How rare and beautiful it is to even exist.
She hands Teddy off to one of her secret service agents, kisses his forehead and runs her fingers gently through his hair. His little hand grabs her finger and she sighs. These past few months have been so confusing for him. He doesn't know that eighteen months ago his big brother died and with him, a piece of her died too. She knows he can sense the changes in her with every passing month, the way she holds him tighter and longer and kisses him more on this one specific day. She never wants to regret so much with Teddy like she does with Jerry. She'll never get the time back. She learned that lesson too late.
"You be good okay? I'll be back soon."
"Okay, mama."
"I love you."
She watches as Colin takes Teddy inside the big house that had taken so much of her. She couldn't walk back in, refused to. She hated that she left Teddy there, but she knew he needed to go there every once in a while. The nanny always told Fitz when she brought him and she figured they spent time together, but the agents that guarded her little boy said Fitz had never come. She hadn't talked to him since the day after Sally outed Olivia as his mistress. Since then, there had been radio silence from everyone. Olivia had continued fixing, Fitz continued being president, and Mellie continued to be the Senator of Virginia. None of the three confirmed or denied anything, each secretly hoping the media would move on. They hadn't.
She gets into the car and feels as they start the all too familiar drive to her son's grave. It's easy to think about Fitz on these drives. How he'd hold her hand, lead her to Jerry's grave, stand with her until she told him he could go do work. She always felt his eyes on her, watching her, making sure she was kind of okay. They had reformed their partnership in that pain and she had thought they were going to keep it.
When the car stops, she feels that sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She takes a deep breath, composes herself and exits the car as gracefully as possible. The sight of Jerry's grave sends a dagger straight through her heart. It was hard to believe that eighteen months and one day ago her son was alive and thriving, just to be murdered the next day. She slips her heels off at the edge of the pavement, feeling the grass between her toes. She had decided to wear a sundress today, something completely un-first lady-like, but she didn't care. She had realized long ago that when she came to Jerry's grave she wasn't the first lady, she wasn't married to the most powerful man in the country- she was just a mother who lost her son. Political standing didn't make her immune to the pain.
Her palms rest on the top of his grave, the cool granite waking her up. Her eyes dart around, locating her agents surrounding her from a respectable distance. She kneels in front of his grave, her fingers tracing his name.
"I'm so sorry I haven't visited much, I've been so busy, but that's no excuse to not come see you. I miss you. Karen misses you. Teddy misses you too, if you were here I know you'd scoff and tell me he's just a baby, but I know he misses you."
She shifts her body, resting against the stone and closing her eyes.
"Your dad and I haven't talked, wherever you are I think you know that. I guess, no, I know he misses you too. You kept our family together, baby, and when you left us, I think pieces of us just fell apart. I really thought I was protecting myself and your father, Jer. I thought I was keeping us safe, I didn't know what was going to happen. I kept trying to do what I thought was necessary, but now I'm just going to try to keep your brother and sister safe and happy. I'm going to do better for them, I promise."
She hears footsteps walking toward her and she opens her eyes to see her husband, in name only. She rolls her eyes, but doesn't move.
"I'm not leaving, Fitzgerald."
Her voice is soft, but firm. He knew she was here, because Teddy was at the White House. Him running into her here is on purpose.
"I wasn't going to ask you to leave."
She rubs her face.
"What do you want? Are there cameramen hiding in the bushes with their telephoto lenses? Do you need to be seen in a nice moment with me to get back in America's good graces? Is this trip to your son's grave for optics? Because if it is, I need you to leave, before I release a statement to the press that will cut you and Liv both down. I have been behaved, I have sat on my hands since Sally told the world of your affair, I have sat in a room full of press without saying a word about it, but I swear if you are here, at my son's grave, for optics I will-"
"I just wanted to see you!"
His voice is a loud whisper, if there are cameramen he doesn't want them to hear.
"I came for you, I wanted to check on you. I saw the date on the calendar and then someone came to tell me Teddy was at the house and I realized that a year and a half ago, our son died in our arms. I wanted to make sure you were okay, Mels."
She is stunned into silence for a brief moment, but she knew she couldn't believe a word out of his mouth- not after the divorce papers. Not after all he had done to her.
"I don't believe you."
He nods.
"I figured you wouldn't. I know I've broken your trust-"
She scoffs at him.
"No, Fitz, you haven't broken my trust, you've broken me. Don't you get it? I love you, I will probably always love you. I understand my life has turned out the way it has not because of what you've asked me to do for you, but what I've done for you because I was told that was how it had to be. I don't regret it, any of it. Marrying you, having kids with you, rigging the election for you. I know you regret it; you wish you would've waited for Liv instead of marrying me. I'm sorry that I have made you regret the past twenty years."
He goes to interrupt her, but she holds up her hand.
"The only thing I regret is that my son is gone, but you didn't know that was going to happen. It would be so easy to blame it all on you, but I don't. I loved you and I got broken because of it. If I could go back and tell you about the rape when it happened, I probably would and I maybe things would be different. Maybe Jerry would still be alive and maybe I wouldn't be missing pieces of myself. But I am done fighting. I'm done fighting for you and this marriage, because I cannot possibly lose more of myself just for you to leave me again."
