Weeks ago, he remembered, Lara had asked if he felt the loneliness of power. Then, he had answered lightly. Now the Masters nomination—the stakes, the risks, the self-doubt, the playing God with others’ lives, the breach with Clayton— would have made his response far different.
But there was little time for self-reflection. He had wanted this job, and now there were millions who relied on him to do it. That he was right—about Caroline Masters, about the Tierney case, about the politics of scandal—he believed to his core. He was equally convinced that he, not Macdonald Gage, spoke to the better nature of his countrymen. So, as seconds passed, he called on the trick of imagination which always served when he could not see his audience: to envision a face, or faces, to whom—or for whom—he spoke.
Tonight, the faces which appeared to him were women: the damaged girl from the press conference; Mary Ann Tierney; Caroline Masters. And, most of all, her daughter, Brett.
At this moment, Caroline Masters wished that her two closest friends were not judges. Though both had called several times, Jackson Watts was presiding over a murder trial in New Hampshire; Blair Montgomery was hearing cases in Seattle. With the wounds of the past reopened, knowing that her future might rest on the response to the next half hour, she watched Kilcannon alone.
As before, he seemed—at least to Caroline—startlingly young for a president. But his voice was calm and clear; somehow the camera caught the tactile intensity of his presence.
“The issue,” Kilcannon insisted, “is clear: whether the Senate will reject Caroline Masters for two acts of enormous courage—one as a judge, the other as a young woman, twenty-seven years ago …”
Had that been courage? Caroline wondered. Such had been the intensity of her love—for David, for the child he had left inside her—that snuffing out this life would have felt like the death of her own soul. There was no way to explain this, and she had never wanted to try. But now she must, if only to Brett. Just as, somehow, she must try to mitigate the devastation her own ambitions had wrought on her own sister; for all her jealousies and flaws, Betty had done nothing to deserve this trauma. A trauma deepened, Caroline must acknowledge, by her own resolve to brave the furor which it created.
“As a judge,” Kilcannon continued, “her qualifications are superb. Two short weeks ago, by an overwhelming majority, the Committee on the Judiciary recommended that the Senate confirm her as Chief Justice—the first woman to so serve.
“What happened?” Pausing, Kilcannon’s voice took on a note of irony. “Three days ago, joined by five of her colleagues, Judge Masters held that the Protection of Life Act violated the United States Constitution.
“It was the one thing Caroline Masters could do to jeopardize her nomination.
“She knew this ruling would create controversy.
“She knew that her opponents could use it to defeat her.
“She knew that the subjects of late-term abortion, and parental consent, are widely misunderstood.
“She knew that the case of Mary Ann Tierney had aroused passions across America.
“She knew all that, and then decided this: that her obligations as a judge—to render justice to a fifteen-year-old girl— are more important than her own ambitions.
“For that,” Kilcannon said with scorn, “the forces of the far right—whose cynicism knows no limits, and whose compassion has every limit—have resolved to defeat her by any means at hand.
“They know that—as a judge—Caroline Masters cannot speak for herself. They hope that, in her silence, they can destroy her through distortion, and through smear. And so I will speak for her …”
Caroline sat back. Whatever else might happen, Kerry Kilcannon did not intend to make her a sacrificial victim. They were going down together.
“He’s going for it,” Gage murmured. “The little bastard’s going for it.”
“The little demagogue,” Paul Harshman amended. “Whenever I hear his version of the ‘truth,’ the term ‘Orwellian’ pops to mind. And people buy it.”
“Not this time,” Gage promised. He felt the others, a small group of allies clustered in his office, noting this exchange. Chad Palmer was conspicuously absent, but Gage had invited a potential waverer—Kate Jarman—in an attempt to seal her loyalty. She watched the screen intently.
“Late-term abortions,” Kilcannon said, “are perhaps one in a thousand.
