The Politician's Wife

by Vanessa Miller

  “Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Your home is lovely and the dinner was out of this world,” a middle aged couple with more money than they knew what to do with told him.

  Eric grinned. “I can’t take credit for any of it. My wife keeps the house beautifully and she and our cook planned the meal, although they did let me pick the dessert.”

  He received a thumbs up for that remark. “Best red velvet cake I’ve ever tasted.”

  “It’s the extra cream filling that Maria adds to it. Makes it seem like you’re eating a cheese cake.”

  As Eric turned to speak with another couple who had generously donated to his last campaign; a waiter walked by him holding up a tray of fluted glasses that contained a substance that looked like alcohol. Eric turned his gaze to Linda. Everything had been going just fine with the dinner party, but now the ‘fun’ would start. Maybe she’d ordered the liquor to humiliate him in front of his guests.

  As if reading the question in his eyes, Linda shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. Eric wasn’t buying it. How could she not know that the waiters would be serving liquor… she was the hostess for goodness’ sake.

  Eric was determined to nip it in the bud before things got out of hand. He was headed for the waiter, when Darien stopped him. “Hey man, Linda did a wonderful job. You should really be pleased.”

  “Yeah, she did,” Eric agreed.

  “So, I’m trying to figure out why you’ve got this scowl on your face for all to see.”

  “She ordered alcohol,” Eric hissed. “I specifically told her not to do it, and she did it anyway.”

  “Is that what’s got your knickers in a bunch? Bring it down a notch, man. Linda didn’t order the liquor; I did.”

  “You did what?”

  “You heard me. When I called to find out about the menu, Maria informed me that Linda was not ordering alcohol for this event. So, I took care of it myself.”

  Eric closed his eyes and tried to count to ten. He wanted to punch his friend. Linda had been doing her best to make a change. Even with how unreasonable he’d been at times, she might have taken a moment to put him in his place, but she’d kept her smile and her dignity. Darien was trying to ruin all of that. When he opened his eyes again, his jaw was tight as he asked, “Have you lost your mind? You, of all people, know that my wife is,” he whispered, “a recovering alcoholic.”

  “And you, of all people, should know that the people in this room have money to spend on your campaign. So, if they want liquor… they are going to get it. Heck, I’d even bring in a few strippers if it would get them to write a bigger check.”

  “So if this sets my wife back, then too bad. Is that how you feel about it?” Eric’s fist was clenching as he spoke.

  “Hey, you two,” Linda walked over and put her hand on Eric’s arm and whispered, “I don’t know what you‘re arguing about, but you might want to save it for the office. People are beginning to stare.”

  Eric looked at his wife. She was so, so, so beautiful to him. He felt like a louse for being so hard on her the past few years. But as God was his witness, if Linda was able to get through the night without falling back off the wagon, then he would never doubt her again. He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “You did a wonderful job with the dinner party, hon. Thank you.”

  Surprised by the show of affection, Linda stepped back and looked at her husband before saying, “Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Mayor.”

  Darien took Linda’s arm and twirled her around. “Linda, my goodness, what have you been doing with yourself? You look ten years younger.”

  “Losing twenty pounds will do that for a woman.”

  “Well, if you ever decide to leave this loser,” he pointed at Eric and Eric scowled. “You know that I’m still single.”

  “I know it, and there is a reason for that, Darien,” Linda said with a smirk as she walked away and began greeting some of the guests as they milled around the living room.

  Darien turned to say something to Eric, but then noticed that he was standing alone. Eric had walked off, trying to catch up with his wife.

  “Hey Linda, wait up,” Eric said.

  Linda turned toward her husband. “What’s up?”

  Another waiter with fluted glasses passed by them, but Linda didn’t seem to pay it any mind. “I wanted to walk around with you. I thought maybe we could talk to the people together.”

  “I’d like that, Eric.” She put her arm around his waist. “Come on, Mr. Mayor, let’s get our networking on.”

  An hour later, Linda and Eric were on the dance floor swaying to a slow jam. Eric bent down and whispered in his wife’s ear. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”

  Linda let her head swing back as she belted out a hearty laugh. “Why Mr. Mayor, are you flirting with me?”

  “If you don’t know, I must be out of practice.”

  Their eyes met and it was like a jolt of electricity. He wanted her… his wife. How or when it had happened, Eric didn’t know or care. All he knew was that his heart was feeling something for the woman in his arms again, and he didn’t want to let her go.

  “What’s on your mind, Eric?”

  “You.”

  “It’s been a long time since I was on your mind.”

  He stopped swaying to the music and stared down at his wife. She had told him that she didn’t know how to stop loving him. That had been the moment when he’d started figuring out how to love her again. He hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, but it was true. “I want to move back into our bedroom. And just in case you don’t understand my meaning… I want to make love to you, tonight.”

  “I’ll leave the light on for you,” she said as she glided off the dance floor.

