Oct 2022

"What are you doing here?" Emily watched Seth do a slight double take at seeing her sitting on the couch in Aaron's office.

"Supposed to be having lunch with Aaron. Looks like he must be caught up somewhere." She said gesturing at the now somewhat wilted salad on the coffee table.

"You don't think he'll mind?" Seth said, sitting down across from her and pulling the bowl toward himself.

"All yours." She smiled, watching him dig into the salad. She remembered those days working in the White House where all of a sudden you realized it was three in the afternoon and you had not had anything beyond coffee all day.

"No wonder Aaron didn't come by, this tastes terrible. Did you not even use dressing?" Seth was making a somewhat grotesque disgusted face, while at the same time shoving more salad into his mouth.

"Mmm, you really look like you hate it. And I have a wedding dress to fit into in a month you know."

"You're not serious Em? You look fucking hot."

She just rolled her eyes at that. She didn't think men really got it, they just looked at her bigger boobs and decided she was hot, but they didn't understand how her body didn't even feel like it was hers anymore, it was just so changed.

"Well if your plan is to lure Aaron in here with food, you might want to make something better next time."

"This is really just so he can see Callie more." She rubbed Callie's back as she lay sleeping contentedly on her chest. Since Aaron was steadfastly not open to talking about their fight, and she couldn't do anything about his complaint that she didn't listen to him when he seriously did not talk to her, her one take away was that Aaron had seemed down about not getting to see much of Callie, so she was making an effort to stop by his office on days where he had a break around lunch. Of course close to half the time he was tied up with something, so it just turned into her hanging around his office for a while until she gave up and headed home.

"Nice, that's really great." Seth sounded so enthusiastic and happy, she would have thought she just announced all press had been barred from the building for a month.

"Yep, great." She replied, not really sure what about Aaron seeing more of Callie was making Seth so happy.

"So things are okay? At home I mean."

"Are things okay at home? What am I, a second grader whose parents are divorcing?" That was the last time she could recall being asked that question.

"Aaron seems off these days. Kind of pissed, more like he was when you were up in Boston."

"Well I'm sorry dating me didn't fix him." She replied bitterly.

"Emily, that's not what I meant. I'm just worried is all."

"Things are fine. We're just busy and sleep deprived and trying to figure out life with a baby."

"Okay, well the offer to drive the getaway car stands."

"So you think I should leave him?"

"You're putting words in my mouth Emily."

"Well then what are you trying to say?" She was too tired to have this conversation right now.

"Neither of you seems happy Em." He sighed. "I wasn't sure if I was imagining things, but when you guys had Allison and I over for dinner she said the same thing."

"And here I thought she was nice."

"She is. She's just not blind. Seriously Emily, what is going on with you guys? You are the least happy engaged couple I have ever seen. And I've known people whose marriages have lasted less than a year."

"Aaron's just having a hard time." She could feel the tears pricking at her eyes. If there was one thing she hated most about pregnancy and how it had changed her it was how easily she cried these days.

"No one would blame you for putting the breaks on, while you guys figure things out."

"No one?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Okay. Everyone would freak out. But avoiding that isn't a reason to get married."

"That's not why I am marrying Aaron."

"You sure?"

"Yes. I love him. And he is an amazing Dad. I could never pull Callie away from him." When he didn't say anything she added, "What? He is."

"No one's disputing that. But isn't the whole staying together for the kids thing a bit played played out."

"That's not what I'm doing."

"If you say so."

She watched as Seth inhaled a few more mouthfuls of her supposedly disgusting salad. "Has he said anything to you?"

Seth snorted. "I either get sullen silent Aaron, or happy politician Aaron."

"I just wish he would talk to someone, I know how miserable it is feeling like that and keeping it all bottled up." She felt the tears starting to fall down her face. Something about saying that phrase out loud made her realize just how much of her own pain she was starting to bottle up.

Seth got up to sit down next to her and put an arm around her. "Hey, it's going to be okay."

"Is that supposed to be comforting coming from the man who just told me I should end things."

"That's not what I said."

"It's not even Aaron. It's been so hard not having my Mom around for this, and it's brought up a bunch of stuff with my Dad, and these siblings I never knew I had, and I don't feel like I can talk to Aaron about any of it. And on top of that I have no idea how to be Second Lady and I still want to buy a house, but I'm scared that if I bring any of that up to Aaron he'll think I'm planning on leaving him." She leaned a little bit more against Seth, giving up on pretending she wasn't crying at this point.

"You can always talk to me. Although I don't think keeping all that from Aaron is helping you guys."

"Yeah I guess." Honestly neither option sounded all that appealing. Seth didn't see the world the same way she did, and trying to talk to Aaron about anything substantive right now might be the one thing that truly would end things between them.

Hearing the door open, Emily sat up straighter and looked over to see Aaron walking in.

"Hey guys, everything okay?" He gave Emily a concerned look, clearly able to see that she had been crying.

"We're fine." She said and Seth stood up to leave.

"Sorry about your lunch man, but honestly I did you a favor, it sucked." Seth said, pointing at the empty bowl.

"Well then thank you." Aaron has what Seth had deemed his 'friendly politician' face on. Emily didn't see much of it at home, so no matter how fake it was, it was nice to see his smile. Aaron plopped down on the couch right where Seth had been and wrapped his arm around Emily. "So what's wrong?"

"It's nothing. Just a long day, and I'm over tired."

