Dropping Stones / Kingmaker SET

by Paul Cwalina

  “I’ve never met a woman or anyone who is so aware of her self-worth. I don’t know where you get your strength, but I hope you can show me some day. Jennifer, I was too selfish and too late to tell Chelsea. I’ve been given this second chance with you. Please, don’t let it be in vain.”

  A young nurse poked her head into the room to tell me that I had to go. “Give me a minute or two,” I bargained. “I will be gone when you come back.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  As she shut the door, I rose from my chair and made my way across the room and stood alongside the door. When she returned, she saw the empty chair and never looked behind the door. When it closed, I went back to my chair and sat down. I held Jennifer’s hand, leaned forward, and rested my head on a small unoccupied patch of the bed next to her hip. Then I allowed my mind and body to give in to their fatigue and fell asleep.

  I was still in a dream state when I heard a woman’s voice saying, “Where are my babies?” I heard her saying it again and then again. I felt someone tapping me on my head and I heard, “Sir, wake up. Sir. Sir, wake up.”

  Morning light had just begun to fill the room when I realized that I was waking up.

  Again, I heard a woman’s voice plead with me to wake up. “Sir, wake up. Your wife is awake.”

  I sprung up like a student late for a final exam. I looked up and Jennifer’s eyes were open. My heart leapt in my chest and I leapt out of the chair and put my face directly above hers. She smiled and I was already smiling back.

  Before I could say anything, a middle-aged nurse started asking Jennifer questions as a younger nurse was getting her vital signs.

  “All right, honey, can you tell me your name?” the nurse asked.

  “Jennifer. Where are my babies?”

  “Can you tell me who this man is, Jennifer?”

  “He’s my husband. Where are my babies?”

  “They’re fine. Can you count backwards for me starting at one hundred?”

  “One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, ninety-six…” Jennifer dutifully and impatiently recited. I resisted the urge to joke that she was a banker and a ringer when it came to numbers. “I’m fine. Now tell me where my babies are.”

  “They’re in the nursery, babe. They’re fine. They are beautiful and perfect,” I said, trying to comfort her.

  “I love you,” she said and relaxed only a bit. “When can I see them?” she asked the nurse.

  “We’ll make sure you get to see them sometime today.”

  That was not the right answer, nurse.

  “Sometime today?” Jennifer said. “No, no. Now. I want to see my babies now.”

  “Honey, I know you feel good and you think you are strong enough, but…”

  “But nothing. I will get out of this bed and go find them myself,” Jennifer threatened.

  The nurse looked at me and I gave her a look to suggest that Jennifer was quite serious.

  “All right, honey. You just rest. Let me go make the arrangements.” she said. The two nurses left the room.

  “What happened? I can only remember delivering our boy. What happened?”

  I explained to her in as much detail as possible what had happened. “So, you did what I asked you to do?” Jennifer asked in a slightly hushed amazement. She smiled, put her arms around me, and squeezed as hard as she could. “I love you so much,” she whispered into my ear.

  “I thought I loved you before we got to this hospital. Now that word is completely inadequate to describe how I feel about you,” I said.

  We both relaxed a bit and talked about everything that happened. She asked me over and over again to describe the babies to her and what it was like to hold them. I did my best to do that, but it certainly couldn’t do them justice.

  Jennifer was getting impatient as the third hour since she woke up drew to a close. Fortunately for everyone involved, two nurses came into the room, one from the maternity unit and another from ICU. They had a wheelchair with them.

  “We’re here to take you to see your babies,” the younger nurse said. Jennifer started to disconnect herself from whatever medical equipment was still attached. “Hold on,” the older nurse laughed. “I will help you.”

  We got to the room and we sat for a long while holding each of our babies. Just when I thought I couldn’t love Jennifer more than I did, I watched her holding our babies, and was overwhelmed, again.

  “We still have to name them,” she said. “Did you pick a name?”

  “Yes. If you don’t mind, I’d like to name our girl after my mom.”

  “Of course,” Jennifer said in a very comforting way. “That would be beautiful.”

  “Her name was Eve,” I said.

  Jennifer’s eyes widened and she put her hand to her mouth. “I’ve had a boy’s name picked out for years…Adam.”

  We both smiled and immediately sealed the agreement on our children’s names.

  Jennifer stayed another day in the hospital before she was released. I got the feeling that they may have kept a more docile patient a day or two longer.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  There was never a time in my life when I was happier than those first days home with Jennifer and the babies, with my wife and my children, with my family. We were a family in our home. I couldn’t help but capture it in words.

