Degree of Guilt

by Unknown

  Mary looked away. ‘So much so that our last weekend slipped your mind?’

  He was silent. ‘You know better,’ he said finally.

  She moved closer to him. ‘The sad truth is, Chris, that a lot of things slipped our minds that weekend.’

  He folded his arms. ‘Why are you telling me this tonight? Especially tonight.’

  ‘Because sooner or later, I’d have had to tell you.’ She paused. ‘I thought later you might appreciate having known it now.’

  ‘And why, I’m forced to wonder, is that?’

  She squared her shoulders. ‘Because I’m keeping it.’

  Paget stared at her. ‘You must be joking.’

  ‘No.’ Her voice had a determined edge. ‘I’m Catholic, you’ll remember.’

  In his confusion and astonishment, Paget almost laughed. ‘All I heard from you was how much you wanted to escape the “trap” – parents, church, your troglodyte ex-husband who wanted you to have children and “use your education in the home.” If you were driven by profound religious feelings, it certainly escaped me. Or did you experience an epiphany while we were making love that Sunday morning, and wish you were at Mass?’

  Mary frowned. ‘You were always very clever. But I am a Catholic, happy or not. You never know what something means until you’re there. There are a thousand things I wouldn’t expect you to understand.’

  Paget found himself gazing past her. ‘Mary Carelli,’ he murmured. ‘The Bride of Christ.’ When he turned back, her face held nothing but watchfulness. ‘Forgive me if I suspect some other agenda.’

  In the darkness, her body seemed to slump. Paget wanted to ask how she felt, and then she straightened again.

  ‘At this point,’ she said coolly, ‘it hardly matters what you think.’

  The words made it sound final, irretrievable, pushed him into another realm: this woman, of all women, might have his child. In their silence, he found himself looking for changes in her body that could not yet have occurred.

  ‘Do you get tired?’ he finally asked.

  She looked down. ‘A little. But not sick.’

  He nodded. ‘Maybe you should sit.’

  They sat on a bench overlooking the pond, several feet apart. The night seemed colder yet.

  ‘What is it you want from me?’

  In profile, she smiled at the murky water. ‘Marriage, of course. A ranch house in Potomac.’

  He waited, silent, until the smile faded.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Just for you to know. Whatever you do in the future, you do.’

  Paget watched her. ‘“In the future”?’ he repeated. ‘If I follow your logic, timing is everything.’

  ‘If you think it is.’ She stared fixedly at the pool. ‘I suppose it depends on what value things have for you, one over another. The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m going to have a baby.’

  Paget felt his eyes narrow. ‘And,’ he said, ‘that you’re testifying before the Senate tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes.’ Still she did not look at him. ‘I don’t think that particular men’s club gives exemptions to unwed mothers.’

  Paget realized that he was facing in the direction of the White House, shrouded by night and leafless trees. ‘We’d better go, then.’

  Mary turned, searching his face.

  ‘Yes,’ she finally answered. ‘We’d better go.’

  Her Volkswagen was parked in the darkness beneath the half circle of trees. Paget walked her there, hands in pockets, waited as she unlocked the door.

  Sliding into the seat, she looked up at him again. ‘It’s going to be a long night yet. At least for me.’

  He watched her taillights until they disappeared.

  The next morning, entering the hearing room, she looked as if nothing had happened.

  She broke away from her lawyer, came toward him at the back of the room. Her carriage bespoke poise and serenity; Paget was certain that he alone noticed the trace of sleeplessness beneath her eyes. The reporters and photographers taking their positions, the senators and staffers gathering at the raised wooden bench, ignored them both.

  ‘Will you be watching?’ she murmured.

  Paget nodded, glancing around them. ‘You realize,’ he said quietly, ‘what all of this could mean.’

  Mary drew closer, looking up at him. ‘My life has changed already,’ she answered with equal quiet. ‘And not because of Lasko.’

  She turned and walked toward the witness table.

  He found Carlo in the library, watching them on television.

