January 1973
Jill was still a little sleepy walking down the hallway on the first day after Christmas vacation. She had gotten used to a different rhythm during the vacations. She had stayed up late in the evenings and was still working at the bar. Consequently, she had still been asleep at this time in the morning. She made her way to the cafeteria and got a large freshly brewed coffee into which she poured sweetened condensed milk. She hadn't had any breakfast yet. She would keep herself together with caffeine and sugar. She looked at her wristwatch and realized she would have to hurry to get to the lecture hall on time. She set off, unslept and rushed, with her Styrofoam cup and ran into Frank Biden.
She spilled the hot liquid all over the poor frescher. Frank was two years younger than Jill and had begun his studies last summer.
"Oh no Frank, how silly of me. I'm sorry. I'm really so sorry. Did you do a burn on yourself? Let me see."
Jill ran to the ice machine to get a cup full of ice cubes and a stack of napkins and returned to Frank.
"Does it hurt?" She tried to cool the reddened area on his arm and began to pat his shirt dry with napkins."
"It's OK Jill." he said softly. His eyes were sad. "There really are worse things. It's not like you did it on purpose."
The cafeteria was deserted except for the two of them. By now, the few students who had been at the college so early on the first day back from vacation were already sitting in their lectures and seminars.
Frank sat down on a chair and looked at his wet pants. He sighed.
"Frank I'm so sorry about everything. I'm really very very sorry about everything. So I don't just mean the coffee thing. I'm sorry about the coffee thing too but I'm even more sorry about your brother."
Frank looked saddened and swallowed.
"Sorry I'm babbling. How's he doing then? Your brother I mean?"
"Hmm, well, yes Jill to be honest. He's in a bad mood. I don't like to talk about it that much but you were so open with us during freschers week and I have to be honest with someone."
"Go ahead Frank. I'm listening."
"I mean, I really can't blame him. Nobody can blame him, he's visiting his kids in the hospital. He really wanted to do the swearing in at the hospital so they'd be there. And I was like, all that effort until you get the vice president in the hospital. I mean imagine if he was the senator from Nevada, now the vice president should have come to Nevada. My mom thinks if my brother was vice president someday, he'd fly to Alaska to do a hospital swearing in, too." Frank made a throwing away motion with his hand. "Never mind. Let's not bother with that. All the fuss with the press in that hospital room. He's always very controlled in public, too. In front of the press or in the Senate, he acts completely professional as if nothing happened at all. I am very impressed by that. I really am. But when he sits at our parents' house for lunch on Sundays." Frank hesitated, swallowing down the lump in his throat. "I'm worried about him. I mean I don't think he's really serious about hurting himself. But I heard him say to one of his colleagues that he wished he were dead."
"That's terrible."
"Tomorrow the boys will be out of the hospital. That's nice, of course. But Joe doesn't have Child Care for them and now we have to see how we as a family can somehow arrange that. Actually, Neila would have cared for the boys 24/7. The worst thing is my mother when she thinks no one is watching her. She has not only lost her granddaughter, and after we did the whole campaign together last year, Neila was really like a daughter to her. On top of that, she also has to watch Joe suffer. I mean. Joe was always her favorite."
