Tierney’s returning gaze betrayed, to Sarah, acknowledgment, resignation, and fatalism. “Whatever was meant,” he said, “it’s done.”
Watching him, Sarah felt despair. “Don’t testify, Martin. Please. Because if Mary Ann wants to win, you may force her to take the stand.”
Tierney could not be surprised. But pain showed through his self-control. “You’d put her on.”
“After you’ve testified she’s incapable of deciding for herself? She’ll demand it. I’m her lawyer; you may leave me with no choice.” Sarah’s voice remained quiet. “And if either of you testifies, I’ll go after you. You’ve thought about that, I’m sure—how I’ll do it, and what I know.”
Tierney stared at her. “You’re offering a deal. If we don’t testify, she won’t.”
“Yes. We both rest on what we have. Before all of us reach the point of no return.”
Tierney placed a finger to his lips, eyes downcast in thought. Sarah tried to imagine the personae warring within him: the protective father; the concerned husband; the moral philosopher bent on saving his grandson’s life; the litigator forced to calculate his chances. His conflict was as tangible to Sarah as the strength of his principles. “Margaret won’t testify,” he said at last. “But I will. In fact, I must.
“You think I’m speaking against my daughter. To me, it’s my last chance to speak to her, in the only place where she still listens.”
The sadness of this admission silenced Sarah, as did his concession of how much he had lost. But as it always seemed with Martin Tierney, nothing he did or said was simple—his choice of himself as witness over Margaret, Sarah knew, was also the calculated decision of a clever adversary. “What’s to keep me,” she retorted, “from calling Margaret as a hostile witness? If I were you, I’d worry for them both—your daughter and your wife.”
Tierney’s smile signaled his anger, tightly controlled. “I thought you might threaten that. Or even do it to divide us—as you’ve been hoping for all along.” He stood. “You talk of choices, Sarah. That choice is up to you, and to your conscience.”
Sarah rose as well. “I’m sorry,” she said. “More than you know.”
Tierney let the ambiguous remark linger for a moment, then nodded. “On some level, I suppose you are.”
Turning, he left her there.
TWENTY-SEVEN
TAKING THE STAND, Martin Tierney first looked toward his wife.
Despite her anger, the small moment made Sarah think of her parents. However deeply they loved her, there existed between them an understanding—built on years of compromise, a shared affection, a tolerance for the other’s weaknesses, secrets which Sarah could not know. Watching the Tierneys’ eyes meet, Sarah sensed their tangible connection, the fruits of twenty years. But Margaret’s reflexive glance toward Mary Ann was filled with apprehension.
The girl sat beside Sarah, taut and still. As Mary Ann looked at her father, Sarah read her loss of innocence. No longer could she feel that her parents’ love was unconditional: as she grew older, Mary Ann might appreciate their dilemma, but in her deepest heart, Sarah believed, she would always feel betrayed. As if seeing this, her father turned away.
Barry Saunders’s questioning began slowly, eliciting from Martin Tierney the dimensions of his faith.
“What are your beliefs,” Saunders asked, “regarding the death penalty?”
“I’m opposed to it,” Tierney answered. “I believe that life is granted by God, and that we have no right to take it.”
“And yet you served in Vietnam.”
“Yes. But as a medic, not a combatant.”
“And why was that?”
Tierney folded his hands. “I don’t object to all wars. But I certainly objected to that war. Becoming a medic gave me a chance to save lives, not take them.”
Tierney, Sarah thought, made no claims for himself beyond that he had beliefs too deep to treat as a convenience. “And your wife shares these beliefs?” Saunders asked.
“Long before she met me.” Tierney gave his wife a fleeting smile. “Together, we were going to eradicate capital punishment. From the look of things, we’ve got a ways to go.”
The understatement carried a hint of irony and sadness: their ideals were at risk within their own family, and might fail even there. “And has Mary Ann,” Saunders asked, “also believed in the sanctity of life?”