  The room was dark; the colored images of Paget and Mary came through the glass doors of the Hall of Justice as if emerging from a cave. Gazing at his parents on film, Carlo did not turn or speak.

  Paget touched his shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry. There wasn’t time to tell you.’

  Carlo raised his hand, asking for quiet.

  On the screen, Paget and Mary were surrounded by reporters, cameras, police. The lens zoomed in for head shots; as if by instinct, Mary leaned against his shoulder, gazing back at the camera. Her face held pain and vulnerability and a kind of wounded strength.

  It was perfect, Paget saw. But, at least in this way, Mary no longer surprised him.

  Fifteen years ago, he had learned that her face was made for the camera.

  The picture changed, recapturing that moment as he remembered it.

  A dark-haired woman in her late twenties, leaning forward to speak into a microphone, gaze calmly raised to the row of senators looking down at her. Waiting in the witness room, Paget had seen her on television as if for the first time: wide set dark eyes; high cheekbones; full, even mouth; a faintly cleft chin whose clean lines finished a kind of sculpture. A face even more vivid on-screen.

  The newsman’s voice-over echoed in Paget’s library. ‘It was as a young lawyer,’ the narrator was saying, ‘that Mary Carelli first came to national attention. In televised hearings of the Senate Commerce Committee’s investigation into the William Lasko scandal, Ms Carelli confirmed charges by Christopher Paget – now her attorney – of corruption against the chairman of the Economic Crimes Commission.’

  On the screen, the voice-over was replaced by the bourbon drawl of Senator Talmadget of Georgia. ‘Miss Carelli,’ Talmadge said deliberately, ‘I would ask you to describe for this committee, as precisely as you can, how you first became aware of the possibility that Chairman John Woods was leaking Mr Paget’s investigation to William Lasko in order to save the President from embarrassment – or worse. In addressing this pivotal question, I must caution you that as far as we can determine, you alone know whether Mr Paget is telling the truth about Chairman Woods’s involvement.’

  Paget felt Carlo’s shoulders tense; it was as if, Paget thought, even the outcome of events before his birth was once again in doubt.

  ‘I wish I could tell you, Senator,’ Mary was saying on the screen, ‘that I would be happy to. But the night of August twenty-seventh contained the most frightening and disillusioning events of my life, and my strongest desire is to leave them behind.’

  Mary paused. In the silence, the camera panned the hearing room. Suddenly she was a small figure in an oak paneled cavern with ornate chandeliers, confronted by a panel of thirteen senators, staffers at their sides, reporters and photographers jammed into the seats behind her.

  As the camera returned to her, Mary seemed to square her shoulders, as she had the night before. ‘Nonetheless,’ she finished quietly, ‘I will do my best.’

  For the next hour, Mary had held the country transfixed.

  Alone in the witness room, Paget had been utterly still, watching television with millions of others. Not knowing what she would say, knowing only that when she was done, it would be his turn to testify.

  The events she described were dramatic enough: the death of a witness; the attempt to kill Paget; the night that Mary and Paget had found Jack Woods, the chairman of their agency, about to destroy the evidence Paget had hidden in his desk. But what P
aget found riveting was Mary herself: not simply the tension of what she would say, but the wonder of how she said it. Her voice and expression ranged through sadness and humor, idealism and failed ambition, to fear and resolve and, finally, fatalism. She had lost much and learned much, she seemed to say, and now had come to speak the truth.

  Watching her, he at first felt mere surprise, then felt a kind of wonder. It was as if, Paget thought, he had never truly known her.

  When at last it was over and she rose from the witness table, Paget heard the door open behind him.

  It was Talmadge’s aide, a bespectacled man hardly older than Paget. ‘You’re on next,’ the aide had said.

  Paget felt an odd surprise. He followed the aide into the hearing room, still lost in what he had seen and heard.

  Mary was walking toward him, followed by reporters hoping for a quick quote. Reaching Paget, she stopped.

  Surrounded by reporters, their faces were perhaps two inches apart.

  ‘Did you see me?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Paget had said simply. ‘I saw you.’