  Chapter 11

  Linda moaned and stretched as she opened her eyes to the dawn of a new day. There was a smile on her face as she happily noted that Eric was not only lying next to her, but his hand was around her waist and he was pulling her closer to him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked in a groggy, please don’t leave me kind of voice.

  “To the bathroom.”

  “Nooo, stay with me a little while longer,” he begged as he held her tighter.

  “We don’t have a water bed, Mr. Mayor, but if you don’t let me up, we will both be floating in a minute.”

  He released her. “Okay, but hurry back.”

  She jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. “I’ll be back before you have time to miss me.”

  “Not true, I miss you already.”

  Laughing, she went into the bathroom, took care of her business and then washed her hands and face. She then brushed her teeth and opened the door to their adjoining bedroom.

  Eric pulled back the covers and said, “Come here, woman. I want to show my appreciation for how well you handled that dinner last night.”

  “Oh, you’ve already done that. Believe me.”

  “A man can never thank his wife enough. At least that’s what a wise woman used to tell me.” He gave her a wink as he asked, “I wonder if she still believes that?”

  She closed her eyes as Eric’s words tugged at her heart. When they were first married, Linda used to tell him that all the time. That he still remembered the good days even after suffering with her through so many bad days, caused Linda to love him just a bit more. Smiling, she said, “Oh yeah, baby, I still believe that.” She joined him in bed and they made sweet love again. When they were finished, and once again lay in each other’s arms, Linda said, “I need you to do something for me.”

  He lifted her long curly hair and kissed the back of her neck. “Ask away.”

  “Can you please go downstairs and make sure all of the liquor bottles from last night’s dinner party have been cleared out?”

  “I thought we paid a clean up crew to handle that this afternoon.” he said.

  “We did. But…”

  He turned her around to face him. “What’s wrong, Linda? You didn’t touch the stuff last
night. I finally believe that you’ve been cured. So why do you sound so worried about it?”

  They had been having such a good time; she hated to burst his bubble, but didn’t see any way around it. “I’m an alcoholic, baby.”

  He touched her nose with his fingertip. “You mean, you’re a former alcoholic.”

  “You and I will have to face the fact that recovering from alcoholism takes time. I don’t know how long it will be before I lose the desire for it altogether. Last night, I had to keep praying and reminding myself of how much alcohol has taken from me… just so I wouldn’t grab one of those flutes and swallow the brown substance within it.”

  He pulled her into a tight hug. “Darien ordered the liquor. He was worried that the donors might feel slighted if they couldn’t get drunk at our expense. But I promise you, it will never happen again.”

  “Thank you for understanding.”

  He got out of bed and threw on a robe. “I’ll go and check things out.” He walked toward the door and then stopped as he opened it. He turned back to his wife and said, “I’m glad you told me how hard this is for you. Whenever you need my help, just ask. We’re a team and I’ll always be here for you.”

  Now he was sounding more like the husband she had married all those years ago. And in that moment, Linda knew that things would work out for them.

  The rest of the month followed a blissful pattern of family time, fun time and midnight love-a-thons. Eric was happy again and Linda was enjoying the fact that she was his delight. She only wished that she could confide in him about the group for recovering alcoholics that she had founded. But she knew the knowledge of that would be the kiss of death for their new found love.

  But, Linda couldn’t stop lending a helping hand to the women who came to her for help. She met Susan at the gym, then another woman by the name of Brenda Lawson approached her after church one Sunday. Both Brenda and Susan knew of women who wanted to be free from of alcoholism. So Linda had her first meeting with these women a few weeks back.

  Since they didn’t have the money to build an organization, Linda just invited the women to her home during the afternoon while Eric was at work. She prayed with the women and told them stories about how she became free from alcoholism. At the end of each meeting, she invited the women to accept Jesus into their lives, because Linda was convinced that He had made all the difference in her recovery.

  On the last Friday in October, Linda was closing out her weekly meeting with prayer as Kivonna went to the kitchen to grab the refreshments for their guests. The front door opened and in the midst of her prayer, Linda heard daughter say, “Hey Dad, what are you doing home so early?” Fear clenched Linda’s heart.

  “I took off early. Is that okay with you?”

  “Of course, I like it when you come home early,” Kivonna answered her father.

  “Where’s your mom?” he asked.

  “She’s in the family room with her recovery group,” Kivonna said, unaware that she was spilling the beans.

  Linda and the group of women were holding hands as she finished the prayer. Eric walked into the room as they said, “Amen,” and dropped each other’s hands.

  “Okay ladies, my daughter just brought in the refreshments, so please feel free to hang out… grab a glass of lemonade and some dessert. My husband just walked in, so I need to go say hello.”

  As she turned toward Eric, her knees wobbled. She was so close to having her life back the way she wanted it… she just prayed that this one act of defiance wouldn’t ruin everything for them. Lord, please let him understand, was her silent plea to God.

  On tippy toes, she gave her husband a quick peck on the lips. “Hey handsome, what are you doing home so early?”

  “I needed to talk to you about something.” He turned away from Linda and glanced at the women in his family room. “What’s going on here? Who are these people?”

