The only cheering note in Meredith’s own life was Claudia’s pregnancy, which was going well. The baby was due in February. She and Thaddeus were beside themselves with excitement, and had painted the nursery yellow, which she showed Merrie proudly when she came to visit. And she had put decals on the walls, of storybook characters, that would be suitable for either sex.
But at the end of January, Meredith lost another hero. Her grandfather caught a bad flu in Washington, which rapidly turned to pneumonia. He insisted it was nothing, just a cold, but Robert went to Washington to see him and admitted him to the hospital. He told Meredith that the doctors were confident he would recover, but just to be conservative they had preferred to admit him. His condition continued to worsen for the next three days, and early one morning she heard the phone ring, and her mother answered it in her bedroom. Meredith appeared in the doorway a few minutes later and saw the look on her mother’s face.
“Grampa?” But she knew before her mother told her. Janet nodded and got out of bed to put her arms around her daughter. He was just weeks shy of his eighty-second birthday, and had served the nation well for many years in the Supreme Court and the landmark decisions he made and upheld with his peers. A bright light had been extinguished. The loss of his wife had dimmed him, and the recent shock of the Kennedy assassination had discouraged him as nothing else ever had. Meredith was glad that he hadn’t been sick for a long time or physically diminished, or lost the acute sharpness of his mind. But time had finally caught up with him, and Meredith knew that the world would never be the same for her without him. He had been her role model and inspiration ever since she was a little girl.
Her father stayed in Washington to arrange the funeral, and Meredith and Alex and their mother flew down that night. The naval band played at his funeral, and President Johnson attended it, with all the other justices of the Supreme Court. As she stood there, missing him unbearably, she thought of going to John Kennedy’s inauguration with him, and the balls, and both men were gone now. One so much too early, and her beloved grandfather at a more fitting time, but to be mourned forever. He had made history on more than one occasion, and helped her be all that she was. It was the saddest day of her life.
* * *
—
They returned to New York the day after the funeral, and a few days later, her father asked her to come to his study, with a serious expression. He handed her a copy of a document and told her it was her grandfather’s will. He had only one son, and two grandchildren. He wasn’t a rich man, but he had made many wise investments over the years and lived carefully and very comfortably. And he had been a generous man in life. Despite her modesty, his wife had inherited a considerable fortune, which she left him when she died, to be distributed at his death. Robert explained to Meredith that William had left him, Alex, and Meredith each a third of his fortune, to be divided equally, and the house in Washington, which they would be selling. Her father estimated the global amount he’d left her, and she was stunned. She had never thought about what he and Grandma had or what he would leave her, and didn’t care. She loved him. It was enough for her to buy a home one day, if she wished to, and start her own law practice, and live well forever if she was cautious with it. But above all, she could have the kind of legal practice she wanted, without working for someone else, and she could support the causes that were important to her. Her father reminded her to guard it judiciously and make sensible, conservative investments. But he was not surprised to hear her say that she wanted to start a legal practice of her own. He had suspected she would.
He gave her a copy of the will to study carefully, and she thanked him and went back to her room to think about it. Once again, with this final gift, and all his encouragement, her grandfather had given her freedom and the wings she needed to fly. Her life had suddenly taken a huge leap ahead. She really was a free woman, thanks to her grandfather. She could hear him in her head telling her to fight the good fight. And with his blessings, it was full steam ahead. Nothing could stop her now.
Chapter Thirteen
As soon as Meredith had absorbed the change in her situation, she advised Jock Hayden that she’d be leaving the firm to open her own office. She was prepared to give them decent notice, but she had wanted to warn him early. He said he was deeply sorry to lose her.
“You’re a damn fine attorney, Meredith,” he said to her sincerely. “I wish we could have kept you,” but he knew he couldn’t stand in her way, and he didn’t try to.
She said she would start to get organized in the next few weeks, and was giving him a month’s notice. By early March she wanted to open the doors of her own practice. She got busy immediately, looking at office space, and she needed to hire a paralegal to assist her since she would be a sole practitioner and the only attorney in the office, and would need administrative help. She was going to put the word out with other attorneys she knew, so they would recommend her for small discrimination cases, and one day, once she’d proven herself, hopefully big ones.
She had just found an office space she liked downtown, and was thinking about renting an apartment near it, in Gramercy Park, when Claudia called and invited her to come out for the weekend. She was in the final days of her pregnancy and said she felt like an elephant and could hardly move. She was bored and wanted to see Merrie. Everything was done and ready, and she had nothing to do. She had finished her last article assignment and had completed her novel.
Meredith promised to come out that weekend. She brought Claudia some books and magazines to distract her, and she laughed when she saw her. She looked like a little round ball. She had gotten much bigger since Meredith had last seen her a few weeks before, and said she felt huge.