  Now, on television, their son saw the moment.

  Captured at a distance, her lips moved silently, then his. Faces close, a portrait of intimacy.

  ‘Before the death of Mark Ransom,’ the narrator was saying, ‘the names of Christopher Paget and Mary Carelli had not been associated for over fifteen years.’

  Abruptly they were in close-up again, standing outside the Hall of Justice. Paget could still feel the chill, see faces shouting from the semidarkness as if in a kind of nightmare.

  A mustached reporter thrust a microphone at them; instinctively, Mary leaned back. Her hair touched Paget’s face.

  ‘Are you representing Miss Carelli?’ the reporter asked.

  ‘I’m helping Miss Carelli. She doesn’t need a lawyer.’

  ‘Then you and Miss Carelli have a personal relationship.’

  Watching, Paget saw Carlo stiffen, felt the life he had constructed for them slipping away. On the screen, he answered evenly, ‘Yes – we’re friends,’ and, facing the crowd, held up one hand.

  ‘I have a brief statement. All that Miss Carelli asks is that you listen and then let her begin what you surely understand must be a long process of healing.’

  Paget had gathered his thoughts, searching for a sound bite. Now, with his son, he watched himself.

  ‘At approximately twelve o’clock this afternoon,’ he began, ‘in a suite at the Hotel Flood, Mark Ransom attempted to rape Miss Carelli.’

  There was an eruption of sound, flashbulbs popping, shouted questions. Paget ignored them.

  ‘It was under the pretense of business,’ he continued, ‘as these things often are. It was unexpected, as these things often are. And it was undeserved, as these things always are.’

  Paget paused. They were quiet now, waiting for more.

  ‘There was a struggle. A gun fired. What resulted is that rarest of tragedies – an attempted rape where the result is tragic for both the rapist and the victim.’

  Mary looked down, as if stricken, and then silently back into the camera.

  ‘Mark Ransom’s death was tragic. Mary Carelli no more wished this talented but tormented man to die than she wished him to assault her. And that is her tragedy – that she must forever live with the memory of his assault and the memory of his death.

  ‘That there will be no charges I am certain. But what I deeply hope is that those who know Miss Carelli only as a public figure will now extend to her the same compassion as those of us who truly know her.’

  On the screen, Mary was in close-up. Paget saw with astonishment that there were tears in her eyes.

  As the police had hurried them to the limousine, Mary had taken his hand. She did not let it go until the door had closed.

  They were alone then, behind the darkened windows of the one-way glass, separated from the driver by a glass shield.

  ‘That,’ Mary had said, ‘was close to perfect.’

  Paget looked past her. Reporters and cameras pressed blindly against the windows, unable to see. ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Just like always.’

  She drew back. ‘I suppose we’ve had enough togetherness. At least for now.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose we have.’

  They said nothing more. The limousine circled the block twice, losing the reporters, and then dropped him at his car.

  Carlo pushed the Mute button. In the glow of the television, he looked older than he had that morning. Behind him, pictures flashed without sound, mouths moved but spoke no words.

  ‘Why isn’t she here, Dad? Why didn’t you bring her home?’

  ‘ABC sent a limousine and got her to a hotel, with guards to protect her privacy.’ Paget hesitated. ‘She’s better than you might expect – it’s just that she’s so tired.’

  Carlo shook his head. ‘But she’s alone.’

  ‘I know. But I also know her. It’s what she needs.’

  Carlo paused and then sat straighter, as if tensed against a blow. ‘Tell me what happened,’ he said. ‘Everything.’

  Paget sat next to him. Then, as clearly and simply as he could, Paget repeated what Mary had told Monk.

  Carlo’s eyes seemed never to move. For Paget, their fixity was worse than tears. ‘Do they believe her?’

  ‘They don’t know.’ Paget gazed at the silent television. ‘From their perspective, no one knows the truth but Mary.’

  Carlo seemed to search his face. ‘Do you believe her?’

  Pausing, Paget replayed his son’s tone of voice; the question was not about Mary but about Paget himself.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Essentially.’

