Protect and Defend (17 page)

Taylor gazed at the television. “
That
looked like you’re holding back, Mac. Letting Palmer take the limelight.”

“Sure. Chad loves this—it’s a golden opportunity to let the country see him. He needs to remember our constituencies expect him to slow this down, dig into her life and record.

“We’ve got friends on his committee, like Paul Harshman, who won’t like this woman at all. They’ll help pressure Palmer without my doing it directly.
My
job is to keep our senators uncommitted until we can give them ammunition.”

“It’s not that simple,” Taylor replied. “Palmer and the so-called moderates may be all the votes Kilcannon needs to confirm her. And Palmer thinks campaign reform would help him beat you for the nomination.”

Gage mentally scanned his colleagues: who was worried about reelection; who wanted a change of committee; who had a pet project that required Gage’s approval; who depended
on the money Taylor represented, and Palmer threatened. “I can keep them from jumping,” he said. “At least long enough for you to find holes in her record, or in her character. The moderates have their views, but they don’t want to piss me off.”

“Except for Palmer,” Taylor cut in. “You’ve never been able to control what he does. The fucking hero business immunizes him.”

“And he knows that,” Gage rejoined. “When it comes to polishing his own image, he’s got the slickest act of all—the uncorrupted man. Who,
we
both know, wants to be President so bad he can taste it.”

Pausing, Gage finished his drink. “Chad could fuck up here, alienate the people he needs to pass his stupid bill. He might even carry water for his buddy Kilcannon. That’s a complicated relationship—there’s no telling what they’d gin up, each trying to serve their own interests.”

“So you think Palmer helps you take this lady down, or jumps the reservation and shoots himself in the foot.”

“Uh-huh. Either way, I win.”

Taylor’s cold eyes and hard face became a mask of thought. “The problem,” he finally said, “is that Palmer doesn’t think like anyone else. It’s like two years being kicked in the head by Arabs made him clinically insane. To me, he’s the most dangerous man in Washington.”

Gage shrugged. “And the most predictable. What you’re missing, and what those Arabs figured out, is that he’ll do anything to think well of himself.”

Taylor met his gaze. “Not ‘anything,’ Mac.”

At this, Gage felt a deep aversion. “I don’t like him any better than you do, Mace. But I’d hope never to drop that on him.”

Taylor’s face closed. “Maybe not over this,” he answered. “But sooner or later, he’ll make us do it. If only by running for President.”

P
UTTING DOWN
the telephone, Chad Palmer returned to the living room. “Sorry,” he said to his wife and daughter. “That was Mac Gage. The Masters nomination seems to have made me the most important man in Washington.”

This was said with wry self-deprecation. The last people he expected to impress were Allie and Kyle Palmer—especially when the two of them were huddled over a portfolio of Kyle’s fashion drawings, spread across the coffee table of the Palmers’ brick town house on Capitol Hill. But, to his surprise, Allie looked up. “What did he want, Chad—to lecture you on your party obligations?”

Chad glanced at his daughter. Her oval face still gazed at a red dress she had drawn, and she seemed, as often, detached from him. “I’ll fill you in later,” Chad answered. “I haven’t seen the rest of Kyle’s drawings.”

This time Kyle raised her head. “It’s fine,” she told him in a flat voice. “We can finish later.”

The delicacy of their relationship, Chad realized, left him at a loss. Her tone suggested courtesy rather than any real interest—deliberately so, he guessed. It was the response of a girl who remembered, as her psychiatrist had told the Palmers, hearing from her schoolmates how handsome her father was, and how brave, when what she wanted was a father who paid as much attention to her as the world paid to him. His choice now was to take her offer at face value or, by insisting on his interest in her work, to risk treating her as an emotional invalid. She was, after all, twenty years old.

Allie came to his rescue. “Go ahead, Chad. Kyle doesn’t hear much about your work these days.”

Chad smiled. “Then why spoil a good thing?” When his
daughter smiled as well, he added, “For once, Mac Gage did not explain to me how to be a good Republican. It was even worse—he pretended to take for granted that I was going to help him.”

Allie studied him closely. “How?”

“By delaying our committee’s confirmation hearings so that our staff, and our constituent groups, can dig up reasons to oppose Caroline Masters.”

