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“For one, clicking the link on CNN’s home page hardly counts as ‘digging. ’ For two, people have a right to know if they’re getting mixed up with serious Greek-tragedy shit. And for three . . . as far as gossip goes, this is good stuff. Better than anything Kim and Kanye have come up with in a while. ”
“Kip—”
“Will you just read the story already?”
I’m tempted to push the paper back and tell him where he can file it. And yet this was on CNN. National news. Jonah might assume I know about it already.
Don’t I need to know as much as possible about this man I’ve given so much trust?
Lawyers speaking on behalf of hotel magnate Carter Maddox Hale today told a Cook County judge that Hale’s wife, heiress Lorena Marks Hale, should be forcibly committed because she represents a danger to herself and others.
Testimony submitted to the court today reveals an incident in February of this year in which Mrs. Hale reportedly held a handgun on her husband for a period of nearly two hours, threatening to kill him and then herself. Mrs. Hale has previously been treated at inpatient mental health facilities for depression. He also alleges that she has made numerous threats to the lives and safety of those around her in the past several years.
However, Mrs. Hale’s lawyers deny the February incident and point out that Mr. Hale made no police report then or at any other time during the marriage. Absent documentation of Mrs. Hale’s criminal acts, legal experts say, a judge is unlikely to commit her against her will.
Even as the courtroom battle goes on, the couple continues to live together in the landmark Redgrave House near downtown Chicago—though reports indicate husband and wife now occupy separate floors.
Both Mrs. Hale’s legal team and lawyers employed by her children from her first marriage to Alexander Marks argue that Mr. Hale is acting not out of concern for his wife’s health but in an effort to gain sole legal control over the family’s substantial financial holdings—which include Mr. Hale’s hotel chains, Mrs. Hale’s inherited wealth, and a substantive interest in Oceanic Airlines stock. Alexander Marks, Mrs. Hale’s first husband and the father of her two adult children, cofounded Oceanic Airlines in 1975; she inherited a controlling interest in the airline upon his death in 1988.
Mr. Hale’s adult children from his first marriage have thus far taken no legal role in the proceedings nor made public comment.
Beneath the article are the usual comments by the dregs of society, complete with one person convinced the situation is Obama’s fault. This is of less interest to me than the photos tucked in beside the text. The first one shows Carter and Lorena Hale in happier days, the two of them standing together at some museum gala—him in a tux, her in a richly embroidered evening jacket, his arm around her shoulders and a glass of champagne in her hand.
The second one includes Jonah.
This shot isn’t posed. Jonah is walking out of the courthouse, resolutely not looking at the phalanx of reporters clustered around the steps. Next to him are two other people—a woman with long dark hair that I instantly recognize as his sister, and a man with fair hair and broad shoulders who looks nothing like Jonah, yet seems to be part of the family. To judge by the coats and scarves they all wear, this picture must have been taken not long after “the alleged February incident. ”
Kip says, “You can’t tell me that’s not intriguing. ”
“You can’t tell me it’s any of our business,” I say. Yet I’m already turning this sordid situation over in my head, spinning the facets as if Jonah’s psyche is a Rubik’s Cube I could solve.
I’ve wondered what could have led to Jonah’s fantasy. He insists he would never, ever rape a woman for real, and I believe him. He’s been fiercely protective of me, and of all women. Yet still, he’s fixated on the idea of rape, forcing himself on a woman despite all her protests. I’ve watched his eyes darken as he tore off my clothes. I’ve seen him come inside me while he held me down.
Maybe . . . maybe he grew up with a violent mother. My mom dropped the ball, and I know it, but she never hit me. I never thought she would, even for a second. How much worse would it have been if she’d waved a gun around and actually threatened to kill me? I can hardly imagine the terror, or the sorrow. After something like that, you’d feel as if there were no safe place in the world.
So maybe, deep inside, Jonah has this anger at women. But instead of turning out to be a misogynistic shithead, he sublimated his rage into a fucked-up sexual fantasy. Made up for his powerlessness as a boy by imagining having total control over the object of his desire.