The next few days were a flurry of calls back and forth, with the result that financing was looking fairly certain. But the immediate problem was the board meeting. Mairin and Michael were driving to Evergreen House where the meeting would be held. Michael had picked Mairin up at the Warnckes, and Mairin had met him downstairs in order to avoid any conversation with Harry.

Michael was in a boyish, open, funny mood. "What do you say Mair? I’ll let you handle the hearing."

"Lord, no. We want Sandra to work, not be put in a mental institution."

"Mairin, I’m going to make you into a trial lawyer."

"Sure." Mairin looked out the window at the city, hazy in the late fall evening. She had on a very demure, wide collar blouse and a full skirt, brown, with low-heeled sandals. She wanted to look professional. Michael, as always, was impeccable.

"'Sure,’ you say. Why not ‘Of course.’?"

"It’s a new enough idea for me to be a lawyer. Give me a chance to get used to that first. Then maybe, possibly, I might be able to get used to the idea of being a trial lawyer."

‘What’s new about the law business?"

Mairin turned to him and grinned. "I bet you knew at age ten you wanted to be a lawyer. Your family probably ate law for breakfast."

"Age seven."

"The only thing I knew was that I would go to college. My parents were college grads, and they took it for granted that I would go. I went, and I took a liberal arts degree. I knew darned well that I couldn’t get a job on that alone, so I went to graduate school in social work.

"World saver, eh?"

"No, not really." Mairin suddenly laughed, warm and open. "At least not after the first day in the field."

"Tough job, I guess. Say, listen, Mairin, what do you think we ought to do at this hearing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, what kind of approach should we take?"

"If I were doing it all alone, I suppose I’d talk to them, try to find out what is upsetting them, see maybe if we couldn’t work something out."

"You’re not much of an idealist, are you?" Michael was laughing. "These people aren’t used to listening to anybody. When they’re sued, they’ll listen because they have to."

And then they were there. Ben Wilder, a court reporter, was waiting in front of Evergreen House in his car. Michael had explained to Mairin that it was a matter of policy with him to bring a court reporter to this type of meeting. "People will be a lot more careful of what they say when someone is taking down every word."

Sandra was waiting for them in the living room, and she led the way to the basement room where the board met. The board members were already present--prosperous middle or upper middle-class burghers. They reminded Mairin of Rembrandt’s painting of "The Syndics," though most of them were women. There were a few men--a doctor, a lawyer, a businessmen or two. The women were exceptionally well-dressed. The Board’s counsel was present. Michael walked over, hand extended. They greeted one another as old friends. They appeared to be about the same age.

The board president opened the meeting and addressed herself to Michael Morgan. "I understand that you are here to represent Miss Guilford. This particular session of the board is a special session to handle the problem we have here."

Michael Morgan rose to his feet. ‘Yes, I am here to represent Miss Guilford, to see that she is given a fair hearing and that due process is observed."

"Thank you," said the president. "I move that the board vote to submit a disability retirement application on behalf of Miss Guilford to the state employees retirement board.’

"I second the motion," said one of the businessmen.

"Wait a minute!" Michael Morgan jumped to his feet, incredulous. "Won’t you let Miss Guilford present her case? What is this?"

"By law," said the president, "this board is authorized to submit this application."

"I am cognizant of the law," said Michael Morgan, but I think it is clearly erroneous in this respect. The provision allowing an employer to file the application is clearly applicable in situations of disability in which an employee might not be physically able to apply. You are using that provision to run a railroad, and justice will not stand for that."

"There is a motion on the floor that the application be submitted. It has been seconded. May we have a vote?"

Michael Morgan was outraged. "Have you no idea of the rudiments of due process? Will you not even listen to Miss Guilford?"

Mrs. Stanford Ewing, the board president, spoke. ‘We have discussed the problem with Miss Guilford."

"We are now in a formal proceeding with a court reporter. May we please have a statement of the problem for the record." Michael pressed on.

The board’s counsel rose. He was a partner in one of the city’s huge and powerful firms. "Mr. Morgan, the board is fully within its prerogatives in this action. There is no ‘case’ to present here. The problems have been explored internally. The board has, of course, human concern for Miss Guilford and her handicap, but its primary obligation is to the residents of this home. The board does this with a heavy heart, and it chooses not to air data damaging to Miss Guilford at a public hearing. This is not a court proceeding."

"I’ll say it’s not," Michael Morgan was shouting. "That is certain. A court observes the rules of due process. If you refuse to listen to Miss Guilford, to give her a chance to bring out this so-called "data" in public, you will have acted with malice. You say the "data" will be embarrassing, and you use that as an excuse for not airing it. It is just such an airing we seek. By your action Miss Guilford’s professional life will be severely damaged if not ended. You have an obligation to detail your charges."

The board’s counsel, Mr. Jeffries, stood up. He had a supercilious air that Mairin felt must be common to those lawyers who represent the establishment. "Mr. Morgan, this is an internal administration proceeding. Miss Guilford has been given opportunities to talk with the board about the problems in the residence. That part of the case is behind us. The board feels that the problems have not been solved. We do this as a humane gesture to Miss Guilford. After all, disability retirement will provide her a lifetime income--a good one, I may add."

"Do you really feel that it is of public benefit to retire a twenty-eight year old woman?" pressed Morgan.

