Jury of One

20

She approaches the door of the study in much the same way she once did as a young girl, after her bedtime, eavesdropping on conversations not suitable for the ears of little Shelly. Politics mostly, gun control, the death penalty, taxes. She recalls several of them, one in particular where her father explained the evils of abortion to his two sons, Edgar and Thomas. That was back during Daddy’s second term as the chief prosecutor for the county. Shelly herself, at age nine then, had read the newspaper accounts. Rankin County Attorney Langdon Trotter had led the charge of protestors outside the Anthony Center for Women’s Health Care, which had brought the option of abortion to the downstate county for the first time since the Supreme Court had cleared the way. Her father hadn’t succeeded in stopping the clinic, not through protests and not through lawsuits.

Only three days ago, Lang Trotter’s only daughter, Shelly, had walked into that very health center, secure in the notion that her father would never know what had happened to her. But now he will have to know. There is no hiding it. She is pregnant and she is going to stay pregnant. She is going to have the child. She has few answers. She doesn’t know how she will manage her next year of school, much less the rest of her education. She doesn’t know if she will keep the baby. She doesn’t know the gender. She doesn’t even know if the baby is healthy. These things she will figure out with time. The first step comes now, telling her parents.

As she approaches the study, she hears bustling, drawers opening and closing, her mother and father talking with animation. She walks in and sees files pulled off the bookshelves, piles of paper on the normally orderly desk. Her father is leafing through papers.

They turn and see Shelly. There is a glow to both of them. Her mother, Abigail, looking so youthful in a sweatshirt and her cropped blond hair, her light green eyes beaming with pride and excitement. Her father, in a T-shirt that exposes his large shoulders and arms, his hair slightly disordered.

It is a Saturday morning, just past nine. The phone rang thirty minutes ago. Now she knows who it was and what they said. The top brass in the state Republican Party has had several conversations with County Attorney Trotter over the last several months. The current officeholder, a Republican, has privately given notice that he would not seek re-election. Now is the time, in June 1986, to begin the process of building support. By early 1987, candidates will be creating something called “exploratory committees” to begin their runs for the February primaries in 1988. The statewide party is disciplined, Daddy has told her, and they want to get behind a candidate to avoid a messy primary.

Thus, the phone call. Shelly looks at the documents her parents were gathering. Tax returns, financial documents. Vetting, something Shelly has known well as the daughter of a politician since she was a small child. Checking out a candidate’s background before endorsing him.

“We might as well tell her, Lang,” said her mother. Then to Shelly: “Honey, you’re looking at this state’s next attorney general.”

Her mother squeals and hugs Daddy, rubs his arm. Her father smiles and blushes but quickly fixes on Shelly. The steel-blue eyes narrow and focus on her.

“What’s wrong, pistol?” he asks.