“I’m not ready to do that,” I whispered.
Grey nodded. “I understand. Doctor Jennings here will discuss some of the options with you, and their implications. You don’t have to make any kind of decision right now. In the meantime, we’ll be doing everything we can.”
“You aren’t doing anything,” Kate said, her face twisted up in rage. “And she isn’t signing anything at all. I’m his mother, she’s just some slut he picked up a few months ago.”
Michael temporized, too slowly, “Kate, stop….”
My mother was on her feet before he could say a third word. “You don’t talk about my daughter that way,” she said.
“Stop it!” Doctor Grey said in a sharp, loud voice. “Or I’ll ask both of you to leave. Carrie is his wife. She is the only person with legal authority on this question.”
I stared at her, numb. I was the only person with the authority to decide to stop trying to save my husband. I was the only person who would have to decide if the person who made my life worthwhile was going to live or die. Did this doctor have any clue what she’d just said? Did she have even the slightest understanding of the hell she’d just put me in?
I didn’t think so. She got up and stepped away, and Doctor Jennings, the one from social work, said, “Mrs. Sherman—”
I gasped and said, “Just go away. Leave me alone please, for a little while. I’m begging you.”
He nodded and left a card on the table.
Kate was still raving, swinging back and forth between spitting insults and rage at me and weeping hysterically. Michael just put his arms around her and pulled her out of the room.
“Carrie?” my mom said. I know she wanted to help or do something. But I couldn’t take any more. I just couldn’t take another voice, another person needing anything from me, or suggesting anything to me, or even saying a word to me.
“Can I just be left alone? Please?”
In a troubled silence, my mother left me alone in that room. I leaned forward, resting my head on my arms, hiding my face from the world. This couldn’t be happening. Maybe I should go pray like my mother so often did? Prostrate in the chapel, and promise God that I’d be good or give half my money to charity, or that I’d somehow change my life for the better, if only He’d let Ray live. If only we hadn’t gone to the zoo yesterday morning, he would be fine. I couldn’t even remember whose idea it was. Who wants to go to the zoo anyway? That was for children.
I lay there, alternately crying, or bargaining in my head, for what seemed the longest time. But then I heard the door open, and a voice said, “Carrie?”
I squeezed my eyes tighter for just a second and then looked up.
It was Major Dick Elmore.
He gave me a heartfelt look of sympathy and said, “I’d never bother you at a time like this. Dylan told me ... where things stand. But Ray ... I think he’d want you to know.”
“Know what?” I said.
“The court-martial board is ready to come back with a verdict.”
I felt a chill. Swallowing, I looked away from him for a few seconds, then back.
“When?” I asked.
“Now. I explained the circumstances to Colonel Martinez, and they intend to go forward now, in Ray’s absence.”
I shook my head, knowing I wasn’t making any sense. “They can’t do that. Why can’t they just let it go?”
He shook his head. “That’s not the way it works, Carrie. I thought ... you should come with me.”
I looked up at the ceiling. What would Ray want, if he were awake to tell me?
There was no question there. He would want to be exonerated.
I sniffed then said, “All right. Let me tell my family, and we’ll go.”
We ready? (Carrie)
“No,” I said to Julia on my phone, as Ray turned into the entrance to Walter Reed. “It’s all over. I go back to work in two weeks.”
“I’m so relieved,” she said. “And what about Ray?”
“We’ll know soon,” I said. “The trial starts today.”
I heard her suck in a breath. She said, “Good luck. If you need anything— anything at all—just say the word. Crank and I will be there in a heartbeat.”
“Thanks, Julia. I might. Mother is insisting on sending the twins here on Friday. And ... I don’t know if I’m going to be able to deal with that.”
Julia sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Carrie? But I think it’s Mom’s way of making sure you aren’t alone. In case ... you know. In case he’s convicted.”
“I know. I just ... I don’t know how to deal with who she’s becoming.”
“Trust me, I know,” she replied.
We hung up, and I smiled at Ray. He’d overheard the conversation, of course, and knew how grossly I’d oversimplified the situation with work. It was true that the investigation was over. In the end, ORI and Rice University had pulled three years worth of emails and research notes and likely spent upwards of fifty thousand dollars on an investigation that turned up exactly nothing.
Ironically, the rules that were designed to protect whistleblowers also protected Nikki. When the investigating committee at Rice called her to speak, she made it clear: the reason my grades were better and my research went further, the reason I’d received my doctorate and the NIH fellowship, was all because she believed I’d slept with Bill Ayers. Doctor Moore never called to tell me I was clear: that was ORI, and later Lori Beckley.
I didn’t care. Moore was a pig, an opportunist. But I’d drawn a clear line, and I didn’t expect to have any more trouble with him. And for now, I had much bigger things to think about.
Ray parked the car in front of a building set far away from the
