Decision (37 page)

That evening, and twice again on Saturday, she did. Each time she went through much the same procedure, starting alert and herself, gradually becoming drowsy, without warning dropping off to sleep again. Saturday afternoon she stayed awake long enough to eat soup, crackers and a couple of spoonfuls of mashed potato. Their optimism increased.

It was with rising hopes and growing confidence that he called Moss Sunday morning and prepared to visit “High Pillars.” Mary, their truce holding as her own hopes rose, went so far as to send her best wishes. He decided he would make it warmer than that when he told them. Not “her love,” which wasn’t true and which they would hardly believe, but something more in accord with the steadily rising happiness and excitement he was beginning to feel as the enormous weight of recent days appeared to be lifting slowly but surely from his heart.

On the lawn where Sarah’s services had been held, under the stately old trees in front of the lovely old house, they ate a pleasant light lunch served by the Pomeroys’ family cook who had been with them, Moss told him, since he himself had been five years old. Her face was grave and still touched with sorrow for the family tragedy, but the meal she prepared was delicious, and even Sue-Ann was able to eat a fair portion of it. When she had finished she stood up, brushed a hand across eyes still tired from weeping, gave Tay a quick kiss and smiled.

“I know you two want to talk before Moss goes back to the Court tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll run along and see if I can take a nap. I could use one. I’m so glad things are working out for you, Tay. It’s wonderful.”

“It’s a miracle,” he said.

“You deserve it,” she said, again with the simple generosity that had touched him so when they had first met after the tragedy. “Please give our warmest wishes to Mary, too.” Her eyes filled abruptly with tears. “I know how happy she must be.”

“Yes,” he said, “I’ll tell her. Try to have a good rest.”

“I will,” she said; kissed her husband; and then turned back for a moment to Tay.

“Dear Tay,” she said. “What would we have done without you all these years?”

“Managed somehow, I suppose,” he said, trying to make a small joke of it. “It wouldn’t have been easy, I know, but I expect you could have.”

“That’s right,” Moss agreed gravely. “It wouldn’t have been easy… Sleep well, honey, and come on back out whenever you feel like it. We won’t be talking too much heavy stuff.”

“Oh, I expect Tay will want to,” she said, but trying to smile too. “He’s a pretty serious fellow… I’ll see you later, you two.”

And she turned gracefully and walked across the lawn, head high, stopping for a moment to pick a couple of camellias from a plant by the door, then going on up the whitewashed stone steps and into the stately house as though this were the same as any afternoon before the world went mad.

“She’s a gallant lady,” Tay said softly. Her husband nodded.

“She is that … sit down, buddy. Tell me about Janie.”

They sprawled side by side in canvas lounge chairs, and when he had completed his story Moss said, “That’s great,” in a firm voice as though he had determined to put everything else behind him. “You’ll be back at the Court soon, then, won’t you?”

Tay nodded.

“As soon as we see what happens when the trial begins again a week from Monday. I suppose there’s a chance we may both be called as witnesses—certainly you, I should think.”

“Yes, I expect so. I’m planning to come back next weekend. I just want to check into chambers for the week and get some work done.” He smiled sadly. “Life does go on, you know … or so they say. I don’t want them to forget my face up there… What’s your gripe about Justice NOW!?”

“Not a gripe,” Tay said, a little startled by this sudden introduction of the subject he had been wondering how to tackle. “Just a concern, let’s say.”

“You didn’t like what I said the other day?”

Tay took a deep breath as a couple of hummingbirds darted by and a jay screamed off in the trees.

“No, I did not. I thought it was inappropriate, unbecoming and quite prejudicial to your position if the case comes up to us.”

Moss grunted.

“Well, that’s laying it on the line.”

“I hope so, because that’s what I intend to do. It’s a long way from what you said when we discussed the subject of vigilantism, up in Washington.”

“I’m
a long way from what I was then,” Moss said somberly, pulling up a piece of grass and starting to chew on it absentmindedly. “Or weren’t you aware?”

“But you
can’t—”

“Can’t what?” Moss inquired moodily. “Support my own people? Support, if you will, the people of the entire United States? Because that’s almost what the movement is coming to represent now. What do you mean, I
can’t?
So far I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t.”

