by Lynn Murphy
“Why do you think she was having an affair?” Janet asked, close to tears.
“Sweetheart, I know she was. I saw them together. She never denied it. I loved her beyond reason until I found out she didn’t love me. Then, I was just numb. And angry. But I tried not to ever let you and Jim see that.”
“But Debby has a scrapbook, with all your campaign clippings. And so many photos where you look happy.”
“I’m not proud of the fact, but we both could have won academy awards in the role of political couple of the year. We could be fighting or not speaking at all in the car and then get out and convince everyone we were blissfully happy. The truth is, she never was.”
Janet had started to cry. “I just can’t believe this. Did she love us?”
Kel didn’t know what to say. Alise had not been a model of motherhood either. She’d tried, she probably had, but nurturing hadn’t come easily for her. When Kel didn’t answer, Alan spoke up.
“Baby, I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I’m not sure she knew how to love you, or anyone else. She barely tolerated the rest of us. She hated John and it was obvious. In fact the only person she ever really liked was Fiona. I never saw her play with you or Jim, never heard her tell you she loved you.”
“And here I was, planning my wedding and wishing she was here to help me.”
Evan had been silent during this exchange. He was sitting next to Janet and reached over and took her hand. “ Janet, there’s nothing wrong with wishing your mother was here to help you plan your wedding. But you have to know that what everyone is telling you is true. Think about when your dad was in a coma. Where was she?”
Janet looked up, remembering. “In Florida?”
“Yes. And she waited four days before she came. John called her within ten minutes of me admitting him to the hospital.”
“But…he could have died.”
Evan said, “I know. But she didn’t rush back, darlin’. That should tell you everything you need to know.”
Everyone fell silent and Mary Katherine and Casey started clearing away the dishes. Jim broke the silence.
“Is there anything else we don’t know?”
“Yes. I’m in love with Tara, but I think I might have blown my chances with her.”
“So there isn’t anything else we don’t know?”
“No, Jim, that’s it.” He left his place at the table and stood behind Janet. “Princess, are you okay?” He’d called her that as a little girl. She had asked him to make her room look like a castle and he’d had turrets built in the corners and a bed designed to look like a castle. They had long since been gone, but it was a fond memory for both of them.
“Not exactly. It’s a lot to take in.” He kissed the top of her head and she turned and smiled up at him, even though she still had tears in her eyes. “Mostly I’m sad because she didn’t want us.”
“I know. I wish she had been happier with us too.”
“Do you have any good memories of her?”
“Of course I do. It just got to the point where the bad ones overshadowed the good.”
“Someday I’d like to hear the good memories.” He kissed her again and they all moved into the living room to watch the interview.
Michael had shown up at Tara’s door in time to take her to dinner and now they were about to watch the interview. She noticed that he hadn’t said anything negative about Kel and she thought that
was strange, given the way he always had every other time she’d seen him since she started covering the campaign. As he poured them each a glass of iced tea in the kitchen, she sorted through the day’s mail
which she hadn’t had a chance to look at yet. A padded envelope with no return address caught her eye. She opened it and laughed out loud.
“What’s funny?” Michael asked as she sat on the sofa beside him. She handed him the DVD she had taken out of the envelope. The American President.
“Where did that come from?”
She said, “Kel sent it.” She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. He was strangely silent throughout the entire half hour that the interview ran.
“Julia, “ Lily said, “did you see that interview?”
Julia had called her as soon as it was over. “I did. They are so perfect together. Why can’t they just admit it?”
“What did Michael say when he saw it?”
“Nothing to me. He’s covering the debate so he’s watching it with Tara.”
“That should be interesting.”
Julia laughed. “It will be, but not in the way you think. She called in tears after the interview. Michael started in after we hung up about how he had broken her heart and that’s just what expected from James O’Brien’s son.”
Lily gasped. “He did not say that!”
“Oh but he did. Then I pointed out that if things had worked out differently he wouldn’t even have a daughter to be worried about. At least not this daughter. Or, for that matter his wife and son. I told him it was time to let the past go.”
“What do you think he’ll do?”
“I have no idea. I’ll be on pins and needles until he gets back.”
Michael watched the debate and watched Tara. The interview had taken him aback. Why had he not noticed when they were in the same room with him how obviously in love with each other they were? Viewing the interaction between them would have made anyone watching feel as if they were a fly on the wall listening to a private conversation. Tara had done her job, she’d earned ratings for her station and votes for Kelly O’Brien. She had also fueled the flames for the tabloids again. He had no doubt the paparazzi would be all over them again by this time tomorrow. Julia had said a few choice words about the situation last night. She had more than put him in his place and he’d done nothing but think about what she had said during his flight. Tara and Kel might indeed be finished, but he had made a decision. He wasn’t going to be one of the reasons he daughter didn’t find happiness with a man she clearly loved. He would do his part, then hope and pray that it worked out.
He followed Tara to the front where Kel was standing with Janet and Jim and John. He greeted John and then shook hands with Kel, who in turn introduced him to Janet.
