*RING*
*RING*
“Good evening, Senator Lyman’s Office. This is Gus Whittaker speaking how may I help you…uh-huh…yes sir…yes sir…yes sir I’ll pass along that message…thank you for your concerns…bye-bye.”
“Who was that?” Toby asked as he came out of Josh’s office and into the reception area, where Gus’s desk was stationed. He’d made the move to DC with them and for the time being, was working as Josh’s personal assistant.
“That was a Mr. Concerned Citizen. He said that during Josh’s first month in office, he’s started to completely desecrate the values and morals that Connecticut has stood for since the 1600s, which is hard considering that it wasn’t a state until the 1700s, and that he should be impeached from the Senate immediately without due process,” Gus said off-handedly as he packed up his things for the night. “You know, same old same old.”
“Yeah,” Toby replied, not really paying too much attention to him. He was staring into a folder containing a press release that had come into his office that morning. He’d just shown it to Josh a couple of minutes ago.
“What’s that?” Gus asked as he put his coat on, pointing to the folder. “You’ve been staring at whatever is in that folder all day as if it holds the secrets of the universe or something.”
Toby looked up at him. “It’s a press release from a Republican congressman who’s started an exploratory committee on running for governor of California.”
“Why would Josh care about a gubernatorial campaign in California?” Gus asked. He looked up for an answer but Toby just looked at him with that look that was purely Toby’s and the other shoe dropped. “Oh right. I see. Because of Sam’s…”
“Yeah.”
Gus glanced back at the closed office door. “Did he see it?”
“Yeah.”
“Is he concerned about it?”
“No.”
“What does it say?”
Toby cleared his throat and read from the page. “Here’s a sample…The relentless pursuit of the former members of the Bartlet administration to further disintegrate the moral fabric of our society is made no more clearer than when one looks at the fact that Joshua Lyman, former White House Deputy C.o.S, was recently elected to the U.S. Senate. This man was one of [Democratic hopeful] Seaborn’s closest confidantes and he’s made clear that he intends to pursue an agenda in Congress similar to that of Bartlet’s presidency: raising taxes, abortion rights, and decreasing defense spending’…”
“Those are all things that Josh wants to get done while he’s here,” Gus pointed out, his political naiveté blatant. “And, if I understand politics correctly, those are all things that Democrats, like Sam, want to get done too.”
“This is true.”
“Then why…?”
“Orange County’s average per capita income per family is between $80,000 and $100,000 dollars,” Toby explained, sitting on the edge of a desk, continuing to reread the message even while speaking to Gus. “So that’s why the guy mentions raising taxes. You also have the military contractors and electronics companies that are based there so that takes care of defense spending.”
“Why are you so concerned about someone else’s campaign?” Gus asked, feeling like an idiot for not knowing where Toby was going with this.
“Because when your guy’s name comes up in the press and you had nothing to do with it, whatever it is becomes priority number one.” He paused to take in a breath, his hand lightly massaging his beard. “Why’d this guy mention abortion?” Toby asked, more to himself than to Gus. “You…you don’t play the morality card, you never play the morality card this early in an election race unless…”
“Toby, I’m headed home,” Josh called out as he exited his office, unknowingly interrupting Toby’s train of thought. He was putting on his jacket and trying to carry the briefcase that his public relations staff had overwhelmingly insisted he carry.
“Why are you going so early?” Toby asked, looking at his watch. “It’s not even six-thirty yet.”
“Emma’s dance recital is tonight and I promised I’d be there,” Josh explained in a tone that left no room for debate. Josh worked long and hard at what he did and when he said it was time to go, no one argued with him. “I’ve gotta go home and change then meet Donna and Nicole at the school. Aren’t you coming?”
“No I’ve got a thing,” Toby said slowly. “Listen, is there anyway that you can stay and work a little longer?”
“No, Toby I can’t,” Josh replied, instantly turning from Josh the friend to Josh the Senator. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. My time with my family is not compromised short of anything less than a national emergency.” He groaned in annoyance. “Besides, Donna needs me at home right now.”