“They were about to lynch Earle Holgren Friday afternoon, you know,” Tay said quietly.

Moss gave him a somber glance.

“Maybe that would have been the best solution for everybody.”

“No!”
Tay exclaimed, genuinely shocked. “You don’t mean that!”

“No?” Moss said, shifting in his chair, biting savagely at the piece of grass. “Why don’t I, Tay? What has that bastard done to give me any cause to be charitable to him? He killed my daughter, you know.
He killed my daughter.
He almost killed yours. He wanted to kill me. What has he earned from me, except my eternal hatred? Why shouldn’t I want to see him destroyed?”

“But not like that!” Tay protested. “Not without the full functioning of the law, Moss! You can’t
possibly
advocate that.”

“Why can’t I? Why must I pretend I’m not what I really am underneath here”—and he slapped his sports shirt, hard, over his heart—“an animal, so filled with the instinct to hate and maim and kill and destroy that I can hardly see straight when I think of that—that—” He choked up and had to stop for a moment. All around, the gentle afternoon lay golden on the lawn. He shook his head violently as if to clear it, then dropped it in his hands and rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he resumed in a lowered voice, “but you’re in a different position, you see. Things are working out, for you. Lucky Tay is lucky again: Janie’s on the way back. You don’t have a daughter lying—lying—under—under six—six—” And suddenly he started to cry, sobs wracking his body in a flood of agony that he tried to muffle but which continued to shake him for several minutes while Tay, almost equally shattered, stared unseeing at the serenely peaceful trees and tried to think, without success, of words of comfort that refused to come because, perhaps, they did not exist.

At last Moss said brokenly, “I’m sorry, pal, I’m sorry. It—it—isn’t easy. I didn’t mean to call you ‘Lucky Tay,’ you know that. Sue-Ann and I are as happy for you as we can—can possibly be. We’re so thankful for you … and for Mary, too, though she probably—wouldn’t—wouldn’t—believe it. I’m sorry…”

“I know,” Tay said; reached out and clasped Moss’ arm hard for a moment; then rested his own chin on his hands, stared moodily out across the lawn and sighed with a heavy sound that seemed to come from somewhere infinitely deep inside. “I know… I’m afraid I must sound awfully pompous and awfully smug—” Moss made a little gesture of protest. “Oh, yes,” he said bitterly. “I know I sound that way sometimes. But I don’t mean to. I
really
don’t mean to. Mary tells me I’m so superior all the time, and maybe that’s how I seem to other people, but I’m not—not really. And it
is
easier for me, now that Janie seems to be … getting along. But even if she weren’t, Moss, I think—I
really
think—I would still feel the same way…

“At least,” he said, as Moss watched him intently through reddened eyes, “I hope I would. I don’t really know. That odd little person who’s defending him came to me the other day and begged me to be ‘true to myself and to my ‘great liberal principles’ if he gets the death sentence and it comes up to us on appeal. I told her I’d try, but that I just didn’t know—I just didn’t know… Even if Janie is really all right, I still don’t know … because I hate him too, Moss. Oh, how I hate him! But,” he said, and his eyes darkened with the struggle of it, “we’re supposed not to have those feelings, on the Court. We’re supposed to be insulated from everything—above it all … aren’t we? I’ve only been there ten seconds compared to you and the rest of them, but I do conceive of that as being my charge and my obligation. I can only try to remain true to that … and I think you should too, awful though it is and terribly hard—
hard…
”

He sighed.

“We’ve
got
to protect the law, Moss, it’s what we’re sworn to do. It’s what we’ve been pointing toward ever since we were kids together in law school. It’s the summation of our lives, really—the Law. That’s what we hold in trust for the future, just as others in the past have held it for us. Somehow it’s got to give us the strength to remain true to it, otherwise the whole thing goes down. We can’t betray it—we
can’t.
At least I can’t—and I don’t think you can, really, either. You may feel like it now, God knows I’m not the one to blame you. But I think when you’re back on the bench it will be different. The obligation will reassert itself and the law will prevail… At least,” he concluded, almost in a whisper, “I hope it will for you … and for me…”

But Moss made no comment, continuing to stare moodily into some far distance; so that he did not know, then, whether he had made any impression. They were silent for what seemed like quite a long time, though it may have been only a few minutes. The afternoon drowsed, the shadows began to lengthen a little under the trees and across the lawn. A peaceful, gentle hum of birds, insects, the first stirrings of a little breeze seemed to hold the world. Finally Moss turned, looked at him squarely and said perhaps the most surprising thing, to Tay, that he had ever said in all their long friendship.

