“Go ahead then, Mr. Dobson,” Judge Sanders said wearily.
Buzz repeated the question.
“Why, I don’t think that question’s fair at all.” Ida’s blue eyes were flashing. Lily had never seenher so openly angry before. “How would you feel if some ... some lesbian came and seduced yourdaughter into a life of sin? Why, you’d just as soon see her dead as —” Perhaps seeing the rays shootingfrom Stephen Hamilton’s eyes, Ida clamped her mouth shut.
“You are a Christian, are you not, Mrs. Maycomb?”
“I most certainly am.”
“Well, aren’t Christians supposed to believe in forgiveness, in people’s ability to change?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, Mr. Dobson.”
“What I’m getting at is ... look at Mrs. McGilly over there. She’s a changed person. She’s marrieda nice young man and is raising Mimi in a normal small town with more Christians in it than you canshake a stick at. Don’t you believe she’s changed, Mrs. Maycomb?”
Ida looked at Lily as though someone was holding something foul smelling under her nose. “No, Idon’t. Not that one. Her sin’s still in there. She’s just covered it up with makeup and a nice hairdo.”
“Let you who are without sin cast the first stone,” Buzz muttered.
“Objection,” Hamilton said. “Mr. Dobson is a lawyer, not a minister.”
Judge Sanders shrugged. “Sustained.”
Buzz smiled sweetly at Ida. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Maycomb. No further questions.”
Lily couldn’t help but be impressed by Buzz’s line of questioning. Certainly he lacked Hamilton’sslickness and drama, but he did a good job of establishing Charlotte as a rational person and Ida as anirrational one. Of course, Judge Sanders had looked bored throughout Buzz’s presentation, so maybe hepreferred a dramatic argument to a rational one.
On the stand for Hamilton, Mike Maycomb blubbered for his sister’s soul. “When I think of mysister, being eternally consumed by the fires of hell, all I can do to comfort myself is to save my niecefrom that same fate.”
“It’s interesting,” Buzz said in his cross-examination, “how you say the only thing that can saveMimi is to raise her in a Christian family, and yet the McGillys are a Christian family. Why, I see JennieMcGilly and Big Ben’s mama over at the Presbyterian church every Sunday. Doesn’t that sound like aChristian family to you?”
“It’s Mimi’s nuclear family I’m concerned about,” Mike said, pronouncing the word nuclear asnu-kyu-ler. Lily guessed they didn’t spend much time on vocabulary at the Christian junior college he hadattended. “I’m sure most of the McGillys mean well, but Lily and Ben ... well, I believe our attorney has