“They do not threaten the healthy fetuses of healthy mothers—that’s illegal in all fifty states. Rather, they arise from medical emergencies. And, of the women who must face this tragic situation, only a fraction involve girls like Mary Ann Tierney—minors living with their parents.
“It is for them this law was written.
“I do not doubt the good intentions of those who helped to pass it …”
“Oh, no,” Gage said satirically. “We’re only the cynical, heartless, right-wing conspiracy, the fifth column for a pack of inbred child molesters with vacant eyes and sloping foreheads.”
Kate Jarman gave him an edgy smile. “In Kentucky,” she said, “don’t you call those folks the ‘swing vote’?” Harshman kept his eyes on the screen.
“But,” Kilcannon continued “the Tierney case has made us face hard questions:
“Does a good family—the great majority of our families— communicate because Congress tells it to?
“Should a minor child be forced to bear a child of her own—no matter how doomed or damaged—at the risk she can never have children again?
“Should the victim of rape and incest be forced to bear her father’s defective child, adding this trauma to the trauma of abuse?” Kilcannon’s voice softened. “And what would those who vilify Caroline Masters say to the fifteen-year-old girl I held in my arms here at the White House, after she risked humiliation to describe how she was forced to bear a son who was blind and severely retarded? Because he was also her brother …”
Kate Jarman no longer smiled. “You may not like it,” she told Gage. “But it’s effective.”
“The truth is harsh,” Kilcannon went on. “But it is indispensable to judging Caroline Masters. That’s why her opponents don’t want you to hear it, and why it’s so important that you do.
“Two days ago, at the White House, I gathered women who had lived the truth of late-term abortion at first hand, and girls who had suffered the unintended consequences of parental consent laws.
“All of those women wanted children. None of their children would have lived. Nor might several of the women. Two wondered who might care for the children they already had. One girl—the girl I mentioned—was the victim of the most terrible betrayal a father could visit on a child. And another woman, who loved her child immeasurably, lost that child to an illegal abortion because her daughter was afraid to disappoint her …”
“A real Jerry Lewis telethon,” Harshman said with scorn. “Doesn’t he know any normal people? You’d think we’re a country of two hundred seventy million victims.” But Kate Jarman ignored him, watching Kilcannon intently—an intimation, if Gage needed one, that there might yet be problems in the Senate.
“But another girl,” Kilcannon continued, “could not be there at all. Nor could her mother speak for her.
“Her name was Dawn Collins. When she was thirteen, her father raped her.” Kilcannon’s voice turned flat, staccato. “Ashamed, she tried to keep this secret. But pregnancy was one secret she could not keep.
“So she asked her mother for permission to abort—as required by Idaho law. And then her mother questioned her until she learned the truth.
“With Dawn hiding in the bedroom, her mother confronted her father. He was drunk. In a rage, he shot and killed his wife. Then he murdered Dawn as he had threatened, for betraying him.” Kilcannon’s voice went quiet again. “And when I heard that, I resolved that I would never avert my eyes, and sign a law, rather than face the truth.
“That—in essence—was the choice that Caroline Masters faced. You may not agree with her decisi
on; I do not ask that. Instead I ask you this: is it right for the Senate to deny our country her services because of a single act of courage?
“And this.” The President’s voice turned harsh. “How on earth did we reach the point where such a question is asked at all?
“The answer, I’m afraid, is the day that abortion ceased being a moral question, and became a political issue. The day that groups like the Christian Commitment ceased being a cause, and became a source of funding for right-wing officeholders …”
“Whoa,” Kate Jarman said under her breath. Beside her, Paul Harshman’s face reddened in anger.
“In the pursuit of money and power,” Kilcannon went on, “the opponents of Judge Masters have turned morality on its head.
“One can reasonably debate the morality of ending first-trimester pregnancies as a means of birth control. But that’s a woman’s right by law—one which, with whatever personal reservations, most Americans support.
