Just Destiny

by Theresa Rizzo

  They took a break, and when they came back, Ms. Blair put Dr. Steinmetz, the urologist, on the stand. She questioned him about his professional qualifications: what medical school he attended, where he did his residency and fellowship, about his professional achievements, and current practice.

  “Dr. Steinmetz, please tell the court how you became involved in Dr. Harrison’s case.”

  “Amy Bromley, the coordinator from Save a Life, the organ donation organization, approached me and asked me to review Dr. Harrison’s case and see if I’d be willing to help Mrs. Harrison.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “Dr. Harrison had suffered extensive brain damage. After I reviewed his chart and x-rays, read Dr. Stanley’s note, and talked with Dr. Collins, it was clear that he was brain dead.”

  “And then what did you do?”

  “I spoke with Mrs. Harrison regarding her request that her husband’s sperm be recovered. I listened to her reasons and told her what I could do for her.”

  “Which was what?”

  “With several different procedures, I could probably recover enough sperm for, maybe, three attempts at insemination.”

  “And then?”

  “After she signed the addendum to the organ recovery, I took the sperm, froze it, and sent it to the sperm lab.”

  “You operated on a patient without his explicit knowledge or consent?”

  He blinked, then stared at Ms. Blair through sparkling round wire-rimmed glasses. “Dr. Harrison was declared brain dead. As next of kin, his wife signed the consent.”

  “But that was not your patient’s consent. Not the donor’s consent. You operated on Dr. Harrison without his direct consent?”

  Dr. Steinmetz shrugged. “If you want to look at it that way, I guess so. But then, the all the doctors on the transplant team took his organs too—without the legally-declared-dead patient’s explicit knowledge and consent.”

  Ms. Blair ignored his sarcastic answer. “The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 strictly prohibits the preservation of sperm without the decedent’s prior written consent. Did it ever occur to you that removing Dr. Harrison’s sperm without his consent was a gross breach of ethics and an invasion of his privacy?”

  “Objection,” Helen stood. “First, Dr. Steinmetz is not on trial here. Second, in the United States, there is no law forbidding postmortem sperm retrieval. The Human Fertilization and Embryology Act is a law in the United Kingdom and has absolutely no bearing upon these events.”

  “Objection sustained.”

  “Excuse me, I’d like to answer the question,” Dr. Steinmetz said.

  The judge turned to the witness. “The objection has been sustained, you may not answer.” He glared at Ms. Blair. “Counselor, approach the bench.”

  Jenny couldn’t hear what the judge whispered to Ms. Blair, but judging by the stern look on his face and the color flooding hers, she was getting quite the dressing-down. Helen and Steve exchanged knowing looks.

  What’d she do wrong? Jenny scribbled on Helen’s legal pad.

  Attempted to mislead the court. Very unethical. She smiled broadly. Apparently Delany doesn’t appreciate her trying to make him look like a fool.

  Ms. Blair returned to the stand and studied her notes for a minute, taking time to recover her composure before continuing her questioning. “Dr. Steinmetz could you explain to the court exactly how you extracted Dr. Harrison’s sperm?”

  “Objection,” Helen said. “It’s irrelevant. The sperm already exists and is frozen. The issue now is my client’s right to it.”

  “Goes to prove the procedures were a clear invasion of the deceased’s privacy.”

  “Overruled. The witness is instructed to answer the question.”

  Dr. Steinmetz shifted in his seat. “Given that the deceased’s physiological processes were still intact, I used electroejaculation to extract the sperm, which was then cryopreserved in a one to one dilution of TES and Tris-yolk buffer with six percent glycerol.”

  “What exactly does electroejaculation entail?”

  “To obtain sperm, a probe is inserted into the rectum and delivers electricity through the rectal wall, inducing seminal emission.”

  “So you stuck a probe up Dr. Harrison’s anus and repeatedly shocked him until he ejaculated?” Ms. Blair asked, sounding outraged.

  “Essentially, yes,” he admitted matter-of-factly.