“Is she alright?” Gus asked, concerned over his surrogate sister.
“Yeah she’s just…sometimes she’ll go and…I don’t know, man,” he sighed, switching roles again and running his fingers through his hair. “She’s moody, she’s more confrontational with me, she hates going out anywhere; I don’t know what’s bothering her lately.” ‘Add to the fact that she won’t talk to you about it and you’re an ulcer waiting to happen,’ his brain said but he tried to shake it off.
“All right,” Toby said, clearly disappointed. “Well say hello to everyone for me. I’ve got to stay and work on this thing that came up.”
That got Josh’s attention. “Anything I should know about?”
Toby shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Okay. Gus, can you come?”
“No I can’t,” he replied. He bowed his head sheepishly. “I’ve, uh, kind of got a date.”
“Nice,” Josh smirked, giving him a manly slap on the back. “Where you taking her?”
“Giovanni’s, off of Dupont. She’s one of Hammond’s aides.”
“Well, have a good time. We’ll miss you at the recital.”
“Tell Emma I said good luck.”
“You bet. See you guys later.” With that, Josh left the office to return home to his family, leaving Toby and Gus alone. The younger man turned back to Toby.
“Are you gonna stay much longer?” He got no response, as Toby was once again engrossed in the piece of paper he was holding. “You with me here, Toby?” Still nothing. “There’s a serial killer loose in the building.” Again, only silence. “Julia Childs has an appointment to see you right now.”
“What? What did you say?” Toby snapped his head up and looked around the room as if he didn’t know where he was.
“Man, what is up with you?” Gus laughed, even though he was starting to get concerned. “You’re acting like you’ve seen a ghost or something.” He shook his head and got the rest of his things together. “Well I’m gonna go have dinner with a girl that I want to have sex with. See you later.”
“Yeah,” Toby mumbled trying to shake off whatever was nagging at him. But the thoughts still persisted to the point when he couldn’t ignore them anymore. ‘Something is off about this,’ he thought. ‘Something is very, very off about all this.’ As Gus walked towards the door, his words rang in Toby’s ears. Suddenly, out of the blue, something clicked in his mind. “Gus, wait!”
The young man turned swiftly. “What? What is it?” he asked hurriedly, the outburst startling him.
Toby got up and stalked over to him, deliberately. “What do you just say back there?” he asked quickly. “When you were about to leave a second ago, what did you say?”
“The part about the girl I want to have sex with?”
“No, no the other part!” Toby said, getting agitated. He could almost see the answer in front of him but it was just out of his grasp. “What did you say, something about a ghost?”
“Yeah,” answered Gus, a little bit surprised at the sudden interest Toby had in what he had to say. “I…I said you looked like you’d seen a ghost or something.”
Toby stared at him blankly as his mind started processing everything. “A ghost,” he whispered to himself. He retreated from the doorway and Gus, and headed back into the office area.
Gus followed him warily. “Toby what are you thinking about?”
Toby scratched the back of his head and paced slowly in front of someone’s desk. “A ghost,” he said quietly, “is someone from the past.”
“Someone who’s dead,” Gus reiterated. “Toby, are you having…”
“Doesn’t have to be a someone though,” the other man murmured as the pieces started sliding into place. “Could be a something. A something…a something a person wouldn’t want others to know about.”
“Toby,” Gus said, putting his things down on the ground and going over to the still pacing figure, “I think I should call…”
Toby suddenly stopped pacing and stood right in front of Gus. “Yes, you’re right,” he agreed hurriedly. “We need to start calling people. We need to get the information they have.” With that, he hustled over to a computer and turned the machine on as well as the desk lamp, casting illumination throughout the dark area. He turned back to Gus. “Get this thing online and get ready to do a search.” Gus hesitated for a moment and Toby got angry with him. “You think I mean at your earliest possible convenience? Do it now!” The boy nodded and hurried over to the work area. Toby meanwhile had picked up the phone and was waiting for the other person to pick up. Finally, after what like an eternity, they did. “Hello New York Post…Yeah I need to talk with your political editor…Tell him it’s Toby Ziegler …Thank you.” He went back to Gus. “Is it ready yet?”
