Protect and Defend (74 page)

He was trapped, Chad realized. He would not lie to protect himself, nor ask Allie or Kyle to lie for him; to protect
them
, his only choice was candor, his only hope delay. In an even tone Chad said, “Let’s go off the record.”

Nielsen settled back. “All right.”

“You’re right about Kyle, Mr. Nielsen. She did have problems with substance abuse. But that’s just symptomatic.

“From childhood, she’s had emotional problems—moments of elation, days of terrible depression, a crushing lack of confidence. For a time we thought she was bipolar, and someday we may find out that she is.

“For certain, she was starved for love and affirmation.” Pausing, Chad forced himself to continue his painful admissions, stifle his contempt for his listener. “No doubt some of that was my fault. Until this happened, I was pretty much an absentee father. Among the substitutes she found was a boy who used both drugs and alcohol—
and
her.

“Kyle was barely sixteen, and a mess. As soon as she got pregnant, the boy ditched her.

“Parental consent means just that—a parent can consent. My wife believed Kyle couldn’t withstand having a child, and that abortion was the only means of saving her. I couldn’t stop her, and didn’t try. That’s all there is.”

Nielsen regarded him with, it seemed, a measured sympathy. “Then you could have told that story, Senator. Instead of continuing to vote and speak as if nothing had happened.”

Chad sighed. “Mr. Nielsen, my beliefs never changed. But I did become much quieter about them …”

“To protect yourself?”

“To some degree. But mainly to protect Kyle.” Chad paused,
remembering his helplessness. “After Kyle’s abortion, if I talked about ‘taking life,’ I became a distant and disapproving father. There’d been too much of that already.”

Nielsen considered him. Chad had an uncomfortable sensation: though very different from the darkened cell in which he had spent two years of his life, the blank white walls and harsh fluorescent light made him feel entrapped, diminished. “Your account at least lends nuance,” Nielsen said. “I urge you to tell it, and have your wife and daughter do the same. Otherwise, the facts appear in their harshest light.”

Once more, Chad felt a visceral loathing: at once judge, executioner, and father confessor, Henry Nielsen—perhaps ten years out of journalism school—offered public humiliation for Chad’s family as balm for Chad’s own political ruin.

“Print this story,” Chad said, “and you’ll damage our daughter much worse than Allie
or
me. She’s made
progress
, Mr. Nielsen—can you possibly know what that means to us? And she loves me now, as I love her.

“If you do this to her, you’ll do more than dredge up an awful time she’s started to put behind her. You’ll make
her
mistake the reason for
my
political ruin.” Chad’s eyes bored into Nielsen’s. “I don’t know, truly, what the guilt and shame of that will do to her. And if I don’t, you can’t.”

Nielsen folded his arms. “What are you proposing, Senator?”

“That you think harder about who gave this to you, and what their motives are. And about whether their desire to use her against me is a reason to punish a fragile young woman for what happened when she was sixteen years old.”

Nielsen placed curled fingers to his lips, and slowly shook his head. “Their motive may be interesting. But that doesn’t change the facts,
or
their public relevance.

“All I can offer, Senator, is the chance for you and your family to help shape what’s in our story. But if we don’t run this, our source will feed it to someone else. You don’t have much time.”

“
No
time,” Chad retorted. “Like you, we tried to reach Kyle, and we couldn’t …”

“How do I know you’re not hiding her?”

Chad leaned forward, staring into Nielsen’s eyes. “Because I say so, damn you.”

After a moment, Nielsen looked down at his watch again. “When can you talk to your family?”

“My wife, immediately. Kyle, as soon as we can find her.”

“Will you ask them to speak with us?”

“I’ll ask them to consider it. If you’ll promise to hear them out, and reconsider whether to run this.”

Nielsen began drumming his fingers on the desk. “You’ve got twenty-four hours,” he said.

“We can’t control this,” Chad said quietly.

