Nadine paces the office as Elizabeth scoots her chair away from her desk. It is difficult to parse out who is closer to the edge of panic.
"That will end your career," Nadine postulates.
Elizabeth nods, "If it doesn't end my life."
Nadine stops mid pace, "What does that mean?" Her eyes widen.
"I hardly think that this hour allows for such a treacherous rabbit hole," Elizabeth explains.
"I will follow you down the rabbit hole. Then you are going to go home, and go to bed. I will cancel your day tomorrow. You have nothing pressing, anyway. That should give you plenty of time to come clean to your husband."
"World war three would be preferable, Nadine."
"I agree. We have no choice but to play the cards we have been dealt, do we?"
"That is an accurate assessment."
Henry locates Elizabeth in their bathroom stalling in front of the mirror after he rushes the kids out the door for school. He hovers in the doorway as she carefully plucks a stray eyebrow.
"How long are you going to avoid me? Better, yet, I am really beginning to wonder why you are avoiding me. Certainly it cannot be solely matters of national security. A scandalous affair? Oh, I know, an act of treason?"
She returns the tweezers to the drawer, and turns towards her husband. She sighs heavily, and leans against the bathroom counter with her arms folded across her chest.
"Something far more sinister," she reveals with a grim look.
"You are using your official trips to cover your tracks as a drug lord?"
"Lately, I've been thinking about Macie a lot."
The color drains from his face, "Oh! I've just been an insensitive jerk, then?"
She shakes her head, "How could you know what hasn't been shared with you?"
Nadine practically levitates in her seat as she awaits the secretary's explanation.
"I do not get sick very often. Every time I vomit, which is once every 10 years, or so I automatically travel back to my last pregnancy. It was pretty traumatic, and it leaves me reeling for a while."
"Go on."
"Before Jason's first birthday I found out that I was pregnant again. It was unplanned, and not very welcome on my end. I already had three small children, and I felt like I was losing myself. I could not, for the life of me, fathom how I could possibly manage another. I was not happy. I was bitter, and angry. I cursed God and asked him, 'Why me?'."
Nadine begins to settle into her seat, "Ma'am you only have three children."
"I have never been sicker in my life than I was when I was pregnant with McCord number four. I have hyperemesis gravidarum. I had to be hospitalized for dehydration twice during my first trimester. Into my second trimester I had no relief. I was exhausted, and angry…" she breaks eye contact as she trails off.
"I'm listening."
"I was standing at the kitchen sink begrudging the fact that I would be spending countless more hours cleaning another baby's bottles when I started having contractions at somewhere around twenty weeks. At the hospital they were able to delay the inevitable. Their efforts were ultimately futile. After a week and a half of countless attempts to convince her to stay put my blood pressure spiked, and they had no choice but to perform an emergency c-section. Even with the finest of technology a baby born at twenty one weeks, and six days gestation does not flourish. There was absolutely nothing that they could do for Macie. Just like there was absolutely nothing anyone could say to convince me that I wasn't fully responsible for her death."
Nadine says nil a word. She silently vacates her chair, and tenderly envelopes the seated Secretary of state in an embrace as she violently sobs.
He gently nudges her satin robed shoulder. Her weary eyes turn in his direction.
"Did you hear me?"
She shakes her head, "No. I'm sorry."
"That's what I said. Babe, I'm sorry. I assumed the worst of you instead of considering that you've been suffering. I should have been more tuned into the fact that the Foggy Bottom puke-gate scandal would be an event that could throw you into a tail spin."
"She was the most beautiful one of our babies," Elizabeth recalls.
"There is no doubt," he offers his unbridled support.
"Nadine called me to the carpet in my office last night, or early this morning. I totally broke down to the point where she hugged me."
"Nadine?!"
"I know, right? So now I have to quit my job, and become a full time horse farmer. I can never face her again."
"Believe it or not, I think even Nadine knows that behind the woman is… a human."
"I was blubbering. I cannot express how dreadfully pathetic I must have looked."
"You held out for that moment for more than a decade, what did you expect? You never cried, you barely said two words about it. You were discharged from the hospital, and acted as if it never happened."
"If I had allowed myself to feel all of the horrible, searing pain that went along with that little girl, I wouldn't be sitting here today. I had three other precious little ones waiting on me at home."
"It almost killed you."
Elizabeth nods, "More than once."
He furrows his brow, "What do you mean? I was referring when you nearly stroked out."
"I never let you in on how close to the edge I really was back then. Post-partum depression is the ultimate beast when you are discharged from the hospital empty handed."
"What are you saying?"
"I nearly took my life, and tossed the entire thing out the window," she answers candidly, unable to meet his gaze.