Anonymous Tip: Gordan Quizzes Casey

A Review Series of Anonymous Tip, by Michael Farris

This passage covers the weekend before Tuesdays hearing, and in it we learn a lot more about Gwen and her ex-husband, Gordon. Farris tells us that Gwen went to work on Friday, after meeting with Bill Walinski the day before, and that she enjoyed the busy surgery ward as it took her mind off the hearing. He then turns to the family’s weekend plans:

Gwen’s parents left for Walla Walla first thing Saturday morning. Placing flowers on the grave of Grandfather Mansfield was an annual affair on Memorial Day weekend. Under the circumstances of the past few days, Gwen decided it would be better if Casey didn’t have to spend the night in an unfamiliar place and decided not to go this year. On the way out of town, Stan thought he would stop by Gwen’s house and try one more time.

“She’ll be all right in a motel,” Stan offered, vying for tradition.

“Well, maybe you’re right,” Gwen answered. “But Gordon is going to exercise visitation rights tomorrow. I’ve been trying to cooperate with him . . . for Casey’s sake.”

So I’m wondering—isn’t visitation something you arrange ahead of time, and something that is usually fairly set in stone? If Gordon has visitation with Casey on Sunday, wouldn’t Gwen taking Casey to Walla Walla be considered a breach of court ordered custody? Of course, we learned earlier that Gordon didn’t try to get custody, so any time he has with Casey could be voluntary on Gwen’s part—but in that case, why would Gwen use the phrase “visitation rights”?

The reason this is confusing me is that Farris first tells us that Gwen decides not to take Casey to Walla Walla because of Casey’s nightmares, and has Gwen mention Gordon’s visitation only when her father tries to persuade her to come. Gordon’s visitation comes off as an afterthought or an excuse. I suppose the most charitable interpretation is that Gwen could have talked to Gordon and asked him informally to change his visitation time that week so that she and Casey could go to Walla Walla with her parents.

“Which means you’ll be sitting around waiting for him to show up. I wish he’d get a real job and stop bumming around trying to get rich in a day.”

With these statements by Stan, Farris suggests to the reader that Gordon is both a deadbeat and an absent father—after all, he doesn’t care enough about his daughter to take the time to visit her.

Her father continued: “When was the last time he paid his child support? You know I’ve tried to talk to him, but work for wages? Not Gordon. No sir. He is going to win the lottery. And you know the thing that amazes me? How is it that he walked out on you? There were no women. No alcohol, at least not before he walked out—just because you wanted him to get a job. I still can’t believe it . . . accusing you of sabotaging his dreams of success. What a joke.”

Oh, so much important information right here!

Farris has here established that Gwen did not have biblical grounds for divorce. If there were other women—i.e., if Gordon committed adultery—Gwen would arguably have biblical grounds for divorce (though whether she could remarry—biblically—is a separate question). But Farris has made it quite clear that there were no other women. By establishing that Gordon didn’t drink before he left, Farris may be suggesting that he was not physically abusive toward Gwen and Casey. (Perhaps this part is less explicit because physical abuse does not provide biblical grounds for divorce.)

But Farris also tells his readers that it was Gordon who walked out, thus shifting the blame for the divorce off of Gwen and onto Gordon. This gives evangelical readers uncomfortable with divorce a reason to give Gwen a break—she may not have had biblical grounds for divorce, but she didn’t initiate the breakup, so in some sense it’s not her fault.

Oh, also—couldn’t Gwen take Gordon to court for failure to pay child support? I realize that doing this is difficult, but from the way Stan discusses it it doesn’t sound like they’ve even considered trying to force Gordon to pay child support. Instead, they’ve relied on Gordon trying to talk to him about it.

Anyway, Gwen is visibly uncomfortable with her father badmouthing Gordon, and Stan eventually notices and apologizes. Gwen responds as follows:

“I know Gordon has problems, dad, but Casey has fun feeding the ducks in Manito Park with him. Last time he took her to the carousel in Riverfront Park. And, to his credit, he has never asked prying questions.”

