He took a deep breath and began.
“I want you on my side, Kate.” He smiled, palms in the air, a practiced pose.
I nodded. “Of course.”
Here’s where he says “after the election,” or whatever he’s going to say. Keep your mouth shut and do. Not. Cry.
I watched him, trying to soak in details while I could, his thick salt-and-pepper hair with my shade of brown underneath, the way he swirled his hand into the air when he was talking.
“The cat’s out of the bag, as Elliott so eloquently put it.”
He was struggling, blinking a lot, smiling like his cheeks were frozen in that position. A raindrop hit the top of my head.
“We . . . My . . .” He started over. “Seventeen years ago, your mother and I made a mistake.”
The chain of the swing held me up.
Here goes. I knew this wouldn’t be pretty, but . . . don’t cry.
“No, Kate, I’m . . .” He stood upright, stumbling over the bottom of the slide. “I’m trying to say that it wasn’t a mistake. Not all of it. I mean—here you are!”
“I am indeed.” Stupid response, but all I could muster.
A flicker of amusement crossed his face, but it was short-lived. He flinched from the rain and glanced at his watch.
“Let me get right to the point. I’d like you to come up to Maryland, to my home there outside DC. I’d like you to meet Meg. Gracie and Gabe.”
The jungle gym started spinning.
“Now, I’m going to leave today—go up and explain things to the twins. They know a little, but if you could come up tomorrow, I think it would be good. It would . . . it would be the right thing.”
He looked like he was trying to convince himself. His eyes were focused past me, scanning some mental horizon.
“I’ll leave it to you to decide.” He pushed off from the play set and started quickly away.
“Are you happy?” My hand closed tight around the chain.
He turned back, confused by my question. It was an important one, so I asked again, louder.
“Are you happy to find out about me? Is this good news?”
I knew how desperate my face must look, but I couldn’t wipe it clear.
He grinned. It slumped at the corners and then fell off his face until he was blinking down at his shoes. “It is good news. Of course.” He spoke like he was searching for words out of a grab bag. “But it’s . . . a difficult time to find out such good news.”
Suddenly, I saw him. He looked exhausted and sad, and just for one second, when he glanced up at me, hopeful. But then the smile came back, and it was like he was in 2-D on my TV screen, saying “A New Day for America!”
I recognized that smile, and not just from campaign ads. It was my stock smile. The one I’d worn all year.
“Take your time,” he said.
Once he was inside, I sat on the swing, immune to the drizzle. It was a pleasant feeling and a strange one to be alone but not, like when I was little, in bed while Mom’s dinner guests stayed on laughing and clinking glasses. I could see no one but hear them everywhere, surrounding this house. All of them here because of me. And my father.
And he was my father. I didn’t need the mirror or even the blood test for confirmation. There were ways he moved that seemed familiar, from life, not television. By now I felt like an idiot for never having recognized him on the news, for not hitting PAUSE and saying, “Wait a minute—it’s him!”
And if he was my father, then there was a whole family out there that I’d never known about. Sitting on the swing, I felt the same pang of longing I’d had when I first clicked on the photo with the twins in it.
And on the heels of longing came a pang of guilt. What about Uncle Barry and Aunt Tess? They’d taken me in, given me love. Wasn’t that enough?
They were wonderful people, and they did their very best for me. Even so, they had to be counting the days until my graduation. Their teen-parenting days had ended eight years ago when my cousin went off to college. The last thing they’d expected was to be saddled with me.
Of course, the same thing could be said of the senator—and then some. But here he was, inviting me to meet the family, risking political fallout.
I stared at the house. A curtain moved in the back window. Someone in the TV room was watching. One of the staffers. And as the curtain shifted back into place, it all became clear.
I planted my feet. Steadied the swing.
This wasn’t a risk. It was a campaign strategy. Invite her home, bring her on board. That’s what they’d been talking about all morning behind closed doors. Damage control.
They were trying to use me, salvage some bit of his reputation, make a last-ditch effort to rescue his campaign, to quiet those newscasters who had been droning on all day long, asking, “Will he quit?”