Deadlock

“Caused me to break down mentally?” Millie finished for him.

“No, not that. But these things can throw us off.”

“Tom,” Millie said, gathering all the earnestness she could. “I don’t feel off. I might have thought that once. But I’ve been approaching this like I would a case that comes before us. I’ve been reading and analyzing and taking notes. But I’ve also been praying and trying to listen. I know how odd that may sound to you, but I just believe it, Tom. I am a Christian because I believe it.”

Riley said nothing. If he was reflecting on anything, Millie thought, it was probably his sudden demise into the Court’s minority on religion cases.

“And now you’re suddenly what?” Riley said. “A Bill Bonassi-type justice?”

“I am not a type,” Millie said.

“Don’t be naive, Millie. You know how it is. People depend on the Court. They sense what it is doing and adjust. You have been the swing vote on many crucial occasions. We all know that. The people know that. If you veer off in another direction all of a sudden, it’s going to wreak havoc.”

“I don’t see this as veering off.”

“Why not? You’ve done a 180 on Establishment. A complete turnaround. What are you going to do with, say, abortion? You’ve always supported a woman’s right to choose. Do you still?”

The directness of the question hit her hard. “Just because I am a Christian doesn’t mean I am going to change my approach. I always take any issue as it comes up, case by case.”

Silence for a moment, then Riley’s tone became fatherly. “Millie,” he said, leaning forward the way a concerned counselor would. “We’ve known each other a long time. You know how fond I am of you. And I understand what it’s like to go through difficult, confusing times in life. When my wife died in ’92, it was terrible. But I got through it. And I didn’t drop off the face of the earth. I didn’t change my entire life. I went on, the way I always had. And you can do the same.”

“I can only promise,” she said, “that I will take great care how I decide cases, as always. I will not change the way I approach research and deliberations. But” – she looked at Riley, into the blue, intelligent eyes she knew so well – “we may not always agree like we used to.”

“I hope,” Riley said without hesitation, “it won’t come to that. But if you suddenly throw this Court off in the opposite direction…” He shook his head. “I don’t want to have to fight you, Millie.”

His words, almost whispered, hit her like a car slamming into her. Yes, that was it. Like her accident all over again. Her throat tightened. “I would hope there won’t be a rift,” she said.

But there was. She knew it.

4

Fall storms pummeled the east for four days after that. But on Monday the sky was clear and blue, as if to signal a fresh start for the business of the Court.

By the time Millie was in her chambers, ready to engage in legal research on an issue of interstate commerce, she felt she was coming out from under a dark cloud. Perhaps the storm of Tom Riley’s reaction would also blow over, and she could get back to business as usual.

She began the morning at her desk with a new habit. She had a brand new Bible, a gift from Dorothy Bonassi. Each morning for the last two weeks she had opened to the Psalms and let them pour into her. There was no agenda, none of the anxious striving she had experienced during her conversion. It was the living Word of God, and she soaked it up like the desert soaks up rain.

Today she was on Psalm 19. She read the first verse slowly, whispering the words. “ ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork.’ ”

She realized she finally believed that. The music of it filled her. And she felt, at last, that she had climbed to another height. Not near the peak, not yet. But up from where she had started, where she had spent years. And she was safe here. She would not fall.

She closed her Bible and picked up her work. Turning to the draft opinion on interstate commerce that one of her clerks, Paul, had prepared, Millie knew she would make use of the blue pencil. But it would be a pleasure to edit this one. It had nothing to do with the Establishment Clause, and she could use a break from that section of the Constitution, thank you.

Her other clerk, Rosalind, knocked on her door and entered. Her face had an ashen, faraway look.

“What is it?” Millie asked.

“You’d better come,” Rosalind said.

Both of her clerks had workstations in the antechamber. Paul, the bespectacled Law Review editor from Stanford, sat before his terminal in silence. The glow from the screen reflected off his glasses. He did not look up to make eye contact with Millie. His blank stare made her think of an accident scene, as if he were seeing a dead body sprawled on a patch of asphalt somewhere.

“Did somebody die?” Millie asked. Perhaps the president? A fellow justice? She felt her heart quicken.

Rosalind shook her head, her blond hair framing her concerned face, and indicated Millie should take her seat in front of Rosalind’s screen.

Millie sat and looked at the screen. Big block letters spelled out the Burrow Bulletin. And just below that a headline read “Supreme Court Chief Gets Religion!”

Millie read the article in silence.

Gimme that old-time religion! That’s a song you may hear coming from a most unlikely place – the chambers of a certain chief justice of the United States Supreme Court!

Did I say chief justice? Yes, I did. Looks like the cat’s out of the bag, the chickens have flown the coop, the bloom is off the rose. Somebody stop me!

The Burrow Bulletin has learned that Millicent Mannings Hollander, the recently enrobed chief of our highest court, has seen the light!

Not only is she now a professing Christian, but she’s already reversed herself in the first major case of her tenure, soon to be decided! The case involves the Establishment Clause and government interference in matters of religion.

Insiders tell the Burrow Bulletin that Hollander is going to rule that the government of Ohio can go holy roller and inject God right into their public life! This is a complete reversal of how Hollander has ruled in the past!

What next? This reporter is betting abortion will be the next domino to fall. With Hollander now the fifth in a conservative majority, the whole balance of the Supreme Court has been thrown off! Never in our history have we seen a Supreme Court justice change so completely in one fell swoop.

Your intrepid correspondent is in touch with some members of Congress, who are vowing to look into this. One even called it a “fraud” on the American people!

Stay tuned! In the next few days, you are bound to see the reverberations of this bombshell across the nation!

Burrowing…

As if from a distance, Millie heard Rosalind’s voice. “Justice Hollander, are you all right?”

Millie did not answer. The inside of her head felt like a collapsing building, a chaos of rubble and dust, imploding upon itself. For a long, sickening moment she thought she might stop breathing.

“Madame Chief Justice?” Rosalind said.

“I’m sorry,” Millie said.

“Is it…”

Millie looked at Rosalind. Her face was like that of a child whose mother has just been accused of a terrible crime. Now she was asking, not wanting to believe it.