  I began writing about life, not so much the living of it, but more so the concept of it. I had no idea what I was writing. Was it a book? A speech? An essay? Maybe it would just end up being nothing more than a letter to the newspaper editor. Maybe it would just sit in the drawer of my hard drive to forever collect cyber dust and never see the light of day. Whatever it was, it was pouring out of me and I was driven to write it down.

  That first week home with Jennifer and the twins was the nearest to bliss I had ever been in my life. Jennifer was on a leave of absence from the bank and my schedule was as flexible as could be. It was so good to wake up and have breakfast with her, enjoy our days together talking, working around the house, and sharing every meal together. It was better than any island honeymoon.

  The bliss came to an abrupt end the day I left a copy of the speech I wrote for Rick’s appearance at the abortion rights group’s conference, and all of its not-so-subtle words, on the table. Jennifer found it while cleaning up and must have read it. She came storming into the living room and threw the papers at me. Some found their mark while the others danced and floated in the air before landing on the ground.

  “Is that what you think of me?” she said. “You think I’m some knuckle-dragging Neanderthal? You think I’m backward and uneducated? That I’m some right wing-extremist?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That speech. Is that how you feel about me?”

  “What do you mean about you? I was writing about Governor Peters. He’s the one we’re calling a Neanderthal.”

  “Why, because he’s pro-life?”

  “Well, yeah, among other things.”

  “I’m pro-life. If you’re saying it about him, you’re saying it about me.”

  “No, I’m not. It’s…”

  “It’s what?”

  “It’s just a speech. It’s politics. They’re just words.”

  “They’re not just words. They’re weapons in the hands of people like you. You use them to belittle people, to put them in a box so you can dismiss them and not have to debate them, probably because your politicians don’t have the intellect or the guts to actually talk about an issue,” she said angrily. “It’s speeches like this that have turned a nation created by visionaries and statesmen into one run by petty, opportunistic liars and thieves. This….this is why people hate politics and politicians.”

  “All right, calm down.”

  “No, I’m not going to calm down when my husband calls me an uneducated Neanderthal.”

  “Point made. Now, calm down.” I didn’t agree with her that the speech indicted everyone in the pro-life camp, but I just w
anted to put an end to the assault. The speech was going to stay as it was. That night, Jennifer held fast to her rule of not going to sleep with an argument or hurt feelings unresolved, and apologized as we went to bed.

  Jennifer’s objections notwithstanding, the speech was a hit with the group, causing the crowd to stand and unleash thunderous applause. The ‘women’s champion’ had the room in the palm of his hand. All of the key words that angered Jennifer were the ones that brought the house down. At my request prior to the event, we had all of what we considered friendly media there, not just for immediate exposure, but to create a library of footage to be used in campaign ads in the fall.

  In the middle of July, we were one week away from the convention in New York City and the kickoff meeting in Las Vegas. I managed to convince Ed that I wasn’t needed at the convention, but he insisted that I be in Vegas to speak to the group about messaging. “Don’t bother with any excuses,” he said.

  I managed to convince Jennifer to go to Vegas with me. Perhaps she needed to get away after all she had been through or maybe she didn’t want me to be alone in Sin City. Either way, it didn’t matter to me. I saw it as an opportunity to preen like a peacock for Jennifer, as she would finally get to see me at work, hopefully hearing praise for me from the campaign staff. Jennifer’s mom eagerly volunteered to stay with the twins.

  We arrived in Vegas on Thursday night. Even after dark, the Vegas heat was stifling in the middle of July. Neither of us were particularly hungry, but both of us were tired enough to spend our first night there simply turning in early.

  The meetings weren’t scheduled to start until ten o’clock, so we ate a leisurely breakfast and toured Caesars Palace and its grounds. The decor, statues and design were over-the-top and ostentatious to the point that I smiled mockingly and Jennifer simply shook her head at most of it. “Such a waste,” was all she managed to say about it.

  Spouses were invited to attend the meetings, but she wanted no part of them. As we approached the large conference room, she kissed me and told me she was going to call her mom to check on the twins and then go for a walk on the Strip. As soon as she left, I felt a hand caress my back.

  “Hi. I’ve missed you,” Cindy said.

  I turned around, grabbed her wrist, and removed her hand from my arm. “Don’t start, Cindy,” I said coldly.