He sat with Allie in the brick-walled living room of their town house on Capitol Hill. But, for Chad, the moment resonated with another conversation, four years prior. Then Allie had spoken with the quiet ferocity of a mother protecting her daughter; now, she looked frightened for Kyle, distraught for Chad, desperately intent on bearing up. It was, Chad thought, like so many moments in Allie’s life as a wife and mother—she would think about herself later, if at all. With instinctive stubbornness, the unwillingness to accept something so unnatural as Kyle’s exposure, she said, “Do we have to involve her? I can’t stand to think of Kyle on the cover of a magazine.”

Chad reined in his impatience: it was his fault, after all, that she was unprepared for this. “Someone else could break the story,” he told her. “Something else could set it off. I don’t know where this is coming from, or what their motives are. I don’t know how to please them, whom to please, or if there’s any way.” He strained to keep his tone gentle, reasoned. “I don’t want Kyle ambushed, or made to sound like some irresponsible, self-indulgent girl. The best way to protect her is to tell her story—once—and then hope it dies as soon as possible.

“All we can do is try to influence
how
the story turns out. That’s the only way to help Kyle get on with her life.”

Despite his efforts, Chad heard the despair in his own voice. Allie looked down at the coffee table, and then at Chad again. “Do you blame
me
, Chad?”

“No. You did what you thought was right. For Kyle, it probably was.”

“But not for you.”

“As a candidate for President?” Chad’s voice was quietly
bitter—this dream of the future, once so vivid, was suddenly part of his past. “No. But that’s why we’re here, isn’t it. Because I wanted to be President.

“I’m also a father, Allie. We’re a family. So we have to take what comes together.” He softened his voice again. “I’ve experienced much worse, sweetheart. I’ll be all right.”

Tears came to her eyes. Chad imagined her reviewing the moments of their life together: falling in love with more optimism than insight; the awakening of a young wife to her husband’s selfishness and infidelity; the uncertainty of his capture; learning to cope as a mother on her own; his return, refined by suffering, to a woman who had changed and a daughter he did not know; the dawning awareness of Kyle’s problems; her desperate—and, it must have seemed—solitary struggle to save their daughter’s sanity and even life; her fateful consent to an abortion; the slow renewal as a family with two parents who cared deeply; the revival of Chad’s ambition to be President.

“I don’t tell you nearly enough,” she said in a muffled voice. “I always think it, and so seldom say it.”

“What’s that?”

“How much I love you. How kind you are.” She managed a somewhat shaky smile. “I must have known that, from the beginning.”

This touched him. “That makes you a rare woman,” he answered. “But then you are.”

They both fell quiet, cocooned for a moment from the reality about to overtake them. As if awakening herself from a dream, Allie went to the kitchen to call Kyle again.

Edgy, Chad waited. Allie returned, silently shaking her head.

Chad felt his tension rise. “We don’t have much time,” he said. “Either we bring her to their offices, or tomorrow afternoon the
Frontier
goes with what they’ve got.”

“I know.” Allie sounded defensive now. “You told me.”

Chad replayed her tone of voice. In the manner of a husband who knew his wife so well that words were superfluous, he fixed her with a steady, mildly reproving, gaze of inquiry.

“Kyle has a new boyfriend,” Allie said at last. “She might be there.”

Chad felt a familiar and unhappy emotion, the sense of being an outsider, a stranger to the intimacy between mother
and daughter. Had he time to dwell on it, he would wonder who this boy was, whether he was good for Kyle, why he did not know. But all he said was, “Do you have his number?”

“No. Of course not.” Allie’s voice was tired. “Kyle’s a woman now, Chad. Or trying to be.”

Another memory came to him: Allie waiting up for Kyle, hour after anxious hour during one or another of the drug-or alcohol-fueled disappearances which, they both feared, might end in her death. As if sensing this, Allie said gently, “She’s all right now. Really.”

It was becoming hard for Chad to sit. “I hope so,” he murmured.

A
T NINE O’CLOCK
the next morning, after a sleepless night in which Kyle did not call, Chad Palmer answered his telephone.

“Chad?”

Recognizing the voice of his Chief of Staff, Chad sat down heavily at the kitchen table. In a wan imitation of his usual manner, he said, “Morning, Brian. What’s up?”

“The Supreme Court just ruled in the Tierney case. I’m faxing you the opinion.”

Chad heard an anxious undertone in Brian Curry’s normally phlegmatic voice. “What’s it say?”