“Um just another second,” he replied feebly. “It takes a minute to boot up.”
“Can you get it to go any…Yes, hello? Dave, it’s me Toby. How you doing…Listen, I know its kind of late but I need a favor…One of your reporters did an interview with a California Republican gubernatorial candidate the other day? I need to talk that person now…Thanks.”
“Okay I’m all set,” Gus said from the computer, primed to start searching for information. “What am I doing the search on?”
Toby closed his eyes and prayed to God that he was wrong about this. “Donnatella Lyman or Moss, whichever works best,” he instructed quietly.
Now Gus had passed the realm of confused and had made his way over to completely mystified. “What? You want me to do a search on Donna?”
“Yeah.”
“What the hell for?” Gus asked, getting mad over the thought of invading his friend’s privacy.
Toby rubbed his hand over his tired eyes and wanted to be anywhere other than here at that moment. Yet, he knew no matter how difficult it would be he had to protect Josh from anything that could hurt his position. Even if that anything was his wife and the mother of his children.
“We’re just making sure of something, Gus. Trust me when I say I hate this as much as you do,” he tried to apologize, placing his hand reassuringly on the boy’s shoulder. “But we have to do it for Josh.”
Gus, slightly mollified, and finally grasping the importance of this, nodded. “What are we looking for exactly?”
Toby looked him straight in the eyes. “Ghosts,” he
whispered. The phone picked up on the other end as Gus typed out Donna’s name
onto the computer screen to look for anything were her name was mentioned. “Hi,
this is Toby Ziegler. I want to talk to you about…”
About two hours later, a cab pulled in front of Josh and Donna’s house and Toby stepped out after paying the cabbie, alone. He’d sent Gus on his way to his date, nearly an hour late, claiming that he’d be able to handle doing this on his own. Now, standing in front of the house, he was beginning to doubt his resolve. Nonetheless, he took a deep breath and trotted up the steps and rang the doorbell. A few seconds later, preceded by the clamor of footsteps, the door opened to reveal a small, costumed child that did not belong to Josh and Donna. Behind her, Toby could see several other children, some similarly costumed, running around in the foyer. ‘What the hell…?’ he thought.
“Hi, I’m Tiffany,” said the little girl to a confused Toby. “Who are you?”
“I’m Toby Ziegler.” He stepped back to look at the house, to see if he’d accidentally picked the wrong one. Seeing he hadn’t, he went back to the child. “Do you, uh, live here?”
Tiffany wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Are you kidding me?” she asked indignantly. “I’m rich and we live in a much nicer house than this. My daddy’s a banker and he says he makes more money than God.” Toby watched her eye him warily. “What do you do?”
“I spend all day working to tax your daddy back to the Stone Age and take away all of his money,” he replied with a phony smile. “Now are there any adults here that I can…?”
“Toby, what are you doing here?” His girlfriend suddenly appeared in the doorway, carrying what looked like a canopy platter of cheese wedges and crackers in each hand and a look of surprise on her face. After a second, Nicole looked down at the little girl, who was pouting angrily at Toby. “Sweetie, why don’t you go and play with the other kids?”
“He was really mean to me just now,” Tiffany complained, pointing at Toby as she walked away sullenly.
“Oh trust me, it’s not you,” she assured the girl under her breath as she walked away. Nicole turned back to Toby. “Here, come on in.” He did so, taking off his coat as Nicole nudged the door shut with her foot behind them. As he went to hang up his jacket on the coat hook, he saw an array of other jackets there. He noticed that all around him in the house, the chattering of various adults and the screeching play of children could be heard and strangers could be seen talking in both the dining and living rooms.
“What’s going on?” he asked Nicole, taking one of the trays from her.