“Have you met someone in Washington?”

His first instinct was to dissemble. Then suddenly it seemed wrong and unnecessary in the presence of his oldest, closest friend at such a moment of trust and mutual dependence in a time of sorrow.

“How did you know that?” he asked, returning Moss’ look with honesty as direct as his.

Moss frowned.

“I don’t know, exactly … little things … something different … a more openly harsh attitude toward Mary … a little underlying excitement … maybe even happiness … a sense of something that I seemed to feel … maybe just because after all these years we have an instinct for each other … I don’t know.” He half-smiled—distracted, Tay noticed with relief though it was at his expense, from his heavy sadness. “I don’t know … but do you know when I began to suspect?”

“Sure,” Tay said. “The very first night, when you saw me driving out Northeast.”

“That’s right. I thought, Now, what the hell is he doing going out that way? He lives in Georgetown.” He grinned suddenly: the old bright, blithe Moss reappeared for a moment. “I almost followed you, you know that? I almost became a sneak and tried to catch my old buddy
in flagrante delicto,
that’s how startled and intrigued I was. It was so
unlike
you, particularly after having just been appointed to the Court. I thought, How
could
he.
That
isn’t Tay! And then I thought, Why, the crazy bastard! He’s human, just like everybody else!”

Tay winced but Moss didn’t notice.

“And I gave a big chuckle and said right out loud, ‘Go, man, go!’ And turned left onto Independence Avenue and went on downtown and safely home… So. Is it good?”

Tay hesitated; and decided again to be honest.

“I don’t know yet,” he said slowly. “It is for me. I hope it is for her.”

“You want it to last.”

“Yes,” he said simply, “I do.”

“And knowing you, you don’t want it to stay on this basis. You want to get a divorce and marry the girl. Right?”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t think Mary will let you go without a hell of a fight no matter what she feels about you. Does she suspect?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Mary is”—he smiled wryly—“Mary-oriented. She usually senses anything that really threatens her security, but she hasn’t seemed to sense this yet, maybe because of—of Janie. She’s never seen us together—probably never will. And after all, this was only a couple of weeks ago, you know. She hasn’t had too much time to suspect, what with one thing and another.”

“Tell me about it,” Moss suggested. “If you want to.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, and did so, while Moss again listened intently, making no comment as the afternoon moved gently on toward its inevitable close.

“So that’s it,” he concluded. “Very brief, very ordinary, very standard for such things—I guess. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Well, I have,” Moss said. “For a while after we were first married and I was proving to myself that I was still in there pitching and could still stay the course. But I stopped it before too long and fortunately never got caught. I realized what I had and decided I’d better not risk it.” He smiled without much humor. “Sue-Ann isn’t Mary.”

“No,” he agreed, and sighed. “Sue-Ann isn’t Mary.”

“It’s amazing to me, frankly, how you’ve stuck it out this long. But I guess that went with your concept of yourself.”

“Yes, it did,” he replied sharply, “and I’m not very proud of myself now, if you want the truth.”

Moss smiled again.

“Don’t you think I know that? I haven’t known you twenty-four years for nothing. But I think you should be, because apparently she’s a nice girl, and she really does love you—or,” he added as Tay moved in his chair, “is beginning to—and obviously you’re falling in love with her so—why not? You’re going to have to get a divorce one of these days, inevitably, and you know that; so why not just face up to it and make the fight? When you’re both really sure, that is.”

“When we’re both really sure…” he echoed, and his expression darkened. “And what about the Court?”

“Then you’re obviously not sure, if you’re going to let that inhibit you.”

“It’s got to inhibit me to some extent, Moss,” he said earnestly. “How can it not? I’ve just been appointed, I can’t go around bed-hopping—”