They went for a long walk together on the first day when Meredith got there, but it snowed that night and they were stuck indoors after that. They sat by the fire and talked, while Thaddeus kept busy with his writing for his latest documentary and came in to check on Claudia every half hour to ask if she needed anything. She was two days overdue by then, but there was no sign of anything happening. Her mother and sisters had come out to see her that week, and the oldest of her sisters was pregnant too, but the baby wasn’t due for several months.
Meredith told her all about the office she was opening and the location she’d found. And now she wanted to find an apartment. Her grandfather had given her great freedom with what he’d left her. And she was anxious to get started with her practice. Claudia was delighted for her.
The three of them cooked dinner together that night, but Claudia said she wasn’t hungry. She had no room with the baby pressing on everything, and she lay on the couch afterward, looking peaceful while Thaddeus glanced at her adoringly. She had shown Meredith the nursery, and all the little clothes folded and put away. Everything was ready.
“I never thought anything like this would happen to me,” she admitted to Meredith.
“Having a baby?” She was surprised. It didn’t seem so unimaginable to her for Claudia, especially now that she was married.
“No, all of it,” Claudia said seriously. “When I look back at my life…and the time in the camp…I stopped believing that good things could ever happen to me. And now I’m so happy and Thad is so wonderful to me.” They were loving to each other, which Meredith liked to see. And a baby would be a happy addition to their lives. They both seemed ready, and were genuinely excited.
They made an early night of it, because Claudia was tired, and the next day she said her back hurt and she could hardly get out of bed. She joined them for breakfast and lunch, and then said she was going back to bed. Meredith left them and went back to New York, and Claudia called her at midnight that night, sounding exhausted but ecstatic. They had gone to the hospital when her water broke two hours after Meredith left, and the baby came at ten o’clock. It was a girl. She said it had been hard at the end but was worth every bit of it, and they’d both cried when
she was born.
“She looks so much like my mother,” Claudia said, sounding deeply moved. She had expected her to look like Thaddeus or herself, and it touched her that the baby was so similar to the mother she had lost.
“What are you calling her?” Meredith asked with tears in her eyes, happy for her friend.
“We’re naming her after my mother and sisters,” she said softly, and Meredith knew she meant her German family, and in Jewish tradition they named children after relatives who had died. “Sarah Rachel Rose.”
“That’s beautiful,” Meredith said and promised to come to see her in a few days. They were planning to stay in the hospital for four or five days, and her mother had hired a baby nurse to help her for a few weeks. And Thaddeus’s mother was coming to visit. She was the first grandchild on their side too. Claudia would have a houseful for a while, but Meredith wanted to see her in her new role of motherhood. She sounded peaceful and calm and happy.
For the next several days, Meredith raced everywhere. She signed the lease for her office space in a small commercial building that already had several lawyers in it, in Murray Hill. And she found an apartment she liked in Gramercy Park. She could walk to work in decent weather. She bought the office furniture she needed. And she interviewed three possible paralegals, one of them male, and two female. One of the women was in her late fifties, and said she wanted to retire in five years. The other had too little experience. The man was businesslike and efficient, seemed organized at the interview, and had excellent references. Charlie was thirty-two years old, and Meredith liked him and hired him. He was free and able to start the following week.
By the time she went to see Claudia and meet little Sarah, she had everything in order for her new office and was planning to open her doors in two weeks.
Thaddeus was holding the baby when she got there, and Claudia was her old bouncy, lively self, beaming at the baby and looking at Thaddeus as though they had found the Holy Grail. And it struck Meredith that they were no longer just two people who loved each other. They were a family now. The baby was exquisite and perfectly formed, peaceful at her mother’s breast. The baby nurse was bustling around looking officious in a white uniform. Claudia was breastfeeding, which the nurse had told her was no longer in fashion and that she should really do bottles, but she had been firm about it. Meredith watched with wonder as she nursed, and the beautiful infant dozed off in her arms.
“You make it all look so easy,” Meredith said suspiciously.
“It is.” Claudia laughed at her. “You should try it someday.”
“I’m not sure I’d be good at it,” Meredith said honestly. She had never felt maternal or wanted babies. “Besides, I’d have to have a man in my life, and I don’t have time for one.”
“Wait a few years,” Claudia said calmly, as Thaddeus gently took the baby from her to put her back in her crib after he changed her. He had become an instant father, and Meredith was impressed. Claudia said she was too. They couldn’t wait for the nurse to leave. She was in the way more than helpful, and was kind of a battle-ax.
Meredith didn’t see Claudia for several weeks after that. She was busy setting up her office and sending out notices to attorneys she knew, advising them of her practice. A month after Sarah was born, Alex got accepted to Harvard, and the whole family was thrilled about it. Robert had been talking to Alex about joining the Army Reserves when he turned eighteen. He said that that way if he ever got drafted, he would go as an officer and not an infantryman, which he thought was a good idea. And the reserves were not likely to be called into active service, in his opinion.
“How about he doesn’t go at all?” Meredith had interrupted her father when he brought it up at dinner. “I think joining the Reserves would be a dangerous thing to do.”
