Decision (27 page)

“Mary,” he said, voice trembling, looking at her with a sad patience across the comatose form of their daughter. “I understand how you feel. I am—trying to be patient with you, under great provocation. But I am not going to take it much longer. I warn you. Not much longer.”

“What can you do?” she asked. “Certainly you can’t leave me now. Not when my child lies at death’s door because of your indulgence and irresponsibility toward her welfare. That would not fit the image of the great Mr. Justice Barbour, now, would it? To abandon me and Janie in this, our time of extremity?”

“You are so dramatic,” he said with a sigh. “So dramatic. I too am having my ‘time of extremity.’ Don’t you think it would help us both—and help Janie—if we tried to be friends and help each other through it, instead of your being so grossly unfair? I have done my best with this marriage. I have been a good husband, I have been a good father. This I know, and this I cling to. You can’t destroy that knowledge, though God knows you are trying hard enough. And the awful thing to me,” he added quietly, “is that I don’t know why. I just don’t know why.”

“Perhaps there is no reason,” she said, the ghastly ghost of a smile crossing her face for a moment, “except your own perfection. It may be too much for those around you—or for me, at any rate. Others can admire it from afar. I have had to live with it.”

“But I’m
not
perfect,” he protested, thinking even as he did so that this was an insane conversation, and perhaps that was the answer, perhaps she truly was insane. “God
knows
I am not. I have never claimed to be. I have never thought to be. The idea is absurd.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no. Perfect Taylor Barbour, the perfect lawyer, the perfect man, the perfect husband and father—so good, so kind, so dignified, so
superior.
Always
superior.
And I suppose, if the case of the destroyer of your daughter, perhaps even yet the murderer of your daughter, ever comes before you, you will be superior then. I can see you now—weighing all things, balancing all things, being thoughtful, considerate, compassionate,
forgiving
to a piece of human filth who doesn’t deserve a second’s forgiveness from anyone—being Taylor Barbour, the perfect judge, calm, judicious, above it all—
inhuman.”

“Don’t be too sure,” he said, voice harsh with strain, “that I will be the perfect judge if this case ever comes before me.”

“Your character won’t permit you to be anything else,” she said with a sigh. “These are the things on which you pride yourself. They comprise the entity known as Taylor Barbour. You cannot betray them, for that would be to betray yourself. And you wouldn’t do that, even for your own daughter.”

For a long moment they stared at one another, passed beyond hostility into some other world of utter truth; and finally he sighed and rubbed his eyes with his hands.

“No,” he said, voice low. “You are right. I could not betray the objectivity and fairness I believe in—I could not betray the law as I see it. I should have to be fair, because that is what I am. Without that there wouldn’t be any Taylor Barbour.”

“Not even for your own daughter,” she repeated bleakly. “Not even for her.”

“No,” he replied, as one damned—and thought then that it was true. “Not even for her.”

“Well,” she said, “at least you don’t prevaricate or attempt to dodge the issue or try to hide behind words, I’ll say that for you. At least you’re honest in your inhumanity.”

“Mary—Mary—leave me alone, okay?
Just leave me alone.
We should never have a discussion like this under conditions such as these. We should never have it any time. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I swear in the presence of our poor little”—his voice broke for a second, but he forced it on—“of our daughter, that I have tried to be a good husband to you and a good father to her. I have tried to be a good human being, a good lawyer, a good public servant. I shall keep on trying to be so. I hope the facts may permit me to do what you want, but if they don’t, then I must be true to what I believe. I cannot do otherwise, for that is the way I am. Now, please, let’s leave it at that. I beg of you. Since you force me to beg.”

She gave him a long, contemplative look, a strange mixture of contempt and cold amusement in her eyes.

“Even now,” she said softly. “Even now, the perfect image, the proper sentiments and the proper words. Even now, Taylor Barbour. You need a humbling, Tay.”

“And you need
something,”
he said, bitterly at last, “though God alone knows what it is.”

“Look!” she cried suddenly in a voice that made the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
“Her eyes are open!”

And so they were; but there was nothing in them, and after what seemed an eternity, though it could only have been a moment or two, they closed.

