Children of Hope

by Michael Fine

  Carrington got out of bed and stood at the French doors that led out from his master suite onto a second-floor balcony with a stunning view of the Long Island Sound. As he stared out of the windows, contemplating the natural beauty of the area and God’s many creations—including, he supposed, the woman who’d attacked him—his mind calmed. God was always there for him, showing him the way forward. The baby inside me is one of God’s creations, too.

  He knew the baby growing inside of him could have become one of the nearly one hundred million victims of abortion in the United States had he not orchestrated the overturn of Roe. The fetus must have come from somewhere. From someone. For a brief moment, he feared it might be a crack baby, already unhealthy due to its mother’s drug use.

  Carrington stood soaking in the warmth of the sun and the beauty before him and took five deep, cleansing breaths. As he calmed himself, an idea began to form in his mind, but it was just out of reach, somehow unravelling each time it started to form. Please, God, do not forsake me.

  The Senator got back into bed, as even standing for a few minutes was difficult. He picked up his phone and called his housekeeper, Rosa, who was downstairs cleaning the rest of the house. He asked that she bring him up some lunch.

  A few minutes later, a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup and fresh rolls were on a bed tray across his lap.

  “Is there anything else I can get you sir?”

  “No, thank you. This is perfect.”

  Rosa smiled and turned to leave. When she got to the door, she turned back and said, “Mr. Carrington, may I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “What will you do with the baby?” Rosa asked. She was a devout Catholic.

  Royce Carrington didn’t hesitate. “My beliefs are sincere, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Good. Very good,” she said. After a beat, she added, “You are lucky that woman saved your baby’s life.”

  In his weakened state, it took Carrington a moment to understand what Rosa was saying. The blurry thought that was in his mind earlier snapped into focus.

  “Yes, I am indeed. Thank you, Rosa. When you finish up downstairs, let yourself out. I have to make some phone calls and then I’m going to rest. I’ll call you if I need anything.”

  Once Rosa had closed the door, Carrington dialed his money manager.

  “How much do I have left in my foundation fund?”

  “A little under ten million,” the man said. He couldn’t believe that Carrington had donated ninety million dollars in a little less than a year and a half.

  “That’s what I thought. I want to give another grant and that’s not nearly enough. Can you pull together another hundred million from my personal accounts and move it to the foundation?”

  Carrington’s money manager wasn’t sure he heard correctly.

  “A hundred million?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s almost half of what you have left in your personal accounts, after the hundred you’ve already put into the foundation. Are you sure?”

  Carrington laughed. “Yes, I’m sure.” So I’ll only have a hundred million left. Poor me. Whatever will I do?

  Calculating his reduced fees, which were based on the value of his client’s investments, the man was not as sanguine. Still, he hadn’t landed clients like Senator Carrington by questioning them.

  “What’s the charity? Who are the lucky S-O-B’s who are going to get the big fat check?”

  “Oh, it’s not a charity.”

  Ten minutes later, Senator Carrington was on the phone with Dr. Faye Young.

  “You want to do what?” Faye asked for the second time.

  “I want to donate to your lab, Dr. Young,” Carrington repeated.

  “And you want to donate one hundred million dollars?”

  “That’s correct,”

  “Is this some kind of a prank?”

  “I can assure you it is not.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  “There’s no ‘catch’ but I do insist that the funds be used on a specific research project.”

  “Which project?” Faye asked. She had a feeling she knew which one.

  “Your work on an artificial womb,” Carrington said as he ran his fingertips over his incision.

  Of course, Faye thought. “You should know that my lead researcher on that project has temporarily stepped away from that work.” She had no idea if Hope’s absence was temporary or not. In fact, she hadn’t heard from Hope in over a month, and she feared the worst: that her young protege was somehow involved in the events in New York a few days earlier.

  Carrington quickly grabbed his laptop and reopened the browser tab opened to Dr. Young’s research lab. He clicked on the “Staff” link and there she was: Hope Hunter, the woman who had attacked her.

  “Are you there Senator?” Faye asked after several seconds of silence.

  “Yes, yes, sorry,” Carrington said, recovering from his shock. He made a quick calculation. The right course of action was clear. “That’s fine. I would very much like to support and accelerate your research in this area. I think an artificial womb would provide an important alternative to abortion.”

  Dr. Faye Young, a graduate from ultra-liberal University of California, Berkeley, and daughter to two parents of the sixties, did not like Senator Carrington’s politics one bit. The man—like too many powerful men in Washington in her mind—was far too eager, and sadly able, to impose his religious beliefs on women across the country. Yet, the man had a point. If Hope’s research could be perfected to the point where it could be used with human embryos, it could perhaps be used as an alternative to abortion. And, perhaps more importantly, the man had one hundred million dollars he was willing to give to the lab. Faye took her fundraising responsibilities seriously.

  “I’ll have my secretary get back to you with the necessary paperwork,” Faye said coolly.

  “Thank you. That would be great,” Carrington said. After a pause he added, “Oh, and there’s one other condition. You must promise to keep my identity private. If I find out that anyone but you knows about my involvement, I will sue you personally for every penny you’ve got. And the hospital, too.”

