by Laura Hayden
Once the door was closed behind them, Emily gave her a warm hug. “I was starting to get worried about you.” She gave Kate a close scrutiny. “Honey, you look like the weight of the free world is still on your shoulders. But the campaign’s over. We won. You can afford to relax now.”
“No. I can’t.” Kate said. She bit her lip before her words started pouring out, uncontrolled and bitter. She wanted to be completely in control of her emotions before she confronted Emily.
Emily sighed, obviously ignorant of the battle brewing inside Kate. “I know. I feel the same way. Campaigning is hard work, but nothing compared to running a country.” She dropped to the bed. “If I allowed myself a chance to stop and think about what I’m taking on, I’d probably run out of this hotel screaming like the Madwoman of Chaillot.
“Remember when we went to New York on spring break back when we were in school? How we jumped on our beds at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel and had a pillow fight? Mom was horrified, but Dad told me that he hoped I’d never get too old to bounce on the bed.”
“Yeah,” Kate said. Decades of memories came crashing down upon her. Room service, going to plays, Emily’s genuine pleasure at sharing the treat with her friend. The phrase “Never get too old to jump on the bed” had become an inside joke, a motto for that trip and later, the watchwords for those times when the responsibilities of law school—and beyond—threatened to drag them down.
When Nick and Emily got married, their gift to each bridesmaid included a sterling silver box engraved with that motto. Kate still had that box sitting in a place of honor on her dresser.
“Well?” The next president of the United States, the Honorable Emily Rousseau Benton, took off her shoes and took a few experimental bounces on the bed as if to test the bed’s recoil potential.
“Not today.” Kate tried to smile, desperately wanting to recapture that same sense of giddy accomplishment that Emily evidently felt. Kate had indeed expected to feel a sense of joyous triumph when thinking ahead to this day. But now her heart was too heavy, her mind too burdened with the difficult decision that lay ahead of her.
Emily stopped jumping, the bed undulating in her wake. “Why not?” she said. The confusion that initially filled her face dissolved into an expression that Kate couldn’t quite understand. Then it passed almost immediately to a tight, guarded smile. “You have a point. I need to be dignified. Somehow, I don’t think the White House curator is going to let anyone jump on the bed in the Lincoln Bedroom. Not you. Not even me.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Emily locked eyes with her for a moment. Then she turned away, unable to hold the contact for long. A Benton never crumbled under pressure. A real Benton dodged it. The president-elect slid off the bed, pulled on her heels, and straightened her skirt. She didn’t meet Kate’s gaze.
“You’re right. We’re both exhausted. You’ve always dealt with exhaustion in different ways than I do. Why don’t you take off a—”
“I’m exhausted. But that’s not the problem. I’m confused. Angry. And I’m disappointed in you.” Kate’s heart took the extra beat it always did when she made the final decision to confront her best friend. “You didn’t need to send Maia to steal the files from me. You should have talked to me about it.”
“Oh.” Emily spoke in a low, even voice. “You found out about that?”
Kate nodded.
“I didn’t send her,” Emily said. “She did that on her own, trying to curry my favor.”
Kate didn’t know whom to believe. She knew Emily better than she knew herself in some ways. Emily was brilliant, capable, the best person imaginable to have around in an emergency. She was a born leader. But part of that leadership tool kit was that she would also stop at nothing when she wanted something. Of course, Maia was cut from the same cloth. Emily’s words were plausible. “So did the favor currying work?” She tried to keep any emotion out of her voice. “Did she make a big impression on you?”
“Yes, but it was a mixed bag. I thought Maia showed a remarkable amount of initiative, but I told her that she’d chosen the wrong person to cross.”
“But that didn’t stop you from reading the reports, did it?”
“Of course not. I’d have been a fool to lose that unexpected opportunity. I’m no fool. You know that.”
“Yes, I do. And I guess that’s why you instructed her to send the threatening e-mail to Talbot. Were you just taking advantage of another unexpected opportunity?”
