“Overjoyed,” he said.
37
THEY HAD FINISHED their coffee—as well as most of the cookies, when her parents came in. Preston stood up right away, and after he’d said good-night to them, her father did the same, heading across the hall for some long-overdue sleep.
With the President back upstairs, there was a certain amount of traffic in and out of the room—a number of her aides and advisors showing up with thick folders and papers, and holding swift whispered conversations, and a steady stream of medical personnel, magically appearing to recheck every conceivable tube, chart, and medication, and also to bring in trays of fresh fruit, yoghurt, cottage cheese, chicken soup, and various other things that the Leader of the Free World was known to eat. Throughout all of this, her mother kept a close eye on her, and finally made a polite request for them to be left alone, if possible, for the next few hours, so that her daughter could get some rest.
“How was your barium?” Meg asked, when they were finally by themselves.
Her mother looked embarrassed. “I’ve had better.”
“Are you okay?” Meg asked.
Her mother shrugged. “They’re going to give me some medication to take. I’ll be fine.”
That didn’t sound too good. Meg looked at her nervously. “So, you’re not okay?”
“A little gastritis, maybe,” her mother said. “Nothing to worry about.”
And she might, or might not, be telling the truth.
“I’m sorry about last night,” her mother said. “I should have—it won’t happen again.”
As far as she knew, it was the first time it had ever happened in the last eighteen years, so, odds were, that it had, indeed, been an aberration. “It wasn’t your fault. I was stupid to overreact like that,” Meg said.
Which probably would happen again, and not infrequently.
Her mother sighed. “Meg—”
Oh, Christ, she wasn’t in the mood for this. “Could you help me get into my wheelchair, so I can go to the bathroom?” Meg asked.
“Of course,” her mother said, and then waited by the door to assist her again on her way out.
Once she was back in bed, she let her mother turn her pillow, fix her blankets, and pour her some ice water.
“I need to do some work,” her mother said. “Would you like me to stay in here, or go down to the conference room?”
Much as she wanted some privacy, she really didn’t want to be alone. “In here is good,” Meg said.
So, she lay in bed, dozing, the room dark except for the desk lamp. Her mother sat there, going through papers and making, or receiving, the occasional phone call. She tended to be a very quiet and serene worker, and it was soothing to listen to a page turning, a pen writing, a low voice on the telephone.
Meg was almost asleep when she heard her saying softly, “No, don’t worry, it’s not perforated. They gave me this gastric cocktail, and—really, I’m fine.” Then, her mother listening, nodding in response to whatever the person on the other end was saying. “I know, I’ve been worried about that, but nothing’s shown up in her tests. Apparently, she just isn’t eating.” She listened again. “I think about ten pounds, but it’s hard to be sure.”
Well, that certainly wasn’t the President having a brisk, purely professional conversation. It would be interesting to listen, and get some idea of what her mother was thinking lately—but, it would also be sneaky, which had never been her style. So, she moved restlessly, coughed as though she was just waking up, and then lifted herself onto her good elbow, blinking.
Her mother’s voice immediately became much more guarded. “Could I call you back tomorrow night?” She listened. “How late is really okay?” She listened some more. “All right. And, honestly, if there’s anything—I know, I know. But, I can’t not say it.” She laughed, and then hung up.
“I’m sorry,” Meg said. “I wasn’t eavesdropping or anything.”
Her mother nodded. “Thank you for letting me know that you weren’t asleep, though.”
Ah, so the beautiful awakening scene hadn’t been convincing? The cough had been a shade too dramatic, maybe. “Was that Mrs. Peterson?” Meg asked.
Her mother nodded.
“How is she?” Meg asked.
Her mother shook her head. “I don’t know. She sounds better, but—well.” She crossed the room and poured fresh water into the glass on the bedside table.
Meg drank some without thinking, but it felt so Pavlovian that she put it back down.
Her mother looked at her desk—perhaps longingly, but then sat in the chair by the bed.
Which kind of bugged her, because shouldn’t she be happy that her only daughter was home for the next couple of weeks, and take advantage of every opportunity to spend time with her? Not that they had to be attached at the hip, but Christ, the country wasn’t expecting her to work twenty-four hours a day, right? And even if they did, that was their problem.
“What?” her mother asked.
Meg shook her head, and her mother subsided at once—which also got on her nerves. It would be such a relief to have her mother press her for an answer, instead of its always being the other way around. It wasn’t as though she had problems being direct and authoritative with everyone else on the whole damned planet.
No wonder her father seemed to have lost patience to such a degree.
Her mother—who was, obviously, not a stupid woman, and was very good at taking the temperature of any given encounter—shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I really am sorry about last night, Meg. I know I let you down.”
To hell with that. “Can not, have not, and will not” had let her down. For starters.
And if her mother got up right now, and left the room, she just might not speak to her again for the rest of spring break.
Her mother glanced at the desk, glanced at the door, glanced at her, hesitated, and then, stayed where she was, folding her arms around herself.
