He took a deep breath and began.
“I want you on my side, Kate.” He smiled, palms in the air, a practiced pose.
I nodded. “Of course.”
Here’s where he says “after the election,” or whatever he’s going to say. Keep your mouth shut and do. Not. Cry.
I watched him, trying to soak in details while I could, his thick salt-and-pepper hair with my shade of brown underneath, the way he swirled his hand into the air when he was talking.
“The cat’s out of the bag, as Elliott so eloquently put it.”
He was struggling, blinking a lot, smiling like his cheeks were frozen in that position. A raindrop hit the top of my head.
“We . . . My . . .” He started over. “Seventeen years ago, your mother and I made a mistake.”
The chain of the swing held me up.
Here goes. I knew this wouldn’t be pretty, but . . . don’t cry.
“No, Kate, I’m . . .” He stood upright, stumbling over the bottom of the slide. “I’m trying to say that it wasn’t a mistake. Not all of it. I mean—here you are!”
“I am indeed.” Stupid response, but all I could muster.
A flicker of amusement crossed his face, but it was short-lived. He flinched from the rain and glanced at his watch.
“Let me get right to the point. I’d like you to come up to Maryland, to my home there outside DC. I’d like you to meet Meg. Gracie and Gabe.”
The jungle gym started spinning.
“Now, I’m going to leave today—go up and explain things to the twins. They know a little, but if you could come up tomorrow, I think it would be good. It would . . . it would be the right thing.”
He looked like he was trying to convince himself. His eyes were focused past me, scanning some mental horizon.
“I’ll leave it to you to decide.” He pushed off from the play set and started quickly away.
“Are you happy?” My hand closed tight around the chain.
He turned back, confused by my question. It was an important one, so I asked again, louder.
“Are you happy to find out about me? Is this good news?”
I knew how desperate my face must look, but I couldn’t wipe it clear.
He grinned. It slumped at the corners and then fell off his face until he was blinking down at his shoes. “It is good news. Of course.” He spoke like he was searching for words out of a grab bag. “But it’s . . . a difficult time to find out such good news.”
Suddenly, I saw him. He looked exhausted and sad, and just for one second, when he glanced up at me, hopeful. But then the smile came back, and it was like he was in 2-D on my TV screen, saying “A New Day for America!”
I recognized that smile, and not just from campaign ads. It was my stock smile. The one I’d worn all year.
“Take your time,” he said.
Once he was inside, I sat on the swing, immune to the drizzle. It was a pleasant feeling and a strange one to be alone but not, like when I was little, in bed while Mom’s dinner guests stayed on laughing and clinking glasses. I could see no one but hear them everywhere, surrounding this house. All of them here because of me. And my father.
And he was my father. I didn’t need the mirror or even the blood test for confirmation. There were ways he moved that seemed familiar, from life, not television. By now I felt like an idiot for never having recognized him on the news, for not hitting PAUSE and saying, “Wait a minute—it’s him!”
And if he was my father, then there was a whole family out there that I’d never known about. Sitting on the swing, I felt the same pang of longing I’d had when I first clicked on the photo with the twins in it.
And on the heels of longing came a pang of guilt. What about Uncle Barry and Aunt Tess? They’d taken me in, given me love. Wasn’t that enough?
They were wonderful people, and they did their very best for me. Even so, they had to be counting the days until my graduation. Their teen-parenting days had ended eight years ago when my cousin went off to college. The last thing they’d expected was to be saddled with me.
Of course, the same thing could be said of the senator—and then some. But here he was, inviting me to meet the family, risking political fallout.
I stared at the house. A curtain moved in the back window. Someone in the TV room was watching. One of the staffers. And as the curtain shifted back into place, it all became clear.
I planted my feet. Steadied the swing.
This wasn’t a risk. It was a campaign strategy. Invite her home, bring her on board. That’s what they’d been talking about all morning behind closed doors. Damage control.
