Free My Latest Grievance by Elinor Lipman

Lee.
    "Okay?" I asked my mother. She shrugged.
    I took the pen, checked to see if anyone in Curran Hall was watching, then discreetly scribbled my mother's initials on the correct line. I returned the slip to Laura Lee with the advice we gave all auditors: Do the reading, don't cut class, and don't hog the office hours of our overburdened faculty.

9 Less Than Full Disclosure
    W HAT ELSE COULD I EXPECT from a walking role model like David Hatch other than his enveloping his ex-wife in a selfless hug upon their first private meeting? I saw it from my first-floor window, an early-morning exchange on a deserted sidewalk. It was an awkward moment brought to life: He stopped, she stopped. My father spoke first, presumably no more than
Hello, Laura Lee.
She seemed to say something more acidic, probably
Well, we finally come face to face.
The hug came next, peacekeeping without warmth. Laura Lee said something—
I met your daughter? I dined civilly with your wife?
—her head erect, followed by separation and mutual businesslike nods. They were both heading in the same direction, but didn't walk together. I drew back from my blinds.
    Of course I had to spook David after school by telling him I'd observed the hug and asking if, in the course of it, he'd apologized to Laura Lee.
    "For what exactly?"
    I was writing a draft of a paper on "The Lottery" in my multi-subject binder and didn't look up. "Falling in love with your next wife while still married to her."
    He led me to our sofa, underneath our college-provided portrait of the founding Dewing. "Divorce," he began, "is very sticky. And very difficult because it is essentially a legal matter. Apologies become something else once they're on the record, before a judge. It gets into the area of fault. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
    "It's worse if you fall in love with someone else than if you just don't want to be married anymore?"
    "At the time we were going through this, yes. I was the adulterer and your mother was the corespondent, which is the correct legal term for the party who committed adultery with the defendant."
    "Cool," I said.
    "It was very humiliating. Extremely."
    "For who?"
    "For whom," he corrected, but without his usual grammatical gusto. "For everyone concerned."
    "Why did you let Laura Lee come here?" I asked.
    He exhaled a deep, regretful breath and said, "Pity. I knew how much it meant to her—after a very spotty job history—just to be a finalist. And, truthfully? I never thought she'd get the job once they met her. I thought I'd do the honorable thing, sit back, not interfere. Besides, with a promanagement administration like ours, a bad reference from me would act as a green light to the powers that be."
    I asked him why he thought Laura Lee wouldn't get the job once they met her.
    When he didn't answer, I turned around to address founding mother Dewing. It was something David and Aviva were fond of acting out when either wanted to make a moralistic point after some act of selfishness or thoughtlessness on my part. I said, "Mary-Ruth? Don't you want to hear why Dr. Hatch thought Laura Lee was not qualified to be one of your dorm mothers? By 'dorm,' I mean dormitories. Which were built after you died. With your money."
    "Laura Lee French...," my father began, then stopped.
    "Is she not responsible enough to be a houseparent?" I prompted. "Is she ... not smart enough? Not nice enough?"
    "She can be very nice," he replied.
    "So what's the worst thing you can say about her?"
    Ordinarily, he'd duck such a question, citing nobler instincts, but this time he answered rather indifferently, "Self-absorption. Self-regard. Egocentricity. Vanity."
    This was better, a note more vitriolic than I had expected from Mr. Fair-minded and Equal. I egged him on. "I noticed a little of that myself when I ate supper with her."
    "Even that! I don't love the idea that my ex-wife is taking a proprietary interest in my daughter—"
    "She wasn't. I was the one who sat down with