They didn’t get too many chances to be alone, relatively uninterrupted. Even in the family quarters, her father and brothers were there most of the time, and the phone rarely stopped ringing, so her mother could always find an easy way to escape, when she started feeling pressured. But right now, in the middle of the night, in a heavily guarded hospital room, with her father asleep, her brothers at home, and the staff under orders not to come in unless it was absolutely necessary, they had something resembling genuine privacy—and if she let an opportunity like this go by, there was no guarantee that she would get another chance anytime soon.
“Did you cry?” Meg asked. “When I was gone?”
Her mother looked startled. “I’m sorry, what?”
Had she developed a sudden hearing impairment? As a precaution, Meg counted to ten. “Did you?”
Her mother’s posture had stiffened noticeably, and she was no longer even pretending to make eye contact. “I don’t—that is, I’m not sure why you’re asking.”
Because she wanted to know the answer, maybe? Meg shrugged, slowly flexing and releasing her good hand. Somehow, seeing fingers work effortlessly was more surprising than watching fingers that didn’t work anymore. “You don’t have to tell me. I mean, I guess it isn’t any of my business.”
Her mother touched Meg’s fist. “You can ask me absolutely anything you want.”
Which was great and all, but she’d done just that—and look where it hadn’t gotten her.
Her mother sighed. “Okay. Do you want the easy answer, or the complicated one?”
At this point, she really just wanted to turn the light out and try to go to sleep.
“No,” her mother said. “I didn’t cry until I got you back.”
Terrific. Christ, maybe she really wasn’t human. Or sane.
Her mother let out her breath. “I didn’t have any safe place where I could even think of doing it. And I knew if I started—well, I couldn’t, that’s all.”
No, there was no way that a President could risk being seen disso
lving into tears, regardless of the provocation. “Usually, you only cry in front of Dad,” Meg said.
Her mother nodded.
“But you didn’t, this time,” Meg said.
Her mother shook her head.
Not a promising reaction. “Are you guys in trouble?” Meg asked.
“Meg, I really don’t—” Her mother stopped, apparently changing her mind about whatever she had been planning to say. “I’m not sure if that’s something you and I can discuss. Or, at any rate, should discuss.”
They were in trouble.
“Meg, it’s not anything you need to worry about,” her mother said.
Like hell it wasn’t.
Her mother sighed. “All right, I’ll give you this much. Your father and I are working on the fact that we not only weren’t supportive of each other, during the most horrific event our family has ever experienced, but we were actually downright destructive. And, that’s something we need to figure out.”
“We,” Meg said. “Not ‘he?’”
“In a marriage, it’s always ‘we.’ Don’t ever trust anyone who pretends otherwise,” her mother said, rather snappishly. “Anyway, we failed as spouses, and I failed as a parent. And that’s—neither of us is taking it very well.”
Really? She hadn’t noticed.
“You wanted to cry, though, right?” Meg asked.
Her mother looked at her with an expression that went well beyond misery. “There aren’t enough tears in the world, Meg.”
No, probably not. She found herself wondering, out of nowhere, whether maybe it would have been easier for everyone if she hadn’t made it back, instead of their having to deal with a daily reminder of how terrifying and random life could be, and how much damage—
“When they found your teeth, I thought I was going to lose my mind,” her mother said, so softly that Meg had to lean over to hear her.
Jesus. How many ugly secrets were still hidden away? Could they all be any more damned repressed?
It had been dark in the back of the van, and the men had all been screaming and swearing at her, while one of them slammed a machine gun across her face a few times, and she had no idea what it was they’d been shoving in her mouth. Metal, was all she knew for sure. Pliers, maybe? Actual dental tools? Meg touched her jaw protectively. “Did they send them to you or something? To prove they had me?” Which seemed out of character for the guy—he’d been too careful to take chances like that.
“No. They abandoned the van they used initially, and our people found it that first night. And your teeth were—” Her mother’s eyes brightened, but her voice was still perfectly controlled. “After I gave the order twice, they finally brought them over in these little plastic evidence bags, so that I could see them, and there were the roots, and tissue, and I knew it was you, possibly all I was ever going to have of you again, and—” Her voice was no longer steady. “My God, Meg, I can’t imagine how much that must have hurt. It makes me sick every time I think—I am so sorry.”
Here was one she could alleviate, at least. “I was only awake for the first part of it,” Meg said. The tools slamming against her molars, and skidding off and cutting into her gums and tongue, as she tried to struggle away from the men, so scared that she couldn’t breathe or speak. “He had them knock me out.” Had it just been practical? A concern that she might scream too loudly, and people on the street or driving by would hear her? Or, had it been a moment of mercy? Either way, thank God for it. “I didn’t even know what they’d done until I woke up in a puddle of blood.”
Judging by the stricken look on her mother’s face, the phrase “puddle of blood” had been a tactical error.
“Were the, um, teeth what you would have buried?” Meg asked. “I mean, if I hadn’t—well, you know.”
What little color had been in her mother’s cheeks was now completely gone.
Okay. Much too blunt to say to an ulcer-ridden, guilt-ridden person.
Her mother picked up Meg’s ice water, took a few methodical sips, and then put it down. “I don’t want to put pressure on you,” she said, her voice calm again, “but do you think there’s any way you could bring yourself to start asking me the really tough questions?”