“Like what?” Kyle asked.

“It could be anything—rulings which are too extreme, an ethical lapse, smoking dope in college. I remember a nominee for the District Court who’d been busted for drunk driving in two different states, Maryland and Virginia, in the same night.” Pausing, Chad shrugged. “Mac’s even developed the fantastic notion that Kerry may be trying to sneak a lesbian past us.”

Kyle wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Why does it have to be like that?”

“Don’t look at
me
, sweetheart. Personally, I could care less.”

This time Allie smiled fractionally. “You’re not saying that in public, are you? A lot of people on the Christian right will think you’re encouraging an epidemic of homosexual conversions.”

Chad laughed. “It’s a risk, all right. People
choose
to be gay because it’s such an attractive option—dislike, discrimination, and difficulty in forming families.” He eyed his daughter with mock regret. “If some nice man had told me it
was
a choice, I’d be leading Gay Freedom Day parades instead of being stuck with your mom and you.”

Smiling, Kyle fell into the spirit of things. “There’s hope for you, Dad. You’re not nearly the reactionary you pretend to be.”

The irony of this comment, Chad guessed, was, for once, innocent. But Allie sat back a little. “What
are
you going to do?”

Chad shrugged. “Not exactly what Mac wants. I’m in the spotlight here—especially because I’m not a lawyer. I’ll get all the media time I could ask for. But that’s good for me only if I treat Masters fairly, which is what I’d do in any case. She isn’t who
I’d
choose, but Kerry’s the President, after all.”

Allie appraised him. “
You
weren’t surprised, were you? Kerry must have told you before today that this was coming.”

Once more, Chad realized how good her antennae were— Allie did not love politics, but fear of its consequences had made her alert to nuance. “He did,” Chad acknowledged. “He thinks she’ll be good on campaign reform.”

He chose to stop there: his agreement to help protect the nominee’s secret, though Allie would deeply sympathize, would further raise her apprehension. “I know you know this,” Allie warned. “But you can’t seem too close to Kerry. It will hurt with some of the groups.”

His daughter was watching them closely, Chad realized. He selected his words with care. “I can’t cozy up to
them
, either. I’m not in anyone’s pocket, and I can’t let them make it look like I am. Meet with the Christian Commitment, and they’ll pressure me by leaking that I’m on their side …” His voice trailed off. “I am,” he added, “in many respects. Although they’ve stopped being a cause and become a business— like a lot of their opponents, of course. But they’re way too hard-line, and it’s scaring off women.”

This, Chad thought, was as close to an apology as he could ever make. Allie, silent, glanced at their daughter.

“It’s abortion,” Kyle said simply.

Chad felt himself tense. This time, he could not glance at Allie to solicit help; his own reflex with Kyle was avoidance. “Anyhow,” he said, “the right will be on alert, and I’ve got a divided committee—ten Republicans and eight Democrats, with at least three of Gage’s allies looking over my shoulder. Being a statesman is also my best defense.”

“So you won’t delay the hearings,” Allie said.

Chad shook his head. “Kerry wants them in a month. I’m inclined to give him
that
, at least.”

Allie glanced at Kyle. “What about what Gage wants? To dig into the judge’s personal life.”

Once more, Chad felt on edge—the subject had too much resonance, and he could not tell his wife what he had promised to keep private. “You know how I feel about that,” he answered. “If it’s relevant to someone’s performance in office, that’s one thing. But it’s another thing to keep running off good men and women for every personal lapse. Or there’ll be no end to it.”

Mercifully, Kyle chose not to pursue the subject. She seemed much better, Chad reflected, than she had a few short years ago: the fluctuations in weight had diminished; the pallor of her skin was gone; she had stopped changing the color of her white-blond hair. Her eyes, so like Allie’s, were brighter and happier. Perhaps they were through the worst.

“Anyhow,” he finished with a smile, “I’ll be on
This Week
Sunday morning. A great moment for America.”

Kyle shot a wry look at her silent mother, then returned her father’s smile. “You’ll be fine, Dad. Just remember there are women watching—at least two of them.”

M
ARY
A
NN
T
IERNEY
lay crying on her bed.

