"We invited Captain Grace to speak here today. He declined, saying through a 'spokesman' that he did not want to 'politicize an ongoing legal matter.'" Christy paused, letting his verbal quotation marks linger for an artful beat. "But we are not asking him to take sides in a 'legal matter,' but to speak out against a sin--"
"Amen," someone shouted.
As a few people around them turned to glance at Corey, Nettie Grace began staring at the ground. "I'm told," the Reverend Christy called out, "that Corey Grace is with us today. So I say to him, Corey, my friend, come home--not just to Lake City, but to God."
Were it not for the scrutiny of others, Corey would have laughed aloud--the man was that good. "Because all of us here," Christy went on, "are all God's children. And that is why we cannot allow our children to be lured from the natural order ordained by the Almighty."
Briefly, Christy bowed his head. "A man died in this park," he said in a tone that combined sadness with admonition. "Some now call it a hate crime. But what caused this tragic act was a young man's revulsion for a crime against God. As we know from the first chapter of Romans, an entire city was destroyed because of it, and the sin of homosexuality named for what it is: an abomination." Eyes closed, Christy raised his head, words hovering above the silent crowd as he concluded in a hushed but resonant voice. "I pray for all those who have chosen the gay lifestyle to feel shame. For to embrace homosexuality is to embrace death--the death of our children, and of our culture."
Turning to his mother, Corey saw tears trickling down her face, then noticed that Clay was watching her. "I need to get out of here," Clay said with quiet vehemence. "Not just this place--this life."
THE NEXT DAY Corey called General Cortland Lane and, after an awkward beginning, turned to Clay's candidacy for admission to the U.S. Air Force Academy.
"He's a legitimate candidate," Corey assured the general. "I've asked around. Clay's already passed the qualifying test and done well in his interviews. But there are only three picks in our district, and the Academy ranks Clay fourth."
In the silence that followed, Corey imagined General Lane weighing the justice of such a request. "He's a good kid," Corey insisted. "If he's admitted, I know he'll never let the air force down."
"Let me see what I can do," Lane said at last. "Tell me, Captain, how are you getting along? All right, I hope."
"More or less," Corey answered. "Having a purpose helps."
The day after Corey defeated George Engler in the primary--albeit by a narrower margin than Hollis Spencer would have liked--Clay was appointed to the Academy. "Did you have anything to do with this?" Clay asked his older brother.
"Not a thing," Corey answered with a smile. "I'm a civilian now, remember?"
TWO NIGHTS BEFORE Clay left for the Academy in June, Corey took him out for dinner at one of Cleveland's plusher restaurants. When Corey ordered Scotch for both of them, no one seemed to mind.
Cautiously sipping his drink, Clay asked, "So what will the summer be like?"
Warm with the glow of Scotch and brotherly celebration, Corey sat back, pondering how to explain what, to Clay, might seem like the rites of some aboriginal tribe. "It's part ritual," he began, "and part indoctrination. One purpose is an exorcism of ego, meant to grind down the hot shots who enter the Academy.
"The abuse is mostly run by upperclassmen--grueling exercise, cutthroat sports, and endless harassment designed to run you ragged while they scream at you from dawn till dark. At five A.M. it starts all over again when they roust you out in a zombie state for a brisk four-mile run. And so begins another day, until the days begin to blur." Watching his brother's face, Corey decided that it was time to temper this narrative. "The thing to remember is you're not alone. Everyone's miserable--after the first week, almost everyone wants to pack it in.
"But no one does. For one thing, no one wants to face the folks at home." Reaching across the table, Corey patted his brother's arm. "The secret to survival, pal, is remembering that it's a game. Some of the upperclassmen are pricks, it's true--it's open season for low-grade sadists. But even they serve the cardinal purpose of the game: to make you accept the discipline men need to survive in war, and to bond you with your classmates irreversibly. Some of the guys in my class will be friends until I die."
For a long time Clay gazed at his drink. "I guess I'm a little afraid," he said at last.
"You don't need to be," Corey assured him comfortably. "All you're going to be up against is other guys like you."
Precious months later, Corey learned to his sorrow that this was not quite true.