“Thank you,” she breathed, leaning over to quickly kiss him. Then she started making her way to the back of the house with Toby trailing behind her. “It’s, ah, a party obviously. For Emma’s dance recital. I thought I told you about it.”
“You probably did, I just wasn’t listening,” he said as they made their way through the crowds of people for destinations unknown to Toby.
“Imagine my shock,” she deadpanned as she finally stopped and set her tray down on a coffee table, which a group of people pounced on immediately. Toby followed suit and turned back to her. “You know, I could probably tell you nowadays that I’m on fire and you’d just keep looking at some recent polling sample.”
He could sense a fight about to boil over between them and he wanted to avoid it, if only for the purposes of expediency. “Look, I’m sorry,” he tried to apologize to her. “I know I’ve been busy and we haven’t seen each other as much as we should. But, Nic, you gotta understand that the first year…”
“…Is crucial for Josh’s reelection. Yes I know and I understand,” Nicole sighed, laying her hands on Toby’s chest. “It doesn’t mean that I have to like it, though.”
He covered her hands with his. Nicole was his first serious relationship since Andi and he wasn’t interested in screwing it up just yet. “We’ll try to get away after the Clean Energy Bill is passed,” he promised her, squeezing her hands reassuringly.
She gave him a crooked smile, loving him despite the disappointments that came with being with him. “I’m gonna hold you to that, Mr. Ziegler.” She leaned in to give him another kiss, this one lingering a little longer than the last. After they pulled apart, she patted his chest affectionately. “So what are you doing here? Josh said that you were working on something at the office and couldn’t get away.”
Her comment, innocent as it was, reminded him what he was here to do. He coughed nervously. “Yeah I was. Actually, that’s why I’m here. I need to talk to…”
“Toby!!!” a delighted Emma screamed as she barreled into the room. She ran straight for Toby and latched herself around his legs, arms squeezing to the point of almost cutting off circulation. “You came, you came, you really came!”
“Um, yeah I came,” he replied stiffly, still a little uncomfortable with Emma’s habit of always publicly displaying her affections for people. He gently pulled her back and got a good look at her or at least the parts of her not covered with makeup. “What…what is this supposed to be?” he asked, gesturing to Emma’s painted face and sparkly costume.
“I’m a fairy,” she explained, spinning in circles to give him the full effect of the costume. “We did ‘The Nutcracker’ and I was the Sugar Plumb Fairy. And this whole party is just for me!”
“Emma,” her aunt said in a warning tone, placing her hands on the girl’s shoulders to steady her.
The child sighed dramatically. “And all the other kids in my dance class,” she admitted grudgingly. “But I’m the only one here that gets presents!”
“Which will be locked away until Christmas if a certain young lady does not stop talking about said presents to all of the other kids here,” Donna said sternly, coming up behind her daughter and joining the three of them. She rolled her eyes at her sister and bent down to Emma’s height. “Now you wouldn’t want that now, would you Emma Antonia Lyman?” Emma shook her head furiously. “So why don’t you go and be the gracious hostess that Mommy knows you are and give these napkins out to people who need them. Then go and play with your friends who have taken over our house. Okay?” She gave Emma the stack of napkins.
“Okay Mommy,” she agreed. “But after I’m done, can you go talk to Melissa’s mommy? Because Melissa said I could sleep over her house tonight, Mommy, and I really, really want to. Please?” She gave her mother her patented pout and her famous “Angelic Kitten” face.
Donna laughed lightly. “Let me talk to Daddy and Mrs. Sachs first and see what we have to do tomorrow, but yes you probably can,” she told her daughter.
“Yes! Thank you, Mommy!” She threw her arms around Donna’s neck and hugged her tightly.
Donna hugged her back with equal force. “You’re welcome, baby,” she said, kissing Emma’s head. They pulled apart and Donna straightened up. “Now go give out those napkins.” Emma nodded and scurried off into the crowd.
“Yeah I was wrong, she doesn’t have you and Josh wrapped around her finger or anything crazy like that,” Nicole joked to her sister.
