Josh did, in fact, write the paper after all. He stayed up until four in the morning polishing it. The only setback he ran into was a miniscule, arguably unimportant one- he had lost his Genetics textbook. Upon realizing the textbook was missing, Josh convinced himself that he could easily write the paper without it, just so long as he made it sound sophisticated.
He stumbled out of his dorm room around noon and stopped for a latte before heading to class. As it happened, he ended up being the first student to arrive. He glanced down at his watch and saw that class did not begin for another fifteen minutes. This was certainly a first. Dr. Bartlet ought to be proud of him. When he entered the classroom, his ear was pleasantly assaulted by the lovely notes of a Puccini opera- he couldn't put his finger on exactly which one. His equally lovely professor sat behind her desk, eyes closed, with her feet propped up on the surface. Her hand reached up then and he watched as she began rubbing her temple methodically. She had been under a fair amount of stress lately, Josh knew, but it couldn't be more than she was used to working at a hospital. There had to be something else. Normally, he wouldn't care. The personal lives of his professors had no influence over his own. But this wasn't an average professor. From what she had told the class, she led a highly interesting existence. Strange as it was for him personally to feel this way, he found himself actually fascinated by her. It wasn't so much that he was interested in her romantically, at least he didn't think so, but as a person, she was as captivating as a person could get. For a professor anyway.
"Dr. Bartlet?"
He approached her slowly, careful to make his presence known with his loud footsteps. Otherwise, she would never have noticed him. Abbey opened her eyes and threw her feet off of the desk.
"Joshua Lyman as I live and breathe," She said with moderate astonishment. "I may have to mark this day down on my calendar. Fifteen minutes early. I'm shocked and quite frankly, surprised."
He grinned at her and shrugged his shoulders.
"First time for everything."
"So it would seem."
He glanced around the room, as if looking for an image of the music he was hearing.
"Puccini?"
Abbey nodded, impressed.
"La Bohème."
"My sister used to play this record from time to time. She was a Schubert girl, but every now and then she'd throw on Puccini."
"A woman after my own heart," She replied with a sigh.
"Yeah." He nodded. "Hey, is everything okay? When I walked in, you looked a little… tense, for lack of a better word."
"Oh." She shook her head. "It's very sweet of you to ask, Joshua, but I don't want to burden you with the answer to that question."
"Just because I'm your student doesn't mean I don't have ears."
She smiled and let out a reluctant sigh.
"You really want to know?"
"I really want to know."
"Well, my housekeeper just quit to become a masseuse down in Miami and I've got about five loads of laundry waiting for me at home. My mother-in-law, a hypochondriac in every sense of the word, is convinced she has less than a month to live, despite the fact that she's probably healthier than I am. Her husband has pawned her off on me because he can't take it anymore and she refuses to leave the subject alone. My two youngest daughters are in a constant state of war because the older of the two has matured to the point where she no longer wants to play with dollhouses and the younger simply cannot accept that. My oldest daughter was just rejected from both Harvard and Yale, and I think she's going to pull out every strand of hair on her head waiting for a response from Dartmouth. My granddaughter has just started teething and because her mother can focus on nothing besides Dartmouth, I'm left with the arduous task of taking care of her. Tomorrow is the twenty-sixth anniversary of my mother's death and I'll be spending the day grading papers. To top it all off, my husband hasn't been home in three weeks and I'm coping with all of this by myself."
It was all Josh could do to keep him dropping his jaw. And he thought his life was complicated! He had absolutely nothing on her.
"Wow."
She chuckled.
"Sorry you asked?"
"Not quite. I'm sorry about all of this though."
"Thank you." She smiled slightly. "This place, believe it or not, is my sanctuary right now."
"It must be hard not having your husband around."
"Just a little bit." Abbey laughed. "I'm starting to feel a little bit like a single mom and I don't think I like it all that much." She noticed the paper in his hand then. "That your paper?"
He glanced down at it then held it up.
"Oh, uh, yeah. Here."
Josh reached out and handed it to her. She flipped through all ten pages of it then set it down on her desk.
"Looks good."
"Oh, it is good. This paper is God's gift to the world of college Genetics," Josh said, confidently.
"Well," Abbey replied. "I guess I'll find out soon enough."