“Sure. It seemed the wise thing to do at the moment. He was a loose cannon. He needed to be locked down.”
“And now? Are you still glad you did it?”
Emily collapsed on the bed, her ice queen facade shattered. A single tear trickled down her face, leaving a glistening trail through her perfect makeup. “No. I regret it more than you’ll ever know.” She bent her head, trying desperately to hide the additional tears, but a sob tore through her, making her shoulders shake.
Kate almost gaped at her friend. She’d seen Emily’s crocodile tears before. But they didn’t look anything like this. This was the real thing.
Real emotion. Real regret. . . .
Emily continued. “Mind you, I didn’t hate what I did to Charles Talbot. He’s a pariah, an abomination. A murderer. He should never have been able to get away with driving that car while drunk, and leaving that poor girl behind, still clinging to life, to take the rap for his actions. Had he gotten her help at the time of the accident, she might have survived the crash as something other than a vegetable. But no, he had to save face, run away, pretend nothing had happened. He left her to die in that car. It took hours for anyone to discover the wreck. Then he had the audacity to bribe and threaten people into giving him an alibi. He had to make everyone think she’d been the one driving while intoxicated, even if it killed her. He’s the lowest of scumbags. I won’t apologize for pricking whatever fragments he has left of his conscience. I’m pretty sure all I did was dent his enormously bloated and unconscionable pride.”
Emily’s flare of anger dissipated quickly, as if she suddenly felt guilty of failing to be remorseful for her own actions. Kate knew that, for Emily, anger was an emotion easier to understand and embrace than remorse. Especially when she felt that anger was righteous. Emily could move mountains when she had on a full load of righteous anger. Kate had seen her shame an entire state legislature into voting for health insurance for disadvantaged children, all because she’d vented her anger into a biting five-minute speech to them.
Kate gave her friend a steady stare. “What he did and what you did are separate issues. And you know it.”
“I’m sorry.” Emily’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You’re right. When Maia gave me those copies, I did exactly what you were afraid I was going to do.” She looked up, naked emotion filling her face, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I allowed my need for revenge to overwhelm my sense of honor. I’m so sorry.” She stood, her arms at her side. Her voice broke in a show of raw emotion that Kate had never seen from her before.
“Kate, can you forgive me?”
Kate felt tears forming in her own eyes.
Could she forgive Emily? Of course she could. Christ was clear on the responsibility to forgive a repentant sinner. Kate could do no less.
But could she trust Emily enough to continue working for her? That was another question entirely.
For now, she reached over and hugged her friend. The two of them cried together for what seemed like hours.
But the big question—whether Kate would stay on after this—hung over them. No matter how often Emily asked it, Kate refused to answer.
Finally Emily said, “Take some time, go home, cool off, and then we’ll talk.”
As was often the case, Emily was right.
ROBERT FROST ONCE SAID something to the effect that home was a place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. He never mentioned anything about what to do when home is no longer home.
Ever since Kate’
s parents had moved out of the family home where she’d grown up, she always felt a little out of place in their retirement house, even though she knew she was welcome there.
It was . . . different. Yet there were still reminders of her childhood home—like her grandmother’s armless rocking chair in her parents’ bedroom. On the coffee table sat her father’s humidor, which had never held a single cigar but instead a constantly changing collection of pens and pencils. Just like before, her mother had hung the family photographs in the hallway leading to the bedrooms, the pictures chronicling the growth of Kate and of her brother, Brian, from childhood to adulthood.
Kate studied how her mother had balanced the diametrically opposed lives of her two children. Brian’s pictures included his wedding portrait and both formal and casual shots of Jill and Brian. Her brother’s pictures often showed him in uniform. The lives of his three kids, their parents’ only grandchildren, were also carefully chronicled, with a place of special honor given to the pictures of the new baby.
