(Jadey professed to hate her, though I secretly always admired her), and when Charlie ran largely in contrast to that administration, the differences between me and her were not a political creation; they were real. I moved the first lady’s office back from the West Wing to the East Wing, I have until today avoided controversy, I have not tried to convince my husband of much of anything. Isn’t it indeed unfair, then, to start confronting Charlie with my opinions and criticisms? And isn’t it cowardly, aren’t the consequences too serious, not to?
I say, “One time, this was probably twenty years ago, I was with Jadey at the country club, and I was reading an article in the paper about a man who was sick with hepatitis C and cirrhosis and couldn’t afford his medication. The article was just incredibly sad. I looked up from reading it, and people were, you know, splashing in the pool, Jadey and I were lying on those recliners, and I asked her if she ever felt like she should be leading an entirely different life.”
Almost imperceptibly, Charlie’s face softens; his nostrils shrink, they are no longer at full flare.
“I guess I wonder if I should have been an entirely different first lady,” I say. “Yes, I realize it’s been six years, but I finally feel like, Oh,
“Lindy—” He folds his arms across his chest. “You’re a great first lady. Your approval ratings are sky- high.”
“Those numbers don’t mean anything.”
He shrugs. “You’re preaching to the choir on that front, but come on—America loves you. The applause you got tonight—”
“You don’t have to tell me how great I am,” I say.
“Really? Because I’d be thrilled if you’d do that for me.” For the first time since we entered our bedroom, he grins—not a thousand-watt grin, but still a real one.
I glance at the fireplace, where porcelain vases that once belonged to Dolly Madison flank the TV, then I look again at my husband. “On the plane today, I was thinking about how, after Andrew Imhof died, from then on, anything in my life that wasn’t bad felt like a pardon. Especially meeting you, marrying you—I wasn’t sure if I deserved to be so lucky. And when you wanted to run for governor and president, even though I had such doubts, I didn’t put my foot down because I thought it wasn’t my right. Who am I to tell other people, including you, how to live? I’m not such a paragon of perfection.” I pause; I have gotten to the part that’s harder to say, where I incriminate not just myself but him as well. Slowly, I say, “But if you’ve made certain choices and I’ve stood by, aren’t I responsible, too, indirectly? If you look at it like that, then the car accident pales in comparison to the deaths since the war started. I almost couldn’t survive the guilt of killing one person and now how many thousands—and not just Americans but—”
“This is crazy talk!” Charlie strides toward me, he pulls me up from the bench, and he places his palms on either side of my head, gazing at me intently. He seems fierce, fiercely determined, but not hostile. “You’re being nuts, do you hear me? There are casualties under every president, every single one without exception. You’re so good-hearted that you feel personally responsible, but Lindy, it has nothing to do with you. When it comes to spreading democracy, yeah, there’s some collateral damage, and that might sound callous, but the casualties so far, no matter how you tally them, it’s nowhere close to Vietnam or World War II—this doesn’t hold a candle. And believe me, those wars had their critics, too, but no one looks back and thinks, Yeah, we really should have let Hitler go ahead and rule Europe. You’re in the thick of things, and that’s why it’s hard to maintain perspective—I struggle, too—but future generations will thank us. They will, Lindy. There’s no doubt in my mind.”
Did I bare my soul to him of all people—not to Jessica or Jadey or even to my father-in-law—precisely so that he could comfort me with passionate disagreement? Who would be more assured of, more invested in, my blamelessness than Charlie? In a similar fashion, I once allowed him to convince me that dating him against Dena’s wishes was no big deal.
He says, “They got to you today, didn’t they? The witch doctor and Mr. Sympathy, they gave you hell because you’re too nice to put them in their place. But just because they talk a good game doesn’t mean they’re right.”
Oh, Charlie. Oh, my dear and cherished husband in your white shirt and your loosened red tie, standing before me warm and fervent and familiar, my husband whose every expression and gesture and inch of skin are known to me, my partner in the strange circumstances of our lives, the man whom I have endlessly wished to make happy, endlessly been amused by, endlessly loved—do you not imagine I know all too well that just because people talk a good game doesn’t mean they’re right?
I have often felt, observing the world, like a solitary person in a small cottage looking out a window at a vast dark forest. Since I was a little girl, I have lived inside this cottage, sheltered by its roof and walls. I have known of people suffering—I have not been blind to them in the way that privilege allows, the way my own husband and now my daughter are blind. It is a statement of fact and not a judgment to say Charlie and Ella’s minds aren’t oriented in that direction; in a way, it absolves them, whereas the unlucky have knocked on the door of my consciousness, they have emerged from the forest and knocked many times over the course of my life, and I have only occasionally allowed them entry. I’ve done more than nothing and much less than I could have. I have laid inside, beneath a quilt on a comfortable couch, in a kind of reverie, and when I heard the unlucky outside my cottage, sometimes I passed them coins or scraps of food, and sometimes I ignored them altogether; if I ignored them, they had no choice but to walk back into the woods, and when they grew weak or got lost or were circled by wolves, I pretended I couldn’t hear them calling my name. In my twenties, when I was a teacher and a librarian working with children from poor families, I thought it was the beginning, that my contributions to society would increase and continue, but in fact that was my deepest involvement; in the years since, I have only extended myself from higher and higher perches, in increasingly perfunctory ways, with more cameras to chronicle my virtue.
I could have lived a different life, but I lived this one. And perhaps it is not a coincidence that I married a man who would neither fault me nor even be aware of my failings. I married a man to whom I would compare favorably because if I have done little, he has done less, or perhaps more; if I have caused harm accidentally and indirectly, he has done so with qualmless intent and total confidence.
The tears that have been welling in my eyes over the course of the conversation spill out at last, and Charlie wipes them with the pads of his thumbs. He leans in and kisses my right eyebrow. He murmurs, “Come on, baby.” If he hasn’t yet forgiven me completely, then it’s only a matter of time; he will forgive me so long as my behavior today remains an anomaly. He says, “Lindy, both of us—we’re instruments of God’s will.”
HAVE I MADE terrible mistakes?
In bed beside me, my husband sleeps, his breathing deep and steady. Before I awakened, I was dreaming of Andrew Imhof, the old dream: the two of us standing in different places, with different groups of people, in a large and badly lit room, my constant awareness of him. But in tonight’s dream, there was a startling change: After decades of elusion, we find each other. What happiness! We both are shy, we both are young, we make our way