  “As I said, I’ll have my secretary get back to you with the necessary paperwork. Have a nice day,” Faye said before saying something she would regret.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Monday, June 25

  U.S. District Court

  Washington, D.C.

  Three months after Hope’s arrest

  The last one hundred and five days had been simultaneously horrible and bearable, mundane and eventful, stressful and relaxing. Hope knew that it was a very bad idea for her to be counting her days in prison, but she couldn’t help herself. While some prisoners used the paper and pencils provided to them to write letters to loved ones or to draw, Hope simply tallied the days she’d spent caged up since turning herself in. She spent almost all of her time reading books she was able to take out from the prison’s surprisingly well stocked library. After finishing most of the biographies in the library, she moved to reading books from the much larger collection of self-help titles on meditation.

  She hated being confined to a cage most of the day, but, thanks to a suggestion by a friendly guard, she read book after book on finding inner peace and tried to meditate her way to a place where she could tolerate her situation without going crazy. Most days seemed to drag on interminably, but the occasional fight or other bout of drama kept her on her toes. It was stressful to have to navigate the various cliques and gangs, but she’d found a way to carve out her own identity without offending anyone, at least so far. She mused, frequently, about how trivial her issues with the Pamela Pack had been back at Stanford. None of those girls had a shiv made MacGyver-style from a razor and a toothbrush.

  She’d made her initial appearance in court the day after turning herself in, in the middle of March. For weeks after, she’d had nightmares abou
t the hulking federal agents who brusquely brought her into a courtroom and shoved her into her chair, and, worse, the shiver of despair she felt when she first looked into the soulless black eyes of the federal magistrate judge. By comparison, the Assistant U.S. Attorney, who tried to act tough, wasn’t nearly as intimidating. When the judge formally read the charges against her, he announced the statutory maximum sentence for her crimes: eighteen years in prison. She still had nightmares about that, despite her attempts at meditation.

  When informed of her constitutional rights and asked if she could afford counsel, she requested a public defender, filled out some paperwork to prove she was poor enough to qualify, and was assigned a short, pudgy attorney with short blond hair and rosacea named Christian Nash. The young man looked to be a few years younger than she was, and he had a disconcerting habit of biting his nails all the time. Despite her lack of confidence in the man, she followed his advice and did not seek bail when the AUSA indicated he wanted Hope detained.

  A week and a half later, she was back in court for her preliminary hearing, this time in a different courtroom, just a half a mile and a ten-minute walk from the U.S. Capitol. The district court judge for her case, Judge Lorraine Jackson, a tiny woman with cropped blonde hair and horn-rimmed glasses, reminded her of Faye at the lab: friendly but stern. She was informed that the grand jury signed off on her indictment, which meant they believed there was sufficient evidence to force Hope to face the charges against her.

  Over the next five or six weeks, Hope found herself back in the courtroom once or twice a week as her lawyer made one pretrial motion after another. The little confidence she had in the man waned further after each of his motions was shot down, effortlessly, by the AUSA.

  Nash’s first motion was a motion to dismiss the case because Porter Brooks claimed that he was pregnant because of Hope’s actions, yet, Nash argued, it was biologically impossible for a man to get pregnant and therefore the case had to be thrown out. Judge Jackson shot Nash a “really, counselor?” look when informing him that she would not interpret the charge quite so literally.

  Nash tried to argue that Hope’s confession should be excluded, despite the fact that she had given it freely and was not under duress or the influence of drugs or alcohol when she’d given her statement at the FBI office in San Francisco. After this motion was denied, Nash tried to get a change of venue, arguing that since the events in question happened in New York, Hope should be tried there, not in Washington D.C. The AUSA argued that under 18 U.S. Code § 2, Hope’s crimes were an offense against the United States. Judge Jackson denied this motion, as well.

  Unable to hide his desperation, Nash attempted an insanity defense under 18 U.S. Code § 17, but this went nowhere when Hope, asked if she was fully aware of the consequences of her actions, assented without hesitation. He moved to dismiss one final time after reading in the newspaper that Brooks wouldn’t testify in open court. Judge Jackson swatted down this motion like all the others.

  When Nash was out of motions, Jackson asked for Hope’s plea. On her behalf, Nash stood and gravely said “not guilty.” Hope didn’t really understand how she could plead not guilty when she’d admitted to the crimes, but she was swayed by Nash’s advice despite her concern about having her future in the hands of such an inexperienced lawyer. The judge consulted her calendar and announced that the trial would begin six weeks later. She was back in her cell a half an hour later.

  In the third week in June, she was back in Judge Jackson’s courtroom in U.S. District Court for her trial. After such a long wait, she was surprised at how quickly everything suddenly moved. Her trial lasted only four days, starting on a Wednesday and ending the following Monday.