Here, again, Farris establishes Gwen as a Good Upstanding Woman. Her ex is a deadbeat who isn’t paying child support and frequently skips visitation, and yet Gwen refuses to badmouth him, focusing instead on what little good there is in him—that he takes Casey to feed the ducks, and doesn’t ask prying questions. (Although honestly, that prying questions line appears to be there only to set up what comes next.)

Stan accepts that Gwen and Casey won’t be coming with them to Walla Walla.

Both her parents waved as their car pulled away.

Yes, parents plural—Gwen does have a mother. Isn’t that curious? Farris earlier mentioned that Gwen’s parents take turns taking Casey back to Gwen’s house to put her to bed when Gwen is working, and here again we see both Gwen’s father and her mother heading off to Walla Walla. There’s no suggestion that this is Gwen’s stepmother, or some other extenuating circumstances like that, and in a book like this, any such circumstances would definitely have been mentioned.

Why, then, have we never seen Gwen interact with her mother? Every time there’s a problem Gwen goes to her father. There’s no mention of whether Gwen’s mother was asked to go along to the meeting with Bill Walinski. I get that, especially in a book like this, Gwen might prefer to go to her father for things like legal help, but wouldn’t she also go to her mother for emotional support? I mean in this section Gwen’s mother appears to sit in the car while Stan tries to convince Gwen and Casey to come along to Walla Walla.

Who is this woman? Inquiring minds want to know!

This Sunday, Gordon does “exercise his visitation rights,” as Gwen put it, but Farris does not give any explanation as to why. It would have been easy for him to have said something about Gwen being surprised when Gordon showed up, and Gordon slinking out with Casey guiltily. Farris could have taken us inside Gordon’s mind (as Farris is want to do) where we could have found out that Gordon just wanted to grill Casey to find out if anything came of his anonymous tip.

Instead, we jump straight from the car pulling away to this:

It was true that Gordon didn’t usually pry into Gwen’s life through Casey, but this Sunday would be different. Sitting on a park bench eating a strawberry ice cream cone, Casey tried her best to please her daddy and answer the questions he asked.

I suppose you could argue that this is Farris’s implementation of “show, don’t tell.” Perhaps I’m just disappointed that we don’t see Gordon and Gwen interact.

Gordon discovered some ladies and a policeman had been to the home and that Gwen was crying when they left. Good, he thought, a little hassle. Nothing too dramatic.

I find it strange that Casey wouldn’t tell Gordon about the traumatic forced strip search. After all, according to Farris Casey is having daily nightmares about the “mean ladies” in her room. I would expect Casey’s telling of what happened to include her own tears and be centered on the “mean ladies.” It could be that Gordon is more hard hearted than I’d realized, and that Farris is showing us that his only takeaway from Casey’s emotional telling of the traumatic event is that Gwen cried (which seems to have been his goal). But I doubt that. There’s no hint here that Casey told the full tale at all, at least, the way Casey would have told it.

I suspect that Farris doesn’t want Gordon to regret making the call yet, and that in any case he (Farris) didn’t put much thought into how Casey (a purportedly traumatized four-year-old child) would tell the story.

Gordon hated Gwen for refusing to take him back, even though he had been the one who filed for divorce.

Farris is walking a fine line. He wants his readers to put the blame for the divorce on Gordon, but at the same time he needs a reason for Gordon to have a grudge against Gwen.

Although he had never changed his career ideas and work habits that led to their difficulties in the first place, maybe this little scare would make Gwen think it would be good to have a man around for protection.

I feel like Farris would probably agree with that last bit!

One thing Farris has established in this section is that Gordon did not intend anything “too dramatic” to occur as the result of his anonymous tip. In other words, Gordon did not want Casey to be taken away from Gwen. This isn’t the case of the non-custodial ex accusing the custodial ex of child abuse in an attempt to get custody.

This opens up another question—social workers generally try to place a child with relatives when they remove her from her home, only placing her with foster care if there are no relatives available who are able to take her. Why, then, has no one contacted Gordon to see if Casey can be placed with him should Donna and Gail be successful in Tuesday’s hearing?

I was going to finish out the weekend, but I’ve run long already. Next week we’ll look at what Gwen does with her free time while Gordon has Casey, and follow some more preparations for the hearing.