“Then why tell us now?”
“Because the stakes are so high. She knows that we’re giving serious consideration to making her the first woman Chief Justice in history. She’s worried for us if this comes out, as well as for the Allen family.” Pausing, Ellen looked at the others. “David Stern was a draft dodger. Caroline didn’t know that until shortly before he died—well after she’d fallen in love with him. Caroline’s father turned him in, and he drowned while trying to evade the FBI. Caroline feels all this might be embarrassing to us, and distressing to her daughter.”
“To say the least,” Clayton murmured.
Kerry kept looking at Ellen. “I’m glad I didn’t know her father,” he said softly. “All in all, I don’t think I’d have liked him.”
“I liked her,” Clayton acknowledged. “Partly because she disliked me—reasonably enough—and didn’t mind letting me know.
“She certainly has her pride, and if you don’t like her philosophy you could pass that off as arrogance. But she’s obviously gifted, has a real presence, and seems like a decent woman. I could see her making the right-wingers on Palmer’s committee look as petty and stupid as they are.
“But …,” Clayton paused for emphasis, “… a lie is a lie, at least in the context of a Supreme Court nominee. She was right to tell us, and we’d be crazy not to scratch her. I assume no one here says otherwise.”
Adam Shaw, Kerry noted, had said nothing. Now Ellen turned to him. “Is this a lie, Adam?”
Shaw placed a finger to his lips. “One person’s lie is another person’s act of conscience. But I’ve reviewed the forms she filled out, and it’s not perjury. As a matter of law Masters told the absolute, literal truth.”
Reflective, Kerry sat back to watch the meeting play out.
“That may satisfy us,” Clayton told him. “We believe compassion is a virtue. But Macdonald Gage is less forgiving.
“You know Gage better than any of us, Mr. President. Here’s what he’ll say: If she fudged the truth here, where else? What kind of example are we setting, making this woman the Chief Justice of our highest court, in a legal system founded on the absolute obligation to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”
“She told the truth,” Ellen answered. “Does justice require she proceed to break her word, and ruin someone else’s life? Or does justice, in its wisdom, also honor ‘acts of conscience’? And, for that matter, do we?”
Clayton shook his head. “Gage would say this act of conscience served Masters’s own ambition. But another question is how people define morality. On most issues Mac Gage is as cynical as they come. But I think he honestly believes we went to hell sometime in the 1960s—”
“Yes,” Ellen interjected mordantly, “back when they started letting women have real jobs, black folks vote, and Catholics become President. All you need is to look around this room to see how that worked out.”
“The four of us are one thing, Ellen. Premarital sex with a draft dodger is something else. We’re the keeper of our nation’s morals, or supposed to be—that’s why the President has chaperons. ‘What about abstinence?’ Gage is going to say.”
“What about adoption?” Ellen shot back. “What Caroline Masters did is exactly what the pro-life people want—to choose adoption over abortion. And then to give her daughter, and her adoptive family, all the love and loyalty she could—at considerable sacrifice to herself, I would guess. That, to me, is a better definition of ‘morality.’”
Briskly, Ellen surveyed the room. “Would we all feel better if Caroline Masters were a forty-nine-year-old virgin? Is that what we expect—or even want—from a man? What the hell kind of qualification would that be when the President’s looking for a Chief Justice who’s also a human being?
“Long ago, Caroline Masters proved herself to be an admirable human being. She got pregnant, drew a compassionate lesson, and has lived it ever since—in her own life, and in speaking out for adoption. But Clayton says that disqualifies her—”
“What I said,” Clayton interrupted, “is that Mac Gage will say that—”
“Then fuck Mac Gage. Because I say it qualifies her.”
Clayton’s tone was even. “If we want a woman this badly, Ellen, there are a dozen capable appellate judges out there who don’t have this kind of baggage. A few days into his first administration, the President doesn’t need it.”
At this mention of Kerry, Ellen faced him, palms spread in entreaty. “This is supposed to be a new day, Mr. President. We campaigned on tolerance—on looking at each person as whole and, in politics, discussing public issues instead of personal failings.”
