Ida looked at him with wet eyes. “She said she had fallen in love ... that was how she put it, just like it was a normal thing to do. She said she’d been seeing this woman, and they had decided to settle down and make a life together.”
“And who was this woman?”
Ida nodded toward Lily. “That’s her, right over there.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Maycomb. I know this is difficult for you. I just have one more question. A little over three years after the conversation you just discussed, Charlotte told you she was pregnant—that she had been artificially inseminated and that she and Lily were going to raise a child together. What was your reaction when she told you this?”
“Well, naturally, it just broke my heart,” Ida said. “When you’ve got two adults who are sinning together, there’s not much you can do about it. You can pray for ’em, and you can try to bring ’em to the Lord, but they’re adults, so they’re gonna do what they wanna do. But to bring a child into that sinful environment . . . like I said, the thought of it just broke my heart. That’s why we want to raise Mimi ourselves...there’s some things a small child shouldn’t be exposed to.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Maycomb. No further questions.” Judge Sanders nodded toward the table where Lily was sitting. “Mr. Dobson?”
Buzz rose and smiled at Ida. “I won’t take up much of your time, Mrs. Maycomb.” He was polite to the point of deference. Lily had to give old Buzz some credit for this tactic — in a small Southern town, you weren’t going to win any points by being mean to somebody’s mama. “Could you tell us, please ma’am, what your daughter did for a living?”
Ida looked puzzled. “She taught at Atlanta State.”
“Yes.” Buzz glanced at his notes. “At the time of her death, she was a tenured associate professor of English, was she not?”
“Uh, I think so.” Ida’s hesitation didn’t surprise Lily. Ida had never taken much of an interest in Charlotte’s career. “But I don’t see what that has to do with the case.”
“Well, the way I see it, Charlotte’s achievements have quite a bit to do with the case. If she became a tenured associate professor at such a young age, it must have meant her colleagues thought she did a good job. And she must have. Her teaching evaluations were high. She published numerous articles and coauthored one published book. It seems to me that Charlotte’s career is somethin’ a mother could really be proud of.”
Ida was clearly baffled about where Buzz’s line of argument was heading. “Well, Charlotte always was...book-smart.”
“It sounds like she was. And the reason I’m bringing this up is because, by giving her tenure, by promoting her to the rank of associate professor, her colleagues were saying that Charlotte was of sound mind...that she knew what she was doing, that she was capable of making decisions. And if she was of sound mind to make decisions at work, it seems like she’d also be of sound mind to make up her own will to decide who should get custody of her child in the event of her death. What do you think, Mrs.
Maycomb? Was your daughter of sound mind?”
“Like I said.” Ida squirmed in her seat. “Charlotte always was book-smart, but she didn’t have a lick of common sense. And when she hooked up with that one” — she nodded at Lily — “any bit of common sense she had went out the window.”
“You don’t like Mrs. McGilly, do you, Mrs. Maycomb?”
“Objection,” Hamilton interrupted. “Irrelevant.”