  Carlo was quiet. ‘Since I’ve lived here,’ he asked, ‘have you ever done a murder case?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you should tell her you can’t do it.’

  Paget felt weary. ‘It’s more complicated than that.’

  ‘But you can’t represent her, Dad, if you don’t even believe her.’

  ‘You misunderstood me, Carlo. I appreciate we’re talking about your mother. But we’re also talking about a human being, charged with murder and scared to death. When you’re facing that you forget things. Or your story isn’t coherent. Or you don’t say something because it will make you look less attractive, even if it doesn’t mean you’re guilty.’ Paget tried to speak more gently. ‘Being your mother is a real argument for canonization, but even saints aren’t perfect.’

  Carlo seemed to search his words for meaning. Finally, he asked, ‘You did love her once?’

  Paget looked at him. How to talk about this, he wondered, when every word might carry an unspoken subtext: Carlo’s life was an accident.

  ‘I thought she was beautiful, Carlo, and even more than that, I thought she was an extraordinary woman.’ Paget paused. ‘Did I love her? Did she love me? I honestly don’t know.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Circumstances came between us before we had a chance to know. We were two very willful people, who didn’t really trust each other. We disagreed violently about politics, and then we were thrust into a situation that was very public and very painful – congressional testimony that destroyed Jack Woods, a man she worked for and deeply admired, and ruined the President they both supported. Our relationship simply became impossible.’

  Carlo cocked his head. ‘Did you even try?’

  Paget heard the question that Carlo had not spoken: Didn’t I make it worth trying? ‘I know it’s hard to understand,’ he said at length. ‘You would have been the reason, but we didn’t know you then. I’m sure that sounds strange now, but you were just an abstraction – you weren’t you then.’ Paget hesitated. ‘We had no plans to marry, no real basis for believing that it would work, and a lot of reasons to think that it wouldn’t. That kind of marriage is no favor to a child.’

  Carlo’s voice turned stubborn. ‘Then why didn’t she have an abortion?’

  ‘I’m not sure. She could have done it, and
I’d never have known.’ Paget paused again, searching for an answer that Carlo could accept. ‘But the ultimate answer is that – even if we didn’t know you – we both loved you too much already to miss out on who you would turn out to be.’ Paget touched his shoulder. ‘We wanted you. We just didn’t want to be married and didn’t particularly think you’d want us to if you’d had an informed vote.’

  ‘Did you ever talk about it?’

  ‘Not really. Most affairs like ours end with little to show for it. We’ve been lucky – we’ve got you, which is much more than either of us could ever have expected.’ Paget tried to smile. ‘As for you, you got a whole life out of the deal, and me for a father at that.’

  Carlo did not smile. Paget heard his son’s next question before he even asked it.

  ‘Why did she give me up?’

  Perhaps a hundred times, Paget thought, he had prepared for this moment, discarding a hundred different answers. ‘She didn’t really want to,’ he said finally. ‘Basically, I forced the issue.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You were with your grandparents more than Mary – she was traveling a lot. Your grandparents were loving people, but they were old people. She knew that.’ Paget looked at him intently. ‘Perhaps I was selfish. But I was pretty adamant on the subject, enough to go to court over it. She knew that too.’

  ‘What did she say about it?’

  ‘In the end, she agreed that it was best you be with me. But it was very hard for her to let you go, and harder still to stay away.’

  ‘Why did she?’

  Paget paused. ‘To let me be your family,’ he finally said. ‘To not be the fantasy perfect mother, flitting in and out – to let you and me work things out when things got tough. However complicated my feelings about her may be, I know that Mary Carelli has character, and you should admire her for that.’

  For a long time, Carlo just gazed back at him, doubt struggling with the desire for resolution. ‘It’s pretty confusing – if you’re me.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Then she comes back, and now this . . .’

  Carlo’s voice trailed off. As if reciting a catechism, Paget murmured, ‘It’s okay, son. It’s going to be all right.’ Said that, and then heard himself saying these same words to a frightened seven-year-old boy, eight years before.