“I would have known who you were,” he said, “without and introduction. You are the image of your grandmother.”
She smiled at him and said, “You knew my grandmother?”
“Well, yes, I did. At one time I was engaged to marry her.”He caught them all off guard with that remark, but he didn’t expand on the subject, instead he said to Kel, “I think we need to have a talk.” He had turned to Tara, given her a kiss and said he would drop by on his way to the airport and he and Kel had left together.
Tara said, in a panic, to John, “Please find out what they talked about.”
John laughed at her and said, “That was some interview.”
She blushed. “I hope it helps put him over the top.”
“If it does where does that leave you?”
“Oh, John, I wish I knew.” She hugged him and hugged Janet. As she drove home she tried to figure out what her father was discussing with Kel. Kel’s mother had been engaged to her father? She clearly needed to think about something else. The DVD was still on the coffee table and she picked it up. It had been a long time since she had seen it. She kicked off her shoes, put it in the player and settled in to watch it.
Kel was finding it difficult to sleep, again. He’d been losing quite a bit of sleep lately. He knew he needed to stay well rested, because it always caught up with him when he wasn’t. But tonight sleep would not come. He had too much to think about. Tomorrow they would go back to Florida to campaign one more time before their primary. If they did well there and in the other big primaries, he would be assured the nomination. Then the whole campaign would change. At that point, they would focus on beating the incumbent president. But it wasn’t the upcoming super Tuesday that was causing him to lose sleep. Instead, it was the conv
ersation he’d had after the debate with Michael McCaffrey.
Michael had shocked them all with his announcement. He tried to imagine Fiona with anyone else beside his father and couldn’t. They’d been the model for everything he had wanted out of his marriage and failed to achieve. He had done his best to be as good a father as James had been, even if Alise hadn’t been at all like his mother. But even Michael’s announcement wasn’t what stood out from the conversation. Instead, it was that Tara’s father had essentially given the relationship his blessing, if indeed there was still a relationship at all. Tara had him thoroughly confused. One moment she welcomed his embraces and kissed him passionately, the next she ran away. Michael had told it was obvious to both he and Julia that their daughter was in love with him and that he no longer wanted to stand in the way of anything that might develop in the future. He urged Kel to give her time. Perhaps he suggested, after the campaign was over it would be easier for her. Kel knew that he would be willing to wait forever for her. She would be worth the wait. But waiting wouldn’t be easy.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The sun was getting lower on the horizon and they would need to take the boat in soon, but it had been a beautiful day for sailing and neither Evan or Mary Katherine were in a hurry to end it. Mary Katherine watched as Evan stood on the bough, Titanic-like and laughed, thinking, not for the first time, that had he been born in another time, he might well have been a pirate deserving of the boat she had given him. There was quite a breeze and they moved along without much effort. She went up join him, sitting on the polished wood floor. She wasn’t scared, not at all, to be out on the boat, but she preferred a little more caution in moving around. She remembered in years past how he’d held Seamus on his shoulders in the same spot and she had worried that he’d fall overboard. Casey, too, and Skip and Sara, had always joined him in the most precarious places and they had always trusted him to keep them safe. Occasionally a memory of a day sailing with his father would come back to Evan, and they would talk about that. The two of them had always talked of sailing from Annapolis to Key West. A few years previously, Evan and Mary Katherine had done just that, with Skip and Sara and Casey and Seamus in tow.
He came and sat beside her. “We should have planned to stay out overnight,” he said. “I don’t want to take her back in.”
“I know. It’s been a wonderful day at sea.”
He lay back on the deck and pulled her into his arms. Laughing she lay next to him. “You looked deep in thought,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing really, I was just thinking about the trip we took to Key West.”
“That was a great trip. I was thinking we needed to sail to Bermuda.”
“That would be fun. Alone, or with assorted O’Briens in tow?”
He considered that. “We could do make the trip either way, but we haven’t been anywhere alone in a while, and you know, sailboats can be very romantic.”
“Can they now?”
He gave her a long slow kiss. “I wouldn’t know from experience mind you. I’m just going on what I’ve heard.”
“Maybe this summer,” she said.
“For going to Bermuda, or just being romantic?”
“Bermuda. You may indulge in a little romance now if you like.”
He checked the angle of the sun, pulled her close for another long kiss and dropped anchor before taking her down to the cabin below.
Evan handed Mary Katherine an enormous bowl of popcorn and plopped down on the sofa beside her, putting his feet up on the coffee table.
“Good grief, did we need this much?”
Evan gave her a boyish grin. “You’re the one who wanted to watch Dr. Zchivago on television rather than rent a nice regular length movie.”
“So this is payback?”
“Nope. Just rations for the long evening.” She threw a piece at him. As he dodged, a humane society commercial came on the television. Evan sighed. “I hate these commercials.”
“They’re so sad. But sadly, there’s no way to save all the homeless dogs out there.”
Evan hesitated. “Maybe not, but we could save one.”
Mary Katherine stared at her husband. “You want a dog? Since when?”
Evan shrugged. “Since always. But Dad never would let us have one.”