"Mellie…"
"Don't, Fitzgerald."
She looks up at him from her spot on the grass and he can see the tears welling up in her eyes. He kneels down in front of her and pulls her into his arms. For once, this isn't for the cameras or optics or the publicity- this is for her and for their marriage, for those twenty plus years they spent together.
"I'm so sorry, Mels, so sorry."
She allows herself to bury her head into the nape of his neck. He doesn't smell like Olivia and she's relieved. She wants to have this one last moment with her husband as the people they used to be. She wants to pretend that it isn't over, but she knows it is and she has to accept it.
She pushes him away gently, moaning at the loss of contact, but knowing it's for the best. She can't allow herself to get pulled in again, she had to be done once and for all- not just for herself, but for Teddy and Karen too.
"What are you planning on doing about the media?"
He sits near her, resting on Jerry's grave just as she is.
"We're going to deny it. It's what's best for all of us."
She runs her fingers of the top of the lush grass. She thinks that the current president's dead son's grave gets better lawn care then the rest of the cemetery, because Jerry's grave always looks so well maintained.
"What do you want from me?"
"Come back to the house? Deny everything at least. Karen won't even answer my calls, I don't even know if she's coming next weekend."
Mellie nods.
"I don't think I can move back in, but I'll deny as long as you want. I've told Karen since the news came out that she needs to talk to you, but she doesn't want to listen."
"How is she?"
"Bad. I talked to her last night and heard 'I wish Jerry was here' five times. The kids are ridiculing her, the press has been trying to get to her to ask about us. She asked me if she could come home to stay and I told her yes."
His head turns to her quickly.
"You're pulling her out of school? She's at the best school in the country, Mellie."
"And she's not happy, Fitzgerald! She misses her brother, her friends are being terrible to her, and she asked me if she could come home and live with Teddy and me. I said yes, okay? She's walking around that school missing her partner in crime, her grades are slipping and her teachers are worried. I'm done with her being so far away where I can't protect her, so I'm bringing her home."
He nods.
"Fine."
She laughs. His attitude has absolutely nothing to do with Karen leaving school.
"You're just pissed because she won't talk to you."
"Damn straight I am. She's my daughter too."
"And you cheated on her mother multiple times. No matter what kind of mother or person I am in your book, she still loves me and knows I'm hurting. She told me last night how pissed Jerry would be, I think it made her feel better talking about how he'd be. When I told her to at least answer one of your calls, she said 'Jerry would've blocked dad's number and talked to the press already.' She thought it was funny."
They're silent for a moment as Mellie leans her head back and breathes deeply.
"He would be, you know? So pissed at me. He probably would've come here just to tell me off. I never understood…never mind."
She looks at him and knows exactly where he was going to go with that sentence.
"You never understood how he was so loyal to me when I was barely there for him, that's what you were going to say, right? How I barely gave him the attention he needed and wanted and yet he loved me so unconditionally. I don't know either, Fitz; I wish I could ask him. I wish I could tell him how much I loved him even though I was so scared to do so. I wish I had a chance to love him like I should've."
Her fingertips graze the numbers on Jerry's grave. His date of birth and then his date of death, she shivers. Memories of that night engraved in her brain. "He's seizing!" She shudders. "We're losing him." Her hand freezes. "What's happening to my son?!" She had screamed at the top of her lungs as they pushed her, Fitz, and Karen out of Jerry's room.
"Mels, I shouldn't have said…"
"It's fine, Fitz, it's not like I've never thought about it. It's not like I don't think about him every damn day, every second."
She pauses. "We're so sorry for your loss."
"Remember the magazine covers and the newspapers the week he died? The caption for everything was 'a nation mourns'. But the day after his funeral, the nation stopped mourning and we were the only ones left, it feels like I'll never stop being in that moment. Screaming your name, trying to catch him as he fell, covering him with my body and trying to make it better, watching as his eyes rolled back-"
Fitz grabs her hand. "What do you mean you're sorry? He can't be dead." Fitz had been calm, in denial. "My baby, not my baby." She had collapsed on the floor in front of the doctor. Neither realized that Karen had run into the room. "You should go say goodbye."
"Mellie, don't do this to yourself."
She shakes his hand away.
"Don't take my kids from me. I know you probably won't want them, I'm sure kids with Olivia are higher up on your list. But don't do it to spite me. I know you don't think you owe me anything, but you owe me this. Don't try to take Karen and Teddy from me."
"I'm not…me and Liv aren't…Look we're going to figure this out, me and you. You are not trapped in that memory alone, I'm there too. America may not be mourning anymore, but we still are."
He reaches out and grabs her hand, squeezing it. She closes her eyes and for just a second lets herself get pulled back in. She lets herself love him for just a second longer as he moves over to hold her to him. He lets himself feel the love he still has for her, the love he'll always have for her. He smells her hair; it always has smelled like lilacs. He likes it, he likes how consistent she's always been. He can't believe he's losing her.
"I just want you to be happy, Mels."
She leans her head on his chest.
"Maybe one day."