Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [81]
When Felix declined, Susan said she offered to compromise. She would still move away. “They just ignored my offer. F. expects me to struggle…to negotiate over the children…. F. expects the children to accept his version of reality: mom is sick, mom is crazy…. He has offered to live in our cottage so that I can see Eli….
“At first, I pretended I would trade places with them and live in their cottage. But…I can’t live there…. Berkeley is such a cynical community of smug, self-satisfied university people. I would suffocate…. It was a mecca for people like F. who saw themselves as the cleverest, lightest, fittest in the fifties and the sixties….”
Susan noted that in the same week Eli was sentenced, she learned that her mother had cut her out of the will. “I lost my home, my children. I am looking forward to never setting foot in this country again.”
In addition to her diary, Susan’s writings included a number of postcards and letters that she mailed to Eli at Juvenile Hall while en route to Montana in the fall of 2002. These would be her last correspondences until after Felix’s death.
“Sun Valley is pristine (undeveloped) and like a Hollywood set—picture perfect,” Susan wrote in a postcard dated September 22 from Salmon, Idaho. “But there are too many Hollywood people there. Am moving on.”
Another postcard to Eli read: “I hope to find a place I feel comfortable in. I can see it in my imagination. No crowds. Lots of trees. Animals. Empty roads. Rivers. Clear skys [sic]. Privacy. You will come to see me there when you are free to do so.”
Susan wrote to her divorce attorney, Dan Ryan, as well. In the letter, she reacted to news of the September 27 telephone conference in which the Contra Costa Superior Court judge awarded Felix “legal and physical custody of Gabriel” and “exclusive use and occupancy of the family residence located at 728 Minor Road.”
“I object to holding the hearing scheduled for Wednesday in my absence,” Susan said of the judge’s decision to schedule a follow-up hearing for October 3. “Please request that the hearing be postponed until I can return. The issues to be addressed might reasonably be resolved outside of court, those issues being spousal support, custody, and family support…. I left Gabe with Felix while I was looking for a home.
“Meanwhile, it is impossible for me to bid on a family residence when I have lost physical custody of Gabe and when my support award is subject to Felix’s whimsy. Whether or not I have physical custody of Gabe will determine whether or not I buy a residence. The amount of support I can expect to receive reliably will have bearing on where I choose to settle as well as what kind of home I will buy.”
Susan asked that the attorney make a motion on her behalf to have the physical custody order rendered that Friday vacated.
“I have not abandoned Gabe,” she noted.
Susan went on to explain that she had identified several affordable properties and was arranging to have Gabe fly out to Montana to see them. She noted that it would be impossible for her to proceed with negotiations for the purchase of a home until she learned for certain that she could have her children with her.
In a follow-up letter dated October 3, Susan fired Dan Ryan and then set off for California. Angry that the scheduled hearing occurred despite her objections, Susan blamed Ryan for his role in the events.
In subsequent entries made upon her return to Orinda, Susan claimed that she and Felix had reached “some verbal agreements”; they were $170,000 in debt and couldn’t afford to have one of them occupying the apartment in Berkeley, as that would be a loss of $2,400 a month in rental income, she wrote. They agreed that one of them should stay in the guesthouse,