They were trying to use me, salvage some bit of his reputation, make a last-ditch effort to rescue his campaign, to quiet those newscasters who had been droning on all day long, asking, “Will he quit?”
This isn’t about me at all.
But did it matter?
I didn’t know the senator well enough to trust him—that was a fact. But if I said no now, would I ever get the chance again?
Past the fence, the press chattered to their cameras, and inside, the masses of staffers placed calls, made plans. But out here, all I could hear was the quiet tapping of rain on plastic. I closed my eyes and listened.
4
Thursday, June 12
Visiting My Long-Lost Family 145 DAYS UNTIL THE GENERAL ELECTION
If the flight attendant recognized me, she did a good job of pretending not to.
“Beverage before takeoff?” she offered.
“Thank you!” I reached across my seatmate for a cup of orange juice. Tim, the aide that the campaign had assigned me, held his newspaper way back like he was terrified I’d spill something on it. I hazarded a smile. “I’ve never flown first class before.”
Sighing, Tim crammed away the newspaper and pulled out an e-reader. He was probably mid-twenties, awkwardly skinny, with a giant Adam’s apple bobbing above the collar of his boxy suit.
“Do you live in DC too?” I asked, by way of, you know, friendly conversation.
“Yeah.” He stuck on a giant pair of noise-canceling headphones. I snuck a look at his screen, spotting something about “jellybeans” and the “INF Treaty.” My AP brain whirred. A biography of Ronald Reagan? Okey dokey.
Tim and I were clearly not going to be pals. He hadn’t for one second warmed to me since he’d piloted me out of the house, through the backyard, over the fence, past my neighbors’ houses, and down the block to a waiting Town Car in the 4:00 A.M. darkness to keep the press from noticing. At first I’d interpreted his silence as grogginess, but after the fourth “Thank you!/grunt” exchange, it occurred to me that Tim was sulking.
He probably blamed me for derailing the senator’s campaign, like I was some dastardly mastermind, plotting to destroy his beloved Republican Party. Step One of Evil Plan: Birth.
If only I were plotting all this. Then I’d know what to do now, exactly what to say when I met Margaret Cooper—the one person who had a legitimate reason to despise me.
My stepmother. Officially.
Nancy had called late last night as I was packing for the weekend.
“The tests came back.” I held my breath, in some weird way clinging to that last moment of ambiguity. “Congrats, Kate. He’s your dad!”
I wasn’t sure congrats was the right sentiment, but I appreciated her attempt, and kind of wished that she were waiting for me in Maryland instead of the senator and three strangers.
Not strangers, I reminded myself. My family.
• • •
The Coopers’ Maryland home was sprawling and grand, surrounded by a high iron fence and acres of green lawn, old oaks dotting the property as if they were keeping guard. It was built in a style that I guessed was Colonial—the wooden exterior was painted a clean, crisp white, but you got the sense that this house had been here for hundreds of years.
When we pulled into the circular front drive, I saw the senator waiting on the porch, a huge oak door ajar b
ehind him. Beside me, Tim perked up like he’d been poked with a cattle prod. He smoothed his suit, and as soon as the car stopped, leaped out to open the door for me and carry my little bag to the house. I shot him a sidelong glare, remembering what little help he’d been this morning as I’d clambered over wooden fences with it slung across my shoulder.
As I reached the top of the brick stairs, the senator gave my arm an awkward pat, then turned brightly to Tim, hand extended. “Thank you for your help today, son.”
“It was my pleasure, sir. Your daughter is delightful.” Tim shot me what I’m sure he thought was a million-dollar grin as he trotted back to the car.
Delightful. Whatever, Tim.
The senator coughed. “Come on in.”
Stock smile in place, I stepped into the house and prepared to greet the family, but the only person in the gleaming front foyer was the security guy from back in South Carolina, the one who’d pulled me from the mob of reporters.
“Oh, hi again!” I grinned. “I’m Kate, by the way.”
