The margin turned out to be uncomfortably close to the one predicted by Senator Bagwell, thirty-nine to sixty-one. Thirty-nine percent. The voice of Bagwell, so confident behind his mike, still echoed inside Sara's head. That was nearly a hundred and thirty million people, who opposed the reform.
"Sixty-one percent's a great result," Paul said.
To which Sara replied, "You listen to 'America Now', right?"
"Yes, and I know when to recognize sheer bluff when I hear it, Sara. What's Bagwell going to do? Gather all the Americans who voted no on the filibuster, start calling them the New Confederation of America? They weren't all southern-based, you know. Some of them, but not all. They're too scattered to found a new sense of community." Kellerman chuckled. "And I considered many risks, Sara, when I vowed to see you through this presidency, but none of them featured a second civil war."
For some reason though, this didn't erase the nagging doubt in Sara's mind. Small, but lodged firmly into the walls of her brain, like a black spider spinning nasty threads.
Enough people to start a nation.
The words played, over and again, until she could put her finger on what bothered her so much about them –
He spoke it like he meant it.
In her head, Sara reviewed every piece of information she had stored about Bagwell during the campaign – his charm, his arrogance, and the real motive for his running. Most of those who aspired to be presidents did it because they wanted power, of course, which Bagwell undeniably did; but you can want power for different reasons, and it was clear what Theodore Bagwell wanted before all was to be adored. Ronald Reagan must have been among his favorites – movie star as well as president.
Sara had always been very good at reading people, which wasn't as much an asset in politics as you would think. Holding the keys to someone's inner motives didn't mean you could actually stop them.
In every smile Bagwell made, in every twinkle and wink and popular statement, Sara could hear it clear as day.
Love me, it said.
Lovemelovemelovemeloveme.
What was she afraid of but to hear America answer –
We love you. Get us rid of all those job-stealing immigrants, those leftist people in government, give us back the shine and glory of the America of lore, and oh, we'll worship at your altar.
Would they?
God, Sara wished she could talk to Michael about this. Though they seldom used to talk about her work, and part of her had resented that he would talk so much about it the last time they'd spoken over the phone, now, it felt like it would greatly reassure her – purely to hear a rational voice on the matter.
They would have talked about the undying trends of history, how there had always been those who fought not for justice or equality but for an all-white American nation. Radicalization was but a logical response to the immense demographic changes that had taken place – and that would only increase – in recent decades.
For all her instinct was worth, Sara had been unable to predict how precious it would be to have a sensible ally to talk to – not just someone who understood her issues, but who felt as deeply about them as she did.
Not that it would have changed anything, of course. Michael could never have made it to the White House – he belonged in the shadows, he had told her from the start.
As Sara had expected, the referendum on the filibuster had turned out as a revealer for other things. Asking, Should I get rid of the filibuster? was really another way of asking, Are you with me? This was, anyhow, how voters had interpreted it.
"They won't vote in favor of abolishing the filibuster if they don't want my government's legislation," Sara had thought, quite logically.
And, by now, to the people as well as Congress, there was little mystery as to the sort of measures Sara's administration would promote.
Facilitating the journey towards American citizenship for refugees, as well as stalling the system of mass deportations of illegal immigrants who had resided on the land for years.
More affordable college education. Yet more affordable healthcare.
An expansion of the Food Stamps program, based on saving the millions of tons of food that was laid to waste by big industries, because Sara couldn't well live with the fact that people still starved in one of the richest countries on earth.
"So," Kellerman told Sara, the morning the results of the referendum were announced, "we're going forward with this?"
"Executive action for this will be too fragile," Sara said. "Anyone that comes after me can just put it back. I want this signed into law."
In the speech Sara gave, that very day, she began by talking about historical precedents. That she knew all too well that very often, Washington resisted change, even when the people clamored for it. "I've heard the people's voice today," she said, "and I won't stand in its way. But I think it's important all of us keep in mind we're not talking about doing anything so radical here. Back in the 1890s, the House of Representatives got rid of its filibuster, because it was getting in the way of politics. The filibuster wasn't enshrined in our Constitution by our forefathers. Rather, it was added so as to make our lawmaking process more convenient – today, few in this country could argue that it's become an inconvenience. And I'd say it's high time we repeal it, in the name of progress."
The following week, Sara issued an order effectively suspending the Senate's use of filibuster. She would hear the House's opinion on it, and then the Senate's, before they would hopefully come to a bipartisan vote that would sign the reform into law.
"You'll make enemies," Kellerman had warned her.
"I've already made enemies."
Kellerman hadn't insisted but smiled, a smile that was no less ambivalent than the one she got from Gretchen Morgan, when she had her in her office the next day.
"I know it's a little off topic for me to say so," Gretchen said, "but I wanted you to know I think it's brilliant. To finally see a president who's interested in moving things forward."
Sara took this with a mere nod – was still uncertain how to feel about Gretchen Morgan's attitude. To dismiss her as a mere flatterer would be a foolish mistake, and yet there was a deeper layer to her compliments, a backdrop that Sara couldn't satisfactorily identify.
Back in Chicago, Michael received the news with what Lincoln deemed to be insufficient enthusiasm. "This is great," Lincoln said. "If she can really bring the Democrats and the Republicans together – well, for starters, she'll be the first twenty-first century president to manage that."
"Never thought you paid such attention to politics, Linc," Michael answered evasively.
"I've been catching up."
It wasn't the first time that Lincoln returned to Michael's apartment, after his brother had agreed to receive his help on some matters. Most of their cooperation went through the more modern means of communication – texts rather than phone calls – it was probably more convenient for Michael to handle his brother with as much distance as possible.