Humor. Rarely undesirable, even when tasteless. And despite her inability to throw baseballs effectively, it was comforting to remember that her mother was gifted at playing hardball, and therefore, nearly impossible to rattle. “I can try,” Meg said. “Although I’m concerned about offending your delicate sensibilities.”
Her mother smiled, slightly. “It’s never going to be funny, Meg.”
No. It never was.
She drank the rest of her water, not sure if she wanted to know the answer to the question she was going to ask next. “Did they find my clothes, too? In the van?”
Her mother nodded, reluctantly.
“Well,” Meg said. How humiliating. “That must have given everyone a lot to think about.”
Her mother just nodded.
So, an untold number of people—the FBI, the Secret Service, the higher-ranking members of the staff, probably some of the press corps, God only knew who else—had had some very vivid, if inaccurate, images of the specific conditions under which she was being held. Her parents. Trudy. Preston.
With luck, her brothers had never been told.
“I, uh, I assume they fondled me,” Meg said. The thought of which was enough to induce violent nausea. And molested, or assaulted, were probably more accurate descriptions—but, she didn’t want to use either of those words. Imagining them dressing her in that cheap sweatshirt and sweatpants, touching her the entire time, wasn’t too entertaining, either. “I mean, he made it pretty clear that he’d—enjoyed the view, but I don’t think they had time to—” God, she felt sick to her stomach. “I would have known, if they’d done something terrible, right? While I was unconscious?”
Her mother nodded. “You would have been in significant, probably severe, pain,” she said, her voice so measured and gentle that Meg almost didn’t notice how tightly her free hand was clutching the bed railing, “and I’m certain that you would have noticed quite a lot of blood. And if an attack had been, um—” she closed her eyes for a second, but still spoke evenly— “oral, you would have been aware of—you would have known.”
Which was what she had always assumed—but, still.
Her mother was watching her, with some combination of urgency and quiet terror, and Meg shook her head. Her mother kept looking at her, and then sank back in the chair, breathing much harder than she had been, so pale that it was unnerving. Not sure what else to do, Meg touched her mother’s now-trembling arm.
“Mom, it’s okay,” she said. “They didn’t.”
Her mother nodded, took a deep breath, and then nodded again.
Jesus. “All these months,” Meg said, “and this is the first time you’ve ever really believed me about that?”
This time, her mother’s nod was more of a shudder. “I’m sorry. I just thought you might have—anyway. Thank God.”
Yeah. But, there was still one thing that— “What if there are photos?” she asked, afraid to say it aloud, but realizing that, somewhere deep inside, she must have been worrying about it for a very long time. “I mean, when I was unconscious, they might have—” Not a scene she wanted to imagine. “What if they show up somewhere, and I’m—” Naked. Maybe even posed in some horrible, degrading way, or—she fumbled for a Kleenex.
Her mother opened her arms, and Meg not only sat up enough to hug her, but hung on.
“Do you have reason to believe that there might be?” her mother asked, still holding her. “Did they say anything, or maybe make jokes about it?”
Had he? God knows he’d made plenty of mean jokes at her expense, but she couldn’t remember him even hinting about anything like that, so she shook her head.
“I have people scouring the Internet every day, looking for any references at all about you or your brothers,” her mother said. “If
anything surfaces, they’ll find it.”
Maybe.
“And if, God forbid, there are any out there, I don’t think even the lowest of the tabloids would touch them,” her mother said. “And they can be assured of very serious legal and criminal repercussions, if they do.”
It was a small comfort, but better than nothing.
“Are they ever going to catch them?” Meg asked. Him, mainly, of course.
“They’d damned well better,” her mother said.
* * *
NEITHER OF THEM got much sleep, although, after giving herself another pump of her pain medication, Meg was able to drift off, while her mother dozed in the chair.
At about five-thirty, she was aware of a small flurry of activity, after her mother took a couple of phone calls, and then various aides, including the national security advisor and the deputy chief of staff, came in for urgent, muttered conversations, and each time she finished one of the swift consultations, her mother would glance at the bed to see if she had woken up.
After Winifred, the deputy chief of staff, left for the second time, she watched sleepily as her mother frowned down at her desk, deep in thought, looking far more Presidential than parental.
“What’s going on?” Meg asked.
“Riyadh continues to be a problem,” her mother said, without elaborating.
Which could mean all sorts of things, none of them good.
It developed that her mother was going to be holding a high-level staff meeting down in the conference room at six-thirty, and then heading straight back to the White House, so, in short order, a nurse and two corpsmen appeared with coffee, juice, milk, cereal, fruit, yoghurt, muffins, pastries, and three different kinds of toast, all of which her mother ignored, except for the coffee and a piece of whole wheat bread. Then, her father came in, looking somewhat more rested than he had a few hours earlier, although after saying good morning, his first move was towards the coffee, too.
Her mother was long gone by the time Meg finally got discharged and was driven back to the White House with her father. There was a wheelchair waiting for her near the South Portico stairs, and even though there were some photographers around, everything hurt enough so that she let her father, Dr. Steiner, and one of the White House Medical Unit nurses help her into it.
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