“And so, to defeat Judge Masters, the far right perpetuates a lie—that healthy children are being aborted by callous doctors and selfish mothers a few short moments from birth.” Kilcannon slowed his voice for emphasis. “It’s a lie with terrible consequences: in no other area of medicine does the law— like this law—criminalize a doctor for protecting a minor’s reproductive health, and her hope of children in the future. Because, even now, there lingers in our society a pervasive insensitivity toward women …”
“So now we’re sexists,” Harshman said. Once more, Gage noted, Kate Jarman did not respond.
“In 1954,” the President went on, “the Supreme Court decided in Brown versus Board of Education that legalized segregation violated our Constitution. Today, if any judge flouted Brown, there would be a universal outcry. And whether or not we agree with Roe, it is—like Brown—the law of the land.
“Those who oppose Judge Masters ignore that; ignore the tragedies she was compelled by duty to address; ignore the superb qualities she offers to the Court. It is time for us to ask why such unfairness—to this woman and all women—is somehow still acceptable.
“It is not acceptable,” Kilcannon said succinctly, “to me.”
“He didn’t call us sexist flat out,” Gage told Harshman. “At least not by name. But the night is young …”
“I’ve read Judge Masters’s words with care, and thought about them deeply. And I’ve learned. No longer can I accept that it’s the proper role of government to tell a minor child— no matter how harsh her circumstances—that she no longer matters.” Kilcannon raised his head, a gesture which combined a calm resolve with a touch of defiance. “For these reasons, I have today instructed the Solicitor General not to oppose Mary Ann Tierney in the Supreme Court of the United States …”
“We passed that law,” Paul Harshman snapped. “It’s his duty to uphold it.”
With this, Kate Jarman broke her silence. “I’ll be damned,” she murmured, and then turned to Gage. “He could have left it with ‘right or wrong, don’t punish her for one decision.’”
In his own surprise, Gage was slow to answer. The President had placed his moral authority squarely behind Caroline Masters and, by doing so, risked everything.
“No one ever said,” he told his colleagues, “that the little bastard lacks for nerve.”
“It’s so good,” Sarah said in a thick voice. “The President just said your father’s wrong.”
Mary Ann’s grip tightened on Sarah’s hand. “Will it help us?”
“Psychologically, it does. Even Supreme Court justices are human.” And it helps me, Sarah did not add; for the first time in days, she felt less tired.
“But I have something more to say.” Pausing, Kilcannon softened his tone. “Today, the New York Times revealed that Caroline Masters has a daughter of her own.
“Within hours, the Senate Majority Leader, Macdonald Gage, declared her ‘morally unfit’ to be Chief Justice. He never asked her to explain. He never asked me what I knew. He never paused to ask himself whether this was fair or just. He took one piece of a woman’s life, and proceeded to condemn the woman.
“I think we can do better.”
Kilcannon paused. “Imagine Caroline Masters,” he said quietly, “not as the distinguished judge she is today, but as a young woman of twenty-two.
“It would have been simple to terminate her pregnancy.
“But she could not. She believed that this decision involved a life other than her own.
“She had little to offer a child but that belief.” Briefly, Kilcannon let the image linger. “But there was one thing she could give her: a sister and brother-in-law who desperately wanted children.
“A few weeks before her daughter was born, they asked to adopt her child.
“They offered two parents, and a loving home. All they wanted in return was to raise the child as theirs.
“This was not what she had planned. But she faced the facts with the same unsparing honesty which impelled her to have this child. And she knew it was best that her child be secure.
“Three days after the child was born, her brother-in-law came for her.”
“That explains so much,” Sarah said, less to Mary Ann than to herself. The girl watched the television, transfixed.
“So Caroline Masters,” the President continued, “started a new life. She could never talk about what had happened; she’d promised her sister that. She could never know her child. But she knew that the girl was well, and that her parents loved her.
“For Caroline Masters, that knowledge justified her sacrifice, and her silence …”
Turning, Gage observed Kate Jarman, watching the screen as though her political life depended on it.
“For twenty-seven years,” the President continued, “she kept her word.
