by Sally Quinn
“But Mr. President,” said Abigail, “what’s to stop these drug dealers from doing the same thing in this country? Drugs are rampant. I work with ghetto kids in drug programs. Malcolm and I have done fundraising in Los Angeles and we’re told everybody out there uses them. We’re talking about intelligent, educated, wealthy people who should know better. If you can’t get the message across to them—”
“Oh, please, Abby, everyone,” interjected Lorraine. “This is such a depressing subject. Can’t we just have fun tonight instead of being so serious? After all, it is Sadie’s birthday.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Malcolm, raising his glass.
“To Sadie. Happy Birthday. And what a wonderful evening.”
“To Sadie,” they all chorused, then laughed, as they raised their bellinis to her.
Rosey, who had been engrossed in the talk about the drug problem, seemed to relax when the subject was changed.
“Lorraine,” he said, “I must compliment you on your garden. It is really spectacular. Do you have an English gardener?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Let’s just take a walk around the border,” he said and stood up.
Lorraine noticed that the agents in the garden had suddenly stiffened.
“Foxglove,” he was saying as he took her arm and began to walk toward the back border. “It’s always been my favorite. Do you know that they are terribly poisonous? In medieval times they used to make a potion of them and put it in the king’s mead to kill him.”
“For God’s sake, Rosey, don’t say things like that. It gives me the willies.”
Rosey laughed. “What’s the matter with you, Lorraine?”
“I don’t know. It’s all these men around with their dark glasses and their earphones and those bulges under their arms. I don’t remember there being so many. Doesn’t it ever bother you?”
“Oh, you get used to it. It’s part of being President. To tell you the truth, I never even give it a thought. Sadie worries about it… these lilies are amazing. I’ve never smelled such a strong perfume.”
He leaned toward one of the tall white spires.
Sadie had been sipping her peaches and champagne. She just happened to glance up as the bullet struck Rosey in the front of his chest splattering the white lilies, the pink phlox, and the yellow and white daisies with his bright red blood.
At first he stood up straight. Since his back was partly toward her, Sadie didn’t quite believe he had been hit. But the second shot knocked him backward, seeming to tear his whole torso apart, and sent him flat against the ground.
Sadie watched as everything shifted into slow motion. Within seconds he was surrounded by Secret Service agents, who covered his body and the area around him with their bodies. More shots rang out as the high-ground men in Archie’s bedroom began shooting back. She could hear the shouting as the call for medical assistance went out. The doctor came rushing through the door with a hypodermic. As she tried to run to Rosey, several agents threw themselves around her and pulled her roughly into the house, shielding her body with theirs. She saw the medics rush in with their stretcher and out to the garden. She could hear a command to “neutralize” the attack. She didn’t know what that meant. As she struggled to get out of their strong grip she tried to scream or shout Rosey’s name but nothing came out of her mouth but whimpers.
“Are there more than one? Where did it come from? Will they try again? Evacuate with as much cover as possible to the ambulance,” she heard people saying as others carried her out the front door and down the steps. The medics were just behind her with the stretcher, and when they passed her she looked over and saw Rosey lying there, his body soaked with blood and a small trickle coming out of his mouth. His eyes were open and he gave her a stunned, questioning look. For the first time she was able to make a sound, and when she did she heard her voice whisper, “Rosey, Rosey, what have they done to you?”
It occurred to her only after she had said it that it was the first time she realized he wasn’t dead. They reached the bottom of the steps and she saw the ambulance door open and a medic jump in as they slid the stretcher into the back. The agents had slightly loosened their grip on her and she leapt to the back of the ambulance scrambling in and grabbing Rosey’s legs. Now she had her full voice back and she could hear herself screaming his name.
“Rosey, oh my God, are you all right?”
“Get her the fuck out of there,” shouted a voice behind her. “There isn’t room. We need an agent.” She felt somebody pulling her out by her legs as her skirt rode up almost to her waist.
“Leave me alone, goddammit,” she shrieked.
“The ambulance isn’t armored,” the voice said.
“It’s my husband in there. I have a right. I’m going with him.”
“No, ma’am,” said one of Rosey’s grim-faced agents. “It’s the President of the United States in there.”
With that, he pushed her out of the way, jumped in the back of the ambulance, and slammed the door in her face. Another two agents jumped on the running board of the ambulance and the siren started up as it pulled away from the house.
“Roseyyyyyyyyy,” she cried out, piercing the atmosphere with her pain. Two agents picked her up and carried her to the presidential limousine, threw her in, and jumped in on top of her.
“Rosey, my husband, where are they taking him?” she demanded.
“George Washington University Hospital, Mrs. Grey.”
The noise from the sirens was deafening. She couldn’t see the ambulance or its police escort because the follow-up van with the agents was in between them and the limousine. The only thing she could see, and what she would remember later, were the two flags on either side of the front of the limousine. The American flag and the presidential flag. The next day would be the Fourth of July.
