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Authors: Ellen Emerson White

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“I suppose I was,” her mother said, with very little expression on her face.
“I don't mean I think so anymore.” She touched the hand for a fraction of a second and saw it relax. “Mom?”
Her mother glanced over.
“Do you know your limitations?” Meg asked.
“No,” her mother said. “No, I don't guess I do.”
“I kind of figured.” Meg tilted her head up to look at her, noticing the laugh lines around her mouth and eyes. Unexpected lines. Lines no one would ever see from a distance. “Are you going to win?”
Her mother shook her head. “I very much doubt it.”
Well, maybe, but her mother had never exactly been the type to embrace futility—or lost causes. “Then, how come you're running?” Meg asked.
“I don't know.” Her mother's laugh lines deepened suddenly. “I guess I think I can win.”
 
HER MOTHER ANNOUNCED her candidacy in front of a huge crowd in front of Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston, the whole family standing behind her, the event covered by so many different media outlets that it was more than a little mind-numbing. Also, Meg thought that she, personally, looked sort of nervous and haunted on camera—which was embarrassing. Regardless, the level of media saturation was so intense, that she kept expecting to see her mother show up on the cover of
Popular Mechanics
or
Ranger Rick
next.
Within a couple of weeks, the campaign became a routine like everything else. Her mother was home even less often, traveling around the country whenever she wasn't in Washington, calling at some point every night to talk to them all. Lots of weekends, Meg's father would fly out to be with her, while Trudy took care of Meg and her brothers. Sometimes—not very often—her mother would make it home for a day or two, and once, for just a few hours, so she could see Neal on his birthday.
When her mother was home, Meg got accustomed to the house being full of campaign people, a few of whom she knew from her mother's Senate staff, but most of them were strangers. Hired-guns. Seasoned hands. Gurus. Glen—who had been christened
The Boy Wonder
by the press—was the official campaign manager, and had
become more high-strung and intense than ever, as a result. Very jittery guy. Linda, her mother's press secretary, had only been working for her for about ten months, and Meg realized now that she must have been brought in specifically to help prepare for the planned Presidential campaign. So, the whole thing must have been in the works for a long time. Linda was obsessed with “images”—as opposed to Glen, who mostly cared about “sending messages”—and Meg didn't like her much. Smooth California blond, combined with aloof Smith College poise. Meg suspected that Linda had been brought on because she was able to be tough in ways that her mother wasn't—cutting off press conferences, dodging questions, withholding information until the appropriate moment. With the press, Meg's mother was apt to be either very candid or very funny—both of which made Glen and Linda nervous.
The rest of the top-level campaign people were an incongruous bunch. There were quite a few more men than women, and the vast majority of them reminded her of bespectacled, intellectual versions of some of the professional athletes to whom she'd been introduced over the years at various political events—extremely competitive, and even more cocky.
And, although nothing much would really happen—other than a few meaningless, crowded debates—until the Iowa Caucus, her mother was getting more and more publicity, a decent percentage of it positive, although some of the coverage was so vicious and invasive that, even though her parents had warned the three of them in advance that the campaign was bound to get ugly, she couldn't help being a little shocked by, say, a total stranger who would surface, claiming to have had a long-time, extra-marital affair with her mother and that sort of thing. New polls of the “would you vote for so-and-so, if Candidate A joined the race; and what if Candidate B joined the race, too?” variety seemed to come out almost every day, and her mother generally placed second or third among the eight or nine candidates who were currently officially in the race.
Naturally, ultraconservative types were making all sorts of noise about a woman's place being at home with her children, and the country's need for a Strong Leader in such perilous times—which, Meg assumed, meant a
male
leader—but her mother was so well-respected as a Senator, that the negative publicity didn't seem to be doing very much damage. So far, anyway. She had been a prominent member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees for years, and was the chairperson of the Emerging Threats and Capabilities subcommittee, and she also served on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and the Select Committee on Intelligence. And, of course, it went without saying that she had successfully sponsored, and co-sponsored, legislation across the spectrum, going back to her first term as a House Representative. A pretty fair political package, as Linda would say.
Meg and her brothers had decided early on that their favorite campaign person was Preston Fielding. He was this young, incredibly cool black guy who had been a top aide to the Speaker of the House, and was now a full-time media relations and legislative outreach consultant for her mother. Titles aside, Meg had noticed that Preston just sort of did whatever needed doing. When other people had lost or forgotten demographic sheets or expenditure lists or whatever, Preston invariably had copies handy. He would show up with pizza and a case of Heineken when everyone was getting uptight and grouchy; he seemed to know about six important people in every government agency—all of whom owed him favors; he was great at fund-raising. Important as all of that was, Meg liked him because he was so funny. And, okay, unbelievably
handsome
.
Every day, their lives seemed to change a little more, as a direct result of the campaign. Like the telephone company showing up to install multiple extra land-lines in the house. Or the Secret Service all over the place, studying their neighborhood and interviewing people, because her mother was going to start receiving protection soon—an idea too scary to even
think
about yet. Since—as far as she
knew—none of the other candidates were being protected yet, she assumed it meant that her mother was already getting significant threats. The post office was delivering so much mail that they came to the door with sacks, instead of trying to use the mailbox, and the mail was being carefully
examined
first, before any of them were allowed to touch it.
