104 - Washington, D.C.
President Quaid was surprised when the door to his bedroom slowly opened. The reading light on the headboard of the Presidential bed was on but the novel he had tried to read lay face down on the blanket. The President, too, was on top of the blanket, staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide open, legs spread, arms out at his sides.
“Are we making snow angels,” a familiar voice said. President Quaid, startled, turned his head. His wife stood in the open doorway. A black negligee was visible beneath her white terry bathrobe with the presidential seal on the left breast.
“Come in, come in.” President Quaid’s legs came together. He pushed himself to a sitting position and smiled. “You haven’t been in this room in months, Catherine. What’s the occasion?”
He smiled again, his campaign smile this time, the 600-watt smile he flashed when he wanted to move the masses. Even Catherine was unable to resist his campaign smile.
It reached her this time, too. She returned the smile, hardly realizing she was doing so. That encouraged him to pat the bed, inviting his wife to, at a minimum, sit down.
She did, sitting on the edge of the bed then lifting both feet to sit in a lotus position, legs crossed over one another, facing her husband.
They looked at one another in silence, each waiting for the other to speak first.
Damn, she looks good, Quaid thought. The woman never ages. He recalled their private joke about Catherine having a portrait of herself locked in a closet, a portrait that aged rather than she.
She’s doing better than I am, he thought, scratching unconsciously at the top of his head, knowing that with each scratch more hairs fell out. The inside of his cheeks was raw from his constant chewing.
Finally, Catherine reached out for her husband’s hand and sandwiched it between both her hands.
“Lawrence, this has to stop,” she said softly.
“This, what do you mean by ‘this’?” he asked.
“This, everything, all that you are doing, Lawrence,” her voice was choked. She struggled for control. “The camps, Lawrence. You’re locking Americans into concentration camps. The identification cards. Lawrence, this has to stop.
“The violence, Lawrence. It just breeds more violence. Didn’t the Israelis learn that lesson, bombs and retaliation didn’t cure anything, they just led to bigger bombs and more retaliation. That will happen here, Lawrence. That’s what you are inviting into this country, bigger bombs, more retaliation.
“The man I love, who I still love, that man knows what is right and what is wrong. Lawrence, all this, what you are doing, it’s wrong, so wrong.”
“God damn it, Catherine.” Each word was louder than the one before it. “I don’t need some Jiminy Cricket playing the part of my conscience now. I need a wife who supports me. Your job is to back me up. I need you to do your goddamn job right now, that’s what I need, Catherine.”
“This country is under attack. Foreign soldiers. And Americans. I’ve got six million so-called Americans who chose sides, chose sides against the rest of us. They made their decision. I made mine. I’ll lock every damn Jew up if they make me do it, by God I will.”
Catherine uncoiled her legs and swung them off the bed. She stood facing her husband, pulling her robe tightly around her. She’d struggled all day about how to approach her husband. Evidently, she’d failed.
“Some people won’t stand for this, Lawrence,” she said calmly. “I won’t stand for this.”
He sat in the bed, saying nothing.
“You know, Lawrence, I was going to give a speech at that March asking people to understand you, to support you, asking them to appeal to the good and kind man I married. That speech is in the trash now, Lawrence. Wait until you hear the new speech. Because you know what, Lawrence, you know what?”
Her voice rose to match her husband’s.
“What?” he responded, his anger at this woman mixing with the desire he still felt for her, had felt every day of his presidency, and well before. “Tell me what.”
“When you hear my new speech, Lawrence, you are going to be so, so pissed.”
She turned quickly. If she’d been wearing a long dress rather than a terry bathrobe, the dress would have swirled in a circle around her. She walked from the presidential bedroom, leaving the door open.
The next morning, President Quaid summoned Carol Cabot to the family dining room, where he sat at a table picking at an omelet. He barely turned his head to acknowledge her arrival.
“Carol, the First Lady is ill, or tired, or something,” he said without looking at the woman. “She should go to Camp David, to rest. Seclusion. She needs seclusion.” He paused for a few seconds. “She may not agree.”
He pushed his chair back from the table and stood up, then turned to face Cabot. “Make sure she goes anyway.”
Cabot wrestled against the tiny facial muscles that struggled to lift the ends of her mouth into a smile.
“I understand Sir,” she said. “When should she leave?”
President Quaid sat back in the chair, pulled it closer to the table, lifted his coffee cup and sipped, then replaced it gently on the table. “Right away, Carol,” he said. “This morning. Make it happen.”
He used the edge of his fork to cut a wide slice of omelet and lifted it to his mouth. Taking that as a dismissal, Cabot left the room to make arrangements.
An hour later, President Quaid heard the sound of Marine One, the huge presidential helicopter, landing on the South Lawn. He walked to the window and watched as Catherine Quaid marched across the grass to the waiting machine, surrounded by what looked like an honor guard of six Secret Service agents. She walked up the steps into the helicopter.
The President stared at his wife. Suddenly, he noticed an object on her arm.
He balled his right hand into a fist, drew back his arm and punched with all his weight straight at the center of the window, then screamed in pain. Not even a rifle bullet traveling at supersonic speed could pierce that glass.
Cradling his hand, blood starting to ooze from the bruised and torn knuckles, he muttered softly, “That bitch, that fucking ungrateful bitch.”
He looked out the window one final time and saw Catherine at the top of the steps. She turned and waived to the perpetual crowd of tourists that clung to the far side of the iron fence surrounding the White House, snapping photos.
Those tourists with the sharpest eyesight or longest telephoto camera lens saw a yellow, six-pointed star pinned to her left sleeve.