Valerie Dalton saw the rest of her own life spread before her like a broad, rich valley seen for the first time by an explorer who had just crossed the summit of a treacherous mountain. She jumped out of bed, energy surging through her. She wanted sparks to fly. "
"Do you have a verdict?"
Judge Lyang gazed expectantly at the foreman. So did Valerie, the defendants, and everyone else in the court. It was three o'clock in the afternoon. The jury had been at it since nine that morning. All eyes and ears turned toward the slender, greying man holding several sheets of yellow paper in his hands. Cameras focused in on him. He stood, visibly nervous about speaking in public, and addressed the judge.
"We do have a verdict, Your Honor." He paused, staring down at the paper to avoid looking anywhere else.
"Please read your verdict to this court," Lyang said with a bit of nudging impatience.
"Your Honor," he said slowly. "This verdict has been a very difficult one to make." Karen grasped her husband's hand tightly. Valerie glanced at Fletcher, worry in her eyes. Fletcher watched the foreman intently, as did Johnson. As ever, the lawyer's pen hovered over his notepad, ready for anything.
"Your Honor, the jury has asked that I preface our verdict by stating that the reasons for our decision undoubtedly exceed the scope of this trial." He looked down at the paper, taking his words from what was written there. "No one judicial deci-sion is ever the final word. We only hope that the basis of our verdict can serve as a reasonable foundation for the contro-versy that will undoubtedly result." He cleared his throat. "It is the decision of the jury that the baby named Renata is the natural daughter of both Valerie Dalton and Karen Chandler."
Voices whispered and muttered throughout the courtroom in confused surprise. Lyang gaveled for order, staring with incomprehension at the foreman.
"This is highly unusual," she said. After a moment of thought, she added, "So's this entire case. Proceed."
"There's more," the foreman said.
"I should be very interested to hear it," Lyang said quietly.
"While the jury determines that Valerie Dalton is the genetic mother of Baby Renata, this finding is only part of our verdict, but a necessary one. It is an undeniable fact that the fetus re-moved by Dr. Fletcher contains genetic material formed from that of Valerie Dalton and Ron Czernek. In this way, Valerie Dalton is the genetic mother of Renata. Yet after transoption the fetus received protection, sustenance, and life from the body of Karen Chandler. Karen Chandler is the birth mother of Renata. This is also a definition of motherhood. Therefore, faced with these conflicting definitions of motherhood, the jury has chosen to declare that the two women are both co-mothers of Baby Renata." He turned to the next page. The ruffle of the paper sounded like the crackle of electricity in the hushed courtroom.
"That leaves us with the dilemma of custody. The precedent of adoption was raised by some members, but in such cases there is indeed only one natural mother-the genetic mother also gives birth to the child. She would seem to have the stron-ger claim in the absence of an explicit contract that spelled out what would happen in the event she wanted her child back. The case of a surrogate mother is similar. She donates her genetic material and gives sustenance and birth to the child. Her claim, too, seems valid-once again, in the absence of an explicit contract with clauses to address such conflicts." Evelyn laid a hand over Valerie's and clasped firmly. Nei-ther took their gaze from the man who held the future in his hands.
"The long legal tradition in such cases," he continued, "has been to ignore any contract and award custody to the natural mother, making a strange, implicit judgment that the natural mother is incompetent to make a contract and abide by its principles, yet is capable of caring for another human being. Whether this is right or wrong, it has been the tendency."
The foreman turned another page. He peered even more intently at the paper. "Here, though, both women have had a turn at creating the baby Renata. If Valerie Dalton had not con-ceived the child, the fetus would not have existed. If Karen Chandler had not taken the abandoned fetus into her womb, Renata would not have been born.
"It is in light of these conflicting claims that the jury has elected to declare the women co-mothers and to determine that Valerie Dalton's pregnancy-termination contract with Bayside University Medical Center is and ought to be consid-ered an unmistakable grant of custody of Baby Renata from co-mother Dalton to co-mother Chandler. Additionally, the injunction against Dr. Fletcher and all damages are denied."
The courtroom experienced a strange momentary silence during which everyone tried to arrive at an opinion on the verdict. The spectators had seen two warring factions come together without the force of a court decision. They had just heard the court mimic the private agreement. Whatever per-sonal outlook anyone possessed, it seemed inappropriate to cheer or jeer an outcome that both women so dearly wanted.
At the table, though, Karen and David expressed their own reaction, hugging each other, teary eyes overflowing. Valerie joined in with arms spread wide to embrace them both. Terry stared breathlessly, surprise frozen on his face. Evelyn slapped an arm around his shoulders.
"Hey, kid, you won!"
"Yeah," he said, smiling. "And against such an adamant foe." He slipped an arm around Valerie. The jury members smiled at the scene. Judge Lyang's grin, tilted with a sardonic edge, spread across her face with easy pleasure.
Someone at the back of the courtroom clapped his hands loudly. The happy litigants turned toward the jarring sound. Valerie's throat tightened upon seeing Ron standing just in-side the doorway. He gazed coolly at Johnson, inclining his head ever so slightly in acknowledgment. He clapped again. And again. A few spectators joined. More. Seconds later, the courtroom thundered with triumph. Nobody heard Lyang's gavel. Even the reporters applauded.
Ron pushed his way forward to Valerie.
She turned her back to him to confer with Karen and David for a moment. Ron silently watched her receive nods of assent from the couple.
Valerie turned to Dr. Fletcher. "Can you go with us to the hospital? The three of us would like to see our daughter."
"
Ron Czernek was an aggressive lawyer and not easily de-terred. He followed the quintet out of the courthouse, past the throng of reporters, and into the parking lot. Approaching Valerie there was impossible.
"Mr. Czernek!" a TV reporter shouted. "What's your opin-" He ducked between two arguing pickets to race toward his BMW. He saw nothing of Valerie and the others until he bul-lied his way into the infant ICU at Bayside.
The others must have been delayed by reporters, he thought as he stood before the observation window. A lone nurse sat beside the high-tech creche, reading a thick, dog-eared pa-perback. Equipment quietly registered Renata's every vital sign. Through the glass drifted the faint, steady sound of a heart-beat monitor.
Ron stepped about for a look at Renata. In all the time he had struggled to gain her custody, he suddenly realized, he had never actually seen her.
Standing on tiptoes at the corner of the window, he man-aged to peer past the tangle of wires and tubes to see directly into the isolation chamber.
A blond head lay on a stark white sheet. Tiny hands flexed their fingers, testing them out. The head rolled. Renata Chan-dler gazed toward her father.
She could not possibly have seen him, he realized. He stood in darkness, she lay bathed in light. Her blue eyes, though, seemed to stare at him and through him.
He watched his daughter, unable to fathom the feelings that raced through him. All his life he had been able to make snap decisions, had always been on the go, on the way to a goal. He had embarked on the custody battle with equal zeal.