"How can you explain away six years of marriage with a simple answer like, 'Oh, he didn't come home for dinner one night.' It's so much more complicated." Seated with me in the sun drenched den of her Toluca Lake home, her eyes wide with incredulity, Sandra Dee marveled at the persistence of those members of the press who sought a simple explanation for her separation from her husband, Bobby Darin. I got the feeling that this exquisite girl, who had recently filed for divorce from Bobby, didn't quite know the answer herself. There seldom is a single outstanding cause; rather, it is usually a pileup of small incompatibilities, none of which alone constitutes an excuse for ending a marriage. Sandra was understandably not the happiest 24-year-old in the world.

At this moment, 5-year-old Dodd came literally tripping into the room. He somersaulted in, wearing enormous yellow swim fins. "He got the fins at the beach," said Sandra. "After the trouble with Bobby, I rented a house at the beach for a month. I had at least six kids in for lunch and dinner every day." She soon found she had neither the privacy nor the peace she sought while her divorce proceedings were pending; and she ended up doing countless dishes, scrubbing sticky fingers, and sweeping out mountains of sand. But her son and his friends did manage to occupy her and keep her too busy to brood about the unhappy event.

She now turned her attention to Dodd, who had removed the pillows from a couch and was using them as a mat for his somersaults. "Put those pillows back this minute," she ordered, "or you can't watch Batman tonight." Dodd, she explained, is a rabid Batman fan -- a weakness that gives her considerable power over her son's behavior.

At the beach one afternoon she had just finished washing a pile of dishes when Dodd announced he was hungry. She improvised a hash consisting of rice, peas and hamburgers, and set it before Dodd in a single bowl. He viewed the concoction with disfavor, and then asked with typical 5-year-old-curiosity what it was. "It's Batman Stew, said Sandra -- and Dodd ate the whole thing without further question.

After that month at the beach she returned to Toluca Lake, and to the house, which she had shared for years with her now absent husband. As is usually the case with women newly separated from their spouses, the doldrums immediately set in. The long Labor Day weekend loomed lonely and bleak. Everyone else was leaving town for the holiday. After having dinner alone, she acted on a sudden impulse, and at 11 P.M. she was on a plane bound for New York.

The trip itself was a victory in more ways than one. A veteran "white-knuckle-flier," she forced herself to look out of a plane window for the first time in her life. It is such small, self-determined acts, which help a woman face the reality of no longer having someone there to hold her hand.

At the airport she hired a car and a chauffeur and headed for Bayonne, New Jersey, and the house of her grandmother. The following morning she phoned her mother in California. "I'm in Bayonne," Sandy announced. "Bring Dodd as soon as you can." Thus it was that a most glorious family reunion in Bayonne came about.

There was a moment of triumph later in New York, too. The first morning she opened the paper to see her photograph with an announcement beneath it that she would be appearing that day at Stern's Department Store in connection with a fashion show. Someone had goofed and failed to inform her about it; but Sandra was game. But one thing she made clear: She would sign autographs and all that, but she couldn't stay more than 30 minutes. And most certainly she would not get up on that stage. "I'm too shy," she insisted. But the commentator of the show prevailed upon her, and she ended up talking to eager fans for 25 minutes. Afterward, she signed autographs for more than an hour. Then came the triumph which few New Yorkers have experienced.

Crossing 42nd Street, as anyone knows, is an open invitation to being mangled to death. But the police were ready, and as Sandra exited Stern's -- followed by a procession of fans -- New York's Finest held up traffic while Miss Dee sauntered to safety a cross the street. "The cab drivers were blowing their horns and swearing -- you know, those guys would rather hit you than stop -- and I felt like Queen Elizabeth. It was quite a moment in my life."

Dodd re-entered the room, this time attired in black leather boots and pants. "That's his motorcycle outfit," offered Sandra. "Dodd is very particular about his clothes, and he notices everyone else's too."

One evening I took him to a drive-in for a hamburger dinner -- just the two of us; afterwards I had some friends over. The next morning he woke me at dawn and said, 'You made a nice celebration for me last night, Mom. Now I'm going to make one for you. It's downstairs.'" "Somehow I got myself out of bed, threw on a robe, but Dodd insisted I put on the same dress I'd worn the night before for my guests -- a floor-length job with sequins, yet. So I climbed into that and was led down to the living room. I found that my son had decorated the coffee table with crackers and a bottle of champagne! He even apologized because the caviar was all gone. And then I had to sit there and munch crackers and drink champagne -- at 7 in the morning in a a sequin gown."