An hour before, her parents had sat on the edge of her bed. “This isn’t my home,” she had told them. “All you care about is what
they
think of you, and how much I’ve embarrassed you.”

Tears sprang to her mother’s eyes. Softly, her father answered, “The Christian Commitment worries about the harm you’d do to other girls, and to their unborn children. We’re worried about the harm to you, and to your child.”

Though his tone was even, its plaintive note made Mary Ann quiver inside. She gazed at the man who, before this year, had been to her the face of kindness and wisdom. Miserably, she said, “I don’t want my life to be over.”

He summoned a faint, sad smile. “This isn’t the apocalypse, Mary Ann. It’s a child.”

His forbearance, the sense that he was talking down to her, made her more angry than threats or punishment. Suddenly she wanted to hurt them both. “
You
want this baby,” she said to her mother. “You don’t care what happens to
me
.”

Her mother stood. “We didn’t ask you to sleep with that boy. I didn’t beg you to get pregnant …”

“Oh, no,” Mary Ann said in a quavering voice. “You just want me to have a baby for you—no matter what’s wrong with it.”

Her father strained to keep his voice low. “This is not a good time to talk, Mary Ann. What you’ve done has shocked and saddened us.”

Her mother’s dark eyes seemed wounded. “What about
me …
?” Mary Ann asked her.

“What about
you
?” her father cut in. “You’ve made two decisions in the last half year—to get pregnant, and to bring a lawsuit to kill your own child, our grandchild. And you expect us to live with them both.

“Before, you were happy enough when you imagined Tony would come riding to your rescue—whatever you thought that meant. And it was all right if your mother and I helped care for you and the child. Then your image of perfection was shattered, and now you’re desperate to dismember the baby inside you.”

He inhaled deeply, steadying his voice, and Mary Ann could feel his horror—at her decision, and at his loss of self-control. “He’s not a convenience, Mary Ann, or a fantasy. He’s not a perfect child on a greeting card, or some monster of imperfection. He’s not just yours, or ours. He’s a creation of God, and no one has the right to take his life.”

Pausing, her father gazed down at her, and shook his head. “It’s unnatural for a mother to murder her child. That’s what you’re asking us to let you do. And if we refuse, then you’ll ask a court to let every girl like you kill any child she considers to be a hardship.” His voice became quiet. “I know you’re afraid. I hate it for you. But the selfishness of what you’re doing—the sheer disproportion of it—sickens me.”

The last soft words struck Mary Ann like a slap in the face. She looked at the first man she had loved, his fine features and pale eyes, through a film of tears. “I can’t stay with you,” she said in a flat voice.

Beside her father, Margaret Tierney shook her head in disbelief. Evenly, her father answered, “You need us more than ever now. You’re as lost as any girl I’ve ever seen. You’ve lost track of what you believe, or any sense of what you’ve set in motion …”

“Don’t you know,” Mary Ann cried out, “how it feels to be
me? I
sit here listening to you say how selfish I am, how I don’t know what I’m doing. Well, I
know
, all right? I
know
I don’t want a baby with no brain. No matter what you taught me, I don’t think that’s a sin.”

In obvious pain, her mother stared at her; for an instant, all Mary Ann wanted was to throw herself into her mother’s arms, rely on her as she always had. “I need to go away,” she said in a pleading voice. “I can stay with Alice.”

Her father sat on the edge of the bed, taking her hand. Until this year, he had always been able to see inside her, and to calm her. “This is your home,” he said firmly. “And we’re your family. No matter what, you belong with us.”

“Why?” Mary Ann answered. “So you can control me?”

“No”
. It was her mother’s voice.

Mary Ann looked up at her. “
You’re
afraid you won’t be able to stop me from getting an abortion. That’s why you want to keep me here.”

Her mother flinched. “We don’t know what you’d do, Mary Ann. How
can
we know after this?”

Her father, intervening, stood to place a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “We’ll leave you alone tonight,” he said to Mary Ann. “If you want, you can have dinner in your room.”

Grateful, Mary Ann nodded. All she wanted was to be left alone.

As if to heal the breach between them, her father, still touching her mother, took Mary Ann’s hand again. Gently, he said, “Father Satullo will be along to see you, a little later. We thought it might be easier for you to talk with him.”