“I know.” He winked. “James.”
“Nice to meet you.”
The senator hesitated at the far end of the room, apparently perplexed by the exchange. “Meg’s out back. Come say hello.”
We passed room after lovely room, a bright parlor, a dining area, a wood-paneled library, plodding along in heavy silence. It was fine with me, despite the awkwardness. I had too many questions to know where to start, and besides, I’d have the whole weekend to get to know him. At the thought of it, I glanced over, but the senator was frowning into his phone.
Past a set of tinted glass doors, the garden erupted into light, and there at the bottom was Margaret Cooper. At least, I assumed it was. She looked nothing like the woman from the campaign photos. This woman wore rolled-up jeans and a stained T-shirt, a pair of gardening gloves next to her on an iron patio table. Her blond hair was knotted in a spiky bun on top of her head.
My steps faltered. I’d mentally prepared to meet the campaign wife—not this new person I knew absolutely nothing about.
She stood quickly from her patio chair when she saw us, then sat again, as if thinking better of it—and with that gesture, her outfit transformed before my eyes. She’d dressed down on purpose. I wasn’t sure why, but I could see it, just as I could now pick out moving figures along the edges of the property—security guards silently patrolling the perimeter.
The senator hung back as we approached, until I was reluctantly walking ahead of him. His wife smiled at us, a pinched, almost ironic expression. As I reached her, my brain scrambled for what I’d mentally rehearsed on the plane.
“Hello, Mrs. Cooper. It’s very nice to meet you.” I’d hoped it would sound respectful. It came out petrified.
Her eyes softened, crinkling with momentary pity. Then she stood. “Call me Meg.”
And she walked past, dusting her gardening gloves off against her hip as she glided into the house. Behind me, the senator looked like somebody had hit him with a freeze ray. He didn’t know what to do either.
Meg shouted from one of the back windows, “Come on then, Kate, let me show you your room.”
As soon as we got into the house, the senator ducked down the hall and into a study, shutting the door behind him. I hovered alone in what had to be a family room—although it was way too clean to actually be used as one—not sure where to walk, what to do, what to say, if anything, fighting the twitching in my fingers and toes, the trembling in my jaw, the sudden urge to hide under the sofa.
This is okay. It’s exciting. Not scary. This is your family.
“This way.” Meg squinted at me from the hall.
She led me to a room on the second floor, across a broad corridor from two kids’ rooms that to my relief were complete pigsties.
My room was a guest room. Of course it was, what else would it be? It had some pretty oil paintings, antique furniture, and a window that overlooked the front lawn.
“Do you need to rest?”
“No, I’m fine.” As I turned, I saw disappointment flash across Meg’s face.
She nodded, burying it. “The kids will be home soon. They’re really . . . anxious to meet you.”
“Oh good! Me too.”
Meg leaned against the door frame. I hesitated, not sure how to word my next question without bursting the dam of politeness holding this conversation in check.
“Um . . .”
She raised her eyebrows.
“What did you tell the kids? Do they know—?”
“That you’re their sister?” She crossed her arms. “Yes. We told them the truth. It was not a pleasant conversation, but we got through it and the upshot was . . .” She smiled wryly, as if at some private joke. “They are very excited to have a big sister.”
With that, she blinked hard and started down the hall, calling behind her, “Make yourself at home!”
A woman in a ball gown glared at me from an oil painting above the bed.
“Wait! Mrs. . . . um, Meg?”
She turned with such obvious reluctance that I almost mumbled “Never mind,” but planted my feet instead. This needed to come out now.
“I want you to know . . .” My breath came shaky. “That I’m really sorry about this. I know it can’t be easy for you, and I appreciate—”
“I knew about your mother, you know,” she cut in, so softly that I had to strain to hear. “I knew it was happening at the time. I confronted him. We worked through it. Got past it.”
She made a sharp sound, an empty laugh.
“Oh.”
In the silence, I heard a car door slam.
