Chapter 60

Once we’d had a wonderful meal, served by truly gifted soldiers, we excused ourselves to enjoy the privacy of the master suite, upstairs. Ann Marie seemed dazzled by all the fawning attention we were given.

“Thomas – I get to call you Thomas, not James, right?” At my smile and nod she continued. “Thomas...” slight giggle and then, “why in the world did you give this all up? They treat you like a king!” She spread out her arms to take in the whole room, including the base and all the military and secret service surrounding our lodging.

My smile wasn’t nearly as bright and cheerful as hers. “This all comes at a steep price.” I settled down into one of the two recliner chairs in our temporary bedroom. “I was totally in love with my girlfriend when President Dryden asked me to take a position in Homeland Security. We were about to get married when Muslim radicals staged an ambush, intending to kill me. They killed her and six of my men, instead...” Just remembering was painful. Talking about it was worse.

“For a long time I focused on nothing but work. It helped – at least for a while. The President was to retire from office, soon and her wanted Vice President Brownbock to be elected to succeed him. They got their heads together and decided the ticket needed a young, fresh faced, outsider to draw voters who were not traditionally going to vote for Sam.

“Once they announced that I was going on the ticket with Sam, the screaming and shrieking started. There had been several attempts on my life, but none got close. The increased secret service protection created an even tighter net around me which choked off my social life even more...

“And then I met Jennifer...

“It was love at first glimpse. And we were incredibly happy together ... Until those crazy people showed up trying to kill me and got her instead... ‘ Ann Marie moved over to my chair and put her arms around me, holding me as I relived that tragic day. She had that mothering instinct that told her exactly what to do to give me exactly what I needed. We hugged for a long time and when one of the babies fussed, she kissed me hard and went to take care of Sally.

When she returned I was determined to talk about her.

“So ... Tell me about your life, your whole life and leave nothing out,” I announced with a grin.

That took quite a while. It was two diaper changes and one feeding later when she finally filled in all the details about her childhood, adolescence and adulthood. It seemed like Ann Marie lived a perfect life prior to her marriage trouble. Neither of the pregnancies was difficult and both babies were healthy. It was only her husband’s sexual difference that clouded up her story. Other than his choice, she lived a remarkably gentle and storybook life.

My story was much more complicated. I had to leave out ninety-nine percent of my experiences and fill in with White House stories to keep Ann Marie from becoming suspicious. She loved hearing about the important people and interesting places, so I gave her more of that to keep her focused. When she asked question they were mostly to clear up confusion, rather than indulge her curiosity.

We enjoyed two days of splendid comfort before the reality of Samuel’s devastation brought us back to our individual dilemmas. The newscaster talked in front of a huge monitor upon which was projected a non-stop array of broken lives, destroyed homes, flooded neighborhoods and suddenly homeless families. Ann Marie looked at me, and said, “Do you know anything about how badly your home was damaged? My folks have called a couple of times, checking up on me and the girls, but really interested in how soon I’ll go check on the house.”