Clayton glanced at Kerry, then said to Ellen, “We’ve done that. But you know the environment we’re in—if something personal can come out, it likely will. This is exactly the kind of thing Macdonald Gage is looking for.
“Like it or not, politics is personal. Maybe the public doesn’t grasp legal niceties, but they sure as hell get personal lives—and sex. Gage won’t just try to take Masters down in the Senate. He’ll use her to tar the President.”
Ellen grimaced. “It’s not the President’s daughter,” she retorted. “I think voters are smart enough to know the difference, and fair enough to give us credit for decency and fairness. In fact, one of the President’s strengths is that they expect that from him.”
“Then let me ask you this, Ellen. Is Caroline Masters prepared to make this public? That way she, and we, at least get credit for candor.” Clayton’s tone became as dubious as his expression. “After that—maybe—we can spin a sympathetic story of a pregnant girl who opted for life, and proceeded to become a distinguished jurist and supportive aunt. But if it’s Gage who breaks this, Masters is just a liar. However Adam defines ‘perjury.’”
Ellen frowned in thought. “I don’t know the answer to that. She’s sat on this for twenty-seven years, and there’s her daughter’s feelings to weigh.”
“Does she want to be Chief Justice?” Clayton snapped. “She was willing enough to be considered.”
“Oh, she wants it, Clayton. I’m just not sure at what price.”
Clayton folded his arms. “I don’t think she can name the price, even for herself. Let alone for us.”
At an impasse, the antagonists turned to Kerry. “Where is she now?” he asked Ellen.
“Still at the Hay-Adams, Mr. President. Until tomorrow morning.”
Kerry paused, torn between Clayton’s practicality and Ellen’s principle, more compelling on a personal level than she could ever know. When he made his decision, it was less by reason than instinct. “I’d like to meet her, if nothing else.”
Clayton stood, hands jammed in his pockets. “With respect, Mr. President, it’s a lousy way to satisfy your curiosity. She’s obviously a potential candidate for the Court. If you don’t pick her—as you shouldn’t—and your meeting gets out, it may look like you rejected her at the eleventh hour.
“That could embarrass her, and be bad for everyone. Because you could never explain your reasons without exposing her.”
“The press hangs out at the West Wing,” Kerry answered. “Bring her through the east visitors’ entrance in an hour, and then up here. No one will see her.”
“And if anyone does,” Clayton said acidly, “maybe they’ll think she’s only a girlfriend. At least we can hope.”
Kerry smiled faintly. “She told us the truth, at the risk of cutting her own throat. I’d like to give her at least this courtesy.”
Turning to Ellen and Adam Shaw, he said, “Thanks for your advice.” As was often the case, his dismissal did not include Clayton.
The two friends sat across from each other. For a long time, neither spoke.
“I understand what you were trying to do,” Kerry said. “I appreciate it.”
Uncomfortable, Clayton shifted in his chair. “I know how much you love Lara. Somehow you two have gotten by—so far. But if you open up the subject of sexual morality, even someone els
e’s, I worry that the press and the right-wing crazies will start looking at your relationship again. There are a thousand reasons, Kerry, that I don’t want that for you.”
For Kerry, the moment reflected their depth of friendship: that Clayton was the only person he had told about Lara; that, out of affection and respect, Kerry had relieved Clayton of the obligation to call him “Mr. President” in private; that, with equal affection, Clayton reserved this privilege for conversations which were personal; that nothing could be more personal than this.
“I know,” Kerry said at last. “But I can’t let myself become Mac Gage, treating Masters like Gage would treat me. Lara wouldn’t want that, either.”
Clayton considered him, and then, on the strength of their relationship, answered, “Do you want Lara to be a symbol of abortion on demand? There’s a difference between fear and prudence.”
Kerry looked away, then back at his friend. “Caroline Masters,” he said finally, “may be one of the few people in town tonight—with the exception of Chad Palmer—who’s actually bigger than her own ambitions. That merits my respect.”
