Series: Snapshots of the Past
Series: Snapshots of the Past
Story: Man of the House
Chapter 21
Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
Previously: When Jed took the girls to the office, Christine made some inappropriate comments behind his back; Ellie rejected Jed's offer for Christine to help her overcome her fear of public speaking
Summary: Abbey tells Jed she disagrees with his approach of Ellie; while Liz tells one parent about Christine's candor, Ellie tells the other; Jed confronts Christine; Abbey tries to patch things up between Jed and Ellie
Jed splashed his face with two handfuls of cold water and then looked up. His head tilted slightly downward, his eyes met the reflection of his wife in the mirror. Abbey's expression was distant rather than warm, her stature reserved. He knew immediately what was on her mind.
"You talked to Ellie?"
"Why did you involve Christine?"
It took him two steps to turn around to face her. "Because Christine makes her living speaking in public. I thought she could help."
"We already talked about it. I told you..."
"You told me that the next time Ellie had a project to do, you'd work with her on her presentation. I just wanted to get a head-start, that's all. I wasn't undermining you. I wasn't going against your wishes. All I did was seek out a professional to help our daughter."
"Christine works for you, not for this family."
"Technically, she works for the government. And I didn't ask her to do this as part of her job. I asked her to do it as a personal favor to me. She has incredible speaking skills. I wanted her to spend twenty minutes with Ellie, talking to her. That's it."
"And in the process, you succeeded in humiliating Ellie," Abbey told him.
"Humiliating her? All I did was tell Christine that she's a little shy. How is that humiliating to her?"
"Because we all know how you feel about it. Every time you hassle Ellie about this, you make her feel inadequate. You make it seem as if there's something wrong with her, as if she's abnormal in some way. And now you just shared those feelings with someone outside the family."
Jed never wanted to make Ellie feel less than perfect. She was his child, bright and articulate, sweet and considerate. He loved her so much that it pained him to even consider the possibility that he had hurt her in that way. He furiously shook his head at Abbey's suggestion.
"I have never in my life thought that about Ellie. What I have thought is that we have a highly intelligent daughter who is so afraid of talking to an audience that she'd rather get a lower grade on a science report than present it to the class. She'd rather blend into the background than show people just how special she is."
He dried his hands on a towel, then walked out. Abbey dashed ahead of him to stop him from leaving in the middle of such an important discussion.
"I agree with you, but your way of dealing with it is wrong. Why can't you see that?"
Her maneuver worked. Jed stopped dead in his tracks.
"Ellie is an exceptional little girl and in several years, she'll be an exceptional young woman. My job, as her father, is to make sure she uses the gifts God gave her to the best of her abilities. Why is that so wrong?"
"This is how you want to do it? You want to taint your relationship with her?"
"I'll do it any way I can."
"You don't mean that. If you don't stop trying to change her, it's going to drive rift between the two of you that will last the rest of your life."
"You're blowing this way out of proportion. All I'm trying to do is HELP her. Years from now, I don't want her looking back and saying 'if only someone pushed me a little harder, forced me to find the courage to conquer my fears, I could have been more than I am.' It breaks my heart to think that she would ever settle for less than what she's capable of because of something that's so easy to overcome."
"What if she's satisfied with who she is? I think you're overreacting to this. So she got a B on a science report instead of an A. So what?"
"It's not the grade. It's that she gave up. She's done it before and she'll do it again as long as you continue to let it slide."
"Not everyone is an oratory genius, Jed. She has other talents."
"And this is interfering with her other talents. Since Ellie was old enough to talk, she's been crazy about science. While her friends were playing with Barbie dolls, she was playing with the chemistry set you bought her. Now she has a chance to show off the project she spent months building - the one her teacher said was the best one in the entire fifth grade - and she turned it down, all because she's too nervous to talk about it. Think about it, Abbey. She's not going to accomplish half of what she wants to in school if she can't get past this."
"It has to be on her own time. We can't push her like this. All you're doing is alienating her."
"Yeah, well, it's not the first time, is it? I alienated her when I couldn't give her that astronomy badge two years ago."
She noted that he was much more defensive than she was. She wasn't angry with him and she suspected that his sharp tone wasn't really directed towards her either. It was obvious he was struggling with the battle that raged inside himself over how to deal with Ellie.
"That's in the past," she said.
"History's repeating itself. Have you thought about the possibility that she wouldn't feel so alienated if you backed me up here?"
"How would that make any difference?"
"For whatever reason, Ellie doesn't respond to me."
"That's ridiculous."