  “Come on in and see for yourself,” she said as she grabbed his hand and moved him further into the family room. “You already know Susan,” she said as she stopped him in front of the woman. “Her husband is on the city council.”

  Eric shook hands with her and threw on a plastic smile. “Oh yeah, I remember you. How’s Harold doing?”

  “A lot better, thanks to your wife.”

  Linda moved away from Susan before Eric could ask for further explanation of what she’d said. She then hurried through the other introductions. “This is Mary Stephens, she’s a friend of Susan’s. This is Brenda Jones, I met her at the grocery store and this is her friend, Terri Hollbrook.”

  Eric shook hands with each woman and said hello one by one, but then he turned back to his wife with questioning eyes.

  Linda enlisted her daughter’s help. “Kivonna, why don’t you take your father to the kitchen.” She turned back to Eric and said, “I shouldn’t be long. I’ll join you two in the kitchen and explain everything.”

  “Hurry,” he said, while looking over at the women, and then giving his wife the evil eye before leaving the room with Kivonna.

  Susan came over to Linda and whispered, “Why didn’t you tell Eric about us?”

  Linda turned to the woman who had become her friend and said, “Just pray for me, okay?”

  “I’m already on that, sister; you didn’t even have to ask.”

  Linda talked with the ladies for another twenty minutes, trying to encourage them to have faith in the process and to be okay with their accomplishments… even if it was simply that they had stayed away from the bottle for just one day. She wished her husband understood her need to be of service to these women. She also wished she could make him see that these women helped her to stay strong and away from her previous destructive behavior.

  After she ushered the women out of the house, she went into the kitchen to plead her case. She kissed Eric again, just because she liked the feel of his lips on hers. “Are you hungry?”

  “We can eat later. I think we need to talk right now, don’t you?”

  Linda looked at Kivonna. “Do you have any homework to do?”

  “I finished my homework, but I have a spelling test to study for.”

  “Well, you go do that so I can talk with your father.”

  Kivonna skipped out of the room, oblivious to the undercurrent of anger and fear drifting between her parents. Linda slowly turned back to Eric. “If you’re going to yell and scream, we probably should handle this in our room.”

  He got up from the kitchen table and stomped up the stairs. When he was halfway up and noted that Linda wasn’t following, he yelled, “Come on.”

  Sighing, she got up from the table and followed her husband. Life had been going great for her family. God be with me. She closed the door after she entered their bedroom. She held up a hand. “I know you’re upset, but if you could please hear me out before you go off half cocked and get us both saying things we’ll regret.”

  “I want to say a whole lot right now, Linda, and I don’t think I’ll regret any of it.”

  “Baby, listen to me.”

  “You went behind my back, Linda. When you asked me for money to start your little recovery program, I said no. What did you think… that I’d be happy about these people being in our home, because it was cost effective?”

  “You are correct. I didn’t tell you that I was meeting with these women.”

  “Darn straight, I’m correct. I thought I could trust you again, and then you do something like this. I just don’t understand it, Linda.”

  “I didn’t want to go behind your back, Eric. But you refused to listen… you don’t seem to care how important this is to me.”

  “Look, Linda, I get that you are an alcoholic. I’m trying my best to deal with that, especially since you’ve stopped drinking. But I didn’t sign up for a marriage like this and I sure don’t want the world to know what we’re dealing with.”

  She walked over to him, put her arms around her husband and comforted him. “My weakness has not been fair to you or Kivonn
a. I know that I have a great deal to make up for, but I’m getting stronger every day and those women you met today are helping me.”

  He stepped away from her and sat down on the bed. A tortured look took up residence on his face.

  “What’s wrong, baby? Talk to me,” Linda said as she sat down next to him.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know… I mean… you’re the one with the problem, but I come off sounding like a jerk when I forbid you to help others with the same problem.”

  “You’re not a jerk. My illness could hurt your political career. I get that. But where you are afraid of exposure, I believe that God will make a way once we come clean.”

  “But I’ve always been the responsible one in my family. I help people with issues. I don’t want others to know about our problems. Is that so bad?”

  She put her hand on his shoulder. “Baby, they already know. Two of the women that were in our family room today approached me because they noticed that I had stopped drinking. Don’t you see that we can’t hide our sins from the world? They’ll only be dug up, eventually.”

  Still hanging his head, Eric told her, “That’s why I came home early today. I received a call from someone who said he saw the accident. He wants ten million for his silence.”

  Linda gasped. “We don’t have that kind of money.”

  He put her hand in his and squeezed. “I’m thinking about taking it from the foundation money.”

  She gasped again, stood up and backed away from her husband, shaking her head.

  “There’s no other way, Linda. I have to take the money.”

  “I know I caused this problem by driving drunk in the first place, but don’t compound it by stealing from your father. You are too good of a man for that.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my family.”

  She shook her head again. “Don’t lie to yourself, Eric. If you steal that money from your father, it’s not to protect me… it’s to protect your political career.”