“Always.” Tierney remained quiet, contained. “The idea of defenselessness, or that someone could take the life of another, seemed to touch her deeply.”
Silent, Mary Ann stared at the table, no more able to look at Martin Tierney than he could look at her. That cameras recorded this filled Sarah with disgust.
“When Mary Ann became pregnant,” Saunders inquired, “how did you react?”
“We felt many things.” Tierney narrowed his eyes in thought, as though straining to give an answer as complete as it was honest. “Angry and deluded, the reaction of parents when a child’s conduct shocks them. Resentful, as unready to be grandparents as Mary Ann was to be a mother. Above all, we felt deep worry for our daughter. She was just so terribly young.
“Mary Ann imagined a life partnership with the boy who was the father. All we wanted was for him to be decent to her, to treat her with compassion.” He paused, glancing at his wife, then added quietly, “So we went to talk to him, and to his parents.”
At this, Mary Ann looked up, as astonished as Sarah herself. “What did they say?” Saunders asked.
“The parents were as adamant as their son, and he wanted nothing to do with Mary Ann. We’ve allowed her to believe that we wanted to exclude him.” Hesitant, Tierney spoke more softly still. “In truth, he refused to see her. On any terms.”
Mary Ann went crimson with shock and humiliation, and then her eyes filmed over. Sarah stared at Tierney in outrage; still Tierney did not look at them.
“On the way home,” he finished, “we were overcome with regret. She’d gotten into something she didn’t understand— for which, plainly, we had failed to prepare her. We simply could not bring ourselves to make that any worse by telling her.”
Perhaps, Sarah thought, this revelation was a perverse form of pleading, a father straining to tell his daughter how much he loved her; if so, its tacit cruelty betrayed how badly Tierney had lost his way. But Patrick Leary’s look of commiseration bespoke the sympathy of one father for another.
“Did she ever ask about abortion?” Saunders asked.
“Never,” Tierney answered. “Mary Ann may have fantasized about this boy. But she knew that her reasons for bearing this child were far more profound, and far less transitory. At no time did she question that.”
To Sarah, this had the ring of truth, though she believed that the reasons for Mary Ann’s silence were different from what Tierney proposed. “And how,” Saunders asked, “was that affected by the sonogram?”
“All of us were devastated.” Tierney’s pale eyes sought out his wife. “I found myself wondering if this was God’s way of sparing Mary Ann. But it was agony for her mother, and it has plainly spared our daughter nothing.”
At this, Margaret Tierney briefly closed her eyes; Sarah scrawled her first note—“fear of infertility.” Face radiating sympathy, Saunders moved closer, “When you speak of Mary Ann …”
“She was depressed, more profoundly than I’d ever seen. She couldn’t stop crying. Finally, she told us that she didn’t want a baby with no brain.”
All at once, Sarah understood where this was going. “Could you talk to her?” Saunders asked.
“No. The shock was just too great, I think.” Tierney’s voice became even quieter, more pensive; to Sarah, his recitation, however heartfelt, seemed rehearsed. “This was the only time I’d seen Mary Ann’s concern for innocent life fail her. Which is so unlike her that now she seems a different girl. I fear the day she has an abortion and then awakens to what she’s done.”
Saunders, too, looked troubled. “Between the sonogram and the d
ay Ms. Dash filed this lawsuit, how much time had passed?”
“Three weeks.”
“And in those three weeks, did Mary Ann ever express a fear of infertility?”
“No.” Tierney’s voice was melancholy. “Never.”
With this, the thrust of Tierney’s testimony struck home: Mary Ann was committing euthanasia—not from fear of infertility—but out of horror at a defective child. “And what,” Saunders asked her father, “does that compel you to conclude?”
“That our daughter’s groping for a plausible reason. That far too much has happened to her, far too quickly, for her to absorb.” Now Tierney turned to Sarah in accusation. “And that she’s being used by others, whose beliefs at heart she does not share, who can never comprehend the harm that they will do her.”
