"You're a busy man," Kerry answered mildly, "so let me cut to the chase. With the understanding that this cannot hit the papers."
For Lenihan, Kerry knew, this request would only increase his selfesteem. "Absolutely, Mr. President."
"Clayton tells me you've got thirteen major lawsuits against gun manufacturers. Suppose I want to reach an agreement with one of the biggest, settling all of your lawsuits against it?"
This, for once, induced a momentary silence in Bob Lenihan. "In exchange for what?"
"Zero damages," Kerry said briskly. "Just a fundamental change in how this company does business—including how it sells its guns, and who it sells to." After a brief pause, Kerry added, "And, perhaps, your legal fees. Some modest compensation for time spent."
To Kerry's amusement, more silence followed. "To agree to that," Lenihan ventured, "I'd need the approval of all the cities."
"That shouldn't be hard. These suits are all uphill—and in a few states, the SSA is pushing legislation to bar them outright." Kerry's tone remained crisp. "The mayors of all thirteen cities are Democrats, and they need the assistance a President can provide. Besides, they filed these lawsuits claiming they wanted to reform the American gun industry. I'm proposing to help them."
Once more, Lenihan hesitated. When he spoke again, his tone was subdued. "You've taken me by surprise, Mr. President. I'll have to consult with my clients and cocounsel."
"You do that," Kerry said succinctly. "I need a breakthrough on guns. You need a President who looks as strong as possible. Especially for the next time the Republicans in Congress gin up some 'tort reform' bill to wipe out half your lawsuits against the corporations you sue, or cut the damages you can collect to zip."
This time, Kerry surmised, the quiet on the other line suggested not resistance, but calculation, the weighing of political costs and benefits. At length, Lenihan said, "I'll start making inquiries tomorrow."
"Thank you," the President answered politely. "This is delicate, and I don't have time to waste."
SIXTEEN
Four days before the wedding, Lara's family arrived at the White House.
Lara had met them at Dulles; on a muggy late afternoon, the motorcade of black limousines eased through the East Entrance of the White House, accompanied by the Secret Service and D.C. Police, some on motorcycles. As Kerry emerged from the East Wing to greet them, television cameras and photographers with telephoto lenses, cordoned off by more security, followed him from a distance.
The President had cleared his schedule, determined to make this visit as warm and easy as Lara devoutly wished it to be. When Lara emerged from the limousine, he walked over briskly, and kissed her.
"How was the trip in?" he asked.
Lara smiled. "Noisy. Marie loved the sirens."
Inez emerged next. In her mid-fifties she retained the slender build she had passed on to Lara. Her handsome face, while careworn, was animated by spirited black eyes which conveyed warmth and intelligence. Her dress was simple, her grooming flawless. Once more Kerry was reminded of his own mother, Mary, an Irish immigrant who, despite her great surprise at finding herself mother to a President, had always maintained a dignity she felt appropriate to his achievements. He went to Inez and kissed her on the cheek.
She smelled of a spicy perfume, felt more fragile than Kerry had recalled. Pulling back, Kerry smiled at her. "You," he said, "are the mother-in-law I had in mind."
Inez laughed softly, taking in the grandeur of the White House. "I'm Lara's mother, in any event." Though she had come to America as a child, her voice was lightly accented. "So this is where my daughter will be living."
"For seven and a half more years, I hope."
Turning, Kerry saw Lara's youngest sister, Mary. Neither as plump as Joan nor as pretty as Lara, Mary had crescent eyes, a wide mouth, and the tentative look of someone who was waiting to be invited to dance, but felt uncertain that this would happen. She was a kindergarten teacher: it was with children, Lara had told him, that her hesitant manner was replaced by an air of unflappability.
Kerry kissed her on the forehead. "Mary," he said, "it's terrific that you're here."
After a tentative moment, she hugged him. "To me, it's amazing that I am. But Lara's an amazing person."
To Kerry, Mary's comment had a faint and unintentional undertone—that Mary felt more awe for Lara than she found comfortable. Then he saw Joan standing behind her, and extended his arm. When Joan came forward, he gently pulled her closer, until she rested the crown of her head against his cheek.
"How are you?" he murmured.
"Better, for now." She leaned back; her liquid brown eyes were filled with a trust which reminded Kerry of how much he still worried for her, how deeply he had become enmeshed in the life of Lara's family. Quickly, Joan glanced down at Marie. "Thank you, Kerry. For everything."
Grasping her mother's hand, Marie was looking about her with the shyness of a six-year-old in the presence of a stranger. It struck Kerry that Marie, so much a part of his thoughts, had never met him.
Kneeling, he took both of her hands. "Hi, Marie. I'm Kerry."
She looked at him, head slightly angled away, as if to keep her inspection surreptitious. "You're the President."
Kerry smiled. "True. I'm also marrying your Aunt Lara. That makes me your uncle, believe it or not."
