Every Star in the Sky

by Danielle Singleton

  “Oh my God, Becks.”

  “I’m not complaining. I’m not. I’m alive. I’m safe. My kids are safe. John is safe.”

  “Just because you survived doesn’t mean you’re not a victim, too. It’s okay to not be okay.”

  The phone went silent, and again Richard heard muffled sobs on the other end of the line.

  “I’m trying so hard to hold it all together,” Rebecca said through her tears. “John has been at the hospital ever since it happened, and the kids are scared and don’t understand. I told our housekeeper not to come in . . . there’s no point with us all home. I just . . . I just . . . ”

  “You need to not have to be strong. Even if only for a few minutes.”

  “Is that horrible of me?”

  “No,” Richard replied. “It’s human of you. And I’ll be your rock. Whenever you need me. I’m here.”

  FORTY-SIX

  London, England

  2006

  Richard’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out to see the name ‘Becks’ flashing on the screen.

  It was unusual for Rebecca to call him. After their late-night conversation on 9/11, Richard and Rebecca resumed a cordial but distant friendship. Happy birthday and Merry Christmas text messages were exchanged, along with the occasional email about a current event in global finance. But they very rarely talked on the phone.

  Richard justified the communications in his mind as being business savvy – after all, he and Rebecca were key players at their respective firms and even had some clients in common. As long as we keep it surface-level, I’m fine, he told himself. It had now been twenty years since he’d seen Rebecca in person, and he was finally able to think about her and speak to her without spiraling into a puddle of heartbreak.

  “Hi, Rebecca,” he said as he answered her call. “To what do I owe the surprise?”

  “Well, it’s you that surprised me. I had an email alert a few minutes ago from the HBS alumni association. It seems Richard Arrington, Class of ’86, is running for Parliament?”

  Richard chuckled. “Indeed, he is.”

  “I thought you were already in Parliament?”

  “Eh, sort of. I inherited my dad’s seat in the House of Lords when he passed away last year. But I resigned from that so I could run for a spot in the House of Commons.”

  “You were already in the upper house and gave it away to maybe join the lower house?”

  Richard laughed. “It sounds a bit crazy when you phrase it like that. But yes.”

  “Why?”

  “After the 7/7 bombings last year, I wanted to do more. We’ve got terrorist attacks and wars going on, and I didn’t feel right sitting by not doing anything. Britain needs its best people leading the charge right now. Maybe it’s arrogant of me to say, but I believe I’m one of those people.”

  “Of course you are,” Rebecca replied. “Good for you. That’s great. I only wish I could fly over and vote for you myself.”

  Richard smiled, and Rebecca could hear the happiness – and nerves – in his voice. “Thank you, Becks. Hopefully there are a lot of other people out there who want to vote for me too!”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Richard struggled early in the polls, finding it difficult to overcome his aristocratic background. Halfway through the campaign, he hired a brash young man from Liverpool to be his manager. Tripp Taylor had a public school education but never attended university, choosing instead to work on political campaigns. At a mere twenty-one years old, he already had three years’ experience under his belt and an impressive 14-2 winning record.

  Tripp made Richard change out of a suit and wear jeans and a button-down with the sleeves rolled up. Richard’s dog, Buddy, became a regular fixture at campaign events. People loved the goofy yellow lab, and they started to love Richard as well. His poll numbers began to climb. For the final two weeks of the campaign, Richard and Tripp spent ten hours a day canvassing his district, knocking on doors and asking for votes.

  By the time election day arrived in mid-December, Richard won in a landslide.

  After all the votes were counted and all the hands shaken, Richard and Tripp went back to Rosewood. The grand hall was decorated for Christmas, with garland wrapped around the staircase and a giant tree in the middle of the room. Richard breathed in the smell of fresh pine and smiled. I love Christmas trees.

  The staff of Rosewood all gathered in the hall and greeted the new Lord Dublinshire, MP with cheers of congratulations. Carl Guinn, the former footman who was now the butler, escorted Richard and Tripp into the library where Richard’s mother and sister were waiting for them.

  “Well done, my boy,” said the Dowager Marchioness. Victoria Arrington had aged a lot in the last year, with the death of her husband taking a hard toll, but she was still a commanding presence. Not a hair was out of place on her head, and Richard knew that her outfit cost more than he paid Tripp for the whole campaign.

  “Congrats, bro!” Sarah chimed in. She was Lady Sarah Miller now, having married a university professor fifteen years earlier. Sarah had two boys, Carter and William, who were both away at boarding school. Carter, as Richard’s closest living male relative, was heir to the Dublinshire title and Rosewood estate.

  “I knew you could do it!” Sarah exclaimed. “Here, have a drink. Celebrate!”

  Sarah handed him her glass and went to the bar cart to make herself another one.

  The party of four – Richard, Tripp, Victoria, and Sarah – lasted for about an hour before the two ladies called it a night.

  After they left the room, Richard poured two fresh glasses of whisky and walked over to the couch, handing one to Tripp.

  “Cheers,” Richard said. “To you. I never would’ve won this thing without you.”

