The divorce

5th grade was filled with drama. My father had gone to work at MIT and my mother, swamped with her own graduate work, was unable to control me. I was, to say the least, a horribly bad child. I threw temper tantrums and refused to go to school. I am not sure why I behaved that way; maybe I wanted attention or was foreshadowing the future, sort of like the animals that go nuts five minutes before an earthquake hits. Either way, it was too much for my mother, so she sent me to California to live with my grandparents (in the middle of 5th grade – again, Russians are weird) and proceeded to divorce my father.

The divorce of my parents could have only gotten worse if they had killed each other. In retrospect, I probably made it more difficult; I absolutely refused to choose between either parent, presumably to the glee of the lawyers. Both of my parents accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees in their custody battle. My mother, being a graduate student, ran out of money to pay her lawyers first and proceeded to argue the case herself. To make a long story short, she lost and my father obtained custody. However, legal issues like, say, having custody are no big deal for my mom – in a last ditch effort, she persuaded me to stay with her for a few months in the beginning of 6th grade to “try it out” – something that I’d already done in 5th grade, but let’s not argue semantics. In retrospect, I find this action contemptible; how did she expect me to refuse? I am reminded of the lawyers trying various ways to get me to choose between a parent, such as giving me a picture of two doghouses, one labeled “Mom” and the other “Dad” and asking me where I, the puppy, wanted to sleep for the night. The puppy slept outside.

The story has an exciting conclusion. My mom heard that my dad was coming to take me home with him and decided to hide me, Elián González style. Fortunately, I was not accosted by MP5-toting INS agents; after a few hours of staying in a friend’s house and playing computer games with him, I turned myself in to the police.