She smacked Nicole’s arm. “Like you’re any better than I am,” she retorted. Then she looked at Toby as if she’d just noticed him. “Hey stranger, what are you doing here?” she asked, leaning over to peck him on the cheek. “My husband said you were being a workaholic and couldn’t pull yourself away from the office.”
Toby swallowed hard and looked away from Donna’s trusting gaze. “Yeah I was,” he replied quietly. “Actually, um, I need to talk to you when you have a minute. If that’s okay I mean.”
“Sure, it’s fine,” Donna told him, a little disconcerted. Toby was never one to beat around the bush and right now, he looked as if he wanted to be any place but here. “We’re gonna have a cake in a little while, do you just want to do it now before chaos ensues?”
“Okay,” Toby agreed. He looked around the room and at all the people that were gathered there. “Can we, uh, go somewhere more private?”
“Oh yeah, sure,” Donna said. “Nicole, can you play Lady of the Manor until I get back?”
Nicole nodded. “No problem.” She looked at her boyfriend curiously. “Toby, is this serious or…?”
“No,” he said, lying to Nicole for the first time since they had been together, more than two years now. “I just need to confirm something with Donna.”
“Okay,” she replied, looking as if she didn’t believe him for a second. But before she could say anything, they all heard the unmistakable sound of children arguing coming from the next room. “I better go check on that.” With that, she departed leaving Donna and Toby standing in the middle of the room awkwardly.
“So,” Donna started after a minute. “You said wanted to talk in private…”
“Yeah, can we go in the kitchen or someplace?”
“Well the kitchen is looking like WWIII just erupted in there,” Donna tried to joke. “But we can go in Josh’s study upstairs.” They began heading for the stairwell, pausing occasionally so Donna could greet some guest or make plans for the next birthday party or so she could be complimented on what a fabulous home she had. Donna was gracious and polite with everyone but Toby could tell from her body language that she just wasn’t into it. That she was just putting on a good show for everyone. Finally, they arrived at the stairs and headed up to the more peaceful surroundings of the second floor. They walked down the hallway to Josh’s study and went in, Donna flicking on the lights and shutting the door as Toby settled near the mahogany desk. There was a minute of silence as they each assessed other before Donna started self-consciously, “So…what did you want to talk about?”
He cleared his throat loudly and scratched his beard thoughtfully, deciding that he better tread lightly to start with, and see if it lead him to the answers he needed. “I was looking at a press release today that mentioned Josh in a not so flattering light. It was regarding the California gubernatorial race.”
“Sam’s campaign?” Donna clarified, visibly stunned. “Sam actually went negative with Josh? After everything they went through, he just--”
“It wasn’t Sam’s camp that the statement came out of,” Toby corrected her quickly, not wanting her to think less of the man. As pissed as he still was at Sam, Toby still thought of him as a brother and continued to protect him whenever he could. “It was from one of his Republican rivals.”
“What exactly was the statement?”
“Just…you know,” Toby gestured nervously with his hands. “General rabble-rousing from the Republicans. Nothing too specific but they mentioned Josh’s name so I started thinking about why the candidate in question would mention the name of a freshman Senator from Connecticut in a California election. Especially when he knows Sam and Josh aren’t on the same page anymore and I just…”
“Toby,” Donna interrupted his ramblings, growing frustrated with the conversation. “I have downstairs about seventy adults that I’ve never met and houseful of children that aren’t exactly being well supervised. I have a seven year-old on a sugar high that I have to get packed and ready to go sleep over at someone’s house and a one and a half year-old that I can’t get to stay in her crib at night. My husband has a meeting in a few days with the Senate Finance Committee on a bill that needs to get passed for him to get a foothold that he desperately needs in the Senate and I have to spend tomorrow and many other days after it pretending that I have a life outside these walls.” Toby stared at her, mouth gaping slightly at the words coming out of her mouth but before he could interject his concern, she plowed ahead. “Also, in case you hadn’t picked up on it by now, stressing out while going through PMS so maybe sometime in this decade if you could get to the point…”
“Why didn’t you guys tell me about the abortion?” Toby finally broke in, looking her straight in the eye and hating himself for the first time in a long time.
