SEVEN
In spring our countryside blossoms to the gleeful melodies of songbirds as they herald the long awaited thaw: cardinals, robins, phoebes, starlings, finches, warblers and the occasional thrush. Dawn lights each morning to the accompaniment of a delightful bird symphony. People awake through degrees of consciousness with a sense that all is right with the world. Nature leads a celebration for the resurgence of life with a rush of cheerful optimism. It is heavenly to awake early in spring, to be soothed with a prelude to the nirvana of daydreams.
In summer, as the dawn breaks over the eastern sky, brash blue jays join the chorus with shrieks and screams as they keep watch over their fledgling young. Disassociated from the nest, unsuspecting, shocked and near-hopeless with new-found freedom, each tiny peep is left to jump through the grass or the woods until the inspiration to fly takes hold. But eventually, the jays are themselves run off by flocks of pesky, cawing crows who perform their terrorizing audio drama to the dismay of all those who might desire a precious few moments of peaceful morning rest. “Up, up, up” the winged creatures repeat, as though they understand how easy it is for one to loaf on a warm summer day — staying in bed until ten, then unhurriedly breathing in the beauty of a world without obligations.
In autumn the waking hours can be soundless, except for the romantic rumble and moan of a freight train in the darkened distance. By dawn even the crickets are hushed in deference to the dewy chill. And, though fall is still three days off by the calendar, its inevitability is sensed in the untamed kingdom that luxuriates outside our door. I am amazed at the overwhelming quiet.
Without a pressing need to arise on this moonlit, pre-dawn Sunday, I lie still and allow my thoughts to drift. Maryanne’s soft body lies next to me, gently animated with each sleepy breath. The memory of last evening pleasantly lingers in my mind, drawing me ever closer to her, enticing me to consider ways we might find more time for ourselves. My writing commitment fulfilled for another twenty-four hours, work seems a million miles away. Maryanne and I will drive together to Ann Arbor later this morning. On the return we will probably stop at Dexter Mills Metro Park for a walk along the Huron on what promises to be an inviting, late summer’s day. Perhaps before that we’ll visit Borders Books downtown and browse around for some cold weather reading. No doubt we will also bring home a few loaves of bread from Zingerman’s Deli, a Paesano or two, a Rustic Italian and whatever else we fancy at the moment. It’s best to arrive hungry.
Unwittingly, as my thoughts chart their own course, I am drawn to consider the meeting with Kathy Nichols. What could she possibly want to say about her long ago high school boyfriend, Colin Rierdon? I suspect that this whole thing will turn out to be a wild goose chase, a dead end, a waste of time, the airing out of some petty grievance that has kept Kathy from inner peace all these years.
But what if she drops some kind of bomb on me, some devastating payload of news about the governor that both the press and the public would want to know? I should really be prepared for such an eventuality, though I think it rather unlikely. For anyone to reach the point where he or she can be deemed electable to high office, as Colin obviously has, a dizzying array of detailed background checks would have been performed, with all leads traced back to either a dead end or some historical, factual genesis. The “party” (in this case, the Republicans) can ill-afford an embarrassing political debacle caused by a future governor’s flawed character or some previous indiscretion. To avoid such unsavory discoveries, untold thousands are spent pulling out all of the investigative stops, sniffing the hidden closets for even the faintest scent of a skeleton. Therefore, revelations of cleverly concealed, sordid secrets involving Colin Rierdon should have surfaced long before today.
But suppose Kathy does hand me something too hot to handle. Grave implications accompany the publishing of something highly controversial or damaging, and I have not had any first-hand experience with that type of news. As a journalist whose career could go interplanetary on the blinding swoosh of disclosure from the void, I should be salivating over the possibility of such a scenario, yet I clearly hope to escape the responsibility that accompanies the handling of a salacious story, rife with the implications of character assassination and laced with potentially slanderous accusations. My better judgment tells me that, when a meteor slams into the neat, little world of gubernatorial politics, it is hard to keep it from doing collateral damage all over town, maybe even to myself. Not to worry, though. More probably, Kathy and I will have a coffee together and a chat, and she will relieve herself of a burden she has been carrying around for nearly thirty years. I’ll take a few notes, learn a little about the young Colin Rierdon, and publish something entertaining, non-volatile and worthy of print. In the end, we’ll both be better off. At least I hope this is the case.