  Now, on the last day of the trial, Hope sat awaiting her verdict. It had been a little over six months since her foray in New York, since she had walked into the FBI field office in San Francisco and been taken into custody, and since Senator Royce Carrington had done a one hundred and eighty degree turn and voted down his own national anti-abortion bill. Her time in the Correctional Treatment Facility—prison—already seemed like a lifetime and she hadn’t even been sentenced yet.

  Hope sat at the defense table with her public defender in the same courtroom they’d been coming to for the past four days. The room could be summed up with one word: wood. Wood paneling on the walls, wooden tables for the plaintiff and defense, and wooden desks for the judge and court reporter. An American flag hung limply from a flagpole in the corner. Walking paths had been carved into the threadbare yellow carpeting.

  Reverend Brooks, the complainant in her case, had not been coming into court, and was not present now. Hope guessed he must be too embarrassed to be seen in public while six months pregnant. Interestingly, Senator Carrington had not filed charges against Hope, and had been at work on the Senate floor, distended belly and all, for the past several months.

  Based on her good behavior while in custody awaiting trial and her past as an outstanding student at Stanford University Medical School, they allowed Hope to appear in court wearing street clothes instead of her prison jumper. She was not in cuffs either. She wore black pants and a simple white blouse. She wore no makeup, and was still the most beautiful woman in the room to Billy, who waved to her from the front row of the public seating area. Hope waved back nervously to Billy, and to Charlie and Faye, who were also in the courtroom. Charlie and Billy had attended each day of the trial. Faye must have flown out over the weekend. She was the only woman in the packed courtroom not wearing a CHILDREN OF HOPE baseball cap.

  As she sat and waited for the proceedings to begin, Hope found herself thinking once again that the courtroom was eerily similar to the one she’d been in when she was called for jury duty a few years earlier back in Redwood City, California. That case was about a robbery, and there was overwhelming evidence that the defendant was guilty. The case was settled just before Hope and the rest of the jury would have deliberated. She found the case boring and would have convicted the man after just the first hour of testimony. She couldn’t help but think that the jurors in her trial had a far more interesting trial to adjudicate; they’d have a story to tell for the rest of their lives. She only hoped they would not jump to a conclusion about her as quickly as she had about the defendant in the case for which she was a juror. Her fate was in their hands.

  The case had ended the previous Friday afternoon. The jury of five women and seven men, after spending just two hours together Monday morning, reached its verdict. Everyone had been called back into court after lunch. In prison, Hope was served stew yet again.

  When the jury was brought in and seated, Hope tried to read their faces. Most of the women looked sympathetic, but she wasn’t sure. Maybe they were just pitying her for the judgement that was about to come. The men, except for an older African American man and a slight, professorial-looking man, seemed openly hostile to her. The heavyset guy wearing a flannel shirt and paint-stained khakis, as he had done each day of the trial, stared at her to the point that she was uncomfortable. Worryingly, he was the jury foreman.

  When the judge entered from her chambers, the bailiff announced, “All rise. The U.S. District Court is now in session, the Honorable Judge Lorraine Jackson presiding.”

  Judge Jackson stepped up on the dais and sat down, and everyone in the courtroom took their seats. Jackson took a moment to organize the folders and papers in front of her; a decade of service in the Army implanted an insatiable need for right angles, crisp bed corners, and socks and belts rolled counterclockwise, never clockwise.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”

  “We have, your Honor.” Hope didn’t like how the man glared at her as he said this.

  The bailiff walked over and took a small piece of paper from the jury foreman. He carried it to the judge and handed it to her. She peeked at the paper, then refolded it.

  Charge by charge, the judge asked the jury their findings. Charge by charge, the jury found Hope Hu
nter guilty as charged.

  Hope was numb. She was here to take responsibility for her actions, yet she had hoped beyond hope that somehow she wouldn’t have to spend decades of her life behind bars. Her attorney, the pimple-faced public defender, seemed to need more consoling than Hope did, so she helped the poor young man regulate his breathing until she was taken from the courtroom.

  Judge Lorraine Jackson thanked the jury for their service. After checking her oversized paper desk calendar and attempting to smooth one of the corners that was, annoyingly, curling up, she said, “Sentencing to be held Monday, September tenth.” She banged her gavel and walked to her chambers. No one in the courtroom could see the heartbreak in her eyes.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Monday, September 10 (three months later)

  U.S. District Court

  Washington, D.C.

  Three months later

  Six months after Hope’s arrest

  Hope sat awaiting sentencing in the same courtroom in U.S. District Court where the jury had found her guilty eleven weeks earlier. While she’d established a rhythm of sorts in her time in prison, she was thankful for the change in scenery. She sat at the defense table with her public defender, who once again nervously bit his nails. The wood paneling and wooden furniture was the same, but the flagpole in the corner had been replaced by a newer, shinier model.

  As for her trial, Hope was allowed to appear in court wearing street clothes instead of her prison jumper, and without cuffs. She wore the same black pants and white blouse she wore the last day of her trial. When she was led to her seat, she waved to Billy, Charlie, and Faye, who were once again in the courtroom. As was true during Hope’s trial, Faye was the only woman in the packed courtroom not wearing a CHILDREN OF HOPE baseball cap.