Kate’s collection of photos lacked a husband and children but included her multiple graduations and shots of her various roles in life—lawyer, assistant to the lieutenant governor, assistant to the governor, and manager of Emily’s presidential campaign. Kate knew it was her mother’s way of showing that she had just as much pride in Kate’s accomplishments as she did in Brian’s. The photographs even included a few snapshots of Kate standing next to Emily, aka “our adopted daughter.”
And that was true. As much as Emily loved her fellow Bentons, she lovingly called the Rosens her “wonderful normal family.” Holidays at the Benton manse had always been magnificent affairs with twenty-foot trees decorated by Martha Stewart herself, meticulously wrapped presents in color-coordinated paper, and gourmet meals cooked by some of the finest chefs in the world. The opulence both entranced and repelled Kate the few times she had joined in the grand festivities.
A Rosen family Christmas included homemade ornaments—some of them embarrassingly bad childhood craft projects from long ago—Christmas cards pinned to a piece of yarn stretched across the fireplace mantle, a Crock-Pot steaming with apple cider all hours of the day, and Christmas Eve services at church where no one minded if Kate was somewhat tone-deaf when she sang with gusto.
But it wasn’t Christmas.
It wasn’t even Thanksgiving.
Kate went home, nonetheless.
Her parents lived in a small town in the center of Virginia, just far enough from Richmond and D.C. not to be considered a distant bedroom community of either city. When her parents retired, they both wanted to escape the rat race known as commuting from outside the Beltway into D.C. No wonder that they chose a sleepy little town with enough amenities to support their hobbies but not enough traffic to fry their brains.
Due to the driving distance, Kate didn’t arrive until late afternoon. At her parents’ insistence, she crashed in the spare bedroom right after she said hello to them. She’d had no sleep in the last forty-eight hours.
When she woke up, Kate was momentarily disoriented. Then she finally recognized her surroundings—her parents’ guest room. She felt a familiar warm pressure against her back.
“Move over, Buster.”
Her dog, Buster—half beagle, half poodle—cracked open one eye, yawned, stretched, and fell back asleep with a grumpy but satisfied sigh. Her parents had been babysitting Buster for the past two weeks leading up to the election since her job as campaign manager meant packing thirty hours of work in twenty-four-hour days. Working harder than a dog herself meant she had little time to devote to him. A little vacation in the country seemed the ideal way to make sure he wasn’t neglected while she toiled.
Kate told herself that Buster was the reason she came back, but she knew it was far more complicated than that. She needed a sympathetic ear, a sounding board. There were no better listeners in the world than her parents. They might have escaped the political rat race by moving to the middle of nowhere, but that didn’t mean they didn’t still understand the rats.
Glancing at the bedside clock, she realized that, to no surprise, her afternoon nap had turned into a very long night’s sleep. Nothing had interrupted her. No anxious phone calls. No text messages. No demands on her time.
Glorious.
She rolled tentatively from the bed, stretched, and followed the aroma of hot coffee to the kitchen. Her father, long since retired, still woke up early on the weekends to prepare a full breakfast. Although her homecoming was in the middle of the week, he had taken the lead in the kitchen in honor of her return.
She walked into the kitchen and saw all the ingredients for a big breakfast pulled out on the counter.
“Oh, good.” Her father turned and beamed at her. “You’re up. I figured once you hit the sack yesterday, you might not get back up until this afternoon. No wonder, considering how hard you’ve been working lately.” He used the spatula in his hand to gesture to the carton of eggs sitting beside the refrigerator. “Do you want your eggs fried or scrambled?”
“Scrambled, please.”
“You got it.” He turned back to the stove, calling over his shoulder, “For the record, Buster likes his scrambled.” The dog had wandered into the kitchen behind Kate and took up his station on the floor next to her father’s feet.
“I bet you’ve been spoiling him. Rotten.”
“Yep.” Her father expertly flipped a bit of cooked egg from the pan and Buster caught it without effort before it hit the floor. “Either my aim or his catching skills are getting better.” Her father nodded toward the counter, where the coffeemaker had just completed its last glug. “Coffee’s ready. Fix me a cup, please?”
