Brody stood in front of the mirror with his towel round his waist preparing to shave, examining how much his beard had grown overnight, marveling at how life goes on despite everything. He recognised himself less and less when he looked at his own reflection, like the things he had done and was still doing were slowly driving his body and his psyche apart. He wondered what would happen when they split entirely. He was now Walden's running mate? A Vice-Presidential candidate. How on earth did that happen? It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious. Nazir would be pleased. Jess had been ecstatic.

He lowered his eyes to the reflection of his clavicle, to the scars scattered across his chest. Some of them were still rough and a livid red colour, especially after his hot shower, others were calming down a little, still raised but smooth and shiny, pink and silver. He raised his fingers to press against them.

Carrie had kissed him right there, on that one...

Stop it.

Jess suddenly appeared behind him, coming in to grab a towel because she hadn't had the chance to dry her hair before Chris had started yelling about not being able to find his trainers. His stomach had lurched when he saw her. She moved too quickly. He wished she wouldn't do that. He had told her a thousand times that she mustn't creep up on him unannounced. He was likely to break her neck in reflex

"What? You saw me coming in the mirror, didn't you?", said Jess, seeing his startled expression but sick of walking on eggshells in her own home. She was a little frazzled this morning and Dana was driving her nuts. She did know not to surprise him but this time he had been staring right back at her in the bathroom mirror.

He nodded and made a face like it didn't matter, reaching for his razor. Jess disappeared again, calling Dana for the breakfast everyone knew she wouldn't eat. In fact he hadn't seen Jess coming, he had been thinking about Carrie. He seemed to spend a lot of time thinking about Carrie, or thinking about how he shouldn't be thinking about her, how it was unhealthy, how it was destructive. Then, inevitably, he just plain thought about her, revelled in it, tired of being doorman to his own thoughts. He suppressed it mostly, pushed it away with all the other things that he wasn't supposed to dwell on. Sometimes he made a good job of it, like just now in the shower, he absolutely was not thinking about her as he washed and he had turned the water temperature right down at one point just to make damn sure his body got the message. But just like that, she had popped up again while he stared at himself in the mirror.

A while later, he joined Chris at the table and mussed his hair while his son slurped up his Cheerios. Dana still hadn't emerged and Jess was getting increasingly irate.

"Dana! Would you get out here?!" Jess yelled.

"Jeez, mom, alright!", moaned Dana, finally appearing in her school uniform and throwing down her bag, her tie and skirt way short, shirt untucked, impossible unlaced boots on the end of her skinny legs.

"Can you at least try to look decent for school? We just paid for that uniform and already it looks like...uh!" snapped Jess.

"You're right mom, I mean, I wouldn't want to look like a kid who got in on a scholarship, right? You want me to look like I belong there, don't you?", Dana replied sarcastically, making a big show of tucking in her shirt and straightening her tie.

Brody raised his eyebrows at Dana. It was enough. She took a seat at the table and drank some juice.

"Will you eat something?", sighed Jess.

"I'm not hungry", her daughter replied.

"She says she's not hungry", repeated Brody, looking at Jess. His tiny intervention between wife and daughter sufficient to let them all know that he was tired of it already. He went back to eating and scanning his calendar on his phone, looking at the week's engagements. He screwed up his nose. Walden wanted him and Jess to attend some arms industry function the following evening. The thought of pressing the flesh and working the room with that filth made his blood run cold. But then a lot of what he did these days made him feel that way.

He and Jess were much in demand. They were calling them the new Kennedy and Onassis. It was calculated. He had red hair and she was good looking, that's as far as it went that he could see. It was all surface and Walden was making the most of it. He was the war hero and she the devoted wife and mother who looked good in a shift dress. Jess had absorbed this somehow and he had to double take when she got ready for a dinner one night and stood at the foot of the bed in a twin set suit with her hair bouffed. All she needed was a string of pearls and some Chanel sunglasses. Jesus. He wondered if Cynthia Walden had been slipping her style tips, in turn prompted by the PR machine behind Walden. It really did make him sick, them using Jess as a puppet, Walden trading off Brody's name, his ordeal. Brody had deep political convictions but they were nothing he ever aired through his job, he would be laughed off Walden's team as soon as he opened his mouth. He toed the party line. He wasn't there for what he stood for, he was there for what he represented to the electorate, whether that was true or not.

Every day after his morning prayer he would take a moment to remember Issa and remind himself why he was doing all this. That's what got him through.