So much for thoughts of work being a million miles away. Its stream of consciousness must be strong enough to accord it precedence over thoughts of love, joy and marital bliss. The birds have their trouble; I’ve got mine.
Maryanne stirs from the weight of my arm as I embrace her. The bed responds noisily to her awakening.
“Are you up?” She asks in a gravely half-whisper.
“Are you?”
“No. It’s not even light out yet. What time is it?”
I turn to glance at the digital. “It’s already ten past seven.”
“It’s too early.”
“Kiss me.” I suggest through the golden strands of her hair, though she is turned away, her face buried in the depression of her pillow.
“I haven’t brushed my teeth.”
“They don’t brush in the movies.” I nuzzle her neck now, allowing her hair to fall over my face, delighting myself in the sweet fragrance of the perfume lingering on her soft skin.
“This isn’t the movies, Chip. Didn’t you get enough last night?” She rolls slightly to face the ceiling where the last beams of blue moonlight dance and fall over our reverie, mirroring the shadowy ballet of trees out in the wispy morning. I kiss her cheek and allow my fingers to interlace with her flaxen glory.
At this she presents her lips to mine, and we are united in desire. Her body yields to my caress, and she enfolds me in a warm, entangling rapture.
“Did you?”
“Did I what?” she asks, apparently having forgotten her last question.
“Get enough last night.”
“Apparently not.”
She rolls over me now, and we kiss again, more passionately this time. A puff of wind audibly blows back the curtains as it rushes through the house, challenging the still, amber dawn. The sudden roar of the Northwest jet shuttle to Detroit shatters an unsuspecting Sunday calm. I close my eyes to consider thoughts of ecstasy and daydreams-come-true, shutting out all that is not about us, drinking in the awareness of our ever-deepening love. I desire to know nothing else. Today is a good day to be alive.
Ann Arbor is fresh and bright on this crisp, suddenly windy morning. Quiet and half-sleepy from a late night of serious carousing in celebration of yet another Wolverine victory, Main Street yawns with the oscillating breeze. Dappled in gold and pre-autumn ocher, attending trees swing their fiery brands in reciprocation with the last respiring gasps of summer, animating the still-life portrait of downtown. Shops remain shuttered and dark. The ubiquitous students, customarily seen in chinos and sweatshirts sporting fashionably slung backpacks, are uncharacteristically absent. Parking meters line the vacant street like sentries, their watchful faces flushed with expiration warnings. I glide to a stop adjacent to the Cafe Royal and switch off the engine. I approach the entry on foot and see through the oversized picture window that life pulses inside, though only minimally. Here and there, sleepy students dawdle over mugs of steamy joe. A tiny remnant of the student body is studying — books, periodicals, even the Sunday News. Unassuming as a child on a summer’s day, I pause for one last breath of fresh air before entering.
My mood can best be described as ebullient. Engaged in the career that suits me best and brimming with gladness for the beauty of the earth on this regal morning, I breathe in the energy of possibly the last of the season’s warm zephyrs, unaware that somewhere off in the hollow, blue distance, just beyond my horizon of consciousness, thunderheads are gathering.
Earlier, fields of agricultural dreams rushed by as we wound our way through the Michigan countryside on M-36. Cornrows stretched out in military formation, their browned tassels saluting skyward in the rustling wind, their fruit held at “present arms.” Golden bean fields crawled across the undulating earth spreading their shag carpet growth in defiance of the edgewood and bramble-bound borders. Here and there in the roadside wilds, where summer’s bounty has turned a dusty brown, lavender wildflowers preened, and edible sumac trees posed, their fronds awash in translucent crimson.
Maryanne read to me from her novel, Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby:
...One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight. They stopped there and turned toward each other. Now it was a cool night with that mysterious excitement in it which comes at the two changes of the year. The quiet lights of the houses were humming out into the darkness, and there was a stir and bustle among the stars. Out of the corner of his eye, Gatsby saw that the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees — he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there, he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder.
“That’s a sad realization,” I interrupted. “To believe that you have to go it alone in life. I’d rather like to think that, to climb life’s heights, one should have some sort of companionship, someone to share it with.”
“Uh-huh,” she mumbled before continuing:
His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God...
“What a tragedy,” I exclaimed. “Kissing her would tear him away from his fantastical illusions and the mind of God.”
She folded the paperback over her thumb and responded to me while staring forward at the abundantly garnished countryside. “Sounds like Fitzgerald wants us to think that reality is somewhat less spectacular than our dreams.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment.”