8
THE DAY BEFORE THE SENATE HELD ITS DEBATE ON STEM-CELL research, Senator Rob Marotta paid a rare visit to Corey's office. With a smile so strained that Corey found it painful, Marotta spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. "This is about the stem-cell issue, of course. I need your vote here, Corey."
Corey felt a certain sympathy; he knew too well how much Marotta disliked asking, and that Marotta resented what he saw as Corey's all too easy rise to prominence. In Marotta's mind, he was the one who had tackled the hard jobs--doing favors without end, speaking at their colleagues' fundraisers, mastering the rules and culture of the Senate--while Corey saw himself as above such striving. That was the crux of their estrangement: to Marotta, Corey was not serious about the world as Marotta defined it; to Corey, Marotta was serious about everything but what mattered most--a cause to match his talent and ambition. And so they were fated to be antagonists. In Corey's gloomy appraisal, it was quite possible, in the end, that one might do great damage to the other.
"Are you sure?" Corey asked.
Marotta studied Corey closely. "The vote can go either way," he conceded. "You're hardly the sole determinant, but three or four other senators are watching to see what you do. As is the president."
Corey shrugged. "Then I'd better be sure the president's right."
Normally, Marotta's somewhat saturnine appearance was relieved by a boyishness appropriate to his age--the same as Corey's--and an ability to conceal his emotions with an air of composure and calm. But the sour smile at one corner of his mouth suggested that he found Corey's answer arrogant and disingenuous. "What's 'right,' here, Corey? No one knows for sure that fetal-stem-cell research isn't a total pipe dream. Why not wait for methods that don't compromise how we value human life?"
"Because people are suffering now. Ever known anyone with Alzheimer's?"
Marotta hesitated. "Maybe. We're starting to think Mary Rose's mother may be in the early stages."
"Wouldn't you like to help her?"
"Based on what? Guesswork? We're Catholic, and for us the sanctity of life is nonnegotiable." With a self-deprecating smile, Marotta added, "That's why we've got five kids, aged seventeen to three."
Corey returned his smile. "And here I'd thought you'd flunked Bob Christy's favorite program: abstinence-only sex education."
The mention of Christy, however light, banished all good humor from Marotta's face. "Politically speaking, that brings us to the crux of things. Christy's made this vote about himself."
"He's hardly unique. Ask the president, and it's about him. I'm sure you believe that I think it's all about me. Why isn't it about some infant with a spinal disease?"
"If Christy runs," Marotta said flatly, "he splits the party, and maybe helps elect a Democrat. That can't be what you want."
Corey laughed. "Hardly. It's been at least six years since I saw the slightest sign that the Democrats are fit to govern anything."
"So why give Christy an excuse to help them out?"
Leaning on his elbows, Corey propped his chin on steepled fingers, gazing at his rival intently. "There's something off about this conversation, Rob. We've managed to reduce a question of human suffering to the parochial political problem of how to pacify an evangelist who's blackmailing us on television."
"That," Marotta snapped, "involves a whole lot more than stem cells. This is still your party, Corey--the president
is our party's leader, and I'm its leader in the Senate. If you divide our party, you're at risk of becoming a very sorry man."
At this not so subtle threat, Corey felt the anger rise within him. "With respect," he said softly, "that's spoken like a man who's never learned what 'sorry' means."
Marotta considered him. "So why don't you explain it to me."
"I'll never have time enough, Rob. Just accept that it involves living with myself. I'm deciding this one on the merits."
OF COURSE, IT was not that simple: within the hour, the president of the United States called. Corey made no commitment; hanging up, he pondered the risk of deepening the president's antipathy. As Marotta had implied, Corey could expect to be in politics long after the president was gone, but the incumbent retained considerable power to ensure that the next president would not be Corey Grace.
A familiar voice from the television distracted him: in the last few days, Jack Walters had made a habit of watching Bob Christy's weekday show. "We are monitoring the Senate closely," Christy assured his followers, "to determine whether Senator Marotta and his fellow Republicans will defeat this ungodly tampering with life."
"Ever wonder," Jack asked, "why Christy hasn't lobbied you?"
Corey cocked his head in inquiry. "What makes you think that Christy wants me to vote against?"