In the silence, this time extended by Saunders, Sarah’s fingertips gripped the table. “Is that why you intervened?” Saunders asked.
“We had no choice. What kind of world would we live in if parents ignore a moral wrong which only they can stop?” Once more, Tierney’s voice became lower. “But principles in such a case are cold comfort without love. We deeply love our daughter, and we know her. And so we know that, in the depths of her soul, her son will always be a life. And that to take his life will traumatize her forever.
“But it’s not just his life. It’s the countless lives which will be lost if she succeeds in bringing down this law.”
At last, Martin Tierney faced his daughter. “Because of this trial, Mary Ann will never live in privacy. And—if Ms. Dash should prevail—Mary Ann will bear the weight of every child who dies. Death upon death, abortion on abortion, they will drive her to despair.”
In shock and anger, Sarah felt each word come down on Mary Ann: a father’s judgment, more punishing than blows. Turning, she saw the girl’s lower lip tremble as she tried to fight back tears.
Her father gazed at her, and then turned to Patrick Leary. “Unless you stop this,” Tierney finished. “That’s what I’m asking, Your Honor, as a father who loves his daughter more than life. Because winning this case will destroy her as surely as it destroys her son.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
WALKING TOWARD Martin Tierney, Sarah saw no one else, felt nothing but the need to take him down. On the stand, Tierney watched her with cold dislike.
“That was quite a speech,” she said. “Very Old Testament. So let’s start out with a catalog of sin.”
Silent, Tierney waited. “Do you believe in birth control?” Sarah asked.
“No.”
“Because it’s a sin?”
For an instant, Tierney looked annoyed, then composed himself. “Because life is a gift from God.”
“And so,” Sarah persisted, “birth control is a sin.”
Tierney pulled on the lapels of his suit coat, straightening its line. “I believe it’s wrong.”
“So it also would have been wrong to tell your daughter about birth control.”
“Yes.”
“Does she believe that’s wrong?”
Tierney hesitated. “So I’ve always thought.”
“Did she form that belief when she was ten?”
“I don’t know …”
“Or fifteen?”
Tierney sat straighter. “I can’t assign a time, Ms. Dash. Obviously, the older one gets, the deeper the context of one’s beliefs …”
“Or the greater one’s opportunity to change them?”
Tierney gave her the guarded smile of an adversary. “Hopefully, one’s sense of right and wrong is less elastic.”
“Such as beliefs regarding abortion.”
“Yes.”
Sarah cocked her head. “Do you believe that abortion is justified in cases of rape or incest?”
“No. Regardless of its genesis, a fetus is a life.”
“Does Mary Ann believe that?”
Tierney glanced toward his wife. “I always thought so.”
Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Really? When did she form that belief?”
Tierney folded his hands. “I can’t give you an hour, Ms. Dash. Or a day.”
“Or a year?”
“No.”
“So you don’t know whether, at age seven, your daughter believed that incest did not justify abortion?”
“Objection,” Saunders called out. “This is nothing more than badgering the witness.”
Holding up her hand, Sarah kept her eyes on Martin Tierney. “Does Mary Ann also oppose the death penalty?” she asked.
Once more, Tierney paused to straighten his suit coat. “Vehemently.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’m her father,” Tierney answered with weary patience. “I’ve talked with her about it, read her school papers on the subject …”
“Read them, or wrote them?”
“Objection,” Saunders called out.
“Sustained,” Leary said promptly. “Please accord Professor Tierney more respect.”
Like he accorded Mary Ann, Sarah wished to add. “Mary Ann attended prayer vigils,” she said to Tierney, “outside San Quentin. When did that start?”
“At age eleven, I believe.”
“Did Mary Ann ask to go?”
This time, Tierney glanced at his daughter. “Margaret and I took her. We believed that it was part of her moral education.”
“So her appearance at San Quentin was compulsory.”
Tierney frowned. “For a child to learn,” he answered, “parents have to teach. And Mary Ann was willing.”
