Meg Waite Clayton - The Four Ms. Bradwells

The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph P. Bradley, from his 1873 opinion in Bradwell v. Illinois, denying Mrs. Myra Bradwell the right to practice law

ROOM 216, THE HART BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8

B ETTS IS SITTING alone at a table with two untouched water cups, the pen I gave her the day we graduated from law school, a clean legal pad, and a microphone. On the dais, one of nineteen senators talks his way toward a question he hasnt arrived at quite yet. Cameras whir mercilessly as photographers on the floor between them vie for the better angle, capturing the small fatty deposit on Bettss freckled face, her perky mouth and shattered-crystal eyes. The chair she sits in is poorly chosen; her square divers shoulders, in a suit the washed driftwood gray of her hair, fail to top its leather back. Still, she looks impressive as she leans toward the microphone, listening in the same intent way she has always listened to Ginger and Laney and methe way we all need to be heard.

The senators voice booms, You were born in an Eastern Bloc country, Professor Zhukovski, a communist child of communist parents, as if this is something she might not have realized. The photographers edge closer on the journalistic racing pit of a floor, none pausing for fresh batteries or different lenses. Television cameras, too, peer down from booths in the side walls, relentlessly recording each intake of breath. At least the TV cameras are shooting me from above, Betts had joked over the phone a few nights ago. The still photographers are shooting right at my crepey old neck.

My own crepey old neck feels warm and moist as I stand at the back of the room, behind the computer-laden tables of reporters. Betts has already answered a weeks worth of questions, though, sticking to the script. She praised Brown v. Board and deplored Dred Scott and Korematsu, uttered right to privacy and stare decisis while avoiding abortion, gay rights, and guns. Shes managed to appear to answer every question without actually stating a single view, all while demonstrating that she has great judgment without ever having been a judge. And the committee vote is scheduled for Tuesday, with the full Senate expected to confirm.

How are we supposed to believe, Professor Zhukovski, the senator asks finally, that a communist child of communist parents is the best person in this whole free country to be the arbiter of our laws?

Betts smiles warmly. My mother, a doctor in Poland, scrubbed floors here she responds, her voice rolling gently against the senators snap. A softer sort of self-possession than she uses in her classroom is called for here, where the minds she is working to win over are still overwhelmingly older, and white, and male.

Scrubbed toilets, Id suggestedwords met with a long, expensive, overseas-line silence before Betts had responded, Youll be surprised when your mom dies, Mia, how much her dignity means to you.

Shes taken my advice, though, I realize with a small measure of triumph: shes gotten a friendly senator to ask about the Widow Zhukovski fleeing Poland with Baby Betts in a way that doesnt seem friendly. And the gang back here in the press gallery is taking copious notes.

My mother actually would have made an amazing justice, Betts says. A fact she would not have hesitated to tell you.

The senators laugh easily, as does the audience, the stenographer, and even the press.

I WAS ON assignment when Betts called to ask me to come for this weekend; wed practically had to shout to be heard over the rickety line. So let me get this straight, Betts, Id teased her. You want me to fly back from Madagascar? Madagascar, thats off the coast of Africa, you know that, right? To hold your hand while you worry over a Senate confirmation there isnt a shred of doubt youll get.

My crystal ball must be murkier than yours, Mia, she said, her laugh as cozy as the room wed shared in N Section of the Law Quad our first year, as comfortable as the couch on the porch of the house wed shared with Laney and Ginger our second and third. Id slipped my camera strap over my neck and set the Holga aside, laughing with her. Betts, the Funny One. Ginger, the Rebel. Laney, the Good Girl. And me, the Savant.

Or else Hmmm, she said, maybe no one is exactly a slam dunk for the Supreme Court?

Laney had told her Id be back home that week anyway. They want to meet in D.C. for the hearings and then train up to New York for the weekend, she said. I told them they could come for the last afternoon. The part where my supporters make me sound like Superjudge. And she laughed again. Betts is always the first to laugh at her little jokes.

Were thinking Les Miz Friday night, she added.

No doubt well be seeing something about a bad mother on Saturday if we let Ginger choose.