I WANT TO PUT A WARNING ON THIS CHAPTER - BUT IT WILL BE GOOD FOR THE REST OF THE STORY. WRITING OUT WARNINGS AT THE BEGINNING OF CHAPTERS, FOR ME, IS A TOUGH CALL. IT CAN BREAK UP THE FLOW OF THE CHAPTERS, CAN GIVE SPOILER ALERTS, AND, WELL - IF YOU'RE THIS FAR IN THE STORY, HOPEFULLY YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THIS STORY IS FULL OF THINGS LIKE THAT. JUST LIKE LIFE IS. IN DEPICTING TRAUMATIC THINGS, THERE WILL BE TRIGGERS. SO I WILL PUT THIS ONE HERE AND CONSIDER IT ACTIVE FOR THE REST OF THE STORY. THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT LIGHT CHAPTERS WILL NOT HAPPEN - I HAVE SOME GOOD ONES PLANNED. BUT IT JUST MEANS THAT I WON'T INCLUDE WARNINGS FOR ANY OF THE FOLLOWING CHAPTERS.
I HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND.
THANKS SO MUCH FOR READING!
Her hands shook as she discarded the white paper bag on the floor of the passenger seat with the sea of others just like it.
With a skill that came from extensive experience, she'd twisted the childproof top off the orange bottle.
Even the sound of the pills rattling against the sides of the bottle satisfied her.
This would make the anger go away. It always had before.
Turning her body towards the passenger seat, she set two of the orange pills on the hard flat part of the console – she laughed as she remembered that this space used to be where she'd set her phone while driving. Now she used it for different things.
She could make anything work when she needed to. The previous place where she'd keep her phone now was the dedicated spot to put the pills, the stainless steel to-go mug that had held coffee to keep her alert and awake during the early morning or late nights at Langley was now her go-to pestle, the emergency credit card her parents had given her years before – the one she kept in the glove compartment of her car – the one she'd maxed out months before – it wasn't useless anymore. Without thought, she drew lines with the white powder. The pen – the one Isabelle had given her on her first day as an analyst – she'd disemboweled it easily months before. Now, she leaned down and set the empty pen, first against one and then the other nostril.
Shaking her head, she leaned her head back against the already reclined seat.
And she felt it go away.
The anger replaced with nothingness. A blankness that she needed.
A rush.
Then happiness.
Her eyelids drooped, and she finally felt the weight of the anger and shame leave.
Leaving her there. Happy.
And satisfied. For a while.
The phone ringing barely stirred him out of sleep anymore. Being the husband to the President of the United States meant that the middle of the night phone calls weren't reason for concern like they used to be.
Yet one more thing he hated about Elizabeth's job.
He adjusted his head against the pillow, waiting for his wife to answer the phone and leave so he could go back to sleep.
It wasn't until, with the phone still ringing, he felt Elizabeth's hand on his arm. "Henry."
He opened his eyes, turning to face Elizabeth's side of the bed, and saw that she was reaching across the expanse of their bed that they now slept in.
"Henry. Answer your phone." She muttered, then turned away from him.
Now he sat up in bed, reaching for the phone on his nightstand. On his side of the room. Eyes not adjusted to the bright light from his phone, he winced as he tried to read the caller id.
Charlotte.
Suddenly wide awake, he quickly silenced the call, and tried to act as nonchalant as possible while, on the inside, his stomach was turning and the worries flooded through his mind.
"What is it?"
He answered his groggy wife's question with a simple lie. "It's Sarah."
Confusion and not apathy filled Elizabeth's question, "Your niece? Why is she…"
"I forgot we planned to talk." He again lied, desperately needing to calm his wife down so she'd go to sleep and leave him alone to answer the phone. As he walked to the door of the bedroom, he said, "It's like noon where she's stationed. Just go back to sleep."
He breathed a sigh of relief when an irritated "fine" came from the bed behind him.
He hated how easy it was to lie to his wife. And how little the lies bothered him.
Once he'd closed the bedroom door behind him, he redialed Charlotte's number as he hurried out past the door of the Residence. With three rooms between them, Henry hoped that would be enough to keep the conversation from getting to Elizabeth.
Charlotte answered in the middle of the first ring. "Henry, I'm sorry I woke you."
"What's wrong?" He didn't need the pleasantries.
"I forgot what time…"
"Charlotte." He said, a bit more intensely than he intended. Then, softening his tone, he said, "The time is no problem. But, what's wrong?"
He was sure the silence on the other end felt much longer than it actually was.
"I didn't know who else to call." She said, the weight of the words settling firmly on Henry's shoulders.
"Is she ok?" Panic laced each word.
"Wha... what do you mean?" Charlotte stuttered. "I… I mean, we… we broke up four months ago."
Henry felt like someone had kicked all the air out of him. He leaned his head back against the wall, his eyes searching the ceiling, the hand holding his phone dropped from his hear to his shoulder, the strength to even hold it up disappearing as the worries he'd had over the last three months finally started to become reality. The nagging question of his stupidity now became reality.
Three months ago he'd written that check. Three months ago, the check had been cashed. Three months ago was the last time he'd heard from his daughter.
Three months ago, Emma told him that Charlotte had been taking care of the bills.
Three months ago.
"Henry?" The distant calling of his name drew him from the churning fears developing in his mind. He held the phone back up to his ear. "Henry?"
"I'm… it's just…" He couldn't find words.
"Are you ok?"
