This is a World of Sweets and Sours
It doesn't take long for the candles to turn to flashing emergency lights
and the soft singing to turn to sirens.
Donna, ever the guardian of my well-being, is standing next to me tightly
clasping my hand. I can feel myself
losing control, the control I've spent the last 24 hours keeping. But the fact that I can feel myself losing
control is a good thing, as Donna keeps reminding me. Guess my sporadic conversations with Stanley
are helping after all.
All around me people are leaving things by the fence, pictures, candles,
flowers and other small tokens of thoughtfulness. I'm seized with the desire to leave something
behind as Donna starts to pull me away from the crowd. There are too many people near me to allow me
access to my bag, not that there is really anything appropriate in there to
leave. I stick my left hand in my pants
pocket and come up with some spare change and lint. Shifting my bag off my hip I try the right
pocket as a last ditch effort. I find my
last piece of hard candy. I don't want
to think about how many pieces I've had in the last day.
The candy will have to do. I hold it
up to see what it is, it's a peppermint.
It's one of Zoey's favorites, guess that's a good sign. Even though I feel slightly ridiculous doing
so, I lift my hand up, kiss the cellophane wrapper, send up a prayer to
"whatever on high atop the thing" and toss the candy in the ever
growing pile by the fence. It lands
between a picture of Zoey and a row of candles.
I glance in Donna's direction.
The tears in her eyes mirror my own as she tugs on my hand a little
harder to get me to move. I wipe my eyes
and follow her as she leads me away from the crowd.
I hand Donna the keys to my car and I climb into the passenger's seat. As we make our way to my place I realize the
candy was pretty appropriate. During the
first campaign Zoey and I would sneak out to the movies pretty regularly. I think she had a little crush on me at
first. And after 14 hour days it was
nice to go out with someone who didn't want to speak about polling numbers, key
districts and political platforms. We
would go see anything just to leave reality behind for a few hours, didn't matter
what it was. She dragged me to romantic
comedies and I dragged her to thrillers and sports movies. We even saw a few Disney movies but Zoey is
sworn to secrecy about them.
We always bought candy at the movies, never popcorn. I don't eat popcorn. We always had M&Ms, switching back and
forth between plain, her favorite and peanut, mine. We'd make jokes about the green ones and
basically acted pretty juvenile. We tied
licorice strings into knots and shared bags of Hershey kisses.
After I was shot one of the first pieces of solid food I ate was a Hershey
kiss from Zoey. She spent the first few
days after the shooting wearing a path back and forth from her Dad's room to
mine. She was the one who could get
Donna to leave my room long enough to shower, change and eat. As soon as I was moved to a regular room Zoey
managed to con the nurses out of a TV and VCR for me. We watched movies everyday, mostly comedies
to try and keep my mind off the pain.
Once in a while I'd let her sneak in a romance, especially if I was
having trouble sleeping, they usually put me right out.
Even now, when Zoey's visiting she brings candy with her. We hide in my office, eat chocolate and
talk. She tells me things I'm sure she's
never told anyone before. I tell her
things I never thought I'd tell another living soul.
For the record, she's in favor of Donna and I getting together.
"Josh...Josh," I open my eyes and turn to look at Donna. Apparently I dozed off or zoned out during
the drive home. We're already at my
place.
Fifteen minutes later I'm wearing pajama pants and a Mickey Mouse t-shirt
Zoey gave me for my birthday a few years ago.
Donna's in the shower and I'm wandering around the kitchen. I'm kind of hungry but nothing in the fridge
looks appetizing. There's a pint of Ben
and Jerry's in the freezer but I'm not in the mood for sweet. I put water on to
boil for tea. I hunt in the bottom
drawer of the fridge for a lemon because I just noticed the milk is a little
chunky and I'm out of creamer.
By the time the kettle's whistling Donna's gotten out of the bathroom and
managed to find some pajamas to throw on.
She has 3 or 4 days worth of her clothes in my guest room but she never
quite remembers to bring pajamas with her so she steals mine.
But as she walks into the kitchen wearing a Bartlet for America shirt and a
pair of my boxers I have to admit she looks pretty damn cute.
"You want some tea with lemon?"