"Okay. Well I have a few more meetings, but I'll try and cut out of here early so you can get some sleep, okay?"

"That sounds great."

"Great." He said with that politician's smile again. "Well I got to run to my three o'clock, but I'll see you guys at home okay?" Without even waiting for her response he was up and out the door pausing only to drop a kiss on her head as well as Callie's. Emily sat there on the couch a while longer, just thinking things through, but no matter how long she ran everything over in her head, she didn't feel like she had any better options then to just keep doing what she was doing.

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Emily could feel her body fighting her attempts to stay awake. It had been another night of fitful sleep for Callie, so she had not gotten much sleep either. As much as Aaron helped however he could, with her breastfeeding there was a limit to how much he could do and therefore how much sleep she could get. She'd been rocking Callie for what felt like an hour and she seemed somewhat content, so Emily decided she would try again to put her down in the bassinet.

The second she did, Callie started crying. "I know baby, Mama's just being the worst isn't she." She cooed at her, running her fingers down her legs. Callie just continued to cry. Emily knew she could wait Callie out and there was a good chance she would fall off to sleep soon, but as much as she wanted to lie down herself she could not take Callie's crying right now, so she scooped her back up in her arms and sat back down in the rocker with her. Callie settled in and stopped crying almost immediately. It was like a game no one could win, she felt like she was either going to go insane from sleep deprivation or the sound of Callie crying.

Once she had Callie comfortable in her arms she pulled out her phone and started scrolling through. She didn't know why she did it to herself but she clicked through some tabloid article trashing her. It was always so surreal to her seeing what had always been one of her favorite pictures of her and Katie, arms around each other, smiling at the beach, and realizing that people had a huge issue with it. Apparently a string bikini was not 'becoming of her position', as if she hadn't been nineteen in the picture and so far from imagining herself as Second Lady. At least now it was the same pictures with the same manufactured outrage along with them, so it was become easier to shrug it off.

Rolling her eyes at that she switched over to Instagram barely aware of what she was doing and pulled up her half-sister's page. And she saw the last post she wanted to see, the real reason she had been checking these kids' social media so frequently. It was a picture of their family gathered around a restaurant table celebrating their brother's birthday. And her father was right there with his arm slung around the birthday boy. She was surprised by the strength of the anger coursing through her veins. The fact that she was holding Callie was the only thing that kept her from throwing her phone across the room. All she ever wanted was a lousy card, or acknowledgment of some kind from this guy, and here these kids were getting dinner out and God knows what else. She bet they never had to spend the night in their mother's car, scared out of their minds, with no idea where they were going to be living the next day.

Getting up she angrily paced the hallway feeling the need to do something, but at the same feeling utterly helpless to do anything. Hearing Callie start to whimper she forced herself to slow down, "I'm sorry baby, is Mama being crazy?" But the normally playful voice that she used with Callie was nowhere to be found. Heading back into the bedroom she forced herself to sit back down. Then it hit her, she was not going to let questions about this man rule her life anymore. Before she could think any better of it she picked up her phone and called him. Still feeling the anger pounding in her head, she started regretting calling the second she heard the phone ringing in her ear, but it was too late she wasn't going to hang up now and let her father know she had chickened out. But then it continued ringing and eventually went to voicemail.

Typical, she thought to herself. Of course he wouldn't pick up a call from her. She wasn't one of the children he loved. Frustrated at not having anywhere to vent her anger, she opened her email and started furiously typing a draft. She went through eleven versions telling him off, and one pathetic one just asking 'Why don't you love me?' before she closed out all together. She had decided a while ago there was no point in hearing more excuses from her father or in giving him another opportunity to insult her mother anyway.

But she realized there was something she could do. Without stopping to think it through she pulled Instagram back up and sent her sister a message, introducing herself and telling him that she would be in Ohio at the end of the month and she would love to meet her and her brothers. It wasn't a total lie that she would be in Ohio, Aaron's schedule had him visiting and he was always bugging her to join him on the road. She was surprised how good it felt to have actually done something. It might have been a bit rash, but she was sick of sitting around and feeling bad about herself.

She spent the rest of the morning reading to Callie. She didn't think Callie was really old enough to understand even the idea that she was being read to, but she did grab at the board books sometimes. And Emily loved reading Callie some of the stories she remembered from growing up. It calmed her a bit going over those old familiar tales.

When she finally got Callie into her bassinet she breathed a sigh of relief, the spike of energy that had come with her earlier anger was gone now and she was exhausted again. Just as she was about to lie down herself she spied a stack of thank you cards on her dresser. She had promised herself she would finish them today. She felt especially bad putting off sending them since they had gotten so many gifts from politicians and other big wigs that were not close friends or family. She wasn't worried Seth would think she was a monster if his thank you card came a year late, but she figured she shouldn't start off on the wrong foot with DC society by failing to meet the basic rules of etiquette. She wanted to ignore them, but it was like the cards were staring at her, telling her what a terrible woman she was.

Walking over to them she noticed that the envelopes were all stuffed, and there was a post it note on top of them. In Aaron's somewhat illegible scrawl she read, 'Emily, Get some sleep. Love, Aaron.' She couldn't help a smile from spreading over her face. She had heard so many rants from friends and acquaintances about their husbands never helping out enough, and she had a father that proved that some men never stepped up to the plate at all, yet Aaron had done this without her even asking, let alone needing to nag him. She knew their relationship wasn't perfect, but to her it was little things like this that showed just how much it was worth fighting for.