He stood up abruptly.

“I am going to see Moss and Sue-Ann,” he said harshly. “I shall be back very shortly. You may come with me, which would be the decent thing, or you may use the excuse you have and stay away.”

“My child is not an excuse,” she said bleakly. “She is a necessity to me if not to you. Go along to them.”

“I shall convey our sympathies,” he said with a savage politeness.

“As you like,” she said, and turned back to stare again, stricken and intent, at their daughter’s face.

Outside in the hall he found the nurse, seated on a bench reading a magazine, an expression of stern disapproval still on her face: within call, as he knew she felt she must be.

“I must apologize for Mrs. Barbour,” he said. The nurse glanced up, then back to her magazine, expression unchanged.

“Don’t,” she said. “She doesn’t deserve it. Why should you lower yourself to defend her?”

“I’m her husband,” he said simply. The nurse sniffed.

“Too bad you don’t have someone else,” she said, snapping over a page with a slap that dismissed him.
“That
one doesn’t deserve you.”

He started to retort, to put her in her place, to relieve tensions by berating her for insolence, disrespect, unkindness—then he stopped. She had given voice to the impulse that had been in his heart ever since their arrival. He did have someone else. Why not let her comfort him?

“Thank you,” he said abruptly and turned away, leaving her looking after him, speculative.

There was a phone booth at the end of the corridor. He closed the door, dialed, gave his credit card number, waited. The phone rang three times in the charming little house off Stanton Square; her recorded voice requested name, number, message; a beep-tone sounded.

“This is Taylor Barbour—” he began, and at once she broke in.

“Yes, Tay,” she said quietly. “I’m here. I’ve been wanting to call you but I thought I’d better wait. How are you getting along?”

“Managing,” he said, amazed at the flood of relief and calmness that swept over him at the sound of her voice.

“And your daughter?”

“Still unconscious.”

“What do you think?”

“Fifty-fifty,” he said, voice suddenly shaky. He forced it steadier and went on. “They think she’s going to live, but there’s some possibility of—of brain damage.”

“Oh, I hope not,” she said in a hushed voice.

“I’m trying not to believe it,” he said, and realized suddenly that he was not only trying not to, he was succeeding. He was absolutely certain that Janie would come out of this safely and be Janie again. Only that certainty, he knew now, permitted him to keep going: only that certainty enabled Taylor Barbour to defend what he believed, and continue to be what Taylor Barbour thought Taylor Barbour ought to be.
Help me, Janie,
he prayed silently in his mind.
Don’t let me down now. I couldn’t stand it.

More firmly he said:

“I am convinced she will be all right. You know doctors. Sometimes they try to prepare you for the worst a little more than necessary. They’re basically confident, I think.”

“How is Mary taking it?” she asked.

He hesitated a second, then told the truth.

“Poorly.”

“She’s blaming you.”

“Yes.”

“Ah, darling,” she said, sounding for a second close to tears. “I am so sorry.”

“That’s all right,” he said hastily, anxious that she not falter also but remain his strength. “It’s just the way she is. She probably can’t help herself.”

“Oh, I think she can,” she said, voice stronger with skepticism. “I think she knows what she’s doing, all the time.”

“No,” he said, and in all fairness meant it. “I don’t think so. She really is devastated by this. It makes her more—more extreme than she normally is.”

“She shouldn’t be extreme at all,” she said with a complete, flat honesty that forced him to agree.

“No … but she is.”

“I wish you were here,” she said suddenly. “Or I there. It’s too hard to be apart at a time like this.”

“Yes,” he said, and abruptly it was true and he no longer worried about consequences. “It won’t happen again.”

“How can it not happen again?” she inquired bleakly. “She isn’t going to let you go, is she? Furthermore, we’ve known each other a couple of weeks. How can we be sure of anything, yet?”

“I’m sure,” he said; and was.

“Well, I’m not.”

“Why not?” he demanded sharply. It was desperately important to know.

“Just because I’m not. It doesn’t happen this fast—and last. Or so I’ve found.” She laughed, somewhat shakily. “On my few excursions out.”

“I hope this is more than an excursion,” he said gravely.