We remarked that for a moppet not quite 5, Dodd is exceptionally bright. "At school," she replied proudly, he's best in art, music and gym -- which is sort of a nice spread, I think. He takes French, but I guess you could say he isn't fluent in the language. There's good discipline at the Buckley School, and he needs it. He's wild, but he'll mind. He and John Clark Gable are inseparable, and they are forever planning things together -- like breaking into the Batman theme in the middle of class. And of course he has a girlfriend. I told him one day it had been reported to me that he was going to marry Heidi, but he shushed me and said, 'It's only a trick.'"

"This past September he wasn't so sassy, though. It was his first day in first grade, with a new room and a new teacher. I took him into the classroom, and he said hello to his teacher in a very small voice. Then as I was leaving, his lips started to quiver. Mine, too. I went out to the car and cried. But even with all that emotion, he had made certain before we left that he was dressed properly, and that his mother was too. I had put on a cashmere pants suit. Dodd had been pacing the floor in his suit, shirt and tie, and when he saw me dressed he said, exasperatedly, 'Mom, you're not wearing pants to my school. My teachers don't respect ladies in pants. And I said, 'I'm sorry, little man. I was planning on a skirt, but it needs pressing.' Would you believe I had to change to a completely different outfit before I got his seal of approval?"

"Now that he's in school," we asked, "what are your plans for the future?"

Sandra shrugged, "Just go on, that's all. Maybe rent an apartment in New York. I have the freedom now to go where I want, when I want. Except for Dodd, of course. I won't go anywhere without him. Maybe we could even go to Europe for Christmas."

"Obviously, you don't want to talk about the divorce," we commented. Actually, we'd already known this; we were the only members of the press Sandra had talked to in months.

"There are very few subjects I won't talk about -- you know that," she said. "But this is one I won't discuss. It's not so much about me. It's for Dodd. When he grows older I don't want him coming across magazine stories about his parents' divorce that are going to upset him in any way." "It's tough enough without talking. The magazines in September came out with incredible stories -- written by people who don't even know us -- who just made up their reasons for our troubles. This is the sort of thing I hate -- this false reporting."

"Like the rumor just before Dodd was born. I'd taken my mother to a hospital for a shot when I was eight months pregnant, and while I was there they showed me the delivery room and all the obstetrical instruments. I don't recommend this for any pregnant woman. I passed out cold -- on the spot. Then later that day I heard on the car radio that I'd given birth to a dead child. You've no idea what these lies can do to you."

Sandra shifted in her chair, and her gaze wandered to the garden. "I'm trying to ignore all that stuff," she said quietly, "and just go on living my own life. What else? I certainly know I'm not going to sit home and worry about something that can't be fixed." "And I don't feel alone. I have Dodd, and a marvelous new friend -- a lovely girl with children Dodd's age. In fact, I have more friends than I realized. I used to think people just put up with me because of Bobby. But the fact they've rallied around me has been the shock of my life. I guess I'm not a very good judge of people. They've called and invited me for dinner or a barbecue, and I've found it isn't out of curiosity, but, kindness. One woman I'd met only once wrote me a lovely note: 'I didn't want to call you, because I thought you wouldn't want to talk. But here is my phone number and I'd be delighted if you'd call me any time.' That kind of thoughtfulness really makes me feel warm all over. And I learned something from it. It occurred to me that in her place I never would have taken the time for such a kind act. From now on I'm going to try and think more of other people."

"I'm beginning to realize, too, that I have a wonderful new sense of freedom. For the first time in my life, I haven't anyone telling me what I must do. I have the freedom just to go -- so marvelous I can't believe it."

"Other women who've been divorced tell me they feel most lonely in the early evening -- the hour when their husbands used to come home. Well, I don't even have that, because from 6 to 7 o'clock is my busiest time with Dodd -- his bath and dinner -- and I always spend that time with him. And then, I've been through a separation from Bobby before and so has Dodd. It's nothing new, this being alone; and, of course, Dodd spends a lot of time with his father."

Despite her earlier insistence on silence, Sandy, at the last moment, did say to us, I'm grateful for those six years of marriage, and I'm sorry I couldn't hold it together anymore. People say I didn't know Bobby long enough before I married him -- it was only two months -- but I've never agreed. And I still don't, despite what happened. All the things I thought he was when I first fell in love with him turned out to be true. Maybe I am a good judge of character after all," she added thoughtfully. "I hope so, because of course I'd like to be married again some day, and I want to be right again."

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