“It’s pretty unusual,” Brian answered. “Actually, I’ve never heard of anything like this.”

Clayton placed the opinion on Kerry’s desk. “A four-to-four split,” he said. “Four justices voted to grant a stay, and to hear the case; four judges opposed both.”

“Where does that leave us?”

Clayton turned a page. “Justice Fini,” he said, “goes out of
his way to explain that. And I mean
way
out of his way—Adam Shaw tells me he’s never seen a justice comment on a decision whether or not to hear a case.”

Fini, Kerry knew, was the justice closest to the late Roger Bannon, an outspoken conservative and pro-life advocate. Quickly, the President began reading:

“
Under the ‘rule of four,’
” Fini had written, “
the votes of four justices are sufficient to grant certiorari; in this case, to hear Professor Tierney’s appeal on behalf of the fetus. However, five votes are required to extend the stay granted by Justice Kelly, and prevent an abortion until the appeal can be heard …
”

“No stay,” Kerry murmured.

“Just keep reading.”

“
Therefore, the four justices who favor a full hearing are unable to preserve the life of the intervenor’s unborn grandchild
.

“
Currently, the Court is without a ninth member, the office of Chief Justice being vacant. We do not express an opinion regarding the wisdom or propriety of Judge Masters’s participation in the rehearing en banc. However, such participation clearly disqualifies her from considering this petition, even if confirmed …
”

Kerry looked up. “Very nice,” he said. “Fini makes it seem like
she’s
the reason they can’t hear this.” When Clayton’s only answer was a bleak smile, Kerry read further.

“
Those of us
,” Fini continued, “
who favor a full hearing regret our inability to address the important legal issues presented, including the value our society places on viable life, and the role of parents in helping minors face a moral choice so permanent and profound. But such is the harsh reality of our procedural dilemma
.

“
Without a further stay, this abortion will be performed, and the case mooted. None of our brethren opposed to a hearing on the merits will vote to grant such a stay. Put baldly, we have the four votes necessary to decide whether a life
should
be spared, but not the five votes required to spare it until we decide
.

“
With great reluctance, we are forced to acknowledge that granting Professor Tierney’s petition would be pointless …
”

The President looked up at Clayton. Softly, he said, “So it’s Caroline’s fault.”

Clayton nodded. “What Fini’s done is blatantly political. Read how Justice Rothbard responds—you can almost see the blood in the margins.”

Avowedly pro-choice, Miriam Rothbard was the only woman on the Court. Turning the page, the President began reading:

“
I regret
,” Rothbard had said, “
the extraordinary statement by those colleagues who favor a grant of certiorari
.

“
The statement is unprecedented: it is a political, not a legal, document, calculated to inform the Senate and the public that we appear to be deadlocked on the issues presented, including the constitutionality of the Protection of Life Act. The effect can only be to insinuate this Court into the Senate’s deliberations regarding the nomination of Judge Masters as Chief Justice
.

“
The issues posed by this appeal are best left for another day. The statement of our colleagues would have best been left unwritten …
”

“If anything,” Clayton said, “it makes matters worse. Far worse.”

Kerry pondered this, wondering what role his decision to withdraw the government’s support for the Protection of Life Act might have played in the outcome. “Maybe for us,” he answered. “But not for Mary Ann Tierney.”

A little after 6:00 a.m. in San Francisco, Sarah took the last page off the fax machine in her bedroom.

It was over—the law, if not the consequences for Mary Ann, Caroline Masters, Sarah herself. Despite the startling nature of what she had just read, the Tierney case was consigned to history. As a lawyer, Sarah had done all a lawyer could do. She had won.

After some moments, she went to the kitchen to make coffee, absorb what had happened. She thought of herself two months ago, sheltered from the misty drizzle, watching a nameless red-haired girl cross a line of pickets, to begin a process which now had transformed both their lives.

It felt enormous; together, they had brought down an act of
Congress, defined the law for whoever followed Mary Ann, at least within the Ninth Circuit. But Sarah felt no elation. Perhaps her reward would be a deep satisfaction, years from now—especially if Mary Ann Tierney prospered.