Clayton met his gaze, and then, after a moment, shrugged. “I’ll tell the Service to clear her through.”
Kerry stood. “Do that, pal. Then go home, if you can. And please give Carlie my love.”
SEVEN
A YOUNG AIDE led Caroline Masters to the President’s study, closing the door behind her.
Kerry Kilcannon was slighter than she expected; his shirtsleeves were rolled up and tie loosened, like a young prosecutor at the end of a tiring day, and his body had a tensile leanness. But it was his eyes which struck her most: an unblinking blue-green, they conveyed the sense that he was absorbing far more than her words.
“Well,” he said without preface, “you’ve certainly made this process more interesting.”
Startled, Caroline managed to answer, “Not as interesting as it could have been, Mr. President.”
A slight change in his eyes suggested a smile. “For both of us. But what you said to Ellen couldn’t have been easy.”
With this man, Caroline sensed, nothing but the truth would do. “It was hard,” she acknowledged. “There were few days in the last four years when I didn’t imagine myself on the Court. But it’s not the kind of thing you go around admitting.”
“I know—when my fantasy got out, a fair number of people were horrified. But here I am.” He waved her to a couch. “Please, sit down.”
Caroline did that. As Kilcannon sat across from her she realized that, whether from sensitivity or instinct, his directness was helping her transcend the difficulty of the moment.
“Before you arrived,” Kilcannon said, “I was thinking about ambition—what it does, and what it costs. About all the men I’ve known, beginning with my brother, who’ve wanted to be where I am. Many of them needed it so desperately, and sacrificed so much of value—in themselves and in their lives—that, when they failed, there was no one left inside. In the end, all that was ‘real’ about them was the president they imagined themselves becoming.” He tented his fingers, studying her. “But not you, Judge Masters. I’m wondering why.”
Again, Caroline was surprised. She sensed the introspection of a man compelled by circumstance to ponder his own life, and to train the same lens on others.
“It’s very simple,” she answered. “I love my daughter. Before that, I loved her father. Those two things drove the decisions I made—to have her, but never to tell her—until those decisions, too, became part of me.
“Forty-nine doesn’t feel very old. But it’s old enough to have reached a few conclusions about who I am, and what that has to mean.”
Kilcannon cocked his head. “So you didn’t make this sacrifice for the sake of my great crusade?”
Caroline smiled briefly. “I owed you that, of course. But I’ll admit it’s not the most compelling consideration. I’ve known my daughter much longer.”
Kilcannon’s eyes grew hooded. For some moments, he was quiet.
“But suppose,” he said at last, “you were to explain all this in public. To many people, the decisions you’ve made would make you seem human and attractive.” The same hint of a smile flickered. “It might even leave pro-life Republicans somewhat at a loss for words.”
Sadly, Caroline prepared herself to deal the last blow to her ambitions. “I’m not a politician, Mr. President. But I’m not obtuse. So I thought the question might come up.
“This is the confessional age in public life—no sin is too private to confess, no trauma too devastating to exploit. If your opponent had trotted out one more dying relative or Ritalin-afflicted child, I’d have voted for you twice. I’m just glad you defeated him before his guppy expired.”
At this, Kilcannon laughed aloud. “I take it you don’t approve.”
“Not a bit.” Caroline sighed. “Honestly, I want this job so much that, in a moment of weakness, I might make myself as big a mountebank as he was. But I don’t think it’s how public life should be—for anyone.
“For me, there’s an absolute prohibition against letting the chips fall where they may: my commitment to the chips.” Her voice softened. “I won’t undermine everything my daughter believes about her life. If that’s not enough, I promised her parents—because that’s what they are—I never would.”
Kilcannon considered her. “One could argue that your daughter deserves to know.”
Caroline found that his matter-of-factness made this most personal of discussions easier to bear. “One could, Mr. President. Selfishly, I wish she did: it’s very hard to love a child in secret, and pretend that she’s my niece. But I have no right to change that.” Caroline hesitated, then finished. “Not even to be Chief Justice.”
