by Jayne Lind
Glenn looked at Donald as soon as they were safely outside the Oval Office. Donald put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and smiled a tight smile. “Don’t worry, Glenn. He’s not getting along with anyone these days. I have to meet with him several times a day and while I don’t enjoy being yelled at, I’ve learned to not let it upset me. Just hang in there; you’re lucky.”
“Lucky?” Glenn asked.
“Yeah, because after the next election, you can move on to other candidates while I’m stuck here.”
Glenn walked away, unsure how he was going to make this president popular once more. He knew very well it wasn’t the media which was affecting the polls. In fact, so far, the media had been kind to President Carlson. If they only knew what he was really like. In press conferences, the President turned on the charm. The women in the press core all seemed positively entranced by him. Yes, he could be very charming when he wanted to.
Glenn had worked for this president during his first campaign and always marveled at the charisma which he seemed to turn on like a light switch when there was a crowd around. He exuded confidence in himself, which appeared to make everyone else agree with him. Getting him elected the first time was easy; he had won overwhelmingly. But now that charm was seldom seen by those close to him.
Glenn had often wondered if Mrs. Carlson was getting the same treatment as the President’s staff. He had noted how tired she looked. He even broached it with Lillian, her chief of staff, but she just said Mrs. Carlson had been a bit under the weather lately. If there was a problem in the marriage, it sure wouldn’t be good for the press to find out.
Well, Donald was right. Whether President Carlson was elected or not, within a year, he could be out of here, on to another candidate. That is, if he stayed in politics. He was becoming jaded; there was nothing pure about this game. He felt he was losing perspective and he was certainly losing the idealism which brought him into this field in the early days. Back in his office, he poured himself a tenth cup of coffee and began looking through the latest polling data once again. Would Sam Carlson be re-elected? He had no idea.
Chapter Twelve
Taylor was summoned for a session rather early the next day. Beth looked refreshed and smiled with an accompanying twinkle in her eyes.
“So tell me your thoughts and feelings about all that information I gave you,” Taylor asked, after the usual ‘how are you’ question.
Beth relaxed back in her chair. “I’m very glad you told me. It’s made so much of the past make sense and I can see that what you’ve said about Sam is right. He doesn’t seem to have any guilt, which is something I noticed early on, but I always questioned my judgment; I always tried to give him the benefit of the doubt…that is, when I still was in love with him.”
Taylor nodded, wanting her to go on.
“Oh, Taylor, love really does blind you, doesn’t it? I can look back now on the beginning of our relationship and see so many signs, what should have been warning bells, but I was enamored by my physical attraction to him and by his words, which were often totally different than his actions.”
“All of us are blinded by love, I’m afraid, even professionals like me.”
Beth raised one eyebrow and Taylor was instantly sorry she had said those words. She didn’t want to turn this into a mutual sharing session.
“You must have wanted him to succeed, in the beginning? Taylor asked quickly.
“Um, yes, I did. I had no idea what politics was like, but I was proud of the fact that he seemed to want to do something valuable with his life, that he wanted to contribute to the welfare of the country. Now though, I wonder if he ever did care about the country or if he just wanted to get to the top.”
“Where he is now,” Taylor commented.
“Yes, where he is now. He’s achieved all his ambitions, and I became depressed to the point I thought the only way out was to go to sleep and never wake up.”
Taylor nodded sympathetically. “Beth, you told me you had experienced thoughts of suicide, but you haven’t told me what the trigger was. Was there something specific, an event that prompted you to even think of that as a way out? Do you want to tell me about it, about the first time you felt like doing this?”
Beth’s eyes took on a dreamy look as she gazed out the window. “Oh, I’ll never forget it. It was the night before the war. Sam doesn’t confide in me about secrets of the government except when he’s been drinking too much or when he wants to brag about something he’s done. Then he lets things slip, things that I’m sure I’m not supposed to be privy to.” She stopped for a moment.
“Go on,” Taylor prompted.
“After dinner, he began drinking—his usual scotch and water. He always has a couple during the evening, but that night, he brought the bottle and the soda water over to the coffee table and as soon as he finished one, he mixed himself another. I began to be apprehensive, because when he’s doing that, which isn’t often, he gets mean.” Beth reached for her glass of water and took a sip, setting it back on the table a little harshly.
Taylor prayed the phone wouldn’t ring.
When Beth spoke again, her voice was soft. “He began telling me what was going to happen. I knew that the war was imminent, but I didn’t know what he was about to say.” She hesitated. “I….I think I shouldn’t tell you exactly what he said. It is something I shouldn’t have been told.”
Taylor leaned forward and said gently, “That’s all right, what I want to know is how it made you feel, why it made you feel so desperate you wanted to end it all.”
Beth took in a long, deep breath. “It was in that moment that I realized that we, the United States, are sometimes not as pure as I thought. I guess up until that time, even though I knew that Sam was a hypocrite, I didn’t know that the public face of the government was hypocritical. I guess I was terribly naïve, but I thought we wore the white hats and that we were the saviors of the world. That night I found out the truth.”
