It was the first time I was sitting down to an actual meal with my father, my mother once again at the ‘spa’ or wherever she claimed to be. But despite my angry brain telling me that I shouldn’t be nervous, I was still wiping my damp palms on my jeans every few minutes. Sammy was napping on the couch just a few feet from the round dining room table where we sat.
“Okay, I guess. I don’t really know how those things are supposed to go, though.” In actuality, the specialist barely asked me any questions and on two occasions, he’d nodded off during our session.
“Good. I want you to continue your visits with him. We have some functions coming up at which I’d like you to be present. There is a charity event for the campaign in a few weeks. We are hosting it in the Redmond’s backyard, Tanner’s parents’ place,” the senator said, making the event sound more like a business meeting rather than a party.
I scrunched my nose and poked at my dinner with my fork. “I don’t know if that’s such a great idea. I assume I’m supposed to know who these people are. Won’t it be obvious when they start talking to me and I look at them like they have thirty heads?” I asked.
“Ray, you’ve never liked what I do for a living. You’ve never really acclimated to being the daughter of a senator,” my father said, sitting forward in his chair. “It wouldn’t be unusual for you not to know who these people are.”
“Ray, it could help with your memory. You should come,” Tanner gently chimed in. Trying to regain my memory would be the only reason I’d agree to play the part of ‘dutiful daughter.’
“Will my mother be there?” I asked.
The senator kept his eyes on his plate. “Yes, she attends all the campaign functions. It’s part of our…agreement.”
I snorted. “She attends all the functions, yet she’s somehow forgotten to attend her own life,” I muttered.
The senator sighed. “Your mother…she blames me for…well, everything,” the senator said. “It’s hard for her to be around for too long. She gets restless.” And for a mere flash of a second, I felt almost bad for him. For one tenth of a millisecond, I thought I saw a tiny glimpse of a man who wasn’t a senator at all, but a frustrated husband with an unhappy wife.
He almost seemed…human.
Again his eyes focused on me and he continued. “You see, Ray, when you were pregnant with Samuel, we took every precaution possible not to alert the media of your ‘condition.’ And back then, I didn’t carry the weight that I do now, so it was easier to keep things hidden. But now that you’re back, from Paris for the summer, as I have led them to believe, it will be good for you to show yourself. They’ve spotted Samuel, and multiple outlets have contacted my office inquiring about who he is. Some reporter from the Times even went as far as to look up his birth certificate. So now it seems as if we have a situation on our hands which requires a…delicate touch.”
He wiped his mouth with his linen napkin and set it down in the middle of his empty plate. “And, of course you don’t remember, but we’ve had in-depth conversations about what was best for our family. And for your new family.” The senator gestured to Tanner and then toward the couch. “Now is a better time than any. You don’t need to make a big spectacle about it, just a courthouse visit. Something on paper to make the media see this union and Samuel as legitimate. You don’t have to live together, not if you aren’t ready. It’s just the documentation we need now to deter any campaign supporters from deflecting.”
“You want us…to get married?” I asked. My hand curled tightly around the napkin in my lap. Tanner’s hand reached under the table and covered mine.
The senator cleared his throat. “If you don’t, there is a big possibility that I lose the election, because my campaign is heavily based on conservative family values. Over the years, I’ve spent a great deal of time garnering support because of those values I stand by. If you don’t make this little family of yours something legitimate, I run the risk of looking like a fraud and letting down all the people whose asses I have been kissing since day one. This could snowball into the fastest decent into political nothingness this state has ever seen.”
“I don’t understand how my decisions would affect your campaign. It’s not your life. It’s mine,” I argued.
“No, of course you don’t understand,” the senator said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But understand this, even if my campaign survives the teen pregnancy scandal, it would never survive a torrid affair with a convicted felon ten years your senior. I wouldn’t survive until the end of my term, never mind the end of the election.” He folded his hands over his plate. “But if you do this, if you marry Tanner, then they won’t have a need to look any deeper and hopefully the name Brantley King will never be part of the equation.”