“Neither do I.” She set down the book after replacing its paper placeholder and lay her head against my shoulder.
“Do you want to come with me to meet Kathy Nichols?” I offered, suspecting that she would refuse.
“No, drop me at the Farmers Market like we planned. I’ll shop around and then walk up to Borders. Just find me there when you’re done.”
We turned south along the Dexter-Pinckney Road, challenging the glaring sun. Shortly thereafter, we passed the right hand turn to Hell. Hell, I realized, was not far off, just a few short miles from here. I had been through there once during my college years with my friend Mike Powers. I recalled it being an eerie, August night with a thickening sky and a greenish, unsettling calm in the air. We stopped to get a flavor of the place with the iconic name, and especially since the weather had abruptly turned ominous. We leaned on Mike’s car and watched as a tornado suddenly spun up into the familiar funnel and bounced across the southwestern sky. Not having enough sense at the time to seek cover, we stared on in awe and exhilaration until the twister dissolved back into the heavens.
“Wonder if that happens often here?” Mike mused.
“What do you think? This is Hell.”
Once inside the Royal, I attune to the familiar atmosphere of the modern, upscale coffee shop. Two attractive, young bar attendants, male and female, occupy themselves in the dim light supplied by tiny European-style bulbs, making preparations for what is not yet a busy day. A gleaming cappuccino machine hogs space on the back bar between stacks of thick, white ceramic cups in various sizes. Rich coffee aromas tantalize the senses; the flavored varieties dominate, though in my estimation these fashionable concoctions fail to live up to their olfactory promises. Wooden stools, all vacant, line the expansive padded counter. Elsewhere, small tables with matching wooden chairs are set up indiscriminately around the room. Patrons have spread themselves about: a grungily dressed couple here, a lonely figure there. Several booths line the back wall. In one of these booths I see a woman in the shadowed half-light; she appears almost withered into herself. My entrance has not aroused her. Though a half-empty cup of coffee rests vaguely within her field of view, she stares expressionless at the table, immersed in the unseen world of her thoughts.
“Pardon me, would you by chance be Ms. Nichols?” My question and presence seem to startle her, as if she were not expecting my arrival.
“Y-yes. I’m Kathy Nichols.”
“Chip Halick.” I extend my hand. “I’m glad to make your acquaintance.”
“Oh, hello Mr. Halick. Please sit down. Thanks for meeting me here.”
“No need for formalities. You can call me Chip.” I slide into the booth across from her.
“Okay. And I’m Kathy.” She lifts her cup to her mouth and sips coffee between thin, unadorned lips. A shadow of former beauty is subtly evident in her visage, though masked with premature age lines around her mouth and her narrow, brown eyes. “Do you mind if I smoke? I’m a little nervous.”
“No, no. Be my guest. There’s nothing to be nervous about though, really.” I force out a smile. The gesture seems oddly difficult considering my exultant mood of a few moments ago. “Allow me.” I carry a pack of matches with me for just such occasions where a small gesture can speak volumes to overcome defense barriers. “Peggy Graham says you two were best friends back in Fair Hills.”
“We still are, I think.” Kathy gently exhales in the direction of the center of the room. “She has stuck by me through thick and thin. And she says you’re a trustworthy reporter — I guess there aren’t many like you around.” Beneath her multicolored wool sweater, Kathy appears to be slender although well proportioned. Sadly, though, her posture is dreadful, and her brown hair is interwoven with gray strands in a long, plain style, held together loosely in back with a clip. She has the look of someone who gives little thought to her appearance.
“That is kind of Peggy to say. Do you see her much?” I decide to keep up the small talk a while longer.
“No, not really. I’m on shifts at the hospital. It’s hard to plan anything. Work gets more demanding every week, what with all the pressure on health care costs, you know. So, when I’m off, I’m either catching up on sleep or too stressed to plan trips anywhere. I guess you could say I’m pretty much a homebody — I’ve got my hobbies and such.”
The tee-shirted, young man from behind the coffee bar approaches us with imposing presence. Once at our booth he matter-of-factly states, “We don’t normally provide table service, but it’s a slow day. One refill per order, okay?” He tops off Kathy’s mug and I order a house blend, black.
“Do you have a family?”
“No, it’s just me…and my cats.” She alternates puffs and sips, occasionally glancing my way with an all but imperceptible smile.
Now is as good a time to begin as ever, I surmise. “Peggy said that you and Colin Rierdon dated back in high school.”
