That first night alone in the house with Aussie, we sit on the couch to watch TV and she curls up on her side with her head in my lap just like she used to do when she was little.
Something Aurora Claire Forrester hasn’t done since she turned thirteen and became too cool to be Daddy’s little girl any longer.
Tomorrow is the start of her senior year of high school, and an Executive Protection Unit detail will start driving her to and from school. She asked for me not to go, because surly teen girl mode is fast returning. The boys are both away at college in Knoxville, and they get shadowed by officers, too.
In a way that’s a good thing, I guess. That life is trying to return to whatever normal is.
She’s a little mad at me that I’m not going to let her drive herself to school at all for her senior year like we originally told her she could. She’ll be sixteen in a month, but that promise of independence was made before my world fell apart and I became governor.
Fortunately, her brothers and Aunt Casey helped me help her see why I feel that way. Losing her—any of my children—on top of losing their mother would absolutely kill me. I need this little bit of emotional breathing room right now, one less stressor on my plate with an already overflowing buffet of attention-stealing items fighting for my limited brain cells.
Aussie has her eye on trying to get into Yale or Harvard. She might be able to do it, too, with her grades. She already has letters of acceptance from Vanderbilt, UTK, University of Georgia, Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina State, and University of South Carolina.
The girl’s got choices, and crazy-good grades and test scores.
At least I’ll be able to pay for her college education wherever she ends up, even without a scholarship or financial aid. Ellen’s life insurance payout, and our lawsuit against the charter company, will more than take care of it, as well as the boys’ educations. Money problems are no longer a concern for me, not that they were much of a concern before. Corporate law pays very well, and I was very careful with our money over the years.
One consolation I have is that Ellen spent the last ten years of her life being able to be a full-time wife and mom, which is all she wanted to be. That allowed her the freedom to also volunteer and do fundraising for the charities she held near and dear to her heart.
On the TV Grey’s Anatomy is playing but I’m not watching. This was Aussie and Ellen’s show, a mother-daughter thing they did together. Besides this episode, I’ve seen maybe twenty minutes total of the damn show over the years.
I’m watching Aussie.
She inherited her mother’s green eyes, brown hair, her intelligence and sense of adventure, her creativity.
Her sensitivity.
Ellen was the beating heart of our family, especially around holidays. Now I suppose that falls on Aussie. She always helped Ellen and Casey in the kitchen, loved cooking with them, and is nearly as good at it as Ellen was and Casey is. I can already imagine holiday dinners with Aussie wearing her mother’s apron and barking orders from where she stands in charge at the stove with her Aunt Casey helping her.
While we mere men hustle to carry out those orders.
I tuck her hair behind her ear and remember the little girl who terrified me in some ways when she arrived because I didn’t want to break her, yet I wanted to teach her everything I could to be a strong, independent person. All while Ellen laughed at me and smiled as she watched us together.
The little girl who helped with campaign signs and fliers, and who wanted to go with me to knock on doors because she loved meeting people.
I guess we won’t be doing that anymore. Because without Ellen, I honestly don’t think I have the heart to run in another election despite now being Governor. Especially not after how I came to office this time. I know that my “miracle rescue,” or my widower status, will be the sub-lede on every damn story run about me. It’s all I can do not to gag or rage with every countless, “We prayed for you both,” comment I’ve received since my return.
The atheist in me wants to burn it all down. Especially those people who say, “Oh, it was God’s will.”
No. It was shoddy maintenance inspections and incomplete weather information, combined with bad fucking luck.
“She’d want you to run for re-election, Dad,” Aussie softly says, not looking at me.
I freeze. “What?”
She finally turns her head so her green gaze meets mine. “Mom. She’d tell you to run again.”
My throat feels tight, wants to close up. I have to swallow to get the words out. “I don’t think I can, sweetheart.”
She sits up and meets my gaze head-on. In this way, she’s definitely channeling an odd mix of her mom and her Aunt Casey. “Dad, you know Mom had a lot of things she wanted to help you do as First Lady if you ever ran and got elected. Education initiatives. Voter registration. Environmental protection. You have to run again. If you don’t, it’s an insult to her memory.”
I blink back tears. “You’re still in high school.”
“So? I’m graduating next spring. Don’t you dare put this on me, Dad. You wanted to be governor—well, congratulations. I know it’s not how you wanted it, or on the timeline you wanted it. What’s that you always told me, that life isn’t fair but we have to make what we can of it? If you don’t run, I’ll never forgive you. You can’t just crawl into a hole and wish you were dead.”
She brushes away angry tears. “If you really loved Mom, do what you know she’d want you to do—run. This is what you dreamed of. It’s even more important now that you go for it. Don’t waste this opportunity.”
I stare at my youngest in shock. In many ways, not just in appearance, she’s a younger version of her mother, with Ellen’s spark.
“What about spending time together as a family?” I ask.
To her credit she manages not to roll her eyes, although it’s strongly implied. “Dad, I love you, but I’d already planned to go away for school. I won’t be living here. Even if I end up attending Vanderbilt I’ll be in a dorm. I’ve got too much going on. If I give up my dreams, Mom would have had a cow, and you know it. You would have, too, before all this.”