  Tripp smiled and clinked glasses with his boss. He took a deep breath and said: “About that. I’ve been thinking. I really enjoyed this election, and I’m tired of bouncing around from town to town running different campaigns. Would you have any interest in keeping me on as a member of your staff?”

  Richard leaned back in his seat. “I’ll do you one better, kid. How does chief of staff sound?”

  “I . . . umm . . . I’m honored,” Tripp managed to say. “I was not expecting that at all. I would love to – but I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never worked on Parliament staff before.”

  “And I’ve never been a MP. We can learn together,” Richard said. “It’s much more important to me that I have staff I can trust. We’ll figure out the rest as we go.”

  A huge smile crossed Tripp’s face. “Yes sir.” He took a long sip from his whisky glass and shook his head when the liquid burned going down.

  “Not used to the hard stuff?”

  “I’m a broke, twenty-one-year-old campaign manager. Expensive whisky doesn’t sit high on my shopping priorities.”

  “Well, stick with me and that’ll change.” Richard laughed. “Or just stick with me and drink mine.”

  “Cheers to that,” Tripp replied. He paused. “Can I ask you something? Now that I’m your chief of staff and all?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why have you never been married? We got that question all the time during the campaign. Even had to fight off the rumors you were gay. What’s a smart, rich, good-looking guy like you doing still single?”

  Richard sighed and placed his glass down on the table in front of him. “Truth? I’ve been in love with the same woman for the past, shit, for the past twenty-two years.”

  “What? But – ”

  “Don’t believe everything you see.”

  Tripp stared at his boss, dumbstruck. “Never married. No kids. A different woman on your arm for every big function. But in love with the same lady for over twenty years?”

  Richard nodded his head. “She’s beautiful. Smart. Funny. An incredible combination of compassion and warmth wrapped around a spine of steel.” He smiled and picked up his drink to take another sip. “She could probably beat me in a footr
ace, bakes the best chocolate pie I’ve ever tasted, and a long time ago, if I was lucky – if I was really lucky – she would look my way and smile.” Lord Dublinshire paused and twirled his glass in his hand. “My world stopped spinning, my cold English heart warmed over, and for that brief moment in time I felt like the luckiest man in the world. All because she looked my way and smiled.”

  “If you feel that way about her . . . ”

  “Why am I sitting here alone?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  Richard sighed and took another long, slow drink of whisky. “She’s taken. At first, I was afraid of her. I see that now. She was too spirited. Too challenging. Then, she was afraid of me. Afraid that what we had together might make her lose sight of who she was and who she wanted to be.”

  “And then?”

  “Then some bloke came along who wasn’t afraid of her. And didn’t scare her. And marked off every damn little box on her future husband checklist.

  “So, she’s taken,” Richard concluded. “Despite what my political opponents say, I’m not a total bastard. I’m not going to steal another man’s wife.”

  Tripp leaned back in his chair and stared at his boss. A finance wiz turned political master. A man who would’ve been knighted for his economic efforts if he hadn’t already inherited a title. And a man who lived and worked for over twenty years under the weight of a broken heart.

  “Dude, that sucks.”

  Richard downed the rest of his drink. “Want to know the bloody worst of it all? She’s taken, but so am I. She has my heart. I’m ruined for anyone else.” He paused. “All because she looked my way and smiled.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  A few minutes later, Tripp said goodnight to his boss and went upstairs to the guest room he had been using during the campaign. Richard ran in his home district near the town of Battle, so it made sense to use Rosewood as the base of operations.

  After saying goodbye to Tripp, Richard pulled loose his bowtie and unbuttoned the top of his shirt. Walking over to the drink cart in the corner of the library, he poured himself another glass of whisky. The square crystal container clanged against the metal cart when he put it back down, and for half a second the newly elected MP thought he might’ve broken it. But the family heirloom held, the liquor stayed put, and Richard breathed a sigh of relief.

  “At least one of us isn’t broken,” he said, lifting his glass in salute to the decanter. He took a large gulp and relished the burn as the alcohol worked its way down his throat. “On what should be the best day of my life, Rebecca is still haunting me. How’s that new song go?”

  The melody to Rascal Flatts’ ‘What Hurts the Most’ played in his mind. “What hurts the most was being so close,” he sang aloud. “Having so much to say. Watching you walk away. And never knowing what could have been.”

  Richard smiled, but not because of the lyrics or the whisky or the pain in his heart. He smiled because it was a country song, and Rebecca loved country music. After hearing so much of it in her dorm room during school, Richard had grown to like it too.

  The smile faded, though, as it always did when his thoughts turned to her. Lord Dublinshire – now officially Richard Arrington, MP – gulped down more of his drink as he walked from the corner of the room to the sofa and sat down. He reached to undo the second button of his evening shirt but stopped when he noticed a stack of Christmas cards lying on the coffee table in front of him.

  Hmm. Guinn must have put them there this afternoon, he thought.

  Richard leaned forward and picked up the collection of holiday greetings.

  Best wishes and Happy New Year.

  Sir Arthur Walsh

  “Same to you, old man,” he replied, lifting his glass to his lips again.

