nightgown hanging from a hook on the back of the door. And a bottle of prenatal vitamins on the bedside table.”