  “Electroejaculation sounds like a barbaric invasive procedure.”

  “Not at all. It’s a means to simulate a natural ejaculation. Besides, Dr. Harrison didn’t feel anything; he was dead. It’s certainly no more barbaric than organ removal.”

  Ms. Blair crossed her arms and stared at the witness quizzically. “Dr. Steinmetz, did you have any moral qualms about this case?”

  He met her gaze, with an open, honest look. “No.”

  “Did you know that five Michigan sperm banks refused to take Dr. Harrison’s sperm because it was recovered without his consent?”

  Dr. Steinmetz went utterly still before softly admitting, “No, I did not.”

  Jenny’s heart dropped. Damn, Judith and her sage advice. She should have been honest with him, Jenny thought. But if he’d refused to help, they would have been even worse off than they were right now. It’d been a gamble.

  “You were not informed of this difficulty before performing the procedure?” Ms. Blair clarified.

  Dr. Steinmetz gave her a steady, unreadable look. “No.”

  “Don’t you consider it unethical of Mrs. Harrison and Amy Bromley not to have informed you of the difficulty they were encountering finding a sperm bank willing to take Dr. Harrison’s sperm?”

  He bridged his fingers and raised an eyebrow. “Unethical? Perhaps.”

  “Yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had you known that the California sperm bank was the only one they contacted willing to store his sperm, because of the lack of donor consent, would you have had any qualms about this case?”

  He thought for several seconds. “Possibly.”

  “Yes or no?”

  “I can’t say. I’d have to think about it.”

  “Yes or no, doctor?”

  Dr. Steinmetz glared at her. “Yes. I would have had doubts about performing the surgery.”

  “If you’d been fully informed of the difficulties Mrs. Harrison had in finding an institution willing to breach ethical standards, would you still choose to become involved in this case?”

  “To be honest, it didn’t occur to me that there would be this much made of it. But had I known about the resistance to storing Dr. Harrison’s sperm, I probably still would have performed the recovery.”

  At this unexpected turn in her witness’s disposition, Ms. Blair quickly wrapped up. “So at Mrs. Harrison’s request, you stuck a probe up Dr. Harrison’s rectum and repeatedly shocked him until he ejaculated. Without his expressed consent?”

  “Yes,” he agreed, looking bored.

  “And you didn’t think there would be any legal repercussions from that unusual procedure?”

  “No. It seemed a private issue to me.”

  “No further questions.”

  Helen rose. “Dr. Steinmeitz, why did you choose electroejaculation over other available techniques?”

  “Because it’s the simplest, least invasive method. The other techniques involve surgery.”

  “The least invasive?”

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Doctor, why’d you recover Dr. Harrison’s sperm?”

  “I believed it to be the right thing to do.” His brows arched high over the gold wire-rimmed glasses. He turned to the judge. “Mrs. Harrison had just suffered a miscarriage as well as having just lost her husband. She had the economic means to provide for a child. Mrs. Harrison’s love for her husband and compassionate nature led me to believe that a child nurtured by that woman would be well-loved and wanted—something that isn’t necessarily true in all duel-parent fami
lies. So I performed the procedure for her.”

  Jenny felt uncomfortable under his warm and understanding look. She’d tricked him—or certainly been less than honest with him, yet he still understood and supported her in court.

  Dr. Steinmetz continued. “I’d like to remind the court that she has a finite amount of sperm and the various means of assisted conception are not guarantees that she can conceive with the amount of sperm she has.”

  “You performed the procedure about seven months ago. There’s been a lot of publicity since then, and I’m sure some people have given you a hard time for what you did. Do you regret your decision now?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Thank you. No more questions.”

  The urologist’s kind remarks astonished Jenny. He’d understood right from the beginning. She was touched that, even after discovering they’d withheld pertinent information from him, he’d still have performed the surgery. Why couldn’t everybody see it like he did? She wanted to hug him.