  The next card had a picture of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on the front. Scribbled inside was: “Happy Christmas – remember, you’re weird and none of the other kids like you.”

  Richard threw his head back and laughed. He loved the tradition that he and his sister had of sending insulting cards instead of loving, mushy ones.

  He finished off his glass before looking at the third card. A beautiful manger scene was on the front, and when Richard picked up the card, a photo fell out onto the floor. He bent down to get it, but the whisky in his stomach and the image in his hand combined to give Lord Dublinshire a swift punch to the gut.

  The card was from her.

  Who else? he thought.

  “Of course she sends the prettiest card. And of course she includes a picture of her and her kids and her goddamn husband.”

  Anger and jealousy poured out of Richard, even more so the longer he looked at the family portrait. Husband, wife, son, and daughter, he thought. So fucking perfect. Richard set his jaw and let out a deep, frustrated growl. She got everything she ever wanted. And he got everything I ever wanted.

  ****

  Three thousand miles away, Rebecca sat in the back of a Lincoln town car as its driver battled afternoon rush hour. Her head was buried in her cell phone, and her thumbs moved at warp speed to respond to the incoming flood of emails. While December meant holidays and winding down for many people, for Rebecca it was full steam ahead. She was the partner in charge of Goldman Sachs’ most complex mergers and acquisitions, which meant that the rush to beat the end-of-year made her work life miserable. Adding on top of that were a dramatic teenage girl and a very active pre-teen boy. Don’t forget the husband with an image to maintain, she thought. It was John who needed her today for a holiday party at his hospital, which was why Rebecca found herself in a car at 4:30pm instead of behind her desk.

  I don’t know why I still do this shit for him. He never lifts a finger for me. Rebecca shook her head to clear her thoughts. Work. Focus on work.

  A few minutes later, though, as the car inched along Manhattan’s busy streets, Rebecca’s mind returned to her marriage. She knew John was busy. He was an attending physician at New York-Presbyterian. But I’m busy too, she thought. I’m a partner at fucking Goldman Sachs. She let out a deep breath to calm her nerves. Don’t walk into the party upset. That will hurt you more than it hurts him.

  Rebecca put her phone down in her lap and looked out the window. “That’s what my mother would say,” she told herself.

  “What was that, ma’am?” asked the driver.

  “Nothing, nothing. I’m just talking to myself.”

  Mother would say something like that, though, Rebecca repeated, this time remembering to keep her thoughts silent. ‘Go to the bathroom and fix your face. A man who doesn’t want to be involved won’t care if you’re upset. And people won’t remember him standing quietly at the party. They’ll remember you in tears. And hold it against you.’

  If anyone knew about being in a marriage with a distant husband, it was her mother. Her dad, Dr. Lewis, was a walking contradiction in their small Georgia town: a tough, hard man who preached family values at the dinner table but often left after to go to ‘work’, which was usually code for his mistress’ house. A brilliant doctor guided by ignorant prejudices. A devout Christian who rarely graced the doorway of a church. And a bigoted racist who was the only doctor in the area who would treat African American patients.

  Rebecca grew up surrounded by her father’s contradictions and her mother’s tireless efforts to bridge the gaps and sweep up the messes they left behind. As a result, Rebecca developed an uncanny ability to read people and situations. To see not only what others wanted her to see, but also the truth beneath the surface. Her knack for predicting future events earned her a reputation on Wall Street as something of a psychic, but in reality Mrs. Lewis-Bailey was reading signs and cues that others didn’t realize they were giving.

  She had seen the writing on the wall with John for several years now, but she didn’t have the courage to confront him. Or the evidence, she thought. Besides, I’ll be alone with him or alone without him. The only difference is the damage a divorce would do to the kids.

  Her car continued to
work its way north on First Ave toward the Lenox Hill neighborhood where John’s hospital was, with horns honking and voices yelling their daily traffic melody. On the right, standing tall against the waterfront of the East River, was the United Nations’ headquarters. The light gray building with bright blue windows glistened in the December afternoon sun. Rebecca’s eyes wandered to the rows of international flags, and one flag in particular. The Union Jack always reminded her of Richard.

  I wonder if he won his election?

  Rebecca picked up her Blackberry and searched his name in Google.

  ‘Hereditary Lord Elected MP’

  ‘Arrington Wins’

  ‘A Marquess in the Commons’

  England’s newspapers were having a field day with articles covering Richard’s win. It is quite the story, Rebecca thought. He’s born into a seat in their Senate and he gives it up to run for a spot in the House? She smiled. He did it, though!

  “We’re here, ma’am,” said the driver. Looking up, Rebecca realized that they had been sitting in front of New York-Presbyterian Hospital for several minutes.

  “I’m sorry. Thank you so much. I don’t know where my head is today.” Rebecca smiled as she exited the car, thanking the driver once again for the smooth ride.

  “I do know where my head is, though,” she muttered under her breath. “It’s in England. With him.”

  A group of doctors’ wives spotted Rebecca and called her name, forcing her to put Richard out of her mind. You’re married to John, she thought. And you have no one to blame for that but yourself.