“It might be good for him,” Robert insisted. “He’s a student, so he won’t get drafted. And they’re not going to call up the reserves for Vietnam.”
“I’m not so sure,” she said, worried about her brother. She didn’t want their father to influence him to join the military in any form.
“He’d have a student deferral anyway. And the situation in Vietnam will be over by the time he graduates.”
“And if he drops out? Or it’s not over?”
Her father looked annoyed and changed the subject, but Meredith sensed they hadn’t heard the last of it, and she whispered to her brother later not to enlist in anything. She spoke about her new office then, and her father came to visit her a few days later, and said he was impressed. She had done a nice job of it. And he approved of Charles, her paralegal, who seemed to be a businesslike young man. Her office appeared very professional, and he commented that her grandfather would have been proud of her and so was he, which warmed her heart. It was rare praise from him, given their frequent differences of opinion, which created friction between them.
* * *
—
All eyes were on the news again in June, when three young men, two white and one black, CORE civil rights volunteers, working to register black voters in Meridian, Mississippi, disappeared. After a federal investigation, their bodies were found murdered and buried in a local swamp. The nation was outraged. Another racial tragedy had occurred. Meredith felt heartsick when she read about it. There was still so much to do.
* * *
—
Meredith alternated between Claudia in Connecticut and her parents at the Vineyard for weekends that summer, and she was with Claudia when the United States bombed North Vietnam for the first time, which heightened all her fears about what would happen. When she was at the Vineyard she noticed that Alex was going a little wild in his last days before college, and got drunk several times while she was there. She mentioned it to her parents, and her father said to let him have his fun. He’d have to settle down at school soon enough. But Meredith lectured him like a big sister anyway, and he promised to behave.
She went with her parents when they settled him in Cambridge over Labor Day. He had a room with two other boys in Stoughton Hall, and couldn’t wait for his family to leave. One of the boys was from California, and the other from Chicago, and they all seemed to get along, as they set up their stereos and tossed their clothes into their respective closets, and didn’t bother decorating the room.
Meredith smiled thinking about how different they were from when she went to Vassar. They were only interested in meeting their classmates and dorm mates, checking out the campus, and eventually meeting the Radcliffe girls. And she suspected that the girls were less determined to find husbands than they had been ten years before. Times had changed. Everyone had more freedom now, and the creation of the birth control pill had started a sexual revolution that allowed girls to be as freewheeling as boys. It was a major change.
They hardly heard from Alex once he started college, and when he came home for Christmas, Meredith suspected why. He was out every night with friends, drinking a lot, and had two girlfriends simultaneously. Boston was a paradise for students, and their father wasn’t happy when he got his grades.
“He’s screwing up,” he said grimly.
“Freshman-itis,” Meredith said, feeling more like a parent than a sister, but angry with him nonetheless. He had had three Cs, a D, and an F in subjects that had always been easy for him, and where he had previously gotten As in high school.
“They’ll kick him out if he’s not careful,” her father said, and they both talked to Alex separately. He wasn’t on drugs, he wasn’t a bad kid, he was just having too much fun away from parental supervision.
“If you get kicked out, you could get drafted, and then you’re screwed. Do you understand that?” Meredith said to him seriously, and he looked unimpressed.
“Dad says if I join the reserves, they’ll never get called up, even if there is a draft. I’ll be an officer, and I won’t wind up in Vietnam. They don’t send the reserves int
o combat,” Alex said confidently.
“I don’t know what dream world he’s living in, but everyone your age not in school can wind up drafted and up shit creek, and I don’t want that to be you. There are two hundred thousand troops in Vietnam now. They’re gearing up for some serious combat,” she warned him.
“If they have that many guys there now, they won’t need me,” he said with the blindness of youth.
She talked to her father again about not pushing him into the reserves.
“He’d be much better off as an officer in the reserves than drafted as an infantryman,” he argued with her. “And when do they ever deploy the reserves except in a world war? He can do ROTC, or just join the Army Reserves.” She felt like she was talking to a wall with him, as usual.
When she wasn’t worrying about her brother, her new law office was doing well. She was so busy with that, she had no time to date. Her practice had gotten off to a slow start, but she had three discrimination cases at the moment, and had her hands full. Charles, her paralegal, had turned out to be pure gold. He was the perfect assistant and the soul of efficiency. But she was worried about her brother now, not her business. And Claudia told her at Christmas that she was pregnant again and due in August. They were hoping for a boy this time, but didn’t really care which sex it was.
The news from Vietnam was increasingly alarming after the first of the year. In February, the Vietcong attacked a U.S. Air Force base in Pleiku, South Vietnam. A month later, in March, Operation Rolling Thunder began to bomb key targets in North Vietnam, and within weeks, U.S. combat units began arriving in Vietnam. They were signs that some serious combat missions were coming up, all of which pointed to more boys getting drafted eventually. But for once her father had seen the handwriting on the wall too.
The Good Fight Page 18