He was anything but "ok."
"I'm just…" He found the words, "confused and concerned."
Charlotte cleared her throat. "Well, that's why I'm calling. Since I moved back to London, it's taken a while for mail to get to me. And, well, I just got four letters from the apartment manager."
Why was she talking about the postal system? He started to pace, listening. Trying to focus on anything but the fifteen thousand dollars he'd given his daughter. "Uh, huh?" Trying to follow. Trying to focus.
"It's two notices of late fees due to rent not being paid. One is an eviction notice. And the other, the newest one, is their intent to sue for the months of rent not being paid and the state of the apartment when the eviction notice was carried out." Charlotte listed. "Henry, when I left, I paid one extra month of rent ahead of time. She wasn't… she needed time" Care and concern entered the girl's voice, "… time to get back on her feet. So I thought that would be enough."
Three months.
"I tried calling her." Charlotte said. "Her phone was disconnected. The new one that she got after…"
Henry remembered watching Emma slam her phone down on Elizabeth's desk.
Hoping Charlotte could give some sense of what was going on, Henry asked, "What do you mean, get back on her feet?"
"I don't… she would hate me if I… I promised her I wouldn't talk about her to you or Elizabeth."
Taking a deep breath, Henry decided to lay it all out. "Charlotte, three months ago, Emma reached out to me, wanting to meet." He could still remember that day like it was yesterday. He'd been terrified about the ramifications since a week after it happened. "We did. She didn't look that good, but she told me that, while she'd had a hard time, she was trying to get back on her feet."
"You gave her money, didn't you?"
"Yes." The first time he'd admitted that out loud. About the millionth time he'd wanted to. But this was the first time he'd said it. And, with that off his chest, he could finally say the other things. "She said you were helping with bills. She told me she wanted to go to grad school this summer. I don't know how she could come up with such a masterful lie. It…"
"Sounded real, yeah." He could hear the bit of condescension in her voice.
"I didn't know." He pleaded his case. "I was just trying to help."
It was quiet for a second. Then. "I left because she was drinking – drinking more than I thought the human body could possibly handle."
"Alcohol."
For an odd reason, his gut reaction was relief. Through the past months, he'd revved his brain up into thinking it was something worse. Not that alcohol wasn't a dangerous thing. But, from the way Emma had looked the last time he'd seen her, Henry had imagined all the stereotypes about addicts that had morphed into a monster of guilt in his head.
"Alcohol." Charlotte reiterated. "But, Henry, it was… I was waiting to come home from work and find her dead because of alcohol poisoning."
Henry hated to think about Emma in that state.
"And I just couldn't do it anymore." Charlotte's voice broke. "I love her, but I couldn't sit and watch her kill herself with the alcohol."
He remembered sitting at the funeral. Emma seated next to him, her hand in his. Squeezing tight. As they'd watched Lea's father lean against the coffin of his daughter, unwilling to let her go.
He tried to speak but couldn't.
And he was grateful when Charlotte did. "Anyway, Henry, I contacted the apartment manager, but he said that unless the bill is paid within forty-eight hours, the matter would be settled in court. And, since Emma and I are both on the lease, I'm still financially responsible."
With the talk about money and bills, Henry stiffened, "The last time I had anything to do with Emma's need for money…"
"Oh, no." Charlotte interrupted. "I wasn't asking for money, Henry." She quickly continued, "My parents are helping with it. The move back was more expensive, but they're giving me a loan until I can pay it back."
That was all Henry had tried to do for Emma – well, at least pay for her school. Like he'd done with each of the other kids.
"What I was wondering" Charlotte said, "was if you could go and collect whatever is left in the apartment? They're trying to charge me an extra three thousand for a move-out and cleaning fee. And, since that's quite a bit of money, I wanted to see if you, or like, someone on your wife's staff, could go collect that rubbish and save me that three grand?"
"Three thousand dollars?" An apartment complex charging three grand for a cleaning fee? Henry was floored.
"Well, the whole bill is really high. So, I thought I could save…"
"How much?" Henry asked.
"It's three months of rent, three late fees, the utility bills, and…"
"How much?"
"Without the cleaning fee, it's about seven grand."
He still couldn't believe how naïve he'd been. Standing there, in the hallway by the stairwell down into the country's central space of government, in his pajamas, he was stunned at how stupid he was. Generally, he knew he wasn't a dumb person. He'd been a pilot, worked in the NSA, apprehended terrorists, taught religion and philosophy – things that took a calm head and a keen eye.
But he'd been an idiot.
"Again, Henry" Charlotte said, "I don't want you to pay it. If you could just…"
Without question, Henry said, "Let me go down to the apartment manager." Using the logic he should've used with his daughter, he said, "I'll get the stuff out of there, have someone come in and clean, and I'll try and talk the price down a bit…" Maybe the manager would give him a break considering who Henry was.
Of course, that was something a stupid person would think. Yet again.
"Ok." Charlotte said. "Thank you."
"Charlotte?" Henry bit his bottom lip, trying to make himself think before asking, but he knew he had to. "Will you, just let me know if you hear from her? No details, just… let me know she's ok?"
The pause was reciprocated.
Then.
"I will."
As the call ended, Henry felt all his strength leave. As reality set in on him.
He sat down on the top step, his phone falling to the second step beneath him. And, his head leaning against the banister, he let the fearful tears fall. The regretful tears. The "terror was taking hold and destroying his ability to think" tears.