The movie had been her choice, but she wasn’t able to keep her mind on the long drama. Instead of watching the characters on the television screen, the images that kept playing in front of her were Evan with the O’Brien children; dancing with Casey standing on his feet, swinging Seamus around, playing chess with Skip, piano duets with Sara. He was a man who should have had children. For selfish reasons she had deprived him of something else that would have made him happy. She had wanted a career, she had held on to memories of Harry and had never wanted offspring, no matter how many times he had asked her if they couldn’t consider having just one baby. And now, thanks to her illness, it was an impossibility.
Halfway through the movie, she told Evan she’d had enough. It was way too long a film following a day in the sun on the boat. They cleared away their popcorn and drink glasses and climbed the stairs.
Evan turned off the light and Mary Katherine was still thinking about the conversation they had before the movie started. One thought kept coming back to her. What if something happened to her? Suppose the cancer came back and she didn’t make it. Evan would be all alone.
She put her head on his shoulder and even though he was almost asleep he put an arm around her. She didn’t keep him awake by talking, but a plan was already forming in her mind. They would never be able to have children, and truth be told, even though that would have brought him so much joy, she wasn’t the most maternal person. But they could have a dog. She fell asleep knowing how she would spend the next day.
Mary Katherine followed the human society volunteer through the maze of cages looking for just the right dog. If Evan had been here, she thought, they would have had to take them all home. Poor things, they were so sad looking. But so far one hadn’t stood out. Hadn’t called to her and made her want to adopt it. As she listened to the volunteer sharing stories about this dog and that, a small whine made her turn and look behind her. A miniature shaggy gray dog with a streak of white down his face looked up at her. His eyes seemed to say “please take me home.” He tilted his little head to one side and looked amazingly intelligent. Mary Katherine asked what his story was.
“This is Socrates,” she was told. The volunteer said that he had been left alone for over a week when his owner , an older gentleman, had passed away while on an overnight trip. “He has abandonment issues,” she said. Perfect, Mary Katherine thought. So does Evan.
“We haven’t been planning to adopt him out because he’s so ill tempered.”
The little dog tilted his head to the other side and looked up adorably at Mary Katherine. He looked exactly like what Blue Dog would like in the flesh, she thought. Even more perfect. Evan was a fan of George Rodrique’s iconic dog paintings. “How could anything so cute be ill tempered?” Mary Katherine asked. “Take him out of the cage.”
The volunteer hesitated as Socrates moved to the edge of his cage and licked Mary Katherine’s hand. “He usually growls and tries to bite us.”
“Then open the cage and I’ll take him out,” Mary Katherine said. The girl opened the cage and Socrates almost jumped into Mary Katherine’s arms. “This is the dog I want.”
An hour later, she was driving home with the little gray dog sitting in the passenger side of her car. He had been bathed and had his shots and was looking smaller and cuter than he had before. She detoured to a pet store to buy him a red leather collar, a few toys, dog food and a dog bed built to look like a miniature four poster bed.
When they got back to the house, she gave him the grand tour, put the bed in a corner of their bedroom and let Socrates explore the house and yard on his own. Just before she expected Evan, she got her camera and settled Socrates on the sofa.
He waited politely, as if he knew that something was up.
Evan came through the door and instead of being greeted by Mary Katherine, he was greeted by a shaggy little gray dog who hopped off his sofa and walked over to sit in front of him, looking up expectantly. Evan knelt down to pet him as Mary Katherine captured the moment on her camera. It was love at first sight. Socrates put his front paws on Evan’s knee and looked up at him adoringly. Evan picked him up and crossed the room to kiss Mary Katherine.
“Does this dog have a name?” he asked, still holding him and scratching his head between the ears.
“Socrates.” Mary Katherine replied. “Isn’t he perfect?”
“Of all the gifts you’ve ever given me,” Evan said, “he’s the best.”
Over dinner she told Evan about how she had selected Socrates, while Socrates lay at Evan’s feet with his head resting on Evan’s shoe. He found it difficult to believe the volunteer had said he was ill tempered. The little dog followed him wherever he went for the entire evening. He waited politely to be invited up on the furniture and when he needed to go out he sat patiently by the door. He scampered up the stairs ahead of them as they went up to go to bed, looking back at them on each landing. Evan put him on the dog bed and he snuggled down, seemingly content.
When she woke up the next morning Mary Katherine looked across the room at the little dog bed and what she saw made her gently shake Evan awake.
“Look at your dog,” she said.
Evan sat up and saw that sometime in the night Socrates had gotten out of his bed and gotten one of Evan’s running shoes and taken it back to bed with him and was still sound asleep, the shoe between his front paws and his head resting on it.
“That’s a brand new pair of running shoes,” Evan said, starting to get up.
Mary Katherine pulled him back. “You have ten other pairs of running shoes. You can buy another pair. You can’t take those from him. He has abandonment issues.”
Evan looked at her incredulously for a moment and then started to laugh. “Are we the only people in the world who would adopt a dog with abandonment issues?”