She’s absolutely right.
Yet it feels like some sort of galactic cop-out. Like I’m being an absentee father.
“Do I need to call Aunt Casey? Or Logan and Ryder?” she asks. “Because they’ll agree with me.” I wait too long to answer because she adds, “You raised me to be independent. That’s what I’m doing.”
I don’t want to admit that maybe her dad is afraid to totally be on his own.
This wasn’t the plan. Ellen and I were supposed to be able to get crazy and enjoy being empty-nesters in that nebulous time between raising our children and when they—hopefully—would bless us with grandchildren to spoil rotten.
My fears don’t belong on my daughter’s shoulders, and yeah, I know Ellen totally would have a cow if I try to get Aussie to live at home. If there does happen to be an afterlife, Ellen would come haunt my ass in some epically disturbing, Japanese-horror-movie kind of way.
I mean, seriously, she would.
“I don’t know if I can run again, honey,” I finally admit. “Emotionally, I don’t know if I really have it in me. But I won’t rule it out. Will that suffice?”
She gives me “the look.” Ellen’s look, and her Aunt Casey’s look.
“As long as it’s your decision and not based on me. I don’t want you looking back when I’m putting a diaper on your butt and you telling me you gave up politics for me.”
I’m still processing that when the smirk shows up and I start laughing.
A hard, deep laugh that she joins in with me, her hugging me, me hugging her, until I start crying again and now my daughter, my little girl, is holding me and consoling me.
I hate myself in this moment, that I’m not strong enough to keep it together for my little girl.
“Dad,” she softly says once I’ve calmed down, “I thought you guys we
re both dead. I’d already made peace with it. I’d moved on in my head. You coming home was a literal miracle. I get it—I’m the baby and the only girl. But seriously, make this decision when you’re ready to, and make it based on you, not me. You have, what, nearly two years to decide?”
Not really, because I should be building a war chest already.
I suck in a deep, shaky breath. “If they don’t admit you to Harvard or Yale, it’s their loss, sweetheart.”
She sits back and grins at me. “Oh, I know. And don’t worry about me doing something stupid with a boy, either.”
I wipe my eyes with my hands. “Why’s that, sweetheart?”
“Because I’m into girls.”
I honestly think she’s fucking with me, trying to make me laugh again, but now she’s watching the TV in a way that tells me she’s waiting for my reaction and trying to keep things chill.
“Did you…” I study her. “Did you just come out to me?”
“Yep.” Now she glances down at her hands. “Life’s short, right? Time to admit my truths, or something like that.”
I mean, honestly? In the grand scheme of things? Not that I would ever turn my back on my children, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’ll happily take a gay child over a pregnant teenaged daughter any day. “Okay. I mean, that doesn’t bother me. Did…do you want me to… I mean, did you need me to help you get info on support groups, or—”
“Oh, my god, Dad, seriously? No. I’m good. I like girls. It’s not a big deal.”
“Um…this is Tennessee. It can be a big deal in a bad way if you’re around intolerant people.”
She grabs the remote to pause the TV so she can focus on me again. “Dad. This is not a big deal, seriously. Your generation makes a much bigger deal about it than we do.”
Ouch. “My…generation?” Wow.
“Yeah.” She smiles. “People your age.”
Oh, gawd. “How old do you think I am, honey?”
She cocks her head. “You’re like fifty-five or sixty, right?”
I melodramatically flop back against the couch. “Holy crap,” I whine. “My daughter thinks I’m an old fart.” She tries to tickle me as I dodge her hands. “And the correct answer, thank you very much, is forty-six.”
I capture her in a hug and tightly hold her, my eyes closed as I struggle not to cry again. Ellen and I had planned to go to Alaska for my fiftieth birthday, just the two of us, since the kids got to go with Chase. We were going to take two weeks and explore glaciers, hike the mountains—all of it.
“I know you’re only forty-six, Dad. I had a point to that.” She looks me in the eyes again, all humor vanished. “You’re young. Mom wouldn’t want you spending the rest of your life in mourning. She’d want you to live. To find happiness. I don’t mean I think you’ll be out partying next weekend, or signing up for Tinder tomorrow or anything. But she’d be the first one to tell you to remember her, love her and what you guys had, and don’t stay stuck in the past. That when you feel ready you should move forward and be happy. Find someone else, or do whatever you want, but because you want to.”
I want to cry—again—because yeah, that’s exactly what Ellen would have said. I know this because she and I had this conversation years ago.
It’s exactly what she said to me then, and exactly what I said to her.
“How’d you get so smart, sweetheart?”
She smiles. “I got a double-dose of genius from two halfway decent parental units.”
Chapter Eleven
Now
Monday morning, I awaken when my alarm goes off at six and I stare at the dark shadows on the ceiling for a moment. I must have drifted off around five, because it was 4:52 when I last looked at the clock.
Translating to I managed to snag about three hours of sleep, total, last night. Two earlier, downstairs, where I fell asleep on the couch watching TV, then another up here when I made my way to bed not long before midnight.
Not too shabby. Although I’ll be extremely punchy, grouchy, snappy, and borderline psychotic from sleep deprivation by the end of the week, if this pattern holds.