I ask as I fill my mug.
"Chunky milk?" she snorts as she gets herself a mug and grabs a
knife out of the dish drainer to cut the lemon.
She knows me entirely too well.
We settle down on the couch and Donna turns on the CD player, purposely
avoiding the television and the coverage of Zoey's disappearance. Which is good, I know I wouldn't be able to
handle that right now.
Five minutes later, unable to handle even Jimmy Buffett, I pick up the
remote and turn off the CD. Donna gets
up to turn off the overhead light, plunging the room into darkness. As I reach for the light on the end table she
waves me off and instead lights the candle on the coffee table.
Soon Donna's so exhausted from spending the last 24 hours holding me
together that she nods off before she can finish her tea. I toss the afghan over her and pace around
the room.
For the past 24 hours I've been in political pitbull mode. It was just a cover and a poor one at that.
If I had let down my guard I would have fallen apart. I made sure I wasn't alone for more than a
few minutes at a time, not that that was very hard to do today. This morning, maybe on some level, I did
think we were wrong to let the President step aside. Not that it was our decision to make. But as the day wore on I realized he had no
choice but to do what he did. And I hope
someday I'll be the kind of father who could make the same decision if forced
into an unthinkable situation.
As I was standing outside in the crowd tonight I wondered if that's what it
was like 3 years ago. I know there was a
vigil outside the White House when the President and I were shot. I don't think it was anything as big as
what's out there now, but I don't really know.
It's something Donna and I don't talk about very much. She's made it clear that she's willing to
talk about what it was like but the decision to have that conversation has to
be mine. Until now I haven't felt the
need to delve into what was going on while I was unconscious.
But I'm hit with the urge to know but waking Donna is not an option. That's not fair to her. So I head for the bedroom and my walk in
closet. I flick the light on with one
hand and shield my eyes for a few seconds with the other. In the back of the closet, behind a box of
mementos of my father is a plaid box, the kind used to store photos. Inside are newspaper clippings, photos, get
well cards and telegrams. The box has
been unopened since the day I returned to work after the shooting. Donna and Zoey compiled everything in the
box. Except for the cards and telegrams
I've never really looked at the stuff in the box. I've never read the articles or looked at the
photos of the vigil that was held outside the White House.
I think it's time to take a look.
Even though Donna is asleep I head back out to the living room with the
box in one hand and my tea in the other. I move the candle from the coffee
table to the end table so I have just enough light to see what I'm doing. Managing to move Donna's long legs out of the
way without waking her I settle her feet in my lap.
The first thing I pull out of the box is a stack of get well cards. Sifting through them I find the stack of
cards from Zoey. She sent at least a
dozen while I was recovering. I start to
read her notes but realize that's too hard to do. The light of the single candle isn't really
enough to read by. I pull out the
envelope with the pictures in it. It's
still sealed. With a shaky breath I tear
it open and look at them. There are only
3 pictures but that's enough. The stickers on the back of the photos tell me
they were taken by a photographer friend of Danny's. All three were taken from the Ellipse looking
back towards the White House. Two were
taken at night and the scene in them is almost identical to what I saw
tonight. There were crowds of people,
candles and pictures of the President and I.
The date on the two evening photos tell me it was taken about 24 hours
after the shooting. The final photo is a
daytime shot taken 3 days later; I think the day I was moved from the ICU. There are people around but there wasn't a
huge crowd when it was taken. I lean a
little closer to the candle and smile as I make out of sign that says, "We
love you Josh" with a big picture of a Hershey Kiss. I'm pretty sure I know who made that
sign. It makes me want to make my own
sign. But at 2 in the morning I'm not
going out to buy poster board and magic markers. Maybe tomorrow.
I glance at the photo one last time and tuck them back in the
envelope. Even now, three years later,
I'm not ready to read the articles. Who
knows if I'll ever read them?
I drain the last swallow of tea, my eyes watering from the overly sour
final mouthful. Fishing the wedge of
lemon out with my fingers I touch the tip of my tongue to it. Something about the sour taste feels right at
the moment.
Sweet will have to wait. The
unopened bag of Hershey Kisses in my desk will wait until I can share them with
Zoey.
THE END