"No, it's not. I can't reach her. I've never been able to. But she listens to you. She thinks you walk on water. If you support me on this, she'll come around."
"I already told her I wasn't going to make her do this presentation. I told her the B was acceptable."
"I don't give a damn about the B!" Jed shouted.
"Don't raise your voice at me," Abbey warned.
"The fact is, she didn't even try on this one," he said in a milder tone. "She bungled her last report so badly that it scared her. I don't want her to have to live with that and I don't think you do either. You don't want her to learn that it's okay run away from situations that make her uncomfortable or to give up when something is outside her comfort zone?"
"What I want is for her to feel good about herself. I don't want her growing up thinking that she has to be something we want her to be in order for us to love her and be proud of her."
Leaning against the dresser in front of her, he questioned her. "When have I ever sent that message? When have I told any of those girls that my love was conditional?"
"You haven't." That answer jumped right off her lips.
"Then what are we talking about here?"
Abbey lost the flow of conversation when she reached down into her pocket to retrieve her beeping pager. "Damn it. It's the hospital."
"I thought you were doing a half-day." Jed followed her towards the phone.
"So did I."
"They know you just had surgery, right?"
"It's fine, Jed," she said as she picked up the receiver and began punching the numbers.
"I'm going back to the office. I'll see you tonight."
He opened the bedroom door, initially brooding until he saw Elizabeth standing in the hall.
"Dad?"
"Liz, what are you doing out here?"
"I wanted to talk to you."
"About what?"
Liz paced herself alongside him down the stairs. "Are you going back to work?"
"Yeah. There are still some things I need to do."
"I was wondering - why is Christine in New Hampshire? Doesn't she work out of the DC office?"
"She's interviewing candidates to work as a deputy here in Manchester. Why?"
"I was just curious."
Jed knew better. He could tell by her body language there was something on her mind, and as they hit the bottom landing, he quizzed her. "Did you have fun with Christine today?"
"No."
That was unexpected. "No?"
"No." Liz didn't even pause. "I don't like her at all and I don't think she should be working with you."
"What in the world could you possibly have against Christine?"
"She was fawning over you. Today, when she was trying to pick one of the proofs to send back to the magazine, she was practically drooling."
"Drooling?" Jed thought for a minute that he heard her wrong. "What do you mean drooling?"
"Christine has a crush on you, Dad. And I don't think it's right."
"Now that's funny."
"I'm not kidding."
"Elizabeth, you have no idea what you're talking about. Christine and I have a professional relationship. Nothing more, nothing less."
"She said things about you that really made me uncomfortable."
"What kinds of things?"
Liz shrugged resistantly. "I don't know. Things. Things she shouldn't have said."
"You misunderstood."
"No, I didn't! Dad, she called you a fox. She looked over the pictures and circled your eyes in one of them. Then she looked at another one and circled your cheeks."
"She what?"
"She circled every part of your face, then gushed over it. She went on and on about how sexy you were. It was gross."
Jed took in his daughter's words, confused and skeptical at the same time. "Okay, ignoring the gross comment for just a minute, is it possible that you're mistaken? Could she have just been talking about the picture and not about me personally?"
"NO!" she grumbled, frustrated. "Dad, quit being so clueless!"
"Excuse me, you want to watch your tone?"
"She meant you. I heard her and Ellie heard her too. I would have said something to her if you hadn't come in when you did."
Liz never would have lied about something like this. She bent the truth now and then when it came to herself, but Jed knew she wouldn't intentionally set out to hurt someone else. Still, he wasn't sure she hadn't misjudged the situation.
"All right, Lizzie, be straight with me here. You're saying that Christine, my communications director, said these things to you and Ellie about me this afternoon? You're 100, absolutely, positively sure?"
"Yes. I wouldn't make this up."
"I know you wouldn't. Why didn't you tell me at the office?"
"I didn't want to start something there. And on the way home, it was obvious you and Ellie had a fight so I didn't want to make things worse. But I'm telling you now, I think you should do something."
"I will. I'm going to talk to her about it."
"And?"
"Until I find out this isn't some colossal misunderstanding, I don't know," he said as he slipped into his coat.
By the time Jed arrived at his district office building, his and Christine's were the only cars in the lot. He opened the door and walked in, scanning the empty lobby with every step towards the office Christine was using. He walked in quietly and framed himself in the doorway.
"Where is everyone?"
"Congressman." Christine stood up. "Jim and Paul went down the street to fax a new draft of the farming legislation to Washington and I told Kathy she could take off early. How's Ellie?"
