“What did you say?”
“Said I didn’t want no abortion. Said I wanted to keep my baby.”
“And what was her response?”
“She said it weren’t no baby yet.”
Again Charlene paused. This was crucial. “What did you say?”
“I said weren’t it gonna be a baby?”
“And the response?”
“She said did I know what I was getting myself into, having a baby when I was sixteen? And then I was thinkin’ that maybe she was right and all. I was gettin’ scared. She told me everything would be all right if I got it.”
“The abortion?”
“Yeah.”
“Did this lady ask you any questions about your past medical history?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Your background?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Anything about your past at all?”
“No.”
“Did you think about talking to your mama about all this?”
Sarah Mae looked to the first row, her eyes starting to tear up. “No, ma’am.”
“Can you tell us why?”
“’Cause . . .”
“It’s all right, Sarah Mae. Take your time.”
“I was afraid she’d get mad.” Tears started from the corners of Sarah Mae’s eyes. Her voice warbled. “I was afraid she’d think I was a bad girl.” Sarah Mae put her face in her hands and sobbed.
“Miss Moore,” Judge Lewis said. “Do you want to take a short recess?”
Charlene did not want to if she could avoid it. Sarah Mae’s emotion was important for the jury to see.
“Sarah Mae,” Charlene said softly. “Do you need to stop?”
The girl sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her right hand. “No, ma’am.”
The judge told the clerk to put a box of tissues on the witness rail. Sarah Mae took one and daubed at her eyes.
“All right,” Charlene said. “Tell us what happened next.”
“Dr. Sager gave another test, where they look at what’s inside.”
“Did he call this a sonogram?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And that’s where the doctor puts a device right on your stomach, so he can see a picture of the baby inside you?”
“Object to use of the word
baby
,” Winsor said.
“Sustained.”
“Sarah Mae,” Charlene said, “did the doctor allow you to look at a monitor so you could see what the sonogram showed?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Did he offer to let you see?”
Sarah Mae wiped a tear from her right eye. “No, ma’am.”
“Did he allow you to hear the ultrasound of the baby’s — excuse me — the sound of the heartbeat?”
“No. He didn’t turn on no sound.”
“And when this was finished, what did he tell you?”
Sarah Mae breathed in deeply. “He said I could have the abortion right then ’cause they had a slot.”
“A slot,” Charlene said slowly, just so the jury could hear it again. Implicit in the word was the abortion industry’s dirty little secret, that it was more a commercial venture than a health enterprise. Anything to fill those slots. Charlene hoped the jury would understand that.
“Did the doctor tell you anything about the risks of abortion?” Charlene asked.
“He gave me something to read.”
“What did he give you?”
“A paper.”
Charlene went to her counsel table and removed a sheet of paper from a file folder. She placed it in front of Sarah Mae Sherman. “Is this what they gave you to read?”
“Yes.”
“I would like to mark this as Plaintiff’s Four for identification,” Charlene said. It was a double-sided, single-spaced form that said, across the top “Things You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Choices.”
“You were given this by Dr. Sager?” Charlene asked.
“Yeah.”
“And what did you do with it?”
“Looked at it.”
“Did you read it?”
Sarah Mae shook her head. The judge said, “You must answer out loud for our reporter.”
“No,” Sarah Mae said.
“And why didn’t you read it?”
“It . . . I couldn’t understand it. I don’t read good.” Sarah Mae tugged at her dress.
“There is a place at the bottom where you are supposed to sign this form. Is that your signature at the bottom?”
“Yeah.”
“So you signed this form even though you did not read it?”
“Yeah.”
“Why, Sarah Mae?”
The girl’s eyes were full of regret. “’Cause that’s what I had to do to get it.”
“The abortion?”
Barely audible, Sarah Mae said, “Uh-huh.”
Charlene took the form and walked it to the clerk. As she returned to the witness box she stole a quick glance at the jury. Their faces melted together into a blank canvas. She saw features, but no expressions.
“Did Dr. Sager go over this form with you?” Charlene asked.
“No, ma’am.”
“Did he inquire into your health history?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Did he ask you how you were feeling about the procedure?”
Sarah Mae hesitated a moment. “He said something like that,” she said.
Like what? Charlene had no idea what Sarah Mae was referring to. They had gone over her story in Charlene’s office, and in the hotel last night. Her answer was out of the blue. And the worst thing that could happen to a lawyer in trial is one of her own witnesses saying something that scuttles the case.
This was a crucial moment, because the doctor’s conduct was at the very heart of this malpractice suit.
Worse, Charlene could not just skip to another question. If she did, Winsor would get the information for himself on cross-examination. That would look horrible to the jury, as if Charlene wanted to hide an answer.
What have you done this time, Charlene?
She heard the phrase her mother used to say when Charlene got into serious trouble.
What have you done this time?
“He did not get into any detail with you, did he?” Charlene said.
Winsor was on his feet. “Objection! That was clearly a leading question, Your Honor. Miss Moore is trying to lead her witness out of a situation she herself has — ”
“That’s sufficient,” Judge Lewis said, cutting Winsor off from making a speech in front of the jury. “I will sustain the objection.”
Charlene knew she had blown it. Winsor had managed to convey clearly enough that she had asked an improper question, and the judge had backed him up. Now she was in a corner. There was no way out.
“What was it that the doctor said to you, Sarah Mae?” Charlene asked.
Suddenly looking confused, Sarah Mae struggled to say, “Well, I can’t exactly remember, exactly . . .”