Marie gazed at him, as if torn between interest and suspicion. As her picture had suggested, she was so much like a miniature Lara that it pierced him, yet there was something harder to define, perhaps the set of her mouth and the apprehension in her eyes, which reminded Kerry of his encounter with John Bowden.
"At the airport," she informed him, "they took my picture."
"Yeah—they do that a lot. After a while you sort of get used to it."
Marie gave a fractional shrug. "I didn't really mind," she allowed, and then looked past him at the White House. "It's huge. My teacher said it would be."
At once, Kerry had the sense of Lara's family stepping through the looking glass—for reasons Marie could not truly comprehend, the world was signalling her that she had become a child apart. Even without this, too much had happened to her—a home life that must seem unpredictable and often dangerous; a mother who was fearful and confused; a father who, in his banishment, had become a frightening enigma. "It may be big," Kerry assured her, "but it's pretty nice inside. Would you like to see it?"
The little girl bit her lip. "Can you show me where Mommy and I are sleeping?"
Kerry heard the implicit plea: please don't separate me from my mother. "Sure," he answered with a smile. "It's called the Lincoln Bedroom. The bed's big enough for both of you."
Around them, the White House ushers came for the Costello's luggage. Perhaps, Kerry thought, it was the presence of more strangers; perhaps it was that Kerry was a man, and that Marie Bowden missed her father. But when they entered the East Wing, the fingers of Marie's left hand rested lightly in Kerry's.
* * *
John Bowden sat amidst the wreckage of his life.
His clothes were flung over chairs and on the floor; there was nothing in the refrigerator but bagels, ice cream, and a chilled bottle of vodka. The red light on his answering machine was a message from his probation officer, asking why he had missed the workshop for convicted batterers, and warning that this was a parole violation. In his hands he grasped the framed picture of Marie; at his feet, on the front page of the afternoon paper, Joan and Marie stepped out of a limousine at San Francisco International, above a caption saying "Wedding Bound." From his television, CNN assaulted him.
"The arrival of the Costello family," the anchorman said, "begins a unique chapter in American history—the marriage of a President, the son of Irish immigrants, to the daughter of a woman who came to the United States from Mexico . . ."
In an act of will, John Bowden forced himself to look up.
Their backs were to the camera: four women, a man, and a little girl, entering the portals of the W
hite House. But no one needed to identify President Kerry Kilcannon, or the child who held his hand in one of hers, her doll clasped in the other.
Tears filled John Bowden's eyes; outrage filled his heart.
* * *
Though Lara considered it a failing, Kerry was indifferent to what he considered the frills of history—which First Lady had procured what portrait, which President had been given a French Empire clock. But for Lara's family he had read up on the evolution of the White House, committing discrete chunks to memory.
Among those were the histories of each upstairs bedroom in which the Costellos were staying. Entering the Queen's suite, he told Inez, "This is where Queen Elizabeth stayed, along with Queens Juliana and Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Queen Frederika of Greece, a gaggle of princesses, and even Winston Churchill. But not at the same time."
Inez eyed the room with the mock-critical gaze of a woman concerned that it met her standards of domestic order, her gaze resting last on the canopied bed. Then she turned to Kerry, touching his arm. "It's wonderful, truly."
"I'm still getting used to it myself," Kerry answered with a smile, and led them to the Lincoln Bedroom—Inez, Joan and Marie, with Lara and Mary chatting behind. "This was actually Lincoln's office," he explained. "But after he was assassinated, it was felt no one should work here." Turning to Marie, he said, "A long time ago, in this country, white men were allowed to own blacks as slaves. This is where President Lincoln signed what they called the Emancipation Proclamation, making slavery against the law."
And it was in this room, Kerry thought, where history became palpable for him. But it was not easy to explain to a six-year-old girl the ineradicable stain which slavery had left on our nation, the ongoing legacy of which remained one of Kerry's deepest concerns. Scooping her up in one arm, Kerry walked over to an oil depicting a cluster of slaves, hiding in a cellar as they gazed at a watch by candlelight, waiting for the hour of emancipation to strike. "These were slaves," he told her, and pointed to the worn face of an old man. "This man has been waiting all his life to be free."
For a long time, Marie gazed at the painting, doll held tight to her. Perhaps, Kerry thought, this reflected less a conscious understanding of slavery than of the fear and hope she read in the faces, the sense of hiding in the darkness. It was that sense, Kerry suspected, which Marie could feel as intensely as Kerry had at her age, listening to the sounds of his father's anger, his mother's cries.
"Come on," he told her. "I've got another room to show you."
* * *
This solarium was light and sunny—there was a television, and Lara had stocked it with children's books and the same games Marie had at home. To Marie, her mother exclaimed, "Oh, sweetheart, this is really nice." More softly, she said to Lara, "Thank you."
Quiet, Lara touched Joan's arm.
