James Bell - Deadlock

Oddly, Justice Riley was silent now, though Millie sensed he was deep in thought.

Finally, just before her time was up, Riley leaned forward in his chair. “Aren’t you asking this Court to decide in such a way that will tear at the very fabric of our nation?”

Millie saw in him a real anguish. How well she understood it. “Your Honor,” she said, “like one of my judicial heroes, I believe truth conquers all things. It may be a long struggle before the conquest, but ultimately it is the only struggle that counts. It counts for Sarah Mae Sherman, and for all the future Sarah Maes. But it also counts for the soul of the law, and for this great edifice we call justice – ”

The red light on the lectern illumined. “Thank you,” Chief Justice Atkins said. “Your time has expired. This Court is now adjourned.”

The nine justices stood and filed slowly out of the room. Millie watched them, her former colleagues, as they disappeared behind the velvet curtain.

She had never felt so spent. She turned and looked into the gallery. Her supporters were all there, nodding in affirmation.

And then she looked up. Her gaze fell on the marble frieze depicting the eternal struggle for justice, the one she had come to know so well when she was sitting on the dais. She smiled, and silently thanked God that she had had the chance to be part of the struggle.

Sheela came in from her yard time, holding something. “Hey,” she said to Anne, “you were a lawyer, right?”

Why the sudden questioning, Anne wondered. “I never finished law school,” Anne said. “Started working in D.C.”

“Honey, you sure did take a wrong turn.”

Anne heard herself admit, for the first time in her life, “Yeah, I messed up pretty bad.”

Then Sheela tossed her some papers. “Got that at the chapel,” she said. “Thought you might be interested.”

Anne looked at it. It looked official, like a legal brief.

“Maybe you want to come hear the Word sometime with me,” Sheela said. “Keep you from cryin’ so much.”

Sheela was into Jesus. Talked about him constantly. Anne didn’t want to hear it. Now, she thought, maybe sometime she’d go to chapel with Sheela, if for no other reason than to break the monotony.

Anne lay down and took a look at the brief. The first page had a section called “Statement of Facts.”

I have been in jail. I have nearly died. I have lost the people I loved more than anything in the world. I wonder sometimes why I didn’t take my own life. I think I know why now. God isn’t finished with me yet.

What was this? Anne looked for a name on the brief and found it on the last page. Some guy named Jack Holden. Now who was…

Then it hit her like a rifle shot. Wasn’t that the guy’s name, the minister, the one who had been tied up with Hollander when Dan Ricks was on the job?

Same guy! Had to be. She looked back at the page. It was blurred and Anne realized, once more, she was crying. Only this time the tears were not out of deep despair. She had no idea what they were from, but it was like her heart knew – beyond the edge, better than the edge – there was something other , out there, as if on the other side of a door.

Anne wiped at her eyes, amazed, and started once more to read.

Friday, December 3

The Supreme Court’s 4-4 deadlock in an abortion rights case earlier this week raises serious issues of national policy, experts say. What is baffling, leading court watchers note, is that the Court announced its decision in Sherman v. National Parental Planning Group by way of a short, per curiam opinion, meaning it came from the Court as a whole with no individual justice signing an opinion.

“It’s obvious one of the justices refused to rule,” said Yale Law Professor Lawrence I. Graebner, who argued on behalf the NPPG before the high court. “Frankly, I can’t imagine which justice would do that. What’s worse is that this leaves the door open to a possible rollback of Roe v. Wade sometime in the future. I’m very troubled.”

The court’s decision has no national effect. It leaves in place the decision of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals which had remanded the case for trial.

“This is a victory for the one who counts most, Sarah Mae Sherman,” said Millicent Mannings Hollander, the former chief justice who argued Sherman’s case before her one-time colleagues. “She will have her day in court, and the NPPG will be held accountable for its actions.”

Speaking by phone from her office in Santa Lucia, California, Hollander added, “The larger debate must also continue. We now have an opportunity to engage in a new national discussion about what’s best for us as a nation of laws.”

Helen Forbes Kensington, president of the National Parental Planning Group, could not be reached for comment.

“Who do you think it was?” Jack Holden said.

“I have a feeling,” Millie answered.

They were outside on the basketball court behind the church. The warm winter had preserved the wildflowers of the Santa Lucia valley, and today they seemed to have dropped directly from the palette of God.

Across the valley the sleeping giant was still flat on his back. Sometimes, as a girl, Millie had wondered what would happen if the giant suddenly woke up, stood, and made his way toward the town. How would the people react? Would they run, or would they welcome him as an old friend?

Then she wondered – if enough people awoke from their moral slumbers and began to return to the true source of all law, what would the rest of the country do? Scream? Or recognize a forgotten friend? She knew much of her future work was going to be tied up with those questions.

The partnership of Hollander & Wilkes had made national news with the Sherman case. The Washington Post ran a piece entitled “From Big Time to Small Town.” But the partnership did not feel small to Millie. It felt perfectly woven into the tapestry of her life.

“So who?” Jack said, bouncing the ball in front of him with staccato impatience.

“Thomas J. Riley,” she said.

“Riley? No way. Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. To give the debate back to the people, maybe. I do know Tom loves the Court as much as I do, and has a deep well of integrity. I know he believes that sign on his desk. Vincit omnia veritas. Truth conquers all things.”

Jack thought a moment. “So he was the judicial hero you quoted in your argument?”

Millie nodded.

Jack bounced the ball a few more times. “Do you believe truth conquers all?”

“I believe a lot of things I didn’t used to. For instance, I believe God weaves patterns.”

“I do too,” Jack said. He held the ball. Then he smiled. “Maybe,” he added, “part of the reason this all happened was so you could come back to Santa Lucia and marry me.”

He bounced the ball once, as if to create an exclamation point. Then he waited for a response.

Millie felt a gust of desert air, pure and clean. She was back home, but Santa Lucia was not the place it once was. The past, with all its hurts and confusions, had somehow faded, like an old sepia-toned photograph left out in the sun. The place where she was living now was new; it gave her the feeling of starting over.

But with a minister? As a wife? What sort of pattern was this?

“Tell you what,” Millie said, her heart beginning to dance. “You make a ten-foot hook shot, and I’ll consider it.”

The preacher’s smile widened as he turned toward the basket.

“Right-handed,” Millie said.

Jack pointed at her. “No problem.”