  Next, the plaintiff put the director of a sperm bank that refused to store Gabe’s sperm on the stand. She testified that she’d refused to accept the sperm because of the lack of the man’s consent. Ms. Blair had her run through their policies, emphasizing in a superior tone, that a man’s written consent was required before they would accept his sperm.

  Like a woman could steal sperm and secretly save it, Jenny thought. She pictured women having sex, using a condom to save the sperm in, and then running it to the freezer for deposit in the sperm bank the next day. How ridiculous.

  After this lengthy and boring testimony, they quit for the day.

  Chapter 21

  “Please state your full name for the record,” Ms. Blair requested.

  George lounged in the witness box with his legs stretched before him, crossed at the ankles, and his folded, plump hands resting on his stomach. Jenny could still smell the lingering scent of his Old Spice cologne from when he’d sauntered by.

  “George Aloysius Turner.”

  “How are you related to the deceased?”

  “Gabe Harrison was my sister’s son. I’m his uncle and became his legal guardian after his parents died when he was twelve years old.”

  “Your wife died when your nephew was a teenager, leaving just the two of you, correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Was it difficult raising a teenager on your own?”

  “Well, sure. For both of us.”

  “How was it difficult for your nephew?”

  “Objection. Irrelevant,” Helen said.

  “Your Honor, of course it’s relevant, it goes to the deceased’s intent. If the deceased had a difficult time being raised by a single parent, it stands to reason he wouldn’t want his own child to be raised that way. If he had no trouble with it,” Ms. Blair shrugged, “then I’m wrong.”

  If you were wrong, then you wouldn’t be pursuing this line of questioning with your witness, Jenny thought.

  “Objection overruled.” The judge turned to George. “Answer the question, please.”

  “It was hard on Gabe,” George admitted. “I missed a lot of his football games and award ceremonies ’cause I had to work. A lot of times I couldn’t get home early enough to make dinner, so either Gabe made it or we made it together and ate late. A lot of jobs fell to Gabe once my wife died.

  “It wasn’t easy and, though Gabe didn’t rebel or anything, I could tell it was tough on him.” He narrowed cold small eyes on Jenny. “He’d never want his children raised that way.” He turned to the judge and smiled triumphantly. “As a matter of a fact, he mentioned lots of times how happy he was that Judith married such a good man to help her raise Alex and Ted when he wasn’t around. Between the three of them, he felt they had the bases covered.”

  “Mr. Turner, did you ever hear or see anything to indicate that your nephew and his second wife did not have a happy marriage?” Ms. Blair asked.

  George hitched himself up in the chair and tucked his legs under his seat. “Naw, Gabe was infatuated with her. She had him totally fooled. She married him for his money and, hell, he gave her everything money could buy, so why wouldn’t she be happy?”

  “Objection. Opinion,” Helen said.

  “Sustained.” The judge turned to George. “Mr. Turner, you may testify only to the facts.”

  “Yes, sir,” George said, managing to look contrite.

  “Mr. Turner, did you hear or observe anything to indicate that Mrs. Harrison married your nephew for his money?”

  George snorted and pointed at Jenny. “You can see that rock on her finger. That diamond must of set him back twenty grand. And as soon as they got married, she went out and bought a brand new Jeep and that house on the lake. He took her to Maui for their honeymoon. She was constantly spendin’ his money.

  “Gabe was a miser. Before meeting her, he lived simply. He drove a 2001 station wagon and rented a tiny two-bedroom house on Mt Vernon. Just ask Judith; he didn’t buy her a whopping diamond and they never vacationed in Hawaii. My nephew was not in the habit of spending money, but he sure spent it on her.” He jerked a thumb in Jenny’s direction.

  Heat flushed Jenny’s cheeks and she stifled the urge to cover her engagement ring. She hadn’t asked for the stunning two-carat diamond—Gabe picked out her ring.

  “Did you ever hear your nephew mention that he intended to have children with Jenny?”

