crushed furniture.
In Melvin’s bedroom I had a surprise-his closet and drawers were still filled with his clothes. Of course they would be, but it was strange, and what was I supposed to do with it all? Give it to the poor? I’d call Nathan. Most homeless people don’t have a decent business suit.
There was a small table by the bed. I pulled open the drawer. It was nearly empty, just some aspirin, reading glasses, tissues, paper and pen, and a book. What would he have been reading?
It wasn’t a book. It was a bulky brown leather picture frame that opened like a book. I opened it, and then I had to sit down.
There were two pictures. One of a man and woman, one of two young children. I’d never seen these photos. Probably no one else had, either, except Melvin, in more than twenty years.
Melvin and Ann, Jason and Eric.
I didn’t know what to think. They’d been here by his bed, maybe for that long. Suddenly, new doors into his heart were opening for me. I didn’t want to go through them, but I still sat on the bed as minutes went by, staring at the pictures. In the end I didn’t know if it was better or worse that I’d seen them.
And they’d been by his bed. All this time.
I took the frame with me.
It wasn’t as far a drive to our new residence. The road turned and I saw my own house through the trees. I stopped on the roadside to look at it.
“Pamela?”
“Yes, Jason?”
“Find someone real good to put in a security system for my house. There’s one here already, but I want something industrial strength.”
“Yes, sir. Do you want it in a hurry?”
“Well, yes. It’s a dangerous world.”
“I understand. I can call the people who maintained your father’s system.”
“Maybe you should ask around.”
“All right, I will. And there’s no word yet from the senator’s office.”
“Let me know when there is.” I put my phone away and sat there awhile before I went in. The picture frame was in my briefcase, and I didn’t show it to Katie. When I got to my office, I put it in my desk drawer.
I dialed Nathan Kern’s number. It was after five, but that hardworking, dedicated man was still there, burning the midnight dollars.
“Yes, Jason? This is Nathan Kern.”
“Hello, Nathan. I was calling to ask you about last week. I want to get this straight. You talked to Angela on Wednesday?”
“Yes, Wednesday evening. We discussed her joining the board. As I told you before, she was very excited.”
“And on Thursday, I told you she had changed her mind. That was a surprise?”
“Absolutely. I was quite surprised.”
“Did you talk to her at all after that? I’m trying to figure why she got spooked.”
“No. I had meant to. You called in the evening on Thursday, and on Friday morning I flew to Washington for a weekend conference. When I returned Sunday afternoon, I heard the news.”
“Okay. I just wondered. Something happened sometime Wednesday night or Thursday.” One other thought came to me. “Nathan, be careful, okay?”
“What?” He paused. “Oh. I see. Yes, Jason, and you, too. Be careful.”
Time to go down to the dining room. I was hungry, and Katie had said supper would be special.
That night we had our first real dinner in the new house. The theme was Traditional New England Farm. The dining room was inundated with wildflowers of the autumn fields and forests, nature blasting right through the walls in its exuberance. Much of the flora had landed on the Rustic Farm Table-dark, polished wood, mottled with more knots and burls than a person could shake a hand-carved walking stick at. Fortunately, there were still several uncovered square yards of the table for our hand-thrown and fired pottery plates and serving bowls, cut crystal water and wine glasses, pewter cutlery, silver candlesticks, and linen napkins in carved wooden napkin rings. Every sparkle of it was brand-new.
And all was secondary to the meal of roast duck, herbed new potatoes, fresh dark bread, and spinach salad, with maple pecan pie for dessert. The wine was French, a rose
I didn’t recognize. Our conversation was as comfortable as the food, and afterward we lingered over the pie.
“A person could get used to living this way,” I said.
Katie laughed. “I’ve always wanted to.”
“Do you ever question it?”
“No. I know you do.”
“All the time.” I yawned. Maybe tonight I would finally sleep. “But if I was poor, I’d question that. So there’s no way out. I’ll always have questions.”
“Where we are, Jason… it’s what everyone wants. Most people never get here, and they just accept that they won’t. But there doesn’t have to be a reason why some people… why it’s us. We just are.”
We were drinking coffee with the pie. “What if we weren’t?” I asked. We’d polished off the wine.
“I don’t know. I don’t think about it.”
I swirled the coffee in my cup, but the wine was swirling in my brain. “Think about it. Say I just gave it all away. What would you do?”
“Why would you give it away?” Her voice was just a little bit sharp.
“I’m being hypothetical. How important is the money compared to me?”
She did not like the question. “Of course you’re more important. Now stop talking about it.”
“I’m sorry.”
Then I saw she was crying.
I’d pushed too hard, even if it wasn’t very hard. She was feeling vulnerable. Everything was still too new, and she was being reminded that it could go away, turn back into a pumpkin at midnight. She needed assurance, and as I looked at her eyes blinking back tears, I would have done anything for her. Then she asked for the one thing I couldn’t do.
“I want you to just accept that we’re here,” she said.
“I’ll try,” I said.
“You always ask those questions, Jason. Why don’t you find some answers sometime?”
I didn’t know what else to say. I hugged her, and she gave me a little kiss and left the room, and I went up to my office. After a while she stopped by to leave a vase of the wildflowers on my desk.
Eric had apparently gone home, but just before nine he came roaring up to the front door. He’d had a mood swing. The motorcycles had finally bored him, and he was now traveling in a monster Corvette. I heard him from the back of the house, three ballrooms away.
“Channel Six,” he commanded. “Press conference at nine o’clock.”
We scurried to the television lounge, tastefully decorated with equine accents, and perched on the leather sofa and chairs. Surely I’d seen the room before, but I didn’t remember it.
“They arrested Howland and Gilbert today,” Eric said. “The first cabinet secretaries in state history to be arrested while they were still in office.”
“I thought they had already resigned.”
“The governor hadn’t accepted the resignations yet. He didn’t have time. They’re already out on bond.”
He snapped on the wall-sized screen and Bill Sandoff’s head, four feet tall, joined our cozy little group.
“-will begin in just a moment, when Governor Bright arrives. We have not been informed about what exactly the governor will announce, only that it is major, and that-Governor Bright is arriving- He is proceeding directly to the podium…”
“Good evening.” Harry Bright was now filling our room. I resolved to purchase a new small television on which to watch press conferences.
“Ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens,” he continued sternly, gravely, grimly. “I am here this evening to ask
