Love, Joy, Feminism
A Review Series of Anonymous Tip, by Michael Farris
pp. 115-117
I’m so sorry that we’ve had a bit of an Anonymous Tip hiatus lately. This was not planned and is largely because my blogging energies have ended up spent on other things and then I am just completely out of time, because there’s this thing called my day job. And kids. And yeah. So anyway, our regular Friday installments will pick back up next week, but this week you get a Saturday installment. Enjoy!
Remember that we left Peter and Gwen and Casey at Dr. Schram’s office, where they had just finished their appointment. This week Peter plays chauffeur, dropping Casey off at her foster home and taking Gwen back to her car in the parking garage by his office. The drive is, shall we say, not typical lawyer fare.
The ride back to the Whitworth neighborhood was very similar for two of the people in Peter’s car. Peter sat alone in the front and said nothing. Casey giggled, talked, and laid her head in her mother’s lap. But this time Gwen sat quietly with tears in her eyes and desperate thoughts of escape in her heart.
This means Casey was definitely not in a carseat. I mean I get that this was published in 1996, but didn’t they have carseat laws by then?
When Casey understood that she was not going home with her mommy, she began to cry inconsolably. Gwen was obviously shaken as well.
And once again I say, can we please hear Casey’s voice? She’s four, not two, and Farris makes it clear that she does talk. I want to get inside her head, to see her as more than a prop. I want to hear what she’s going through, in her words.
Peter began to doubt whether it had been a good idea to let Gwen come along with Casey. Maybe he should have just waited until winning on Tuesday. But Dr. Schram had insisted on the ability to observe the two of them together, and so it was simply unavoidable.
Okay so first of all, it’s simply false that Dr. Schram wanting to observe them together meant Peter had to drive them both there together in the same car. They could easily have had Brenda, the foster mother, bring Casey. But secondly, I wish Farris had told us earlier—say, at the ex parte hearing—that Dr. Schram had insisted on observing them both together . Because Dr. McGuire saw them separately I did not understand why, at that hearing, Peter took for granted that they needed to go to Dr. Schram together. Telling us this up front would have cleared up some confusion.
After Casey had gone inside and the door was closed, Peter saw that the crying was getting worse so he gently put his arm around Gwen’s shoulder and said, ‘It won’t be long ’til Tuesday. I’ll never let them take her from you again.”
Farris had not told us that Gwen was crying too, so this confused me for a moment. How could Peter tell that Casey’s crying was getting worse after the door was closed, I wondered? But more to the point, wouldn’t it be really unprofessional for a lawyer to say something like this?
In his review of Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind, Fred Clark of the Slacktivist points out continually that while LaHaye describes Buck Williams as the greatest investigative reporter of all time, Buck is actually a really crappy reporter. What is going on here appears to be similar. Farris constantly tells us that Peter is this absolutely amazing first-rate lawyer, but in fact he has had so many ethical lapses in these first 115 pages that he really should be reported to the bar. It’s a bit jarring.
Of course, in this specific instance Farris acknowledges this:
These were not the words of a lawyer. Lawyers, at least honest lawyers like Peter, would never promise victory at this point. But Peter’s words came from the heart of a man who simply wanted to protect and comfort a woman in distress.
So is Peter an honest lawyer, or isn’t he? Whatever Farris’s justifications, Peter is speaking as Gwen’s lawyer, and doing something Farris admits an “honest lawyer” would never do. But still we’re told Peter’s an honest lawyer. Okay then.
As they drive home, Peter wants to talk to Gwen about what Dr. Schram told him, but Gwen objects.
“Peter, it’s just too hard for me to talk about the case right now. Can’t we talk about something else? Anything. Anything to keep my mind off Tuesday and my fears and worries.”
“Sure. That’s fine,” Peter said. But he had no idea what to say. After an awkward minute or two, he remembered Aaron’s prompting to share the Gospel with his new client. He though the could use his time to at least plant a few seeds.
“OK. I’ve got an idea. It’s not exactly a light topic, but it’s at last different.” He glanced over at Gwen. Her eyes looked so forlorn that he wanted to stop the car and hold her against his shoulder to let her cry and feel comforted. But he knew better and went on with his plan.