Sarah appraised him. “In your view, does a proper ‘moral education’ also include a commitment to nonviolence?”
Tierney paused; Sarah guessed that he was wondering whether she had read his writings. “Yes. With rare exceptions.”
“Then let me ask you a philosophical question. If this were 1940, and you could assassinate Hitler—knowing of his plan to annihilate Jews—would you do it?”
Tierney gazed back at her, his pale eyes unblinking. “No,” he answered. “Any more than I would murder an abortion provider, despite my belief that—like Hitler—he’s performing legalized murder. Because I also believe in passive resistance, as practiced by Gandhi and Martin Luther King.”
“I won’t quibble with you, Professor, about whether sit-ins could have stopped the Holocaust. But I would observe that your beliefs regarding life are unusually rigorous and demanding.” Pausing, Sarah cocked her head. “When did you form them?”
From his expression, combining discomfort and defensiveness, Tierney understood where this might lead. “It began in college,” he finally answered. “And continued in graduate school, deepened by reading both philosophers and theologians.”
“And was further deepened by your service in Vietnam, I believe you’ve written. Because of the brutality you witnessed.”
“Yes.”
“So you didn’t form this belief when you were ten.”
“No.”
“Or fifteen?”
Tierney’s gaze became a stare. “No.”
“So is it fair to conclude, Professor, that your beliefs respecting life were formed as a result of maturation, education, and difficult personal experience?”
Tierney crossed his arms. “In my case,” he answered. “But that’s not the only path—”
“Isn’t it possible,” Sarah interrupted, “that Mary Ann has come to her belief regarding this tragic situation as a result of maturation, education, and difficult personal experience?”
“A transient belief …”
“Specifically,” Sarah continued, “by being fifteen and not eleven; by exposure to beliefs different than your beliefs; and by facing the difficult personal experience of a hydrocephalic fetus.”
Tierney stiffened. “As I was trying to say, Ms. Dash, people come to their beliefs in different ways. As an adolescent, I was on my own. But we helped Mary Ann form her beliefs from an early age. Her confusion now is transient …”
“Is it? Why on
earth, Professor Tierney, is the threat of infertility at age fifteen more ‘transient’ than you dragging her to a prayer vigil at age eleven?”
A flush stained Tierney’s pallid checks. “This experience is too colored by emotion …”
“Unlike your experience in Vietnam? Isn’t what’s happening that Mary Ann’s begun to form her own beliefs, and you can’t stand that?”
“No,” Tierney snapped, then contained himself. “Her mother and I are acting to protect her …”
“By putting a virtual curse on her head on national television—that your fifteen-year-old daughter will ‘bear the weight of every child who dies’? Isn’t the trauma you’re really concerned about not to Mary Ann, but to you?”
“That is not true.”
“Isn’t it?” Sarah said with real anger. “Isn’t this entire trial a massive case of parental projection?”
Tierney paused, forcing himself to take a swallow of water. “It is not,” he answered with a show of calm. “That you imply I so lack self-awareness—that I’ve pursued this trial to meet my own emotional needs—is an insult. It’s an insult, Ms. Dash, that zealots like you can use to disparage any parent who, loving his child, charts a different course than whatever pleases you.”
Sarah stared at him, then chose her next weapon. “Did you and Mrs. Tierney want more children?”
To Sarah, Tierney’s eyes resembled chips of ice. “Objection,” Saunders called out. “What possible relevance does this have?”
“Oh,” Sarah said to Leary, “Professor Tierney knows. If you’ll let him answer the question, he’ll establish relevance.”
Leary seemed to study Tierney’s expression. “You may answer, Professor Tierney.”
“Yes.” Tierney seemed to bite off the word.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because Margaret couldn’t.”
“Because she’d had a classical cesarean section, you mean?”
Silent, Tierney glanced at his wife. “Specifically,” Sarah pressed, “wasn’t your wife told that—as a result of the C-section required to give birth to Mary Ann—further childbirth was a serious risk to health?”
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