Taylor nodded, keeping silent, not wanting to interrupt Beth’s train of thought. Inside, her mind was reeling. The truth? Was Beth going to divulge, even inadvertently, some deep state secret? And if she did, would her own life be in danger?
Beth shifted in her chair and her voice shook as she began, “I felt…I don’t know what my feelings were—sad, terrified, angry, all of those at once. I’ve never been a particularly political person, which is ironic since I’ve ended up here. I’ve supported Sam, in public, at least, you know, the ever smiling wife, the loyal partner. I didn’t have any particular ambitions for myself. After I realized I wasn’t a good enough dancer to become a professional, it was fine with me if I didn’t have a career. I’m one of those women who really loved my home, my children, who loved my role as a mother and homemaker. I love to cook, to bake, and of course, here I don’t get to do those things very often. So, although I know I’m intelligent, and I keep up with what’s going on in the world, you know, I read the newspapers, I guess I was naïve. I’ve always had a strong belief in our country and finding out what goes on behind the scenes, finding out about the lies, the maneuvering—it’s been a gradual disillusionment.” She stopped for a moment and sighed. “So that’s been a big part of my depression, I’m sure. It’s not only Sam. I’ve lost all the things I used to look up to, I’ve lost my faith.” Beth stopped talking for a moment and Taylor saw a look of hopelessness on her face. “Do you see? Do you understand?” she asked plaintively.
Taylor did understand. And she was learning more and more what a unique position her client was in compared to others she had treated. She only nodded, not wanting to interrupt Beth’s narrative.
She continued, once more looking out the window, “I had all these secrets inside. It’s not that I wanted to blow the secrets—it was that I had no one with whom I could share my sense of hopelessness. I suppose other first ladies probably had a better relationship with their husbands
than I do, so they could talk to him about their feelings…” Her voice trailed off.
Taylor knew from her extensive reading that many of the first ladies who lived in the White House previously were different. Rosalyn Carter was very involved in her husband’s policy making, as was Hillary Clinton. Both were heavily criticized for this. She remembered reading that people complained that these wives weren’t elected. Taylor never thought that was a fair criticism, since every president, as well as prime ministers in Britain, gather advisors around them who are not elected, whom they trust. However, Beth didn’t want that role, nor did her husband want her to assume it, it seemed. So not only was she a desperate housewife in the larger sense, not only was she unhappy in her marriage, but the isolation, the enclosed cocoon she was living in, exacerbated the problem. If she’d been involved, as some of these other women were, she might have had a sense of purpose, of mission, throughout these difficult years.
Taylor didn’t share these thoughts with Beth, but instead said, “And through all this, you had to keep smiling.”
Beth nodded, “Yes, always smiling. When I’m on a platform and all those people are looking at me, I sometimes just want to wipe the smile off my face. It feels so false, so pasted on. But you can’t. It’s as if you can’t shatter the illusion for everyone else, for all those people who believe in Sam, all those who believe he’s what he says he is. The lies. Taylor, you are so right about what’s wrong with Sam. Almost every time he opens his mouth, he lies.”
Lies. Taylor had already learned how to lie living here. She rationalized her lying by knowing it was necessary, to cover up for others. “Do the others, his staff, and the Vice-President, do they know he is lying?” she asked.
“Well, they must, mustn’t they? It’s all a charade and for what purpose? For the party. So that the party will control Congress at the next election, so that, heaven forbid, the ‘enemy’, as they call them, don’t get into the White House. It’s not for the good of the country; it’s not for the good of the people.” Her voice rose, “It’s all about politics. I wish I had never heard the word!”
Beth said these last words with vehemence Taylor had only heard once before. She was glad to hear it, because anger in a depressed person is sometimes beneficial, sometimes becoming angry can temporarily lift a person out of depression.
“It’s such a relief to get to talk about all this,” Beth was saying. “I didn’t think I would ever get to. I knew I couldn’t write an expose after I leave here ….”
“Couldn’t you?” Taylor asked.
“I guess I could if I went to live in Siberia, or something, but I would be ostracized, and I wouldn’t want my children to suffer. There is a mean streak in some of these people that is hard to believe.” She shook her head, “No, I’d be afraid.”
Fear—would Beth be in physical danger? “What would you be afraid of?” Taylor asked.
“Of what they would do to me; my name would be smeared. I’ve seen them do it to others. They would make up something bad about me and maybe make it look like I was crazy. That’s why we had to be so secretive about you, about who came to help me. And Sam can be very vindictive. Once an enemy, always an enemy, he’s said to me on more than one occasion.”
It was dark outside the window now. Beth looked quite spent, as if all the air had been squeezed out of her.
“So this is what made you think that suicide was the only way out? Can you recreate for me what you were thinking?”
Soft tears were on Beth’s cheeks, sparkling in the light of the lamps. She took a tissue and wiped them away. “I had felt desperate for years and years, in terms of Sam and our marriage. I became disillusioned long ago; I knew he wasn’t the person the public thought he was. But when I found out that it wasn’t just him, that it was the entire system, I just felt I couldn’t go on with the burden of what I knew. I couldn’t go on lying. That’s what I felt I was doing—lying.”
“You thought you were colluding, lying to the public as well, by your support?”
