Stevie
2:04 PM
'After news broke on Sunday that Senator Carlos Morejon's wife, Victoria Morejon, worked in the United States illegally when she first came to the country, Senator Morejon has today announced that he will be resigning from his post, effective immediately, citing 'personal reasons'. We approached Senator Morejon for further comment, but he declined...'
Stevie stared up at the television screen mounted on the wall in the corner above the drinks station whilst she stirred the brown sugar crystals and a dash of milk into her coffee. The spoon clinked against the inside of the mug with each cycle. The camera cut to the panel, ready to discuss the turn in events, or to chew over the carcass more likely—though that much Senator Morejon probably deserved—but before the feast could begin, Stevie tossed the spoon into the sink with a clatter, and then snatched up her mug and strode away.
She sailed along the corridor and back towards the office, flashing a strained smile at each staffer and official that she met on her way. At least with the attention on Morejon, no one was so much as mentioning her mother's absence, and it couldn't hurt that him quitting meant that she no longer had to worry about him skulking around White House corridors or accosting her when she was on her lunch break. But what if the media found out about her mother, about where she was staying and why? The circle of people who had been read in was slowly expanding—no thanks to Jason telling Aunt Maureen—and all it would take was one slip, one misplaced word, and once the press got wind of it, they'd make the feast over Morejon look like no more than a snack.
Stevie strode past the side door to Russell's office, and then stopped. She backed up two paces, and with the mug clutched against her chest so that the warmth of the ceramic pressed through her blouse, she peered inside.
Russell was stooped over the desk. A heavy frown furrowed his brow whilst he glowered down at the three files splayed open in front of him. Not the files she had left for him earlier. He straightened up and massaged his forehead, and the glass casing of his watch threw off a glint of white light. Then his shoulders pricked and his gaze whistled around. When it landed on Stevie, he flipped the covers of the files shut, jostled them together and placed them beneath the binder at the far side of the desk. "Miss McCord... How can I help you?"
"You're back." Stevie shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
Russell shot her a look as he lowered himself into his office chair. "Well observed."
A tingle of warmth crept through her cheeks. "It's just, I thought you'd be gone longer, when you said that we should clear your schedule..."
"Yes, well, things didn't take as long as I'd planned." He smoothed down his tie, and then dragged himself up to the edge of the desk. He grabbed the stack of memos from his in-tray and tossed aside the pallid pink paperclip that fastened them together.
As he flicked through the pages, the rustle of the paper mingled with the erratic patter of raindrops against the windowpanes and thickened the silence that settled across the room. When he had given each memo a cursory look, he returned to the one at the top, and without so much as a glance in her direction, he said, "You're hovering."
Stevie pursed her lips. A pause. Then—"Well observed."
That earnt her another look, but also a huff of a laugh.
She switched her coffee into the opposite hand, and then crept a step further inside. "So...I saw that Senator Morejon's resigned... It's all over the news."
"Yes, that was rather felicitous."
She pushed the door to with a soft click, and then sidled closer, half-step by half-step. "So, it had nothing to do with the threat you made last week, or needing to speak to my dad on Saturday?"
"That's quite the imagination you've got there, almost as active as Morejon's."
She came to a stop behind one of the armchairs that faced his desk, and rested the mug against the back, whilst her other hand curled over the leather. "You know how my mom feels about oppo."
"I do." He turned over the page, a furrow of concentration marking his brow.
She bunched her lips to one side. "So... Did you tell her? When you and President Dalton made an off-the-books trip to see her this morning."
Russell's gaze shot up, and his eyebrows arched in a flash of surprise that lingered for no more than a second before he shook it away again. "Remind me again why I hired you."
"I think it had something to do with me saving your life."
"Well, I'm beginning to regret that."
"Hiring me, or me saving your life?"
"The way things are going at the moment?" His gaze drifted up from the page, his eyes glazed. "Both." Then he tossed the memos onto the desk so that they slapped against the wood, and he leant back in his seat and rubbed his brow, his eyes clenched shut.
Stevie rounded the chair and sank down onto the cushion; she perched at the edge, the mug of coffee clutched atop her knees. She waited until Russell's hand fell to the arm of the chair and he had blinked open his eyes again before she asked, "What's happened?"
"Nothing's happened. That's the problem." Russell snatched his takeaway coffee cup from the desk, and then leant back again. "For some reason, your mother's refusing to talk, except to say God only knows what to the president and to put him in such a funk that the whole car journey back was like sitting across from Eeyore just moments after he's been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Which means that not only do we still have no leads on who's behind the assassination attempt, but soon I'll have to find someone to replace her."
Stevie's gaze drifted to the files he had hidden beneath the binder, and then back to him. Though the heat through the mug had started to sear her fingertips, her grip on it tightened. "But why won't she talk? Doesn't she want to get better?"
"She is better, apparently. Everything's fine and she lives in a land where it's always spring and the flowers pick themselves." He took a swig of coffee and then balanced the paper cup against the armrest, whilst his gaze turned distant, as though he were staring through the memos and through the wood beneath, and possibly through the floor below that too.
In the silence, the patter of the rain picked up, and it prickled through the air and over Stevie's skin. Going to the clinic was meant to make her mother better, that—along with Uncle Will waking up—was meant to be the solution.
Russell's shoulders slumped in a soundless sigh. His gaze sharpened as it returned to hers. "Look, I don't want you to worry about her. You're not even meant to know that we visited."
"But I do know, and it's hard not to worry about her when my dad said she was suicidal."
"Well, I don't think she's contemplating the great existential question anymore."
"But she's still not herself?"
He held her gaze for a long moment, and then gave a slight shake of the head.
