Dissident (26 page)

She was in no mood to deal with his elitist bullshit. She drove an Acura, for fuck’s sake. “You are unless I start driving recklessly. Which is a distinct possibility right now.”

He clumsily fastened his seat belt. “Are you sure?”

“Maybe you should shut up and let me take you home,” Caroline snapped. “Before I throw you out and make you find your own ride.”

Jack leaned his head against the passenger side window and burped.

“If you puke in here, I will kill you,” she added.

It was a blessedly short drive to Georgetown. Jack didn’t speak again, which was fine with Caroline. She pulled into one of his assigned parking spots and turned off the engine. He was still leaning to the side, half asleep. She was tempted to lay on the horn but decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

“We’re here.” Her voice was enough to jerk him awake. “Give me your house keys.”

“I don’t know where they are.” He recovered enough to stumble out of the passenger seat. Caroline heard a jingling noise as he staggered forward into the backyard.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” She walked around the car and shoved her hand inside the pocket of his dress pants, seizing the keys.

He gave her a wobbly grin. “I love it when you touch me there, baby.”

“Get over yourself,” Caroline grunted, slinging his arm over her shoulder. She was about five seconds away from letting him fall face first into the grass. “Just walk.”

It was a supreme struggle to get him inside the house and up the stairs to the master bedroom. She sat him down on the bed.

“Lay down,” she said.

Jack was fiddling with his hands.

“Lay down,” Caroline repeated. “You’re going to have to sleep this off.”

He rather clumsily attempted to take off his tie, then gave up. “Why did you ignore me in the elevator today? You wouldn’t even look at me.”

Caroline had been doing her best to avoid conflict over the past few days, and that definitely included evading contact with Jack at every turn. But they stepped onto the same elevator in Rayburn that morning and they were alone. Caroline knew it was childish and petty to refuse to acknowledge another person, but that was exactly what she had done. She was terrified that if she looked at him, she would burst into tears or do something equally excruciating. Jack stared at her the entire time while she faced away from him, sighing heavily once she made a quick escape onto the wrong floor just to end the awkwardness.

“Is it easier to pretend I don’t exist?” he asked.

Yes
. She pulled a pillow out from under the comforter. “Lay down,” she said again.

Jack grabbed her wrist. There were tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry I hurt you, Caroline.”

“We’re not doing this now, Jack.” She wrenched her arm away. “You’re super drunk and I’m super pissed. Lay down.”

“You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me,” he said. “I threw you away by doing something stupid. I promised myself I would never hurt you and that’s exactly what I did.” His voice broke. “And now you won’t even speak to me.”

Caroline refused to cry in front of him.  She pushed his shoulder to the side, and he fell onto his pillow. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen anyone as intoxicated as he appeared to be. Maybe in college. Although she’d probably been in similar condition on a recent night in Jerusalem. But she wasn’t going to think about that. Or anything else having to do with Jack.

“Do you know how much I love you?” he asked.

“Stop.” She straightened his legs and untied his dress shoes. “Just stop.”

“I’m never going to forgive myself for what I did.”

Caroline wiped her eyes, willing herself to stay calm. “Stay on your side,” she ordered, as he tried to roll onto his back.

“I was never worthy of you,” he said. “I deserve to have this fucked up life.”

She removed his shoes and covered him up with a blanket. He was deteriorating rapidly and she wanted no part of it. Once she was sucked in, she’d cave and do any number of things she’d regret. “I’ll be in to check on you later,” she said.

“I didn’t want to be Governor without my First Lady,” Jack mumbled.

Caroline had to get out of that room as soon as possible. “Sleep it off, Jack,” she said quietly.

He started snoring and she knew he’d already passed out. She ran out of the bedroom and down the stairs as fast as her feet would carry her.

*              *              *              *              *

Caroline sat on the couch reading an email she’d received from Kathleen. Sometimes she wondered if her press secretary ever slept. It was a little after eleven at night. She checked on Jack at about ten and he was snoring, which meant that he was breathing. She guessed that was all that mattered. Caroline decided to stick around a bit longer, maybe check on him again at midnight to be safe. She had some touch and go moments with drunken friends in college and wasn’t going to take any chances.

She didn’t want to sit checking her phone all night. And she knew there was nothing worthwhile on TV. Caroline was extremely unhappy to be sitting there in her skirt and blouse. It was not comfortable. She would have much rather been at home in a hoodie and shorts. Or in bed asleep. Damn him. She headed over to the built-in bookshelves in the sitting room, hoping there was something there that would catch her interest.

Jack had a wide selection of reading material and they were very messily arranged. Not that she used the Dewey Decimal System or anything, but Caroline tried to display her substantial book collection by general subject or genre. The books in the library at his home in Philadelphia were much better organized. She pondered why that might be.

He had a book on Keynesian economics on one shelf. That was unexpected. And despite the relatively progressive subject matter, Caroline wasn’t interested. Too dry. She kept surveying the titles and tried not to laugh as she went from book to book. He actually had a copy of the Moynihan Report. How odd.

She decided to look on another shelf and spotted some Catholic philosophers.
The Confessions of St. Augustine
. Not surprising, but somewhat ironic. Augustine had managed to get his shit together by the time he was in his thirties, let alone Jack’s age. Of course, by his forties Augustine was dead.

Caroline kept looking.
Summa Theologica
. Ugh. The goal was to stay
awake
, not put herself to sleep. Further down the shelf was
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
. She grabbed it immediately.