"Let's just say she's not too happy with me and leave it at that."
"Can Abbey talk to her?" She approached him cautiously, sensing his trepidation though she didn't understand why. "Is Abbey giving you a hard time about this?"
Jed backed up. "What happened today when you were going over those pictures with Liz and Ellie?"
"I showed them how to use a loupe and we examined the photos."
"That's all? Because Liz had more to say about it."
Her face must have turned three shades of red. She knew she'd get nowhere by denying the truth. If she dared to imply that Liz was a liar in this case, Jed would have fired her on the spot. "I made some comments that I wish I hadn't."
"I wish you hadn't too. When you say things like that in front of my daughters, even if you're just playing around, you..."
"I wasn't playing around. I shouldn't have said it and I wish I could take it back, but I wasn't playing around."
Jed tried to give her a way out, hoping that she'd take it and avoid making this more difficult than it had to be. Since she didn't, all bets were off. "Okay, so you weren't playing around. You want to tell me where you get off filling my kid's head with your fantasies?"
"I made a mistake, Jed."
"Congressman," he corrected sternly. He wasn't big on titles. Under other circumstances, he would have welcomed being addressed by his first name. Encouraged it, actually. But here, in this situation, he wasn't going to allow Christine to make this a casual encounter.
"Congressman," she repeated. "I made a mistake. I won't deny that. But to be clear, I didn't fill her head with fantasies. I pointed out that you're a rather good-looking man."
"Liz said it was more than that. And even if it wasn't, you don't think that, in and of itself, crossed the line?"
"Maybe it did. I've restrained those comments for quite a while. I guess I slipped this once."
"What the hell does that mean?"
She circled out from behind her desk. "If we're going to get this out in the open, then I'd prefer to get it all out. I've felt this way since the campaign...and I'm not convinced you didn't know."
"If I had known, you wouldn't still be working for me. I thought of you as a professional. That's the kind of relationship I thought we had." He raised the back of his hand to show off his wedding ring. "You see this ring? I love my wife very much. I'd rather die than hurt her, so whatever you thought I knew, you were wrong."
"I know how much you love Abbey. The entire District knows it. Why do you think I never acted on my feelings?"
"You're a walking contradiction." He stormed out of her office, down the jagged hallways and into his own.
"Even Derek knew how I felt!" Christine yelled as she followed him. "Liz picked it up in 30 minutes! How could you not have known in all these months?"
Jed spun around with a strength so fierce, it forced Christine to back away. "Because I was busy WORKING and trying like hell to balance my duties in DC with my family life here in New Hampshire! It never occurred to me..."
"You were too busy to notice? Or was it that you ignored it because you liked having a supporter in DC, someone on your side who always backed you up with the other staffers, even though your inexperience showed in just about everything you did and said? Why did you think I always fought for what you wanted against your Chief of Staff and everyone else who knew the landscape so much better than you did? Did you really think that your way was better than Lindsay's or Michael's?"
"Yes." It was an easy answer, one that Jed offered with the soft-spokenness of a man who had been punched in the gut and assaulted by the stench of betrayal.
"You're an idealist. As admirable as that is in theory, it's gonna get you creamed in Washington."
Her argument was a blow to his confidence. So he fought back in a different way. "Tell me something, have you done this before? Have you weaseled your way into the lives of other married men or was I just the lucky one?"
"We don't choose who we're attracted to. We only choose what we do about it. And for the record, you're the only married man I've ever developed feelings for."
"But not the first congressman, right?"
"You're crazy if you don't think half the men on the Hill have side relationships with members of their staff or with their lobbyists. It's how it works."
"So I'm finding out. When do you leave for Washington?"
"Tonight."
"Good," he angrily replied. "Don't bother coming in to work on Monday. I'll have someone pack up your desk."
Her jaw clenched, Christine turned furiously and fled the building.
As Abbey pulled up the snowy driveway, she spotted the tip of Ellie's telescope poking out of her bedroom window. Ellie had tied back the curtains and was struggling to focus the lens at just the right angle. Stargazing was her favorite hobby. Not a week went by that she didn't open up her window or lug that telescope downstairs to gaze up at the twinkling lights in the sky.
Abbey parked the car and called up to her daughter. "Do you see anything?"
"I think it's gonna snow!" Ellie bellowed down.
"That's original," Abbey mumbled as she made her way inside.
Zoey, who had been playing in the family room, scrambled to her feet and ran out when she heard the front door. "Mommy, Lizzie won't let me help her make dinner!"