Kate padded over, chose two mugs from the dozen hanging on the wall, and poured coffee for herself and her father. They both liked it the same way—two sugars, one cream. But in this health-conscious household, that translated to two packets of sugar substitute and a splash of 2 percent milk. Her mother managed the three Cs with an iron glove—calories, cholesterol, and caffeine.
He accepted the mug and took a tentative sip. “Your mom’s sleeping in.”
“Hard night last night?”
He nodded. “I keep telling her that retirement is supposed to mean she should work less. But she’s so wrapped up with things at the center that she’s putting in twice as many hours as she did when she taught school.”
“What kept her up last night? Worrying about something?”
“One of the girls from the center called her last night, crying, and your mom stayed up talking on the phone to her for at least two hours. You know how keyed up she gets after one of those calls.”
Her mother volunteered at a local shelter that took in abused women, mostly from D.C. Since her mom possessed a good heart, a level head, and a loving soul, she spoke with a quiet maternal authority that offered strength to the weak and faith to the lost. The shelter was thrilled with her work.
Not to mention her mom could charm donations from the stingiest CEOs around.
Kate’s father handed her a plate of bacon, which she dutifully placed on the table. “You don’t need to cook for me, Dad.”
“I’m not,” he said, turning back to the stove. “I’m cooking for me. If I happen to cook enough for . . . oh . . . let’s say three people—” he catapulted another morsel of egg that Buster intercepted in midair—“and one dog? Then so be it.”
Kate reached over and kissed him on the cheek. “So be it.” She busied herself, ferrying plates, napkins, utensils, and condiments to the table. She hid her smile as she contemplated the jelly jar, knowing her mother had soaked off the label so that her father wouldn’t know it was sugar-free.
Of course he knew. It was for that same reason he always found an excuse to use her mother’s car to run a weekend errand and return it freshly washed and with a full tank of gas.
They delighted in taking care of each other.
At the not-so-tender age of forty-four, Kate knew her odds of finding someone lik
e that to share her life were diminishing, minute by minute. There had been what her grandmother had always described as “a few near misses, but no misters.” But Kate didn’t regret one moment of energy or time she’d put into her life. What she did regret was that she might have to alter her goals in midstream and walk away from the political structure she’d worked so hard to build with Emily at the top and with Kate in an advisory rung just below. If she left that life, had she wasted her youth on a mistaken cause?
Kate resisted the urge to sigh. Instead, she waited for her father to finish cooking so she could carry the eggs and grits to the table. As a pièce de résistance, he pulled a pan of homemade biscuits from the oven and plopped two each on their plates.
“Let’s eat.”
Once seated, they bowed their heads as he recited the prayer that had accompanied every meal she’d ever eaten with her parents.
“Lord, thank you for these and all our many blessings. In Jesus Christ’s name, amen.”
Simple and heartfelt. She couldn’t help but smile. That described her father as well—an uncomplicated man who understood the value of hard work and, as he always put it, “the love of a good woman.” Kate’s mother usually gave him a good-natured swat whenever he said it.
Although Kate wasn’t terribly hungry, she helped herself to a little of everything, if for no other reason than to pacify her father, who would give her a heartier helping if she didn’t plan and institute an effective countermeasure. After a few bites, she stopped, the food turning to lead shot rolling around in her stomach.
Her father eyed her plate. “I’m no gourmet chef, but I know breakfast isn’t that bad.”
She tried to muster a look of enthusiasm but failed miserably. “It’s great, Dad. Really. It’s just that I’m not all that hungry.”
“So I noticed.” He continued to eat. “Otherwise you’d be in D.C. celebrating Emily’s election instead of coming here to hang out with the old folks. You know you didn’t need to drive all the way down here. We’d have been glad to bring Buster back to you.” He split a biscuit, the steam rising into the air. “I figure when you’re ready to talk, you’ll talk.”