“She protected her daughter and the adoptive family.
“When I considered her for the Court, Judge Masters made it clear that if damaging her daughter and her family was the price of being Chief Justice, she would not pay it.
“I could not quarrel with that. Nor can I quarrel with the choices made by Caroline Masters and her daughter’s adoptive parents.
“I have met that daughter. She is an intelligent and accomplished twenty-seven-year-old woman.” The softness left Kilcannon’s voice. “And she is a compelling argument for the virtues of adoption, which Caroline Masters’s chief opponents assert so often but which she herself has lived …”
“So now she’s a pro-lifer,” Gage observed. “Amazing.”
“It’s shameless,” Harshman snorted with contempt. “He’s going to trot out the daughter, the new poster girl for adoption …”
“And now, within hours of this painful disclosure, Senator Gage asserts that her daughter’s very existence disqualifies Judge Masters. I can only assume that Senator Gage is not referring to Caroline Masters’s courage in preserving her child’s life, and then giving her up—since, as the Senator invariably points out, he, too, is adopted …”
“Kerry,” Gage said quietly, “you truly know how to hurt a fellow …”
“Perhaps,” Kilcannon continued “he believes that Caroline Masters is disqualified because, twenty-seven years ago, she made the same mistake many young people make.” Here the President paused, his voice taking on an ironic lilt. “To Senator Gage and his allies I say this: a mistake-free life is not a prerequisite for public office. And if Caroline Masters’s opponents claim that it is, they present the Senate with a choice—between her grace and dignity, and their sanctimony and hypocrisy …”
Kate Jarman turned from the screen. Dryly she said, “What do you think, Mac? Sound like a toss-up to you?”
“She’s a liar,” Harshman interjected. “That’s the whole point.”
“There are those,” the President continued, “who assert that Caroline Masters misled them. Why? Because, despite having told the legal and literal truth, they claim she owed it to them to break her promise and wound her family by disclosing in public the private deta
ils of this young woman’s life.
“Instead,” the President said firmly, “she disclosed them to me.
“I concluded that her debt was to her family, and no one else. So I stand with Senator Palmer: if there’s anyone to blame, blame me …”
“Of course,” Harshman said. “Use your pal Chad for cover. He likes that.”
“For my part,” the President continued, “I am proud of this nomination—of the person who protected one young woman from the moment of conception, of the judge who protected another at risk to her own ambitions. Her performance in the Tierney case reflects the highest traditions of the law, and the deepest values of her life. No president can ask for more.
“Nor, I believe, can you.
“You, I know, are better than those who—through smear and innuendo, through degrading rather than disagreeing— would take the low road to power. You, not they, represent a country which is tolerant in spirit, generous in understanding, and gracious in forgiveness. And, always, willing to value a person for the whole of who she is …”
No, Gage thought to himself; it would not be easy. Ahead were days of close maneuvers, a fight for every vote. Kilcannon saw the stakes as Gage did, and was determined to break his control; Gage was facing a politician of considerable gifts, not the least of which was ruthlessness.
“So I ask the Senate,” he concluded, “to confirm Caroline Masters as Chief Justice. And if you join me in that effort, it will.”
“Will we, now,” Gage murmured. But Kate Jarman did not look at him.
THIRTEEN
THE NEXT twelve hours, Gage reflected, were a sobering reminder of the power of the presidency.
By the time Mace Taylor came to his office for rolls and coffee, an overnight poll by CNN-Time showed that, among the estimated fifty million adults who had watched Kilcannon’s speech, forty-two percent favored Caroline Masters’s confirmation, with thirty-three percent against, and the balance—a significant twenty-five percent—undecided. Some quick calls to his whip and a few key senators suggested that Kilcannon had succeeded in freezing votes in place: though Gage’s best estimate was that he had forty-one votes, he did not yet know where the next nine or ten were coming from. And of the Senate Democrats, though some from border states and the South were inclined to opposition, none had publicly broken with their president.
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