“I think so,” she said, tone instantly grave in response to his. “But I want to wait a little longer before I become a back-street romance.”

“You won’t ever be that!” he declared, hurt and angry. “I don’t—I’m not like that.”

“What are you like? You see, that’s what I don’t know.”

“Am I—inadequate in some way?” he demanded. “Is that it?”

“Heavens,
no!”
she said, and this time laughed more naturally. “Far from it. You’re quite man enough for me to handle, thank you very much.”

“Well, then—” he began indignantly, but again she stopped him with laughter.

“You’re so
male,”
she said. “
‘Am I adequate? Very well, then, isn’t that sufficient? What are you complaining about? What else is there?’
Well, my dear: quite a bit. Anyway, we’re getting rather far away from your tragedy, aren’t we? How are the Pomeroys taking it?”

“Cathy—” he began, but she only repeated levelly, “How are the Pomeroys taking it?”

“All right,” he conceded, “I’ll stop. But we’ll talk about this.”

“Please,” she agreed. “When you’re back.”

“Yes… The Pomeroys are taking it very hard, but bearing up. I’m just on my way to see them now.”

“If they knew me I’d say give them my love. But of course they don’t and probably never will, so—”

“Oh yes they will,” he said flatly. “I’ll tell them I talked to a friend in D.C. who sends her love, and that they will meet her one of these days and appreciate the thought even more when they have.”

“That will allay their curiosity, all right… Will this case come up to the Court?”

“I expect it may. But don’t ask me now what I’ll do, because I don’t know.” In spite of himself his tone became bitter. “I’ve just been accused of being smug, superior, obsessed with the law to the exclusion of my own daughter, and having no heart and nothing inside. So I really couldn’t tell you. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it further now.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “She picks a good time to be unfair. It must be very helpful to you both.”

“It seems to help her,” he said; then some lingering trace of loyalty brought a halt. “But I don’t want to discuss all that right now, any more than you do the other. Maybe when we see each other again—”

“Which I hope will be soon,” she said. “Very soon. Though I know it will probably be many days.”

“Yes. There’s no indication yet of when we can move Janie, and of course that imposes a further worry, too, because I’ve just come on the Court, I know how busy they are, and suddenly Moss and I aren’t there to keep up our share of the work. Ah, the whole thing is so damnable, such a waste for everybody. Except, I suppose, the psychopath who did it. People like that never care how many they hurt or they wouldn’t do it in the first place.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m against the death penalty, but I begin to wonder, now… I begin to wonder.”

“I don’t want to think about that, either,” he said; and added with a bitter irony, “There’ll be plenty of time. I must go to see Moss and Sue-Ann now. I’m glad you’re home. I didn’t know whether you would be, but I just wanted to touch base—I wanted to be in touch with reality again.”

“I hope I represent that to you,” she said quietly.

“More so every day.”

“I’m glad. Call whenever you can.”

“I will. I wish—”

“I know,” she said. “I, too. Good-bye and God bless.”

“God bless,” he said and hung up, aware as he left the booth that the nurse was studying him with a curious look. He returned a cold one that made her drop her eyes hastily again to her magazine. He glanced quickly into the room, saw the tableau unchanged, Janie sleeping and Mary leaning forward above her, chin in hand, face white and strained, endlessly studying; and turned and strode on out. Under a tree nearby a driver sprang up, jumped in a car, brought it quickly to him.

“Compliments of Mr. Stinnet, sir,” he said, hopping out to open the door. “Where’d y’all like to go?”

“The Carolina Inn,” he said and sank back into the seat, closing his eyes and rubbing them deeply. The car swung out and away.

“Mighty sorry to hear about y’all’s trouble, Mr. Justice,” the driver said with a hearty and excruciating friendship as they entered traffic. “And Governor Pomeroy’s too, of course. Terrible, terrible, terrible,
terrible!
I think they ought to hang that no-good bastard in front of the state capitol and declare a national holiday while they’re doing it. I think they ought to do that with all these murderous bastards who are turnin’ America into a jungle, then maybe we’d get somewhere with restorin’ law and order the way they ought to be in America! Yes, sir!”