Meg straightened. “Come meet the twins.”
The two of them were waiting in the foyer when we got there, lined up side by side wearing school uniforms. If there had been five more, they would have looked like the Von Trapp children. Grace was a shade taller than her brother, with bright blond hair and a confident tilt to her chin. As soon as her eyes caught mine, they locked in place with open curiosity. Gabriel, on the other hand, made a show of staring at the ground, stealing furtive glances until he caught me looking and blanched. He had brown hair, like the senator. Like me.
“I’m Gracie and this is Gabe,” Grace said. “And you’re our sister. We already know.” She raised her eyebrows, expecting me to be impressed.
“I’m really excited to meet you.” I grinned and came closer. “I’ve always wanted a brother and sister, so this is great.”
“We’re excited too,” said Gracie.
Gabe muttered something that I couldn’t hear.
“Hey.” Their mom snapped her fingers and crouched. “What was that? Apologize to Kate.”
He scowled, but when he finally peered up at me, he looked genuinely abashed. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Whatever he’d said, it was okay. If I could do cartwheels, I might have. They were shoulder-height to me. Gracie had my blue eyes, and Gabe the same slouch. My little brother and sister. This was amazing.
The front door opened, Elliott Webb walked in, and it was like a cold wind blew in behind him.
“Oh good,” he said, passing us with barely a nod to Meg.
“I need to have a word with you,” she said, trailing him angrily down the hall.
“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately. Hey Mark, you ready?”
The door to the study swung open and Gabe’s face lit up. As the senator strode through the foyer, the twins sprinted to give him a hug. He stooped to embrace them, setting something down on the floor.
A bag. A big one. I glanced outside. A car was idling in the front drive, James poised by the back door.
The senator stood and I asked as lightly as I could, “Are you heading out?”
“Campaign visits.” He ruffled Gabe’s hair. “Ohio and Michigan.”
“When are you back?” Gracie asked, hands on her hips.
The senator mimicked her pose, down to the indignant squint. “Sunday.”
Sunday? But today wa
s Thursday. I was only here for the weekend. Why invite me up and then leave? Before I could form words, let alone questions, Elliott was leading him out the door, and he was calling playfully to the twins: “Be nice to your sister!”
When he turned to wave at me the light went out of his eyes.
“The campaign never stops,” Meg said softly. I barely noticed her shutting and locking the door, barely even remembered where I was, until Gracie grabbed my arm and said, in a voice that brooked no argument, “Let’s go play.”
• • •
We ate a dinner that one of the campaign staffers brought us from an Italian restaurant in DC. The senator had arranged for it in advance, the staffer said, so Meg wouldn’t feel like she needed to cook. I had a hunch that cooking was the least of Meg’s worries this weekend.
The twins did most of the talking, Gracie asking me a million questions, like “What’s your favorite color?” and “Did you read Divergent?” that were easy enough to respond to. Gabe’s questions were more direct, harder to answer, like “Why didn’t we ever know about you?” Meg shushed him for most of the meal. He kept trying.
“When did your mom die?” he asked, and I almost choked on my eggplant Parmesan.
“Gabe—” Meg cut in.
“It’s okay.” I put down my fork. He was watching me with his jaw set, daring me to answer. “She died last August.” Predicting his next question, I added, “She was in a car accident.”
His big eyes sunk down to his plate. “I’m sorry.” He said it so sincerely and sadly that I wanted to comfort him rather than the other way around.
Meg poured herself more wine and cheerily changed the subject. “I’ve got a question. What is . . . your favorite class in school? Everybody can answer this one.”
Gracie sat up straighter, liking this game.
“English,” Gabe said.
“Um . . .” Gracie thought. “English too.”
“No fair!” Gabe was obviously not into the whole twins-do-everything-alike concept.
“Fine, science. Kate’s turn.”
“I think . . . history’s my favorite.”
The Wrong Side of Right Page 3