Whatever anger or disgust Michael might feel for him, Lincoln never felt it so much as graze the surface. The first time Michael had let him in, after Lincoln had offered his help, he remembered how it was like a great gulf opened up inside his chest – only not the wrong kind. This void, yet unbridgeable emptiness, was full of possibilities, of things that might become.
"Wow," Lincoln had said, as he took a look around Michael's apartment, which seemed but the carcass of its former glory. "It's worse than mine!"
There'd been something nearly like a smile on Michael's face – tolerance – as good a beginning as Lincoln could hope to get.
What had really impressed him, of course, was the spider-web that took up most of Michael's living room wall.
"Well I'll be damned."
It had never crossed Lincoln's mind before to put together the faces of every important actor in Washington – and no doubt in the rest of the country, considering the size of Michael's web. The pinned pictures and black threads – that signified relations? Economic ties? – not only took up the wall in its entirety, but spread to the adjacent ones, so that Lincoln knew Michael might put every square meter of this apartment to use. Amidst the photographs, papers, ranging from Post-It notes to regular-sized paper, scribbled with ink front and back, but Lincoln didn't dare get close enough to try and read them.
Really, he remained at a somewhat awed distance from the web, as if it were a fantastic creature he was afraid to offend.
"Well?" Michael had wanted to know. "Any of these faces familiar from the restaurant?"
The question drilled Lincoln's brain back into professional focus.
"Actually, they do."
Without thinking, Lincoln bridged in a few steps the distance that separated him from the web, until he was close enough to touch the picture of a dark-haired fellow, whose blue eyes stared eerily at you from the paper.
"This guy?"
"Alex Mahone?" Michael sounded interested, arms crossed over his chest. "So far, I've got nothing on him. Nothing bad. He's been in the Senate only for a couple of years. Always voted soundly, I should think. Wasn't afraid to stand up to his own party when Trump pushed him to it. I respect the guy. Thought it meant he was following his own sense of justice rather than blindly abiding by partisanship."
"Oh, he's following his own path all right. He's been to the restaurant four times – having dinner with Philly Falzone."
Michael shrugged.
"That's one of Abruzzi's guys, Mike." Lincoln looked back at the photograph, where the man put on a killer smile. "He works for the mob."
The whole afternoon had gone down like this. Lincoln would pour knowledge on every face he could recognize on Michael's wall. When it was getting dark, and Michael checked his watch, Lincoln had inquired, "Should I get going?"
"I have a phone call scheduled at eight."
"Ah. Some lawyer?"
"A frightfully bad one. But he's accepted to take my advice for free – his client's a good kid, but they're trying to get him in max for grand theft." Michael shrugged. "It's not going to resonate in Washington, helping that kid – but not everything has to. The small scale must still matter. Right?"
Lincoln nodded. Then, returning to the photographed faces, and trying not to look at Sara's, "You know, I've got pages and pages of info on some of these guys, if you have time for some reading."
"Sure. You can bring them back sometime next week."
Lincoln tried to ignore the wave of warmth that spread over his chest at the thought. "Well, I'd like to copy them first. The handwriting's pretty bad –"
"No worse than the high school homework I used to check for you. I can still read you, Linc."
Though Michael didn't smile, his voice was pleasant with the remembrance of dear memories, and Lincoln thought his last statement was true in more ways than one.
Though their cooperation was by no means the continuation of their old relationship, it was a good enough opportunity to start a new one. Of course, things couldn't be, were never going to be as they were. When Lincoln was at Michael's apartment, and they exchanged about famous and lesser-known influential actors on the stage of Washington, the enormity of Lincoln's betrayal was never quite forgotten. The was no need for either brother to point to it, either in the shape of awkward repentance or bitter reproach. Most of the time, it just sat there between them, in each moment of silence or pause, the self-conscious elephant in the room – only it was more like an enormous spider, hanging from the ceiling, black and ominous over the brothers' heads, who were enmeshed as ever in its web, but who found it preferable not to acknowledge it. Who ever wants to acknowledge something as repulsive and loathsome as the spider in the bathtub, or on the ceiling right above the bed?
What for?
They couldn't kill it.
The monster was born out of Lincoln's mistake and he was one time-machine short to try and undo it.
And yet he enjoyed this.
Most of it.
The time he spent with Michael was precious, not only because he was near his brother, whom he loved, and whom by any standard, he had never truly deserved.
Lincoln enjoyed working with him, because this was likely the most meaningful thing he would ever do. At least that he'd ever done.
What was more, he didn't think he could have been so good at his job at the Everest, could have even found it in himself to keep it, if he hadn't been using it to get intel on big-shot clients on the side.
That's just what I am, maybe. A sneaky bastard. Not a straight bone in my body.
But that didn't really matter to Lincoln. Not when he heard about Sara's plan for reform on television, not when he sat on the floor of his brother's apartment, filling sheets of paper with everything he could remember about this or that congressman, while Michael incorporated a several-hundred-page book on criminal justice – not when he thought the world might finally be changing.
"You're going to tell me you're not excited?"
"Getting rid of the filibuster's one thing, Linc – winning over even a half-Democrat Congress to pass unprecedented progressive legislation is quite another."
Lincoln digested this. In the time before, he would have made some joking comment about how his little brother had gotten so cynical – but this was part of the liberties he'd lost last Halloween night at the motel. Probably, that had played a major role in Michael's cynicism. He didn't dare tell him he might have a little faith.
"You know what?" Lincoln said instead. "I think she'll do it though."
"Do what exactly?"
"Pass her reform laws. Change the country for the better. Go down in history."
"For sure," Michael answered, without raising his eyes from the pages.
But Lincoln had a feeling his brother was only replying to the last part of his statement.
And, of course, going down in history could be done in more ways than one. For the best as well as for the worse.
…
End Notes: Still having a great time with this story. Please share your thoughts and reactions, and thanks again for your support which means the world to me.