  “No. Never.” George shook his head emphatically. “In fact, I was having dinner with them one night when Jenny was doing this story on the foster care system.” He shifted in his seat, crossed one leg over the other, and leaned forward as if enjoying himself. “Well, anyways, she felt sorry for these kids she’d interviewed. She told Gabe that she wanted them to become foster parents.”

  Jenny glanced sharply at George. That’s not exactly the way it happened. When she’d told them about the kids, she’d thought that George would be a good candidate for foster parenting. She hadn’t really thought about herself and Gabe being foster parents until George suggested it.

  “And what was your nephew’s reaction?”

  “He told her no way,” George stated, proudly. “He’d raised his kids and didn’t want to take on any more—especially high-maintenance kids. He told her they were too busy to do it and that they couldn’t get personally involved with every needy cause she wrote an article about.”

  Jenny leaned over to write on Helen’s pad, but the picture of a sailboat nose-diving in rough seas momentarily distracted her. She flipped the page and scribbled on Helen’s legal pad, trying furiously to remember Gabe’s exact words that night last summer when they’d discussed foster parenting.

  Gabe automatically rejected the idea of their being foster parents, claiming they had no time or energy. His close-mindedness annoyed her such that she’d told him she worried about his reaction should she accidentally get pregnant—not that she had wanted any children at that time, but she’d been shocked and really upset by his instantaneous autocratic rejection of the idea—as if she had no say in the matter. His total disregard for her feelings or opinion had been so uncharacteristic of Gabe that it’d really thrown her.

  Her pen paused over the pad. But then they’d talked it out and come to a mutual agreement. She’d been appeased by their discussion and the way the conversation had ended. Maybe Jenny could make this work in her favor. She scribbled more notes for Helen.

  “Did they argue about it?” Ms. Blair asked.

  “Nope. Jenny was always overemotional—a real bleeding heart, but she knew when Gabe made up his mind. She let it go.”

  “No more questions.”

  Helen read what Jenny wrote. Looking thoughtful, she stood and walked over to George. “Mr. Turner, you testified that your nephew spent quite a lot of money buying his wife gifts. Did you ever hear her ask for the gifts or coerce him into giving them to her?”

  “No, but I wasn’t privy to what went on in their bedroom, if you know what I mean.”
He snickered.

  Helen ignored his tasteless remark. “You told the court that Gabe didn’t want to be a foster parent, but at any time during that conversation did Gabe mention how he’d feel about a child of his and Jenny’s?”

  “Nope.”

  “Think harder. Are you sure?”

  “I can’t recall.”

  “Isn’t it true that Jenny felt it unfair that Gabe refused to help these children because they had emotional issues?”

  “Y-eah.” He frowned, seeming confused by the question.

  She looked down at Jenny’s notes. “And didn’t she then ask Gabe what he’d do if it was their child who had emotional issues?”

  “I guess.”

  “And what was his response?”

  “Something along the lines of, if it was their kid, then he’d deal with it.”

  “Could he have said that if it were their child, it would be, quote, ‘totally different’?”

  “He might have.” George made a face. “So what?”

  “So he did think about the possibility of having a child with Jenny, and that their child would be a totally different situation than being parents to a foster child.”

  “Yeah, but he still told her no way.”

  “No more questions.”

  The judge dismissed George, who strolled back to his table. Jenny was furious at his remarks and insinuations—especially that crack about her using sex to manipulate Gabe. She would have loved to trip him and laugh as he landed in an ungainly heap in front of everybody. The humiliation would do him good—her too. Especially her.

  Next, Ms. Blair called Judith to the stand. The bailiff swore her in. Ms. Blair approached her smiling. “Dr. Sterling, how long were you married to Dr. Harrison?”

  “Ten years.”

  “And you had two children together, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was Dr. Harrison an involved father?”

  “Very. Because we both had demanding careers, Gabe helped out a lot with the children.”

  “How?”

  “He read them books, bathed them, helped with their homework, and went to their school events as his schedule allowed.”

  “Parenting is exhausting,” Ms. Blair said, sounding sympathetic.