“As best you can.”
“Well, he did say something like if there was anything I wanted to say to him before we went in.”
This was the first Charlene had heard about it. Why hadn’t Sarah Mae said anything about this before?
“Did he say anything else to you before you went in?” Charlene said.
“I can’t remember.”
“The point is, he — ”
“Objection. Argumentative.”
“Sustained.”
Charlene cleared her throat. “When you went into the procedure, Sarah Mae, did you feel satisfied that you had been able to communicate to the doctor your feelings about what was about to happen?”
Sarah Mae shook her head with a slow, mournful look, as if she were lost in the woods. “I don’t rightly, exactly, remember.” Her eyes told Charlene she had no idea what she had done. And then those eyes gushed with tears.
Charlene looked at the judge. “Perhaps now would be a proper time for a break, Your Honor.”
Lewis nodded. “We’ll recess until ten-thirty,” he said. It sounded like he was announcing the time for an execution.
|
3
“Mom!”
Ethel was sprawled motionless on the kitchen floor.
“Mom, please, Mom.”
Millie knelt. Ethel was facedown, her left arm folded awkwardly under her body. Millie put her hands over her mother as if she wanted to do something, but could not figure out what. For an excruciating moment she felt as if she alone could determine whether her mother lived or died, yet at the same time her mind was a blank. Her hands trembled over the unmoving body of her mother.
Phone. Millie clambered to her feet and grabbed the kitchen phone. She punched 911. It took less than thirty seconds to give the dispatcher the information. But in this small town, how long would the ambulance take? The nearest full hospital was Bakersfield. Would her mother make it?
Returning to Ethel, Millie knelt and put her hand on her mother’s arm. It was so frail. Her skin felt like silk.
Millie saw the faint throb of a pulse in Ethel’s almost translucent neck and heard herself cry out, “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
The words triggered her next desperate act. Grabbing the phone, she dialed information and got the number of the church. Then she called, hoping — praying — that Pastor Holden was in.
|
4
President John Warrington Francis took the cigar out of his mouth, looked at Senator Sam Levering, and said, “What would you do in this situation?”
Levering smiled, his lips curling around his own cigar. “I’d quit, go home, lick my wounds, admit I’m not the man I used to be.”
Francis said, “You know what crow tastes like? ’Cause that’s what you’re about to eat.”
The president leaned over to his golf bag and selected a five wood. His ball, a Slazenger 1, was embedded in the deep rough that lined the right side of the fairway. Levering knew full well that Francis was not going to quit. Francis was a three handicap, one of the benefits of growing up rich in the northeast, with a father who held two country club memberships.
Levering, on the other hand, was the typical weekend hacker. He hadn’t even taken up the game until he came to Washington. He was lucky to shoot in the nineties.
Francis inserted the smoldering cigar into his mouth as he approached the ball. No wonder this guy was president, Levering thought. He was handsome, trim, athletic, and smart. And he knew how to get out of a jam.
After two practice swings that scattered tufts of grass like flushing quail, Francis hit one of the best golf shots Levering had ever seen. The white ball flew up onto the green, rolled, and stopped about five feet short of the pin.
“And that,” the president said, “is how it is done.”
“Pretty good,” Levering said.
“Pretty good? Tiger would kill to hit a shot like that.” Francis led the way to the golf cart. Levering got in, shooting a quick glance at the secret service detail in the golf cart behind them. They did not smile. They did not golf.
“The secret to golf,” Francis said as he drove toward the green, “is to stay out of trouble. You know? Just stay away from the trouble areas. Which is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”
The scent of cigar smoke mixed with freshly mown grass was the scent of power. Levering breathed it in deeply, appreciatively. “You have something in mind?”
“Hollander,” the president said. “She stable?”
“As near as we can tell.”
“That’s not near enough.” Francis brought the cart to a stop on the path next to the green. Then he faced Levering, flicked a bit of ash onto the grass, and said, “I had a meeting with Helen Forbes Kensington yesterday. You know her?”
Only from what Anne had told him. She was Hollander’s good friend, and a pretty hot-looking divorcee. “Not personally,” Levering said, “though I wouldn’t mind.”
“You and me both,” Francis laughed. “Anyway, she was doing some lobbying, wanted me to put reproductive rights further up on the list. Plus she was all in a lather about a case down south, a trial in federal court about informed consent.”
“I think I read about that.”
“Yeah, well she thinks it’s a hydrogen bomb on the whole women’s rights movement.”
“How so?”
“If the plaintiff wins based on the fact that she should have been informed about the mental health risks of abortion, what happens?”
Levering shrugged.
“Class action lawsuits,” Francis said. “If they win, the abortion providers go bankrupt, my friend. Then the anti-abortion crowd won’t have to worry about
Roe v. Wade
. They’ll have effectively shut down abortion through the back door.”
Levering had fought all of his political life for the rights of women, from the days of ERA to the cause of the right to choose. Was this concern real? If it was, then having Millie Hollander under his wing, as chief justice, was even more important than he had at first supposed.
“I’m going to need a strong chief,” Francis said. “Someone who can hold the delicate balance up there. And I want your assurance that Hollander is still your first choice.”
Of course she was. His little tryst with Hollander had been — through Anne Deveraux’s alchemy and his limo driver’s loyalty — transformed into a weapon of almost unbelievable potency. Levering knew how much Millie Hollander wanted to be chief justice, how much her reputation meant to her. Sam Levering knew how to use the ambition of others to his own ends. That was politics.