“Yes and I didn’t think I could live with that. I thought if I could just lie down and go to sleep and never wake up, that it would be so peaceful to be out of this,” she gestured around the room, “out of this phony world I live in.”
“You told me before that the thought of what that would do to your children stopped you,” Taylor said gently.
Beth nodded, “Especially Ben. Anna is grown and doing well. She would survive, but I couldn’t leave Ben. I knew that if I did this, it would haunt him the rest of his life. He’s very sensitive.”
“What do you think Sam’s reaction would have been?”
Beth’s closed lips pulled in a downward direction and she sighed, “Angry. He would have been furious.” She paused for a moment. “But you see, I wouldn’t have been here to feel it. I would be gone.” She looked at Taylor intently, “It was so tempting—do you understand?”
Taylor nodded sympathetically. “Yes, I do understand and I’m very glad you didn’t do it.”
Beth laughed softly. “Well, some days I’m glad as well and then other days I wish I’d gone through with it.”
“A depressed person often thinks irrationally. They believe things are hopeless, yet they very seldom are. “Isn’t there another way out? Could you separate from him after his term is over?”
“I’ve certainly thought of it often enough I guess.”
“Yes?” Taylor said, after she had gone quiet.
“I guess I would be afraid to do that.” Beth looked down into her lap, where she was twisting her handkerchief.
She decided Beth had probably had enough emotional turmoil for one session. “Do you think this is enough for today?”
“Yes, I’m tired. Oh, Taylor, you won’t ever tell any- one any of this, will you? When I’m old or dead, you still won’t tell anyone, will you?”
“Of course not, I can’t, even if I wanted to. The rules of confidentiality are very strict for my profession.”
Beth just smiled lightly as she rose and without saying anything else, left through the usual door.
The next day the sun came flooding through the windows of Taylor’s bedroom, making her want to go outside, to bask in the sun, even if it wasn’t warm. It seemed there had been so many dark, rainy days since she’d arrived that the sun was like a welcome visitor to this spot on the planet. She asked Lillian for permission to go out on the grounds for a walk and her friendly detail man met her outside the door on the ground floor.
She walked down toward the helicopter pad, thinking about the day before, as she had watched from her window while the helicopter landed. She previously had only seen the President on television, so she had watched with a great deal of interest as she saw him descend the steps from the helicopter. She was finally seeing him in person, albeit it wasn’t a very close up view. He smiled and waved at someone as he walked toward the White House. She couldn’t see from her vantage point who it was; she presumed it was the press. She knew he wasn’t able to see her at her window because the balustrade hid her from view.
She had noticed that no other planes flew over the White House, that it must be a no-fly zone, especially since 9/11. There were sniper guards on the roof and sometimes she saw them pass her windows, but never did she see anyone look in, they were always looking up and out. However, just in case, she kept the sheers closed all the time.
It was now late October and the leaves of the trees were turning. She sat down on one of the uncomfortable white wrought iron benches, looking up at the old Ginkgo tree close by, knowing the kind of tree it was because of the little plaque at the base. Part of the tree actually hung over the railing of the south fence and about half the leaves were gone, but others seemed to cling stubbornly. Which leaves fell first, she wondered, which were the first to succumb to the colder weather as winter approached and conversely, which held on to the last? Some leaves seemed to h
ave more strength, to hold on to the last bit of life, to not go until they simply had no choice. These were the strong ones, the ones more attached to the tree. The weak ones fell to the ground, died, in other words, and were scooped up and either burned or put in a compost pile to once again nourish the earth. Just like us, just like people and animals as well, Taylor mused.
It all seemed part of a grand circle of life and she thought, not for the first time, that the adage in the Declaration of Independence, which states that all men are created equal, just isn’t true. Not everyone is created equal. Some, many in fact, are born with little strength, little connection to their ‘tree’, their family, and some have defects. Such as personality disorders.
The sun went behind a bank of clouds and a shaft of cold wind brought her out of her reverie. She saw the guard standing awkwardly nearby, waiting for her to move or do something. She gestured toward him.
“Yes, do you need something?” he asked, with a friendly smile.
“Is it allowed for you to sit here with me and talk for a minute?” Taylor asked, certain it wasn’t, but feeling defiant about all these rules.
He looked around, then said, “I can stand here and talk, if that’s what you mean, but I don’t think I should sit down.”
She sighed, her rebelliousness growing. “Okay, I just wanted to ask a few questions.”
He stood more at the side of the bench than in front of it and Taylor had to turn sideways to speak to him. He was of a stocky build, fair in complexion and dressed in the uniform they all wore, black trousers with a white shirt and a policeman type hat. The men who followed her when she went off the grounds wore dark suits and ties.
“How many of you are there here, the protective detail I mean?”
He smiled engagingly as he answered, “I don’t really know the numbers, mam, but there are lots of us. The White House is protected by three rings of men and a few women,” he laughed. “There’s a ring of protection around the outside, beyond the fence here into the ellipse and going all around the White House, then there is an inner ring, around the grounds, and then there are the men and women inside.” He looked at her inquiringly, as if he wondered if that satisfied her.