"Why not?"
"She says I'll mess it up. Will you tell her I won't?"
Abbey kissed the top of her strawberry blond head. "I will as soon as I talk to Ellie. Has Daddy called?"
"No," Zoey replied. "When is he coming home?"
"Soon, I hope. Go wash your hands and you can help me make the salad when I come back down and then later, we're going to read."
"I don't wanna read tonight."
It saddened Abbey that reading had become such a chore for Zoey. "Sweetie, remember what we talked about? Every night, we're going to read a little."
"I don't wanna."
"I'll make it fun, I promise."
"Do I get to choose the book?"
"You always choose the book."
"No I don't," Zoey complained. "You won't let me read what Lizzie's reading."
"What Lizzie's reading is way too grown up for you." Abbey's heart melted at her five-year-old's frown. Being the youngest was bad enough, but to constantly hear that the older sisters she was so desperate to emulate were allowed privileges she wasn't, was even worse. "How about a compromise? After dinner, you and I will read one of your books together and after that, I'll read you a little bit of whatever Lizzie and Ellie are reading. Deal?"
"Deal!" Her sunny face lit up with a smile.
"Go wash your hands."
"Okay!"
Abbey smiled too. She had to let Zoey win one of her arguments if she had any hope of changing her mind about reading. She chuckled at the young girl's enthusiasm as she started up the stairs to Ellie's room.
"Ellie?" She knocked twice before letting herself in.
"Hi." Ellie never took her attention away from the telescope, even when Abbey made herself comfortable on her bed.
"Come here and talk to me for a sec. I want to ask you something."
"What?" Ellie sulked all the way over. She knew exactly what her mother wanted to talk about.
"Well don't act like it's the worst thing in the world."
"Sorry. What?"
"Forgetting about Christine for a minute," Abbey began. "...was your dad's suggestion really so terrible?"
"YES! You said I didn't have to participate in the science fair if I didn't want to!"
"You're right, I did. But I'm not so sure you don't want to."
"I don't. I promise, I don't." Ellie sighed loudly as she collapsed onto her back on the mattress.
"All right, enough with the melodrama. Now talk to me seriously."
"I am being serious."
"You have a book report coming up, don't you?"
"Yeah."
"Well, do you remember our agreement? You said the next time you have to give a book report, you'd at least try to get up there and give a decent presentation." Ellie pulled her pillow over her face, forcing Abbey to lift up the side to see her. "Hear me out. You don't have to work with Christine, but what if you work with me? We can start before the end of vacation."
"I'm not even finished with the report yet."
"Then we'll use the report you wrote on your rocket. Whether or not you decide to give it a shot in the science fair - and by the way, if there's a way to still get you in, you know your dad will do it if you tell him to...whether or not you do that, it's still an excellent paper. And it'll help prepare you for this other presentation."
The ten-year-old propped her upper body up on her elbows, letting her head hang back. "Can't we forget about our agreement?"
"No way. I'm not going to let you continue to get lower grades than you deserve because you refuse to complete the assignment."
"Mom, you don't understand."
"And that's the mantra of every child in America. I do understand, Ellie. I understand better than you think."
"You never have a problem in front of people. You love it! So does Dad and so does Lizzie! I'm not like that."
Abbey tugged on Ellie's hand so she could sit up straight. "You know who once screwed up a presentation in the fourth grade?"
"Who?"
"Lizzie."
That was news to Ellie. As far as she was concerned, Lizzie was perfect. "Nuh uh."
"It's true. You can ask her. Her class had to do a report on historical figures, complete with costume and a memorized speech. Lizzie chose Abigail Adams. I made her this old colonial-style dress from a pattern I picked up at the fabric store. She fell in love with it. She was so excited about looking and sounding the part that she didn't put as much time into learning her speech and when it was time to deliver it, she blanked half-way through."
"What happened?"
"She got a C."
"Were you mad?"
"Not at all. I told her she'd have to try harder next time, but I was never mad and neither was your dad. That's the point, sweetheart. As long as you try, we're never going to be mad at you for messing up. And that's one of the things you're afraid of, isn't it? Messing up?"
"If I start stuttering like I did before, the other kids will make fun of me."
"Not when you win the science fair, they won't."
"You think I can win?"
Abbey cupped her hand around the back of Ellie's neck. "I really, really do."
"I hate performing in front of an audience. I HATE it so much."
"I know you do," she assured her, lowering her hand so she could twirl one of Ellie's blond curls around her finger. "If there was a way I could get you through life without ever having to do the things you hate, I would. But I can't. All I can do is help make it easier."