I’m getting pretty good about faking sanity, though. Casey and Declan have gone a long way toward helping me with that, recognizing when to intervene and keep people away from me.
When I start to think about how much I miss driving, times like this remind me that it’s probably a good idea I’m not driving.
Not just because I’m not a safe driver in this condition, but because it’d be too easy to jam the accelerator to the floor and aim for a highway abutment, or run myself off the side of a mountain.
Too…tempting.
While I haven’t outright admitted this to Casey, I have noticed she goes out of her way now to make sure if my security team isn’t driving me somewhere, that it’s either her or Declan who drive me.
I’m not allowed to drive. To be honest, I’m not even sure where my car keys are. Either set, or the valet key. I’m pretty sure she hid them.
Just like she doesn’t let me hold the Xanax.
I sit up, something nagging at me, though. It takes me a moment. Then I wonder why I’m smelling coffee.
I grab my robe on my way to the bathroom, use it, then head downstairs.
Yes, freshly brewed coffee. And on the counter, a sticky note written in Casey’s hand. Without my glasses, I have to squint to read it.
You’re welcome. Tick-tock, GF. Budget meeting 9 sharp.
GF—Governor Forrester.
If she was here, I’d smile.
Instead, I suck in a deep breath as the mask threatens to shatter even before I’ve fully pulled it into place today
Dammit.
She has this eerily accurate way of pegging my emotions. She even left my mug and a spoon and everything except the creamer sitting out for me. That I grab from the fridge and pour myself a mug of coffee.
When I pause in the front entry, I see she packed my laptop for me and has it sitting on the bench in the foyer, on top of my four binders of info I’d brought home with me on Friday.
Back upstairs, I find my glasses, pick up my personal phone, and text her personal cell.
Thank you.
I get a smiley face and a D in return, meaning she’s driving. Based on the time, she’s likely almost to the office. On the way there, she’s probably using the dictation function on her official phone to make dozens of notes about the day’s schedule, or is on the phone with Declan and dictating notes to him. I know I have the budget meeting, but I don’t know what awaits me this afternoon. If it was something I needed advance notice for, she would either have told me that, or warned me what to wear, or what to bring with me to change into later. I hope this means it’s an office day for me.
It means I might be able to sneak in a short nap at some point, which will help.
Every little bit helps.
I dump eyedrops into my bloodshot eyes first. A shave comes next, then I climb into the shower. I have a comforting routine for mornings like this. I stand under water as hot as I can tolerate it, for starters. Just…stand there. I need to get my blood pumping, and coffee alone won’t make it happen. Once it feels like maybe I can start moving again, then I begin scrubbing my flesh, hard, with one of those scrubby things, and body wash.
It might sound stupid, but I use Ellen’s favorite brand of body wash. It’s one small way I can still feel connected to her. If they ever stop making it, I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Maybe it’s masochistic, but I don’t care. I’m still alive, I still haven’t killed myself, so it’s a win, right?
That’s what I tell myself.
Case told me it’s okay, and on more than one occasion I’ve smelled her using the same stuff Ellen used, too.
Like the day they flew me and two of the other survivors back to the States. We landed first at LAX, where a huge welcoming committee greeted us. After hugging my kids and my brother, Tyson, my next hug was Case.
I stood there h
olding her and I knew she’d used Ellen’s shampoo on purpose.
Dammit, I love this woman so fucking much. I’m positive she’s the only thing standing between me and utter madness.
Well, maybe not madness. I’m already there.
She’s the only thing standing between me and complete, irreparable self-destruction.
* * * *
After emerging from the shower, I text the head of my security with an ETA of my departure time. The officer at the main gate will drive in and pick me up, then take me to work. It’s not uncommon for Casey to drive me home while being followed by an officer.
Since there are no credible threats against me, and rarely are, I can get away with only one officer right now, the driver. He’s uniformed, but drives an unmarked SUV. Casey and Declan coordinate my schedule with them so they’ll know when I’ll need a ride. If I’m appearing at a public event, I frequently have a large security contingent, depending on the circumstances.
I’m the most powerful man in Tennessee right now and, most of the time, I feel like a fricking teenager grounded for missing curfew.
Except I don’t fight it, I don’t argue, I don’t overrule any of them, beyond asking for my privacy and negotiating down the number of officers surrounding me at home.
Mostly because doing so would mean having to fight even harder to keep the mask in place, and I don’t have the energy to do that. I know my limitations, and I’ve far exceeded them already.
When I emerge from the house, the officer is already sitting in his SUV and parked in the driveway. I lock the front door behind me after activating the alarm. I’ve asked them not to get out and get the car door for me when we’re at my house. If they want to do it for protocol when we reach the capitol building, or at an event, whatever, but I need a little normalcy in my life.
Case will know I’m inbound, because my alarm system sends her an alert when it’s armed or disarmed, with the ID code of whoever disarmed or armed it.
It’s a cold, dreary, late-January morning, overcast. The heavy, dark clouds hanging low over the area threaten rain, and I can smell it in the air.
Dirge (Devastation Trilogy 1) Page 9