She didn’t know Jack was a Potterhead. Weird that it was clustered together with Aquinas, Augustine, Ignatius of Loyola, and what looked to be a decently researched biography of Thomas More. But she didn’t care. It was good enough.

She flopped down on the couch and began to read.

*              *              *              *              *

Someone was tucking her hair behind her ear, stroking her face gently.

“Caroline. Sweetheart, wake up.”

She stretched and heard a book fall onto the floor. “Just five more minutes,” she mumbled. “I’m tired.”

“I know, baby. It’s late. I’m so sorry I did all of this to you.” Jack’s voice was remorseful.

Caroline jolted upright, throwing off a blanket that she didn’t remember pulling over herself. “What?”

Jack was kneeling on the floor next to the couch. How long had he been there, watching her?

“It’s almost two in the morning,” he said. “I thought maybe it was time for you to get some real sleep. In a bed.”

His eyes were bloodshot but his voice was steady. He had sobered up pretty quickly. He tentatively placed a hand on her thigh and she stood up.

“Don’t touch me.”

Jack rose to his feet beside her. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve been saying that a lot lately. It’s getting old. Especially when you’re lying.”

“I’m not lying. I just want you to listen to me.”

“There’s nothing that you can say to me that I want to hear.”

“I was hoping that there was a part of you that might be willing to give me another chance.”

She snorted bitterly. “Not likely.” Caroline slid her feet into her shoes and scooped up her suit jacket, car keys, and phone. “I’m leaving.”

“Please stay. Please talk to me.”

“You’re awake and you’re coherent. That was the only reason I stuck around in the first place, to make sure you would be okay.”

“Caroline, please. I want to work this out.”

She ignored his supplications. “The next time you get so fucked up that you can’t even walk in a straight line, call one of your staffers, or one of your salad girls, or a taxi. If I’m forced to show up again I’ll probably let you drown in your own vomit.”

“Caroline, I will do anything. Anything to get you back. What do I have to do? I want to make this work.”

“If you care about me at all, you’ll let me go. There’s nothing to work out because we had nothing to begin with.”

“That’s not how I saw it,” Jack said.

“I don’t give a shit how you saw it. I want you to leave me alone.” Her eyes started to burn. She had lost control quicker than she had anticipated. “Leave. Me. Alone. Got it? You’re not going to hurt me again.”

“I don’t want to do that, sweetheart. I want to fix what I did.”

“Too late.” Caroline stomped through the kitchen toward the back door. Jack was right behind her and she turned around and pushed him in the chest as hard as she could.

“Go to hell. And leave me the fuck alone,” she yelled, slamming the door behind her, ignoring the stunned look on his face.

*              *              *              *              *

Things were hectic right before the August recess but Caroline thought her staff deserved a break, so she sent them all home for the night. Jen had gotten upset that afternoon and almost started crying as she told Caroline that she was reminding her of how she acted right after Nicky died. Caroline went ballistic, screaming at her in front of everyone else, including the interns. She hadn’t done that since early last year. Jen didn’t speak to her for the rest of the day. While Kathleen and her other high level staffers didn’t follow Jen’s lead per se, they definitely kept their distance. She’d have to figure out a good way to apologize to all of them in the morning.

She flicked through some constituent updates she had to approve, trying to concentrate on the words. She heard a quiet knock and looked up. It was Jack.

“I knew I should have locked the door,” she muttered.

“Please don’t say that.” He started to walk toward her desk and stopped when he saw the expression on her face. “I’m sorry about the other night.”

“It’s fine.” Caroline gazed down at the papers she’d been trying to read the moment before.

“I’d really like to talk to you,” Jack said.

“I don’t want to talk. I think I made my feelings pretty clear.”

“You don’t have to talk. Just listen.” He took a small box out of his pocket and placed it on her desk. “I fixed your necklace for you.”

“I don’t want it.”

“I’m not taking it back,” Jack said. “It belongs to you.”

“I don’t fucking want it.”

“Then throw it away. I don’t care.”

It was obvious from his tone that he did, and Caroline brought her eyes up to his. “I’m not going to let you manipulate me.”

“That’s not my intent.”

She rose up and marched over to him until their noses were almost touching. “That’s always been your intent,” she hissed. “Get the fuck out of my office.”

“I can’t sleep. I can’t focus. I think about you all the time. I wish I could go back and change everything, but I can’t. I can’t stand that I’ve hurt you so badly.” Jack reached toward her. “I miss you.”

Caroline took several steps back and crossed her arms, her eyes fixed on the wall. “That’s not my concern,” she said.

“You miss me too. I know it.”

“I want you to leave.”

He took a tentative step toward her and reached out his hand. Caroline slapped it away.

“Don’t,” she said.

He stretched out both arms and she pushed him away again, tears in her eyes.

“Don’t!”

Jack stepped toward her and cradled her face in his hands, whispering in her ear. “I know you miss me, sweetheart. I know you love me. I believe in that. I trust in that. And that should have been enough for me. I should never have lied to you. I miss you so much. Please, please let me in.”

Caroline closed her eyes and bit her lip. She tried to keep from crying and failed.

“Look at me.” Jack started brushing her tears away.

She didn’t want to. But she couldn’t help herself. She gazed up at him. There was nothing but sorrow and regret in his eyes but she knew better than to believe he was sincere. She wasn’t going to be duped again. Caroline wanted to wrench herself away but couldn’t.

“I know you love me,” he repeated. “And I love you so much. So very, very much.”