“For over a year-and-a-half.”
“She also said that there was something you wanted to tell me concerning that relationship. But, before we begin, I’d like to ask your permission to record this conversation. May I do that?”
“I suppose that will be all right.” She strains to fill every cubic centimeter of her lungs with blue, death-laden smoke.
I pull out my micro-cassette recorder and set it up on the table. “I’ll turn this off at any time if you want. Just let me know.”
“Okay, Chip. But I want to get this out in the open. I never thought it would come to this, that I’d have the courage and all. Besides, I loved Colin. Still do. He’s the only person I’ve ever loved.” She pauses for her last drag and then crushes out the tar-stained remains of her cigarette. Judging by her yellowed fingertips, this is not a habit she has recently acquired.
By her admission she’s had a crush on Colin for decades, and I’m wondering why she hasn’t moved on. “Have you had any other serious relationships since you and Colin broke up.”
“I’ve tried to date. It just never works out. Now I’m too set in my ways.”
“What happened back in Fair Hills that you’ve kept more or less to yourself all these years?”
She swallows a noisy mouthful of coffee and fiddles again in her purse for another cigarette. As I help her light it, I see the tragic look of desperation in her nervous eyes — fear mingled with hopelessness. Skittish as a cat, she looks away when I make eye contact with her.
“All right.” She gasps and then breathes in audibly. “Here goes. Colin and I went steady all through our junior year. We had known each other for some time before that, but I was kind of a late bloomer, and Colin, well, he was Mr. Popularity — all the way up through school. We connected for the first time at a Spring Fling dance when we were sophomores. I had my hair all done up with curls and pins. My mom had given me forty dollars for a dress, and I picked out a satiny one in pale yellow. It showed me off perfectly.” She pauses for another lung-busting draw on her fag.
“Finally, about a half-hour before the night ended, he asked me to dance.” She exhales a cone of smoke straight up where it gathers itself into a cloud before curling and swirling with the pull of the Casablanca fan above. “I remember it like it was last night.”
“So you danced with Colin then.” I say this mainly for the sake of the record, making sure, for anyone wishing to verify this story in the future (if it indeed comes to such a question) that the basic facts are straight.
“Yeah. I think it was the first time he even noticed that I existed. But here was my chance, I thought. After a couple of years of just dreaming about this moment, it was finally here. So I showed him some pretty good dance moves that I’d been practicing at home, and next thing you know, we were slow dancing through the final numbers. After that night we saw each other every day in school and talked on the phone at night. It turned out that we really had a lot in common, and we hardly ever fought. Anyway, we stayed together through the summer and then, in August, before school started, he asked me to go steady. We exchanged class rings and everything.”
She pauses a moment to catch her breath and to refill her lungs with smoke. I attempt to get her to elaborate. “Sounds like you were really serious about each other.”
“Oh yeah, we were serious all right. And we had a lot of good times too. Football games and dances, Christmas vacation… We did everything as a couple. I became the envy of the female student body. Colin was a good catch. We talked about marriage and kids even. Otherwise, I would never have agreed to do anything with him.”
I suspect what she means by this, but for the record I ask, “What do you mean ‘do anything?’”
“You know, have sex.”
Here it comes, just what I may not wish to know. “But I thought Colin had a reputation for being, you know, religious.” I put in.
“Don’t kid yourself, Chip. Religious boys have a libido just like everybody else. And Colin was certainly no exception. He was pretty hot for his age. I held him off for a long time, but he kept saying it was all right because we planned to get married.”
I break in, “But, clearly, that never happened. I mean, here you are, single all these years, while he’s been married to Barbara for a quarter-century and has a pair of adult children.” This may be laying it on a little thick, but the words are already out of my mouth and hanging heavily in the stale air between us.
“Right. I mean that’s pretty damn obvious isn’t it,” she says with a knowing look.
This is her moment, I realize, and nothing is going to steal from her the well-earned satisfaction of replaying the drama in agonizing detail.
“So what happened to break you two up?”
“A lot of things happened. First, I got pregnant.”
Boom! There it is. And with her declaration, I realize that some truth is better left unstated. But it is too late. Just like with Adam and Eve in the garden, the bite is out of the apple.
The tall, young gentleman server arrives again on his rounds of the near-empty dining area. I stare vacantly into the room that, in my mind’s eye at least, has taken on a kind of otherworldly character, as though, like Dorothy’s house, it might start spinning upward cyclonically, carrying us off to our place of certain destiny — probably hell, if my instincts can be trusted at this moment.