As Corey watched the television, Eve Stansky walked in. "Lexie Hart called. She's wondering whether she should hold dinner open after tomorrow's vote."
Surprised, Corey laughed. "Tell her to watch the debate. She'll find out when I do."
WHEN COREY ARRIVED on the Senate floor, the gallery was packed, and Lexie Hart sat in the front row.
Corey looked up until she saw him. Even at this distance, he could read her anxiety and doubt.
Senator Rob Marotta opened the debate. "A frozen embryo," Marotta argued forcefully, "is the moral equivalent of a fetus, summoned into being so that a married couple can fulfill their sacred purpose of bringing life into their world. But now, the proponents of this science project propose to create life to destroy life."
Pausing, Marotta scanned his colleagues' faces. "There are over four hundred thousand frozen embryos. Unleashing scientific experimentation on so many potential lives is the moral equivalent of mass murder--no different than abortion on demand.
"There are always 'good reasons,'" Marotta continued with disdain, "to destroy a human fetus, and now there are other 'good reasons' to destroy a human embryo. But there will never be a reason good enough to allow us to play God."
Watching Marotta, Corey judged that his delivery, unusual in its fervor, was intended to match Christy's passion. "And where does it end?" Marotta asked. "Do we begin to tinker with the cells--or even the genetic makeup--of babies? Do we create 'research infants' to satisfy whatever experiment we dream up? Do we begin to wonder if human cloning is truly so unthinkable?" Abruptly, Marotta's voice rose. "Are we edging closer to the day when our moral preceptor is not God, the Father of us all, but Josef Mengele, the father of Nazi experimentation in the laboratory that was Auschwitz?"
Glancing up, Corey saw Lexie Hart's expression, a stoic mask. "Life is precious," Marotta said with sudden quiet. "We forget that at our peril."
COREY HAD WRITTEN the speech himself. When his turn came, after an hour of debate, he felt the close attention of the other undecided senators--Lynn Whiteside and Timothy Cole of Maine, Brian Kell of Rhode Island, and, to his surprise, Chris Lear of Nebraska.
"In the last few years," Corey began, "we have seen a development almost as disturbing as the horrors cited by Senator Marotta: the politicization of science, in which decisions that affect the health and welfare of Americans are based on bogus data and political calculation.
"We've heard that global warming doesn't exist. We've seen appointees to scientific agencies whose ignorance is matched only by their partisan zeal. We've even meddled in the familial tragedy of a literally brain-dead woman. And, in the end, all of this is as inhumane as it is pointless."
A few rows ahead, Marotta turned to watch him. But Corey was more conscious of the other Ohioans who had stood at this desk and whose names were carved inside: Warren Harding, who became president because he was so pliable; Robert Taft, perhaps worthy of becoming president but too principled to be another Harding. Corey also knew--and this both tempted and troubled him--that what he was about to say could help make, or unmake, the next president. "Politics," Corey said, "can no more block legitimate scientific progress than the anti-scientists of the Renaissance could stop Galileo from changing our conception of the universe. We cannot halt the advance of human knowledge--we can only damage human beings."
After pausing, Corey spoke quietly to his colleagues, as though unmindful of the galleries. "With due respect to Senator Marotta, I believe that most Americans can distinguish living fetuses from frozen embryos that would otherwise be discarded. Just as I believe that we, as senators, know that conducting Nazi experiments is different from relieving human suffering."
At once, Rob Marotta was on his feet. "Senator Grace," he asked sharply, "may I ask a question?"
Though unusual, this intervention was no surprise to Corey. "Of course, Senator."
Marotta held aloft a binder. "Collected in this binder are articles by scientific experts stating that embryonic-stem-cell research will yield no medical benefits. Are you familiar with this research?"
"I am, Senator. Just as I'm familiar with the doctors who claimed that Terri Schiavo had a functioning cerebral cortex." As a spasm of nervous laughter came from the galleries, Corey continued. "Let me suggest that you postpone this vote a week; give those binders to the most recent winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine, Drs. Carole Lauder and Joseph Di Santi; and advise the Senate of their conclusions. Having consulted with both, I know they'd be willing to help you."