* * *
The President’s ambulance pulled up under the canopy of George Washington University Hospital just as Sadie’s limousine was rounding Washington Circle behind it. She saw a group of men surround her husband’s stretcher as they carried him to the emergency room entrance.
When she entered, the corridor to the emergency room was already filled with Secret Service agents. She turned to her left, accompanied by her own two agents, and started running through the emergency room to the back where one area to the left was filled with people and partially curtained off. She heard someone shout for “an IV for the President.” Then she heard a frighteningly calm voice say something about the wound being to the abdomen and asking for a chest tube.
There were so many men with their backs to her that she couldn’t see over them. She couldn’t see anything and she tried to claw her way past the first row of them. Her own agents grabbed her again and turned her away, leading her back down the hallway.
“For God’s sake,” she shouted, “let me see my husband. Is he still alive? Please, I beg of you, don’t keep me away from him.”
“He’s alive, Mrs. Grey,” said the agent who had her arm. “But there’s no space in the resuscitation area. They’re preparing the President for surgery. They want you to wait in here.”
They ushered her into a tiny holding room, no larger than a broom closet, at the entrance to the emergency room. There was a telephone, a small table, two metal chairs, and a tray of half-eaten food—meatloaf, soup, kale, and half a can of soda. The room smelled of stale food, and the dark blue wall on one side seemed to come down on her as she stood there. For a moment she thought she might throw up or faint, and she closed her eyes, only to be steadied by four strong hands. Then she heard someone say that the President was being taken to the operating room. She saw a horde of people from the resuscitation room coming around the corner in front of her, heading down the hall.
She jumped out the door just as they wheeled her husband by. Rosey caught her eye as she stood staring at him in shock. He had lost all of his color. His skin was white and his lips were blue. He had a ghostly appearance,
partially wrapped as he was in a sheet. His shirt had been ripped off his chest. There seemed to be tubes coming from everywhere. She had never seen so much blood in her life. It was not only on Rosey but also on the white-coated doctors who were escorting him.
She had grabbed onto the side of the gurney so she could walk holding his hand as they wheeled him rapidly to the O.R.
“My wife,” Rosey whispered to one of the doctors standing above him as they approached the operating room. “I want to speak to my wife. It’s very important.”
“We have to move quickly, Mr. President. You’re losing a lot of blood.”
“Please.”
The doctor hesitated a moment, then nodded.
Rosey held up his hand to gesture to the agents for privacy, and they backed away a few steps. She leaned down toward his face.
He reached up and grabbed the back of her head so that her lips were almost touching his. He stared deeply into her eyes.
“You’re going to be just fine, darlin’, I know you will,” she said, gasping, as her tears fell onto his lips.
“My precious Sadiebelle.… I love you. And I forgave you… a long time ago.”
“Oh God, Rosey, don’t talk like that. Not now. Please, you don’t need—”
“Hush, angel. I have to tell you…”
She could feel the pressure on the back of her head from his hand. He was squeezing her other hand so hard that it hurt.
“I know Willie is not my son.”
The sound that came from her mouth was a guttural moan. Before she could shake her head, Rosey continued.
“It’s all right. I’ve known it all along… I love him like my own. It doesn’t matter.… All that matters was having you back. I know it’s not easy… you tried… sorry I couldn’t make you more happy.”
“Oh Rosey, I do love you. More than you will ever know. Oh Jesus, God in heaven, I’m so sorry, so sorry. I can’t bear this.”
She began to sob uncontrollably.
“Mr. President, we really have to get you in there, sir. We can’t wait any longer,” said the doctor, the urgency unmistakable in his voice.
“You have to,” Rosey almost shouted, summoning up his last bit of energy.
“Promise me, Sadiebelle.”
Before she could answer he continued.
“Never tell him the truth. Raise him as my son. Make him proud of me.”
“I will, I promise, Oh Rosey, I—”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President, we’re going in,” said the doctor as forcefully as he could. He pushed the gurney forward, leaving Sadie, her hand torn from his, standing helplessly in the middle of the hall, tears streaming down her face, her turquoise dress covered in blood.
* * *
Someone, she couldn’t remember who, had taken her arm and led her to an elevator. There were a lot of agents and people in white in the elevator. They showed her into a corner office, all glass, overlooking Washington Circle. It was twilight now, a little after nine, and the cars had their lights turned on. She had driven around this circle so many times. The Kennedy Center was only a few blocks away. All she had ever noticed were the beautiful little apple trees, especially in the spring when they were in bloom. Now all those people in those cars were speeding home to people they loved and here she was, in a hospital, waiting to see if her husband would die.
There seemed to be a lot of noise around her, a lot of people asking her if she wanted anything, a lot of phones ringing, a lot of motion. She was numb, oblivious to it all except from some sort of vague, faraway place. It occurred to her that she was cold, freezing, in fact, in her strapless dress in this air-conditioned room. Some words to that effect came out of her mouth and immediately a man’s gray jacket was over her shoulders. She mentioned something about hot tea and a mug was placed in her hand a few minutes later.