Kathy sips some fresh coffee and smashes out another butt. My heart aches for her, although deeper down, and more acutely distressing, my stomach has begun to turn sour. I ask for a plateful of biscotti to take off the edge, and the waiter goes to fetch it from behind the bar.
Suddenly, I am struck dumb with the awareness that, if life ever deals me another carefree day, I had better not take it for granted. All the sweet joy I arrived with a seeming eternity ago is gone, irretrievable, turned bitter like the brew in my gut.
Eventually, I gathered my wits and rejoined the painful conversation, reluctantly lending my ear to hear further colossal revelations and the fateful conclusion of Kathy Nichols’ tale of woe. Meanwhile, unrelated to my concern for Kathy and her life story, deep in the inner workings of my mind, another process launched itself. And I could not help but be distracted by a sudden nagging awareness and its accompanying cloud of fear that a burden of unspeakable truth had just been laid on me like a lead tracksuit. And yet, somehow, I would have to muster the strength to drag myself respectably around the course while the whole Rierdon-loving world watched, waited, hoped and prayed for my inevitable fall. Kathy’s long-held secret, swollen with the passage of time, had just become my load to carry, one I would also have to wear like a scarlet letter.
With every disturbing divulgence Kathy uttered, I challenged her for proof, for clarification, for a disclosure of the motives that had kept her silent for so long, especially throughout the span of Colin’s twenty-year public life. I so hoped to be able to bundle up the whole tawdry matter and dispose it on some technical grounds, never having to breathe another word about it to anyone. But her resolve was steadfast. And there were no technical loopholes. In spite of the attendant, negative consequences it foreshadowed, this was a poignant moment she had desired to avoid (and manifestly did — for over a quarter-century) but could no longer. One thing was certain. She loved Colin, loved him so much she protected him at the cost of her own happiness, peace of mind and success in life. She appeared to me as hugely enigmatic. The manner in which she had handled her situation constituted a psychological puzzle in itself. By any objective measure, Kathy Nichols would be considered a misfit: dysfunctional, undesirable and weird. Nonetheless, when she related her tragic story, she nearly bowled me over with her capacity for love and compassion.
Maryanne and I found a park bench facing the Huron River rapids at the former Dexter Mill site. And, since I was still in a state of shock, I cannot remember what I said during the drive there from Ann Arbor, except that I would fill her in once we got to the park. Here, then, is the rest of Kathy Nichols’ story, as she told it to me, and as I recounted it to Maryanne that misty afternoon under a warm, September sun.
At first, when Colin learned of Kathy’s pregnancy, though panic-stricken himself, he was loving and sympathetic. Together they talked of how she might have the baby and finish school, graduating on time. Then they could get married, and Colin would somehow attend college while working to support their young family. It would be tough, but they’d get by. Love, of course, covers a multitude of sins.
Then, like a pendulum that reached its limit, Colin reversed himself. It was summer, and he was working part-time in the Fair Hills District Court office. Evidently, through some situational theorizing, orchestrated to carefully avoid insinuating his own guilt, after engaging the counsel of some sagacious legal professionals whom Colin held in great esteem and with whom he aspired to ply his own career, he reconsidered the course of his precarious and fate-filled journey. How on earth was he going to get all the way through law school supporting a wife and child with only a couple thousand dollars in the bank and no other visible means of income, except for a minimum wage job that did not provide benefits? This plan was pie-in-the-sky, a pipe dream. He might as well kiss the whole legal career good-bye and go off to Flint for a job on the Chevy truck line. That at least paid six bucks an hour. And his parents! If they found out about Kathy’s pregnancy, they’d surely force him to settle down and shoulder his responsibilities. He could hear the lecture, loud and clear. “You made your bed, now lie in it.”
He had a clear-cut choice to weigh in the balance: law school and a career in politics on the one hand, puppy love with family responsibilities on the other. Any thinking person could make the logical decision.
Was he bothered about the ethical and moral implications of his decision? Kathy could only say that he was. Did it tear his heart out to advise her in the way that he did? Without question, he had told her so himself. But he also managed to convince her that it was the right decision for her as well. This was Colin Rierdon, the consummate politician. He was born with a knack for persuasion.