“When we went out to lunch on Tuesday, I told you I was a born-again Christian. My faith is something that interests me a lot and I always enjoy hearing about other people’s religious background and experience. Is this OK to talk about?”
“I g-guess,” Gwen stammered.
I get the feeling this wasn’t what Gwen had in mind. She tells Peter that she went to church a few times a year as a child, that her mom was Catholic and her dad was Methodist and they dealt with this difference by rarely going to church at all. Peter asks when she last was in a church, which seems like an odd followup. It seems like asking, “So how about you?” might make more sense. I mean Gwen presumably has her own views, regardless of whether her parents took her to church as a child.
Anyway, Gwen tells Peter about stepping into a church she came to while out on a walk the past Sunday. If you remember, she mostly worried about being judged for her outfit (she wasn’t) and prayed for a win on Tuesday (which she didn’t get). Peter asks Gwen what she thought and she tells him it reminded her “of a church cam I went to when I was about thirteen or fourtSpeen.”
“It was up north of Spokane about thirty miles. I can’t remember the name.”
“Riverside?” Peter suggested.
“Yeah, I think that’s it. How did you know?”
“Well for one thing, it’s the only camp north of Spokane I know about. Also, it is owned by the sister church that I belong to. I go to Valley Fourth Memorial Church, and the downtown church that originally started our church is Fourth Memorial. They won the camp. Just a lucky guess.”
“That’s a pretty good coincidence,” Gwen said. The conversation was having at least one intended effect. She was genuinely focused on something other than her case.
Peter asks her what she remembers from the camp, and she tells him she remembers games, songs, swimming, and lectures—“or ‘sermons’ I guess would be the proper term.” Peter asks her what she thought about the sermons, and this is starting to feel a bit like prying. Gwen says she can’t remember anything “about wha the men said.” Peter is fishing for something specific here. He wants to know if Gwen made a confession of faith.
“Did they ever ask you to come forward or raise your hand or anything like that?”
“Well, I remember coming forward and saying a prayer of some kind, but it was so long ago.”
“Did anyone ever follow up with you about all this after camp?”
“I don’t think so. My friend who took me to camp kept asking me to come to church with her, but I don’t think I ever did.”
Farris doesn’t tell us what Peter is thinking at this point, but I’m sure he’ll hash it over later. The basics is that because Gwen prayed this prayer, she is a Christian. That was her salvation moment. Evangelicals do not tend to believe that you can lose your salvation. However, if a salvation moment is not followed by a changed life, some evangelicals will question whether the conversion was truly heartfelt—and thus whether it counts. I honestly do not know where Farris will fall on this.
“Would you like to go to church with me sometime? After all, it is basically the same church that owns the camp you attended.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Gwen replied. She was uncomfortable with the idea of going to a church where she didn’t know anyone—anyone except Peter, that is.”
“Well, I don’t want to pressure you. But if you’d like to go, I am sure the time you spend in church might really be a source of comfort for you in light of all this mess.”
Your lawyer’s trying to get you to go to church with him the Sunday right before your big hearing, but you know, no pressure. Gwen tells Peter she’ll think about it and call him later.
They drove in silence the rest of the way. Peter flipped on the radio to break the awkwardness. He pulled in the parking garage and stopped behind her car.
Well yes. That conversation was indeed awkward. There are plenty of areas of interesting smalltalk that Peter could have explored when Gwen said she didn’t want to talk about her case. Proselytizing is not one of them.
When they get back to the parking garage and Peter leaves Gwen at her car, he gives her his home phone number and tells her to give him a call if she decides she wants to go to church with him, and to leave a message on his machine if he’s not there and he’ll call back to confirm. Oh—and if she does want to go he’ll pick her up, because for some reason meeting at the church isn’t an option.
Details, details details.
As he walked to the elevator, he said to himself, “It’s evangelism. It’s not a date. It’s evangelism.” Then he thought of Aaron and Proverbs 21:2: All a man’s ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs the heart. He hit the heel of his hand on the elevator door. I don’t know. I just don’t know what is going on inside of me.
Because being a lawyer and evangelizing your client is completely different from being a lawyer and asking your client out. Totally. I mean neither of those involve any major ethical problems at all! Just another day on the job for good honest lawyer Peter.
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