  “Was that the little woman?” she asked condescendingly.

  “She is my wife and mother of my children, yes. Not that it is any of your business,” I said and walked into the meeting room. I tried to find a seat in between two people to prevent Cindy from sitting next to me, but there were none. Cindy followed closely behind me and sat next to me as soon as I chose a seat.

  “By the time I’m finished with you, you won’t even remember her name,” she whispered.

  “Knock it off,” I demanded and did my best to ignore the rest of her comments throughout the day. I knew, though, that she would be relentless, especially in a city with an atmosphere like that of Las Vegas.

  The first day of meetings ended at five o’clock. Dinner was planned for six o’clock, at which Senator Roman was scheduled to address the group. The first post-convention Gallup numbers were out and we got a nice bump. Gallup had Roman leading by twelve points. It was nice and we celebrated, but we knew it didn’t mean anything until the other party’s convention was over two weeks later. Still, a solid double-digit lead was welcome.

  Jennifer and I sat with Greg, Valerie and her husband, and Marcus and his wife. When the salad plates were being taken away, Jennifer asked, “Who’s the tramp that keeps staring at you from that table?” She nodded toward the next table and I saw Cindy, who quickly turned her head away.

  I sighed, “That’s Cindy.”

  “Is she the one that was sending you texts that she was missing you?” Jennifer asked.

  “Yes,” I answered, hoping it would just pass.

  “Oh, how nice. I can’t wait to meet her,” she said with a concerning mix of sarcasm and seriousness. The rest of the conversation at the table was pleasant through the rest of dinner, and it was enough to cover for Jennifer’s deadly stares at Cindy. The intensity of Jennifer’s stares were enough to cause Cindy to leave dinner early.

  Rick arrived just after eight o’clock to a standing ovation. His remarks were casual and disappointingly restricted to sound bites, talking points and cliches. He was gracious, though, in thanking us all for the hard work and dedication. After he made his remarks, he worked the room and when he came to our table, he had no trouble remembering Jennifer.

  “Well, how’s my little spitfire?” he asked with a smile, bending down to kiss and hug Jennifer. She was polite, but firm in putting her hand to his chest to prevent him from getting too close.

  “Nice to see you, again, senator,” she said, no doubt biting her tongue.

  “Something tells me you two are new parents,” he said, looking to her midsection.

  “Yes, we are,” I said proudly. “The twins were born about a month ago.”

  “Oh, what a blessing they must be,” the senator said. “Life is so precious, isn’t it?”

  Jennifer glared at me, suggesting that she was holding her tongue and wanted nothing more than to rip into him. I was thankful for her restraint, although she did manage to ask, “Where is Mrs. Roman?” It was her subtle way of letting him know that she was aware of his proclivity for following his wandering eye. He would not get away with anything around Jennifer. She dealt in hard truths and was unconcerned with anyone’s level of comfort with them.

  “She’ll be here tomorrow and I can’t wait to see her. I miss her,” he said, trying too hard to convince us of his devotion to her, it seemed.

  Rick left the room after chatting with us and everyone followed. He continued to talk politics as we all walked around him. We were passing one of the statues when someone suggested we get a group photo. The statue inspired someone to tell us to get on one knee as Rick stood like a superhero with his hands on his hips looking into the distance. An employee of the hotel was passing and agreed to take the photo. Marcus said, “Everyone say ‘Hail, Caesar,’” and we all laughed as the photo was taken.

  Some of the group broke off and went to the gaming rooms, while others left the hotel to take in the rest of the Strip. The rest of us headed upstairs to our rooms. Most of us were on the same floor. I noticed Rick had the corner suite a few doors down from us.

  I asked Jennifer about her day and she sad that she was disturbed by the city. “It has to be one of saddest places I’ve ever been.”

  “Sad? Are you kidding? Everyone has a smile on their faces here.”

  “Deep down, they don’t. They are being deceived and they’re deceiving themselves,” she said. “Everyone thinks they’re happy here, but deep down, they really aren’t. They’re trying everything they can to fill some void that they’re never going to fill with anything this place has to offer. This whole town is like one big hallucinogenic drug that fools people into thinking they’ve found an answer, that they’ve found some happiness. It’s like a giant vending machine of vice. Anything your depraved mind wants you can get if you just put the coins into the machine make your selection. Then you have the prostitution, the pornography and the sex trafficking. I don’t think people realize how sick this place is.”