Somehow, that movement cut deeper than if he had simply said, 'No'.
She ran her thumbs back and forth along the rim of the mug whilst she searched the desk, as though somewhere hidden amidst the stacks of files, pieces of stray paper and discarded ballpoint pens there might lie the solution, the real solution. There had to be something they could do, something more productive than just wait and see, something better than: Sink or swim?
Her gaze snapped back up to Russell. "Maybe I could visit her, try talking to her. I know that we're not supposed to, but seeing as it's Thanksgiving tomorrow—"
"No."
She stopped, her tongue poised and her lips still curled around the vowel sound. Then her lips clenched into a bud, and a frown crumpled her brow. "Why not?" She swept her hand towards the door, eliciting a clink from the gold-plated bangles around her wrist. "You went."
"I did."
"So why can't I go?"
"Because..." Russell pivoted back and forth in his chair, and then came to an abrupt stop. "She's thinking about leaving. Against her therapist's advice, and against any kind of rational judgement."
"Even more reason for me to go. Maybe I can talk some sense into her."
"The answer's still no."
Her frown deepened. She leant forward in her seat, and her eyes narrowed on Russell. "You don't think I can do it, do you? You think that if I go, I'll end up bringing her home."
"The thought had crossed my mind."
"Well, I won't. I'm not a child, Russell."
"No, you're not." Russell placed his coffee cup down on the desk with a hollow tap, and then pushed himself up from his seat and looked down at her. "But you are her daughter."
"And your point is?" Her gaze tracked him as he strode towards the mini refrigerator, opened the door so that its yellowed hum flooded out, and snatched a bottle of mineral water from the middle shelf.
"If you go and see her now, first she'll tell you that she's fine and that she's ready to come home. Then when you say no, she'll start to beg. Then when you refuse again—" He shot her a glance over his shoulder. "—that is, if you have the common sense and strength to refuse—she'll get mean. She'll shout, she'll curse, she'll say things that no mother ought to say to her daughter all in an effort to manipulate you into bringing her home." He leant back against the refrigerator, twisted off the plastic cap, and took a swig from the bottle. "So, no, you won't go, because you shouldn't have to deal with that, and if she was better—properly better—she sure as hell wouldn't want you to."
"Oh..." Her frown fell away. "So...you're trying to protect me?"
He shot her a look, one that said—Don't push it.
"It's just damage control." He strode back to the office chair and sank down into the seat. "If you want to do something to help, try visiting your uncle. See if you can get him talking and making sense."
"I thought you said fixing him won't help her."
"It won't, but it might help us work out who poisoned them and stop them from trying again." He returned to the memos and his tone became distant, imbued with a touch more gravel. "Needless to say, your mother's got a far better chance of getting her head together if she's actually alive to do so."
Stevie shifted in her seat. "You think there might be another attempt?"
"I think that if whoever did this was just trying to make a statement, they would've claimed responsibility by now, given all the disruption they've caused. The fact that they're keeping quiet makes me think that things are still going on that they don't want us to find out about."
She took a sip of coffee, now lukewarm. "And what do the FBI think?"
"They don't have a clue."
She grimaced as she swallowed. "Well, that's reassuring."
Russell lowered the memos, and his gaze flitted over her. "Look, your mom's safe while she's at the clinic. She's out of the public eye, and so long as no one knows where she is, they can't get to her... And it doesn't hurt that she can't get to herself."
"And if she leaves?"
"Let's hope we don't find out."
The words hung heavy in the silence, like the grey clouds that weighed down the sky outside, and in the same way, they filled the air with a gloom, one that spoke less of sunlight being disrupted and felt more like an omen of things yet to come.
"Stevie." He massaged his brow. "Your father can't know that we visited her."
"Why not?"
"Because he told me not to."
She took another sip of coffee and stared at him over the rim. "But you went anyway."
"It's not up to him."
"And what?" She lowered the mug to her lap. "You're worried that he'll be mad?"
He pulled a face. "Of course not, I'm not twelve."
"Then why can't he know?"
"I don't want him taking it up with the clinic and making things...difficult...going forward."
She paused, but only for a second or two before she nodded. "Okay."
He frowned. "What? No ethical debate?"
"Do you want an ethical debate?"
"Not really, no."
She stared down into her coffee, whilst the toll from the grandfather clock in the corner slowed and then juddered into reverse. A few weeks ago, she would have refused, she would have said that hiding the truth was a deception, just as bad as lying itself. But perhaps if she had chosen differently back then, perhaps if she hadn't been so afraid to open her eyes to the possibility that her mother was struggling, someone could have prevented the situation they found themselves in right now and her mother wouldn't have needed to hit rock-bottom before she reached out. And what she would think in a few weeks' time, she couldn't know, but in that moment, the line between right and wrong felt as concrete as the border between time zones, something utterly intangible and self-imposed. But there was one thing that she did know—
"Look—" She lifted her gaze to meet Russell's, and she offered him a broad yet strained smile. "I just want her to get better, for her to be how she was before, and I have to believe that you do too, so if keeping quiet about something that I'm not even meant to know about helps, then I'm okay with that."
Russell studied her for a moment. Then his frown lifted and he gave a curt nod. "Good."
When he returned to the paperwork, Stevie took that as her cue to leave. She eased up from her chair and was halfway across the room to the outer office when—
"Stevie..." Russell called out.
She turned back to face him. Her fingers fluttered against the mug clutched to her chest.
"This business with Morejon..."
"Did it have to do with damage control?"
His gaze turned distant, and though his eyes were unreadable as ever, with their painstakingly applied ceramic tint, when he looked up at her, for a moment the glass fell away and a glimmer of light shot through. "Prevention, yes."
"Then I'm okay with that too."