"Is Dad still mad at me?"
"I don't think he was ever mad at you. I think he was upset that you were mad at him. Are you still mad at him?"
Ellie nodded. "I didn't want Christine to know."
"He didn't mean to embarrass you. That's the thing with your father. He loves you so much that sometimes, he gets carried away trying to help you. Telling Christine was his way of getting you the best private coach he could because he wanted to give you every advantage."
"But I don't even know Christine."
"He didn't think it through. He got excited about the idea and he ran with it - we all do that sometimes. The only thing on his mind was getting someone to help his little girl and to him, Christine was the perfect choice. She's pretty good at what she does."
"I still don't feel comfortable enough around her to want her help, especially after the way she talked about Dad."
"What do you mean? How did she talk about Dad?"
"She talked about him the way you talk about him, except it was weird with her. She was saying things like that he had a face to die for and that he was so sexy. And then she circled a picture of his eyes with her pencil and talked about how hot they were."
"She said that?"
"Yeah. Like I said, it was weird."
"What happened after that?"
"She said she liked his suit and Lizzie said that you liked that suit too and then Daddy walked in and Christine changed all of a sudden."
"Changed because your father walked in or..."
"I don't know. She just stopped talking about it. Anyway, I didn't like it. And I really don't want her help."
"That's okay, you don't have to." Abbey was drowning in curiosity and anger. Even a touch of jealousy ran through her heart. But instead of prodding Ellie on a subject that clearly made her uncomfortable, she tabled those emotions. "Do you want my help?"
"Yeah."
"Do you want Dad's help?"
Ellie shrugged. "Only if he won't make me do it if I change my mind."
"We'll talk to him about that together. Okay?"
"Okay."
Jed's assertion wasn't completely wrong, Abbey thought to herself. She did have a way with Ellie. It wasn't that Ellie loved one parent more than the other. It was just that she connected with her mother in a different way, a way she never connected with Jed.
That topic was the least of her concerns now though. All she cared about tonight was talking to Jed and getting to the bottom of whatever Christine was up to.
Jed sat at his desk in his darkened office, pondering what happened with Christine hours earlier. He thought he could read people. He thought he could judge a person's character. He thought he could at least separate the good from the bad. But what he learned tonight was that he was utterly clueless.
Christine was the staffer he trusted the most. During the campaign, she coached him for media interviews, fought for what he wanted rather than what was politically popular, and intervened on his behalf whenever he disagreed with his campaign director, Derek.
In Washington, she was the only familiar face after he took the oath of office. She insisted on being part of the team to vet his new staff, she prepped him for committee assignments so he'd get the ones he wanted, she wrote and rewrote all of his speeches until he was satisfied with each and every word, and she generated press coverage on every piece of legislation he wanted amended.
While his other staffers were there to serve the Democratic Party's political agenda, it seemed Christine's main priority was serving him. He should have known, he thought. The person he saw as a valuable professional and ally had ulterior motives and ill intentions. That revelation shook whatever was left of his idyllic view of Washington politics and spurred a rage from deep inside him that caused him to stand and sweep his arm across the end of his desk with an intensity that sent a pile of papers flying into the air.
"JED?" Abbey had just arrived when she heard the sound. Concerned, she rushed in and turned the switch. "What's going on?"
"What are you doing here?"
"It's nine o'clock at night. What are YOU still doing here? Why were the lights off and what happened to your desk?"
"I haven't been paying attention to the time, I'm sorry."
She bent down to gather the papers for him. "What happened?"
He kneeled to the ground in front of her. "Are you going to give me a hard time if I tell you I'd rather not talk about it here?"
That's when she saw his face. At eye level, Jed's tired features spoke more of the stress he was feeling than anything he could ever say. Abbey had come to his office to demand answers about Christine, but looking at him now, all she saw was the man that she loved more than life itself, the man that she trusted with all her heart, was hurting.
She had faith in Jed. Whatever was going on with Christine, it wasn't his fault. She felt it deep in her soul as she stroked his arm from his elbow down to his palm and when she reached his hand, she squeezed his fingers between hers.
"Not as long as you come home with me." Her stare held a wealth of compassion. "I don't know what led to this, but something's terribly wrong."
"Yeah."
"Tell me about it. Let me help."
There would have been a hitch in his voice had Jed said anything else. The love he felt for her at that moment warmed his whole body. He rolled his shoulders as he gave her a nod and helped her stand so they could leave the office together.
TBC