Perhaps now, Kerry hoped, things would change between them. If so, that would be a wedding present to Lara beyond anything else she could receive. Together, the adults watched Marie place her doll at a small wooden table.
The telephone rang. Glancing at the caller ID number, Kerry saw that it was Clayton Slade.
"Yes?" he answered.
"I'm sorry to bother you," Clayton apologized. "But we've got a problem, with the San Francisco Chronicle."
At once, Kerry felt hope turn to apprehension. "What?" he asked. "Did I lose the recount?"
"They're working on a story about Joan. And you."
SE VENTEEN
"Carole Tisone called me ," Marcia Harding told the President. "From the Chronicle. She knew all about the stay-away order; Bowden's threats to Joan; his visit to Marie; his conviction. Even that he's in a program for abusive men."
Sitting in his upstairs office, Kerry glanced at the others—Clayton, Kit Pace, and Lara—as Harding's voice resonated from the speakerphone. "How?" he asked.
"Not from me." Harding's voice was flat. "Maybe from court files, or the cops. Maybe someone in the PD's office told somebody else—the only thing that isn't run-of-the-mill domestic violence is that Joan is Lara Costello's sister. Now that she's left for your wedding, her life has become a 'human interest story' . . ."
"What's the public interest in humiliating Joan?"
"I asked much the same thing. She started with some pieties about domestic violence being 'our most closely guarded family secret,' and how Joan's case was like Nicole Simpson's—a wake-up call that exposes the issue." Harding paused, then added with palpable reluctance. "Then she asked about your call."
At the corner of his eye, Kerry saw Lara's look of alarm. "There were only three of us on that call," Kerry said tersely. "You, me, and Halloran."
"I can only speak for me, Mr. President. I didn't tell a soul—no one in the office, not even the police."
"What did you tell the reporter?"
"Only that it was an internal matter, and that I didn't feel free to comment. I've got a call in to Jack Halloran—I haven't been able to reach him. So I decided to warn you myself. Whatever happens, Mr. President, I clearly can't deny you called."
Across the room, Kerry watched a series of expressions register on Kit Pace's snub features—disquiet, concern, calculation. More evenly, Kerry inquired, "What did this reporter want to know?"
"What we'd talked about. How many times you'd called. What you wanted us to do. Whether Joan got special treatment." Now Harding sounded annoyed. "As to that, I said no. Which is true—the only thing I did any differently is to personally enter the stay-away order in the computer, as you asked, in case he tried to buy a gun. And that was only to ensure the system works the way it should."
Listening, Kerry felt a moment's sympathy for Harding: she had been helpful and professional, and yet might be tarnished by having talked to him at all. "I'm sorry," he said, "if I've created a problem for you."
"Oh, I'm fine with how we handled this—I just hope it helps her. And him." Her tone became more cautious. "The thing I worry about is Jack. If he told someone, and that someone told the Chronicle, he'll probably have to admit it's true. And then I'll have to talk about it."
Kerry glanced at Lara. She stared fixedly at the floor, as though watching her hopes for these few days—a warm visit with her family; a healing interlude with Joan—evaporate. "If you have to," Kerry answered, "you have to—every conversation, everything I said or asked. Pass that on to Jack, as well."
Harding was briefly silent. "Thank you, Mr. President. I will."
* * *
To Lara, Kerry said softly, "You were right. I should have hired a lawyer at the beginning, someone to be a go-between. Not been so intent on fixing things myself."
Watching, the others seemed embarrassed. "You were protecting her," Lara answered in an even tone. "You know what can go wrong."
"Yes," Kerry answered. "This. We'd better discuss how to handle it."
Briefly, Kit glanced at Lara. "We don't have many options," she told Kerry. "Halloran probably had a few too many, and couldn't resist telling a crony about the phone call from on high. We can't expect him to stonewall this, and it might only make things worse if he tried.
"You know the classic rule: get the story out your way, and get it over with. That's all the more true when you've got nothing to hide . . ."
"Nothing," Lara interjected, "except my sister's private life. On the eve of our wedding they'll have a field day with this."
Kit grimaced. "That's why we have to make a public statement. Get ahead of this with dignity, and make a plea for Joan's privacy . . ."
"How do you put that genie back in the bottle?"
"You don't," Kit responded. "We can simply make it better, or worse."
Kerry stood. "How much time do we have?"
Kit sat back, eyes narrow with thought. "As long as it takes them to nail down the D.A., and call us—they'll have to do that. Figure a day, maybe two."
"Any chance of killing this?"
"An appeal for decency?" Kit answered in a dubious tone. "We can try. It might be easi
er if you weren't part of the story."
Kerry did not look at Lara. "And you?" he asked Clayton. "You warned me about this, after all."
"It's easy to give warnings," his friend answered. "If I were President, and one of my girls were at risk, I wouldn't delegate this to anyone."
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