That would do it, Caroline supposed—it was late, the President was tired, and she was of no further use. The moment of renunciation felt even worse than she’d imagined.
“And yet,” Kilcannon said coolly, “you were willing to be nominated. Which means you were prepared to assume the risk that your daughter would find out—as long as you had satisfied your personal sense of honor, and we were willing to assume the risk.”
Caroline flushed. The analysis was sharp as a stiletto: in that moment, she grasped how tough Kilcannon could be, and how difficult to delude.
“True,” she admitted. “It’s foolish, perhaps even hypocritical. Perhaps I always wanted her to know. But more than that I wanted the job very badly.” Her voice became self-mocking. “Why not me, I kept asking myself. It isn’t fair. The country deserves my talents. Maybe no one but the President need ever know. All the way stations to self delusion.
“But the other truth is this, and I can’t leave without saying it—I’d have made a damned good Chief.”
Kilcannon cocked his head again. “And why is that?”
“For all the reasons Roger Bannon wasn’t. To Bannon, the people he affected weren’t real, but chess pieces in some mental game of his own invention.
“All his arid nonsense about deciding cases the way the founding fathers would have—some of them owned slaves, for Godsake, and their wives couldn’t vote. American politics in the eighteenth century wasn’t driven by mass media and the power of money. The social sciences, including those which explore the impact of parenting and poverty, barely existed. Modern medical science didn’t exist at all. All of which are central to how we view the law today.
“Were they alive, the men who framed the Constitution would understand that. It takes a mind like Roger Bannon’s to reduce them to flies in amber.”
“Bannon,” the President countered, “would say that law should be based on fixed principles. Or it’s nothing but the whims of the intellectually rootless.”
Caroline shook her head. “We’re judges, Mr. President. We’re supposed to apply the law, not make it up as we go along. But cases don’t occur in a vacuum.
“The Supreme Court in 1896 believed that segregation was fine—that ‘separate but equal’ was
not only possible, but all we owed the descendants of slaves. By 1954, the Court could comprehend the withering effects of racial discrimination and therefore that the Constitution, properly interpreted, barred one group of citizens from using the law to degrade another.
“There’s a lesson in that. But some of Bannon’s allies on the Court seem to have forgotten it.”
“Well,” Kilcannon said, “now I can dispatch someone to remind them. It’s one of the pleasures of victory.”
“And I’m very glad of that, Mr. President. I’m just sorry it can’t be me.”
Kilcannon considered. “So am I,” he said at last. “I’ve even waded through the enormous briefing book Adam Shaw sent over. It was very impressive—including your opinion on limiting campaign contributions. I wouldn’t mind a short tutorial on that, to help me assess whoever I do appoint.”
That she would not become Chief Justice, Caroline decided, left her freer to speak. “I know your position,” she answered. “You propose to bar interest groups or the wealthy from buying influence through giving either political party these enormous contributions. But legally, you encounter a formidable argument: that the First Amendment makes those contributions a form of ‘speech’ that you can’t touch.
“We don’t regulate speech lightly. But one can argue that special access for interest groups drowns out the voices and cheapens the votes of ordinary citizens: How many people can give the Democrats a million dollars to ensure that you listen when they exercise ‘free speech’?” Caroline flashed a smile. “Not that you’d be influenced, of course.”
“That’s only the Republicans,” Kilcannon said with irony. “I’m above it all. The teachers’ unions and trial lawyers have no claim on me.”
“Naturally. But some people may have missed that. No matter who they vote for, they believe, neither party cares about them. And so they’ve just stopped voting. Which is how democracy—in the real sense—begins to flicker out.
“That’s the cost of treating interest groups as the torch-bearers of First Amendment liberties.” Pausing, Caroline said emphatically, “Still, it’s not a simple question. No judge with any integrity would promise you a result. You shouldn’t choose anyone who does.”
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