The concept of which was also very god-damn unsettling.
Maybe the hardest part of all was that her father was now out of town frequently, too. The house felt so empty. Steven would slouch around, pretending not to miss them, and Neal would have ten times as many bad dreams as usual. And Meg never knew what to do for either of them. Thank God for Trudy.
One Sunday night, when her parents were in Pennsylvania or someplace, Steven and Neal wandered off after dinner, while Meg hung around in the kitchen to help Trudy with the dishes.
“I can take care of this,” Trudy said, smiling at her over grandmotherly glasses. “You should do your homework.”
“I don't have any,” Meg said. Which was a flat-out lie.
“A sophomore in high school, and you don't have any homework?” Trudy clicked her tongue with disapproval.
“Nope,” Meg said, drying the spaghetti sauce pan.
Trudy looked at her
through
her glasses this time.
It wasn't all that hard to get away with things around her mother—but Trudy had a much more suspicious nature.
Or else, she was just paying closer attention.
“Okay, I maybe have a little bit left,” Meg said, and then looked at the clock. “Wonder what Mom and Dad are doing.” Of course, she could probably turn on CNN, or check the Internet, and find out, in due course.
“They're probably at a church supper,” Trudy said, washing the salad bowl. “And your mother's getting ready to make a speech.”
“Probably,” Meg said, and resisted the impulse to put the pan away harder than necessary.
Which Trudy, predictably, noticed.
“You know, Meg,” she said, “if you need someone to—”
Meg shook her head. “I don't. I mean, thanks, anyway, but I really don't.” She closed the cupboard. Very quietly. “You think I ought to go see what Steven and Neal are doing?”
Trudy nodded. “We're almost finished here, anyway.”
Hearing the television, Meg went into the den, where Steven was sprawled on the couch, a New England Patriots notebook next to him.
“You do your homework?” she asked—and immediately regretted it.
“Nope,” he said.
Oh. “Are you going to?” she asked.
“Nope,” he said.
Well, okay. Not much she could do about that. So, she sat down next to him. “What is this?” she asked, as she watched two cars crash, rolling down an embankment and exploding into fire.
“It's boring,” he said.
They sat there quietly for a minute, as two of the police cars responding to the violent crash also slammed into each other, although only one of them blew up.
“Where's Neal?” she asked.
“Dunno,” he said. “He went upstairs.”
Hmmm. “Is he okay?” Meg asked.
Steven shrugged. “Guess so. Didn't ask.”
“Well, maybe I'll go see what he's doing.” She reached over to rumple his hair. “Why don't you watch something more cheerful?”
Steven shrugged again.
Jesus. Did her parents realize that two of their children were spending a good chunk of their time moping around these days? “Okay. Be back in a while,” she said.
She went upstairs and found Neal's bedroom door closed—which, since her family was big on privacy, wasn't shocking, but it
still bothered her, in this particular case. The light was on, so she knocked.
“What,” Neal said.
Make that
three
children moping. “Can I come in?” she asked.
He mumbled something, and she opened the door to see him sitting up on the bed, looking very small and very sad.
“What's wrong?” she asked. Which was stupid, since she knew quite well what was wrong. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head.
“Are you sick?” she asked uneasily. When Neal was upset, it tended to have a bad effect on his stomach.
“No,” he said.
“Okay. I mean, that's good.” She started to put her hands in her pockets before remembering that she had on sweatpants. “Can I keep you company?”
He shrugged, and she climbed onto the bed, sitting up next to him.
“You've been pretty quiet tonight,” she said. “You sure you aren't sick?”
He nodded.
“It's hard, having them away,” she said.
He nodded, and moved closer, which was a signal for her to put her arm around him—which she did.
“He'll be home tomorrow,” Meg said.
Neal nodded.
“And maybe she'll come home in a few days, too,” she said.
“No, she won't.” He burrowed closer. “She never does.”
It was hard to argue with that. “Well, she can't help it,” Meg said. “She has to campaign.”
He shook his head, and she could tell by the trembling in his shoulders that he was crying.
“Come on, Neal, don't. Please, don't.” She hated it when he cried—she never knew what to do. “Don't, okay?”
“How,” he was trying to stop the tears, but not succeeding very well, “how can she be away if she loves us?”
An excellent question. “She's away
because
she loves us,” Meg said. Oh, good. Very good. She couldn't even convince
herself
with that argument.
And it was clear that he wasn't buying it, either.
Okay, time to try and justify that—and she would grant him sixty seconds for rebuttal. “Neal, running's important to her,” Meg said. “She feels like she has to do it. If she didn't, she'd be unhappy, and she doesn't want to be unhappy around us, because that would upset everyone. She's doing it now, so things will be better later.”
“But—” He hesitated, so she must have made an impression with that. “I miss her.”
Good, an easy one. Meg nodded. “I miss her, too. That's normal.”
“I like it when she says good-night.” He snuggled next to her, suddenly smiling. “She smells so nice.”
Kind of an alarming mood-swing, but if he was happy again, that was fine with her. Actually, her mother always
did
smell good—and it wasn't just the ever-present perfume.
BOOK: The President's Daughter
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