Jed Bartlet's study was arguably the most peaceful room in the house. Purposely out of the way (awasiwi odenak, as he always said), it was armed with numerous tools to combat whatever and whoever threatened that serenity- hundreds of books, a stereo complete with over fifty classical music and opera records, and a strong iron lock. In his absence, Abbey liked to escape to his retreat whenever she found a free moment. She finished washing the dishes from dinner, checked on the kids one last time, then locked herself in the study. She popped in a Wagner record and began the arduous task of grading all thirty papers that were piled on the desk. When the once far away voices of her tempermental youngest daughters wafted into the room, she turned up the volume. After she had successfully graded ten papers, the phone rang. She c losed her eyes and waited for someone to answer it. After three rings, it stopped and she breathed a sigh of relief. Five minutes later, thirteen-year-old Ellie started banging on the door.
"Mom!"
"Not now, Ellie!"
"But Dad's on the phone!"
"And the world stopped turning," Abbey mumbled. "Tell him I'm busy!"
"Okay."
Without turning back to the paper in front of her, she waited. Sure enough, she received the response she expected.
"Mom!"
"What?"
"He doesn't care!"
"Then tell him I said he should…" Her voice started out loud with irritation, but fell into a soft longing. "…come home."
"What?" Ellie asked.
"Nothing, honey. I'll take it in here." She reached for the phone and lifted it off the receiver. "I've got it, Ellie!"
She waited until she heard Ellie hang up the phone before addressing her husband.
"Hi."
"You're busy?" Jed repeated.
"Yeah," she sighed. "Grading papers."
"I call you, long distance, from Washington and you give Ellie excuses."
"Well, I wouldn't have to if you were here, would I?" Abbey shot back.
"Where the hell is this coming from?" He was bewildered.
"You haven't been home in three weeks, Jed. Do you have any idea what I'm dealing with here? I've got thirty papers to grade, Ellie and Zoey are at each other's throats, Liz is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Annie is constantly screaming, your mother has called once every hour for the last two weeks insisting that her particular case of mild arthritis must be fatal and I should take her into the hospital for tests because she's a medical marvel!" Abbey shouted. "Oh yeah, and I'm pregnant."
"What!" He whispered sharply.
"Just kidding."
"Jesus Christ, Abbey."
She shrugged to herself.
"I thought it would be a nice touch. I am four days late though."
"Really?" Jed asked.
"No, five actually. I'm five days late.
"Abbey…"
"Oh, stop running your hands through your hair, Jed. It's probably just a fluke."
"How did you…"
"Just because I'm not there doesn't mean I can't see you," Abbey said.
"I find that oddly comforting yet, at the same time, a little disturbing."
"I find it a little disturbing myself."
"But you don't think that…" He trailed off.
"Oh, please, Jed. I'm forty-two years old and birth control has never failed us before. Highly unlikely."
"You do seem to have PMS, so I guess that's a good sign." He chuckled. "Never thought I'd say that."
"This from the man who hasn't been home in nearly a month. If I do have PMS, I think it's pretty warranted, don't you?" Abbey retorted.
"I'll be home this weekend," Jed said sympathetically. "I promise."
"I've heard it before."
"You think I like this? You think I like being away from my family for a month at a time?"
"Sometimes I wonder," she said.
"Come on, Abbey!" He exclaimed in frustration.
"You're right. I'm sorry. I know you don't like this either. It's just getting to be too much. I can't do it all. I'm not blaming you, I just…I just wish you were here. I feel like every day without you is wasted and I'm just going through the motions."
"I know, baby. Just a couple more days. Okay?"
Although he could not see her, he could envision her exact expression and her solemn nod.
"Okay."
"You should finish grading those papers."
"Yeah."
"I'll talk to you tomorrow?" Jed asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.
"Yeah."
"I love you."
"I love you too."
The moment she hung up the phone, her ears adjusted to the piercing sounds of loud, irritated young voices and a subsequent thud. Abbey closed her eyes tightly, attempting to focus her thoughts elsewhere. Then, the phone rang. She knew exactly who it would be- her mother-in-law, asking if osteoporosis could lead to kidney failure or if migraines had ever been known to cause brain damage. As the phone continued to ring and the voices continued to rage outside, Abbey took one look at the huge stack of papers before her and silently began to cry.