"Her age is not the issue," was the response.

"I consider that if you file this application for Miss Guilford’s retirement, you will be acting maliciously and therefore liable for damages."

Mr. Jeffries allowed himself a disdainful smile. "We are not cowed by your threats, sir. We have a duty to the residents of this home and their families. He turned to the president. "I believe there is a motion on the floor?"

"There is, and it has been seconded," said Mrs. Ewing. "I call for a vote. All those in favor say ‘aye." The ayes were unanimous, and with Michael Morgan on his feet, pounding the table and shouting about kangaroo courts and lack of respect common fairness, let alone decency, the board members filed from the room.

Mairin was almost in a state of shock. She had expected an argument, an assertion by the board members that Miss Guilford was incapable due to blindness to run the house. Mairin was prepared to rebut that in many ways, both from first-band experience at vocational rehabilitation and placement and from secondary sources. She had looked in the agency library for materials and had found a fair number of articles, all quite positive. She knew the prejudices against blindness all to well, but still she felt able to come forward to speak against them. But to ignore the issue completely! To refuse to hear a woman speak in defense of her livelihood!

Michael Morgan was still yelling, in a slightly lower key, telling Mairin and Sandra Guilford that he would file an injunction to restrain the board from going ahead with the filing of the application on the ground that they did not have such authority, and that, even if they did, they had abused it by refusing to countenance Miss Guilford’s side of the story.

Mairin had always been amused by the legal style of arguing in the alternative that lawyers used. She remembered one of her first-year professors telling about the three defenses that were used by a man accused of stealing a watch from a jewelry store. The first was that he was never in the store. The second was that while he was in the store he never saw the watch. And the third was that he had bought the watch and paid for it. The story made it clear that multiple defenses could be entirely inconsistent with each other.

Suddenly Mairin was immensely tired and found that her head was throbbing. Sandra Guilford was sitting calmly, very composed. Maybe, thought Mairin, she knew exactly what this board was like. "Sandra," she said, "I’m so sorry."

"I think this may be only the beginning, said Sandra Guilford. "Let’s go up to my room," she added. She stopped in the kitchen and put on the kettle.

Mairin and Michael watched while Sandra made coffee. Michael was watching closely with an absorbed but incredulous expression on his face. Never having seen a blind person make coffee, he had a strong premonition she would scald herself with the boiling water. She didn’t, although she called them to take their cups, saying that she wasn’t good at transporting hot coffee. They went into her room and closed the door.

"Here’s what we’ll do," said Michael. It’s really the retirement board we’ll have to go to. We’ll ask for an injunction. That the court not permit the board to rule on this application. It should be easy to prove that the law is absurd on this point. Clearly the legislature put in the provision that the employer could file to help the disabled, not to discriminate, not to let an employer file where the employee isn’t willing. But what a job. We’ll have to go to the capitol."

"When does this have to be done?" Sandra was drinking coffee calmly.

"Right away," said Michael. "I’ll call a local counsel in the capitol and get the filing done. Then there’ll be a hearing, and we’ll have to go."

Mairin was trying hard to listen, but even the coffee was not having any effect. She was very, very tired. She leaned her head against the back of the sofa. Michael saw her drift off into a doze and laughed. "Come on, Mair, don’t let it get you down. You’d think you were the one the board just stuck it to!"

Mairin sat up again. ‘What a day. I ran all day at work. . . and now this. . .

"Come on," said Michael, "we’ll go home." As they got into the car, he continued. "You’re cutting your teeth on a good one. This is going to be a hard fight, but I think we might win it."

"I just don’t know why they’re being so hateful. Sandra is such a lovely person."

"She is, isn’t she?" said Michael. "But she clearly rubbed somebody the wrong way. And that somebody is behaving very badly. If people behaved well, there’d be no need for courts. The court is the equalizer here. When Sandra’s suit is filed, she’ll have done a lot to put herself and the board on an equal footing. Well, here we are." He pulled up to the front of Mairin’s building and immediately got out to open the door for her. "Look, don’t worry about this so much. There is a light side to law, too."

"If you say so," she said, climbing out of the car, carrying her unused notes and planning how to describe the holocaust to Harry.

Mairin went into the apartment slowly. Harry knew. He always knew by her movements what had happened. He knew what she was like strolling out of her room for breakfast on a Sunday morning or collapsing after a three-hour night class. He could tell it had gone badly. "Whet happened, Mair?" he asked.

She told him, sitting down in the blue chair and kicking off her shoes, letting the tiredness and the disgust show. "The establishment. Jeffries. What a crock. They wouldn’t let her speak. It was a goddamn railroad. I don’t really believe it even though I certainly did see it. Oh, Harry, I don’t think anyone could have talked to them."

"Do you think I’m angry, Mair? That you wouldn’t let me talk to them?"

"Oh, Harry! No! It wasn’t that. . . it was just. . . just that Michael decided to sue. . . just a difference of opinion. . . but I wish. . . oh, never mind." She sat staring, feeling the tiredness close in again. "It doesn’t matter," she said.

"Go to bed before you fall asleep in that chair," said Harry, knowing that Mairin would fall asleep and be impossible to rouse for a couple of hours. He had always been convinced that sleeping in the chair was a restless sleep, not really sound.