Though Marotta looked startled, he swiftly recovered. "Experts will always disagree, Senator. Our obligation is to place ethical considerations above scientific benefits that may not ever exist."
At the corner of his vision, Corey saw Senator Whiteside shake her head, and knew that Marotta had lost her. "My offer stands," Corey said dismissively, and turned from Marotta to his colleagues. "In the gallery," he said, "are many who hope this research will someday stop their suffering, or spare others what they or their loved ones have already suffered. We cannot tell them in good conscience that human beings must suffer or die to protect an embryo that will never become a life--let alone as human sacrifices to political expedience. Nor, in my theology, does the God we purport to believe in require this."
The gallery burst into applause, swiftly gaveled down by the Speaker pro tempore, a venerable Montanan who was Marotta's ally. "And so," Corey concluded, simply, "I will vote in favor of stem-cell research."
THOUGH THE VOTE was fifty-seven to forty-three, Corey felt no elation. Returning to his office, he was certain that his relationship with Marotta would become more difficult yet, and that the media--with some justice--would focus on the role of presidential politics in Corey's own decision.
On his chair was a single slip of paper with a cell-phone number. "She's free for dinner," Eve had written. "Call her."
9
AS THE MAITRE D' GUIDED COREY AND LEXIE HART TO A CORNER table at Tosca, he felt a level of attention more intense than usual. After they were seated, he remarked, "Seems like I'm particularly fascinating tonight. What could it be, I wonder?"
A smile flickered at one corner of her mouth. "Some people," she said, "may think this isn't a presidential thing to do."
Corey laughed. "Depends on which president, I suppose."
Their waitress arrived, seeking assurance that Lexie approved of their table. Instantly, Lexie became so responsive, so concerned that the young woman not be anxious, that Corey saw her from a different angle. The other thing he noted was that Lexie, asked if she cared for a cocktail or wine, ordered mineral water instead.
As Lexie raised her glass, she told him
with a smile, "I want to thank you for what you did today. However complex your motives may have been."
Corey looked at her askance. "You're not easy, are you?"
"Not since the day I was born. Or so my mama used to say."
Corey hesitated, then touched his glass to hers. "To Mama."
Briefly, their eyes met. "Yeah," she said softly. "To Mama."
To others, Corey realized, this moment might seem more intimate than it was; two couples at a nearby table were sneaking looks at them, then whispering among themselves. "So what makes you think all this interest is about me?" Lexie inquired. "You do have a certain reputation, you know."
That again, Corey thought; though he tried to shrug off such comments, this one fed his pervasive sense of being misapprehended. "So I hear. And all richly undeserved."
Her gray-green eyes appraised him, and then she seemed to catch his mood. "If there's one thing I understand, it's being the object of other people's fantasies. That's the business I'm in. I guess it doesn't help that you look like you should be in it, too."
Suddenly Corey experienced himself and Lexie less as a couple whom others might misapprehend than as two people who might define, in the next few sentences, whether their interaction would be trivial or truthful. "I joke about this," he told her. "But I look at the guy in People, and he doesn't seem like me."
As Lexie gazed at him silently, he registered her indifference to the usual social lubricants--the too easy laugh, or chatter intended to ward off an awkward silence. "So people just misunderstand you?" she asked.
This could have been a gibe or just an invitation to say more plainly what he meant. Perhaps out of loneliness, perhaps because she challenged him, he yielded to the impulse to be candid. "I don't know you at all, Lexie. After tonight, I'll probably never see you again. So I've got nothing to lose by being honest.
"I've had one experience with marriage, and I blew it. First, I was unfaithful; then I entered politics--it's hard to know which was worse. Maybe Janice was wrong for me, but I was no prize husband. Or, as it turns out, father." Lexie's dubious look had vanished, Corey noted, encouraging him to continue. "So now I'm a senator in a town filled with women obsessed with politics or power, some of whom may fantasize about my future prospects. It's hard to find that kind of interest heartwarming, or even take it personally. And ever since leaving the Academy, I've lived an itinerant life, and still do--speeches here, a fund-raiser there, some crisis du jour or another. Maybe I'm congenitally restless. Whatever the cause, and however rotten I may feel about this, it's never added up to a second marriage.
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