know.'
To Lara, this statement of perplexity carried the faintest hint of being slighted—that, as always, Lara had held herself aloof, as the distant, superior sister who offered help, or direction, but needed nothing from her family. 'No one knew,' she answered. 'This wasn't just about me, but about Kerry. I couldn't tell anyone.'
'Except a stranger,' Mary gently amended.
This allusion to the abortion counselor who had betrayed her reopened the wound anew, threatening Lara's precarious calm. 'Mary,' she said in a strained voice, 'my world was coming apart. I'd fallen in love with a married senator I was covering as a reporter, and suddenly I was pregnant. I did what I thought was best—for Kerry even more than me. But I was sure it was the end for us, and had to be. That was why I took the NBC job overseas. If I'd thought that you, or anyone, could fix all that . . .'
Her voice trailed off in a memory of hopelessness. 'You could have come to us,' Mary insisted. 'We were your family.'
'Maybe,' Lara conceded, 'I could have come to you. But knowing about my abortion would have broken our mother's heart.' Hearing herself, Lara heard emptiness and evasion. The stark truth was that she had never considered leaning on her sisters, or believed that they would understand. Perhaps, she thought sadly, pride of place had become her habit, the duty of perfection a form of spiritual imprisonment. And then another thought struck her, so glaring now that she wondered at her failure to see it as clearly as she needed to when it would have mattered most. Just as Kerry's life had been defined by being James's younger brother, Lara, to the detriment of them all, had been her sisters' James Kilcannon. 'Mary,' she began again, 'having me for a sister has cost you too much already. I don't want you to pay for this as well. That's why I'm telling you now.'
'Because you're not sure Kerry can protect my lawsuit.'
The quiet statement, with its echoes—perhaps intended, perhaps not—of his inability to protect their family made Lara pause again. 'If you take this money,' she answered, 'I don't think Kerry can hold the Senate. But if you turn it down, and this comes out, you both may lose. That's not something I could keep from you.'
'What if he doesn't veto it? That's what they want him to do.'
The question drove home how unwilling Lara was to imagine this. 'Then we all lose,' she said simply. 'But I won't let him do it on my account. For me, I'd rather face whatever happens.'
For a moment, her sister said nothing. Then, still quietly, she asked, 'If you were
Replaying the question, Lara searched her sister's tone for irony, and could detect none. 'I'm not you,' she answered. 'I can't begin to know. All that I can promise is to love you, and never to judge whatever you decide.'
Pausing, Lara suddenly realized how much she needed this to be true, and fought against the tremor in her voice. 'We're all that's left of Mama, Joanie, and Marie. I don't care what you do about the lawsuit. What I need from you is love and understanding and forgiveness for what my marriage has brought upon our family.'
In Mary's silence, Lara sensed that hearing this surprised her as much as, seconds before, saying it had surprised Lara. 'Are you going to be okay?' Mary asked with a curious timidity. 'You and Kerry, I mean.'
Lara realized that, in all of her imaginings, she had shrunk from imagining that which was most personal, and most important. 'I don't know,' she answered softly. 'It's so hard to know how all this will turn out for us.'
'I'm sorry,' Mary said with equal softness—whether in condolence, or in apology for what she was about to do, Lara could not tell.
* * *
Sequestered in the residence to ponder his decision, his cover a spurious sore throat which required Ellen Penn to stand in at a breakfast sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, Kerry felt himself diminishing moment by moment.
'How did Mary take it?' he asked Lara.
'She was kind.' Lara sat beside him on the couch. 'I realize I'm so
used to listening for an undercurrent of blame or resentment I may supply one where there is none. But I've got no idea what she'll decide, and I told her it was up to her. I guess that just leaves us.'
Kerry studied her face, the bruises of sleeplessness which reminded him, with an intensity so piercing that he still flinched from it, of the days and nights which had followed the murders. 'What do you think?' he inquired.
'That what would help me the most is winning. The next best thing is doing all we can.'
The flicker of harsh memory lingered in Kerry's mind. 'That's what I thought I was doing for Joanie—all I could. Even when we decided to go public about Bowden. And look what's come of it.'
Lara touched his face. 'There's something about deconstructing your own guilt,' she told him, 'that puts other people's in perspective. Consider all the trouble you'd have saved yourself by deciding not to marry me.'
Kerry managed to smile. 'Oh, I knew better. I just couldn't help myself.'
'Neither could I.' Lara paused. 'You took a chance because you loved me. So did I, because I was too selfish not to love you back. I even thought that, once we had a child, we could put the hurt of my abortion behind us.'
This was something she had never put into words. It touched him more than he could tell her, even as he reflected on the sad, retrospective innocence of her wish to heal damage which was dwarfed by that which followed. 'Instead, we're here,' he answered. 'So what do I do now?'
'What you always intended to do—veto the Civil Justice Reform Act. The only questions are when you do that, and how—or whether—you tell the world about us.'
Braced by her dispassion, Kerry knit together his thoughts. 'The 'when' part is simple—I wait out the eight days I've got left before I veto the bill, and pray that we can somehow pin this on the SSA.'
Lara's expression betrayed that she felt little hope of this. 'And the rest?'
Kerry took both of her hands in his. 'First, I want you to believe me about something—that the reason I don't want you crawling across ground glass on national television involves more than male pride, or even love for you. It's about who we are, or should be. Once you allow someone to violate your own best sense of that, you're no one. That's fatal in a person—or a President.
'Clayton knows me far better than Kit. What he was doing, though he'd never say it, was speaking to who I am, and who I need to be.' Kerry looked at her intently. 'I think he was speaking for you, as well. If we don't draw the line for ourselves, how will we feel later? And what validation will we be giving to whoever decides to victimize the next First Family, or the next? What public act of contrition will they have to perform in order to top ours? However we leave this place, I don't want that to be our legacy.'
'Then it won't be,' Lara answered. 'Whatever else.'
SIX
At nine the next morning, Sarah sat next to Lenihan at Bond's red mahogany conference table. Glancing at Nolan and Fancher, she pondered the twelve-million-dollar offer from Charles Dane which neither knew of. Mary Costello's dilemma was as complex, and as delicate, as any Sarah could imagine.
'The first order of business,' Bond said, 'is to set some dates. First, for hearing defendants' summary judgment motions. And then, should the Court deny them, for a trial.'
Silent, Sarah shot an untrusting glance at Lenihan. Since his effort to settle the case around her, they had struck a wary truce, agreeing that Mary's interests—whether in going to trial or further enhancing the settlement