To be sure, though, something must have happened inside Colin at that crucial moment of his adolescent life that blinded him to the salient truth of the matter. His decision, however selfishly motivated, must have carried with it a force majeure that caused him to set his face against far-reaching consequences and the error of his ways. Laying aside his religious upbringing, his allegiance to laws and government, his quality education, his fatherly duty to the child forming within young Kathy’s womb, his concern for her ability to conceive and bear children in the future and his respect for life in general, Colin successfully convinced his girlfriend, eight weeks pregnant at the time, to drive with him down to Pontiac one hot, humid Saturday morning in the summer before their final year of high school, and abort their child.
Such an act of willful transgression could have, by itself, ruined Colin’s chances for any kind of a political career, long before he was old enough to seek the public trust. Kathy knew this. But, though things went badly for her, it is an irreproachable testimony to her love and devotion toward him that she endured every heart-breaking disappointment alone. Colin did hang around for a month or so, just until she was out of the woods — the bleeding had stopped, and her impulsive crying died down. But their relationship could never be as it once was. They both knew it. So Colin made a suggestion, “Maybe we ought to start seeing other people. It will do us both some good. After all, we’ve both been through a lot, and look at us — we’re a mess. Think about your future.” He ladled this on with unselfish pretense though she didn’t want to acknowledge his cleverness or deceit at the time. “You’re free now, nothing to tie you down like you feared. Get out and live a little.”
She ended up blaming herself, mainly. She never should have consented to sex in the first place, though she had wanted it almost as much as Colin had. Their relationship had been charging ahead. Full intimacy was the next logical and emotional step. “How foolish of me not to have considered the consequences,” she despaired to me. Yet, somehow she had to pick up the pieces of her shattered, young life and go on. Too embarrassed to tell her parents, she confided in Peggy, alone, swearing her to lifelong secrecy. No one else could know. Ever! Time would be on her side, she believed. She could adjust, bounce back, overcome all of the psychological and emotional aftereffects.
Of one thing she could be certain. Colin wouldn’t tell a soul. He would take this secret to his grave. And yet she still loved him, no matter how self-serving he had been. Hurting him was not a solution to anything. It could only deepen her pain.
A year later, when she worked up the courage to see an OB/GYN for the sake of peace of mind, she learned that she could most likely never conceive again. The scarring from the abortion was too pervasive.
But Colin was on his way to a successful life. Anyone could see that. Why should she ruin his chances? What good would come from that? She was not a vindictive person. And besides, they’d had something special, something worth remembering. That junior year of high school had been the best year of her life. She had been vibrant, popular, loved. So many of her friends have nothing so wonderful to reflect upon, to brag about.
Since then, she has watched Colin’s star ascend through local and state politics, all the way up to the governor’s office. Perhaps he’d go on to Congress next, or the vice-presidency. She knew in her heart that he owed all of his success to her. She had loved him first, made him what he is. Through the years, and as a result of these circumstances, she had acquired power over him. She had allowed him to become successful. But, in the back of her mind, she knew that she could also destroy him anytime she chose. What a sense of satisfaction she derived from this reality. The power of life and death was in her hands.
Nevertheless, in her heart, the essence of Kathy Nichols was love and kindness. And, though she could have unearthed this mystery anytime like a tale from the crypt, she had always come to the same conclusion. Let it all lay buried in the past where it could do no more damage to anyone.
“So why now, and why tell me?” I had asked.
“Because of the Right to Life bill, and because Peggy trusts you,” she replied.
Strangely enough, after all she had been through, Kathy eventually became an abortion rights advocate. Mostly, she could not bear to see the country go back to the way it was when this tragedy befell her, before Roe v. Wade, where the only abortions were back alley procedures, performed illegally, under the cover of darkness, with dubious concern for safety and resulting in the stigmatization of women. Under current law, at least women can make an informed choice, and then (if they so choose) proceed with relative confidence that they will be properly cared for.
“Colin of all people should realize this,” she said. “But his arrogance and political affiliations have blinded him to the truth. He’s going to sign that bill if it passes, and it’s just plain wrong. I don’t want to see another woman go through what I had to endure. Damn him,” she said. “He did this to himself.”
Concerning why she chose me to be the messenger of these troublesome tidings, she would only say that her best friend, Peggy Graham, insisted that I would know what to do, and that I would look out for her best interest as well. I cautioned her that, once this news got out, nobody on earth could protect her. Try as we might to keep her name out of it, with a little bit of snooping around — something the press does particularly well — someone would eventually discover that it was indeed she who let this snake out of the bag…
“That may be, but I still have to do this,” she replied.