She alternated between staring hypnotically out at the swirling traffic and concentrating on the red, white, and gray love seat she was sitting on. She noticed that the chair in front of her was an off-white velvet desperately in need of cleaning.
There were bookcases with medical books and plaques and family pictures… family pictures. She suddenly thought of her two older children, Outland and Annie Laurie. They were both away for the summer. Someone would have to notify them about their father.
She broke out of her reverie for a moment, looking up at one of the agents in the room.
“My children…” she began.
“They’re on their way, ma’am.”
Shortly, her husband’s chief of staff walked in, looking exceptionally solemn, and rushed over to give her a hug. He was accompanied by several aides and the attorney general.
“Jesus, Sadie,” he said. “I can’t believe this thing. What the hell happened?… Never mind, you’re hardly in shape to answer that. I’ve just been downstairs. They’re still in surgery. One of the doctors is coming up pretty soon to give you a report.”
“Is he, is he…?”
“He’s alive.”
Period. That was all he said. Not doing well, or going to make it, or hanging in there. Just… alive.
“The Vice President was in Tennessee. He’s flying in.”
She couldn’t have cared less where Freddy Osgood was.
“George Manolas is in the next room trying to handle the press situation. Things are already going crazy. And if…” he froze before he said it. She stared at him, disbelieving.
“I’m going down to see where the hell that doctor is. I’ll be right back.” He gave her a squeeze, not looking her in the eye, and disappeared.
She stood up and began pacing. The clock on the wall said it was after 10:00 P. M. Had she really been waiting an hour? She walked over to a wall and read one of the plaques:
“Most people fear change more than disaster,” one of them read.
It seemed ironic. Here she had opted against change in her life in order to avoid disaster, and now she had both.
The door was ajar and she could see into the open office area beyond and into a conference room adjacent to the one she was in. Already WHCA, the White House Communications Agency, had set up the command post there, and the place was swarming.
She walked out of the executive office and stood outside the conference room door staring in.
The first thing she heard was her husband’s press secretary telling someone on the telephone that “it doesn’t look good; in fact, it looks terrible.”
A moment later someone noticed her. Then Manolas felt the silence and turned. His face turned ashen at the sight of her.
“Mrs. Grey,” he said, mumbling an apology. “I didn’t realize you were there.”
“It’s all right,” she said quietly and walked back to the executive office.
It was only a few minutes later that the doctor came up. His green surgical garb was splattered with blood and his hair was disheveled.
He simply stood in front of her. She begged him with her eyes.
“The uh, the uh President…” he cleared his throat. “We went into his chest, and when we opened him up we discovered that the entrance of the bullet was high. This is a very dangerous area to repair. We put him on cardiopulmonary bypass. We clipped the aorta and exposed it above the renal arteries. Not only the aorta but the superior mesenteric artery had been hit. A good part of the aorta was destroyed by the bullet. We keep finding new sites of bleeding and we continue to clamp them, but his pressure keeps dropping. The anesthesiologist is trying to keep up with the blood loss. You see, as you clamp the aorta you deprive the lower body of blood, including the abdomen and kidneys. The body becomes acidotic and the shock can become irreversible…. The heart slows down… the pressure drops.…”
“What are you telling me?”
“It, uh, it looks grim.”
She stood there for a moment taking it all in. Then, before she even thought about what she was doing, she dashed for the door. She pushed the doctor aside as she had been pushed aside so many times that evening,
and ran out of the office, through the open executive suite, out into the corridor. In front of her was a sign identifying Stairway No. 1. She opened the door and began running down the stairs as fast as she could in her high heels, grasping at the red railings to steady herself. When she came out at the bottom she was confused for a moment, then she saw a lot of men to the right and turned toward them.
She went down another corridor until she saw a room full of people in green surgical outfits, patients with oxygen masks, tubes, and IVs. There was another sign: “No admittance or throughway.” She burst through it, going as fast as she could, leaving a number of bewildered people behind her.
As she raced out of the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit she saw the double swinging doors to the O.R. and the phalanx of Secret Service agents blocking them. They were waiting for her, as was the doctor who had spoken to her earlier.
Instead of trying to fight her way into the operating room, which she realized would be useless, she slumped against the wall.
“Please,” she said to the doctor. “Please.”
“We just can’t let anyone into the O.R., Mrs. Grey. You’ll have to understand.” His face could not hide his anguish. “There’s a small room right here you can wait in.”
He took her arm and led her into a tiny windowless office with three chairs and a small desk. It was airless and she became claustrophobic.
“I’m having trouble breathing,” she said, sinking into the chair and putting her head in her hands.
The doctor called for a nurse and instructed her to bring the First Lady some smelling salts and a glass of ice water.