Of course I wanted to see what proof she had of these charges, otherwise it could end up as her word against the governor’s. And I would not be party to some baseless charge against anyone, let alone the highest official in the state. But she had come prepared for my challenge with a copy of a letter Colin had written her those many years ago. “You can get the handwriting analyzed if you don’t believe me,” she said. I told her that I would, as a matter of thoroughness, not because I didn’t believe her.
Here is Colin’s letter in entirety:
My dearest Kathy,
I lie awake worrying about us. I can’t seem to think clearly about our situation and what to do. You know I love you and I guess it’s all my fault that you’re in trouble. The truth is, I really want to have children with you. They’ll be the most beautiful kids in the world and you’ll be the best mother. But I’m afraid it’s too soon. We’re kidding ourselves if we think we’re ready to start a family. I’m not saying that I’m afraid to go through with it, only that I don’t think it’s the right time.
Please don’t get mad at me for what I’m about to say. I wanted to tell you about it in a letter so you could think it over in private. Then we can talk about it and I’ll respect your decision. I know you, Kathy. You’ll make the right decision because you’re smart and you only want the best for us just like I do. Anyway, the other day at work I came across a file of places where you can go to stop the pregnancy. It’s really a list of doctors and others who have been brought up on charges for performing abortions because of the law. I was curious about the subject so I leafed through the file on my lunch hour. There was a copy of the record of one of the trials against a doctor from Pontiac. He was acquitted in the end because of a lack of evidence, but the important thing is what he said when they put him on the stand. He said that a lot of women and young girls are pregnant but they have no way to support a baby. He’s seen hundreds like this over the years. “What is the best thing to do?” he said, “bring all these babies into the world without even half a chance at a decent life? The laws should be changed. Women should have the right to choose whether they want to have their babies or have their pregnancies ended with the aid of doctors who know what they’re doing. It’s high time we woke up to the reality of life in a modern world.”
He said a lot more but this is what impressed me most.
Please don’t be mad at me Kathy, but I want you to think about this option that I am sure is available to us. I can get everything arranged and paid for. And he’s a doctor so there won’t be anything to worry about. This may be the answer to our prayers. It just might be the right thing to do. If you’re really scared, I understand. But I think it’s just as scary to think of having the baby. Besides it would be hard on your mom and my family too. Having an abortion will avoid all of that.
Whatever you decide, I will still love you. That’s for sure. We’ll do what’s best and nobody can know that better than us, so we have to be the ones to make the tough choices. It’s a lot like the last game of the year and we need to win it for the league championship. Nobody else can do it but us. We’ve got to have the guts to get the job done.
I know this isn’t a game. In fact it’s the most serious thing that either of us has ever faced. That’s why I want you to think carefully about what I wrote and when I see you tonight we’ll talk.
Don’t ever forget how much I care about you.
Love, Colin
Maryanne turns to me with a look of incredulity in her misty, verdant eyes. Her cheeks are streaked where two tears tracked downward, past her pursed but trembling lips. “How could he do that to her? That poor girl, he messed with her head from the beginning.”
She takes my hand in hers. “So what do you do now?”
“I don’t know. After I read the letter in the cafe, I offered to give it back and forget the whole thing. Actually, I pleaded with her to reconsider what she was getting into.”
“And...”
“She wouldn’t hear of it. She’d find someone else if I didn’t think I could handle it was the gist of her reply. She’s on a mission. This whole thing has been bottled up inside her for an entire generation. A generation she has missed out on. Colin robbed her of that opportunity back in high school. So now she has finally worked up the courage to fight back. And a lot of people will be on her side this time. Plus, fortunately for her, she has nothing more to lose.”
“Not the case with Colin, is it?”
“Not by my reckoning. This will destroy him.”
I cannot seem to look into my own wife’s beautiful eyes. My world has been so shaken by this discovery that I feel numb, jaded, fatuous and confused. I even feel lost to Maryanne, though I know deep down that this is not the case.
My mission seems quite clear, however. “But I don’t really want to be the person to do it. As callous as he may have been to Kathy all those years ago, I don’t know if he deserves what he’ll get in return once this story goes public.”
She rubs my leg with encouragement. “There must be someone we can trust with this, who can help you understand how to proceed.”
At which point we both arrive at the same answer:
“Dan!”