For a minute, Donna forgot he was in the room with her. Hell, she forgot where she was for a minute. Her mind went blank for a second and then went into complete overdrive, a thousand thoughts racing through it at once. She could feel the blood pounding in her ears and the bitter taste of adrenaline saturating her tongue. After a minute, she started to get lightheaded and she realized that she had stopped breathing as soon as the words were out of Toby’s mouth. She stumbled back until she got to the small sofa and collapsed against it. Finally, after her shock began to wear off and her body had calmed down somewhat, only then did the tears start flowing. She covered her face with her hands and leaned forward, the emotional toll of it all becoming too much for her.
Toby watched her go through all this and listened to her muffled sobs until he couldn’t take it anymore. “Donna,” he began gently.
“You asshole,” she bemoaned him, head still in her hands, tears still coursing down her cheeks. “You fucking asshole! How could you go and dig through my past like it was nothing?”
“I’m sorry, Donna, believe me I am,” he tried, going over to her and putting his hands on her shoulders in an attempt to comfort her. But she would have none of it. She angrily pushed away from him and got up, striding over to the corner of the room.
“What gave you the right?” she hissed at him, her tears of sadness being replaced by tears of rage. “This is my life and you invade it as if it were something you were researching for a speech? Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I think I’m your husband’s chief of staff,” Toby told her heatedly, the anger and tension in the room swallowing him whole. “And I think there was information about you that could hurt him and I saw it as my responsibility as his second in command to get to the bottom of whatever the enemy has up its sleeve so I could protect him so he could do his job. That’s who I am and I won’t let you make me feel ashamed for it; I don’t care if you are his wife or my girlfriend’s sister, I did my job!”
“Oh your job,” Donna said sarcastically. “Hmm, I see.” She paused to sniff back more tears before she continued more forlornly, “What about your job as my friend? Didn’t that mean anything to you? The fact that I trust you and respect you enough not to go behind your back with anything? That I trust you with my family’s public image and our safety?”
“If you trust me like that,” Toby asked her, trying to regain his composure, “why didn’t you and Josh tell me about this two years ago at your apartment the night I had dinner with you guys and the both of you told me what the next twenty years of our lives were gonna be about?”
“Because,” Donna laughed without humor, the tears coming back with a vengeance, “he didn’t know that there was anything to tell you.”
That statement threw Toby for a loop. “You mean he doesn’t know?” he asked her perplexed. “He doesn’t know that you…?”
“I was barely twenty years-old,” she tried desperately to explain, her words stifled by her tears. “I had just started seeing Ben and…I had no money and Lily was gone and my sister and brother were gone. My grandmother hated him. I loved him for some reason and he said he’d leave and I just…Urgh! God damn it!” She cried, knocking some papers away on the desk in her anger. “I don’t know why, Toby. I don’t know why I did it anymore. I wish more than anything in this world that I hadn’t but I did and…I never told Josh. I never told anyone until six months ago.” She shook her head and leaned against the desk in exhaustion.
This was uncharted territory for him and he wanted more than anything to not have to continue this conversation, but this was a situation that needed to be resolved tonight. He walked over to her and tentatively laid another hand on her shoulder. This time she didn’t pull away but allowed herself to be comforted. “He’s your husband,” Toby began slowly. “And the two of you have a more honest and open relationship than I’ve ever seen before. You share everything with each other; Josh always says so and I envy him that.” He could see he wasn’t making any headway so he tried another approach. “Did you not tell him because you thought he’d hate you…?”
“Josh couldn’t hate me even if someone told him to while they were holding a gun to his head,” Donna broke in, wiping away at her tears. “I know that he loves me with everything in him. It’s just, I’ve disappointed him so many times…”
“Donna, that’s not true…”
“Toby, lets just say for the sake of argument that I have,” she cut his rebuttal off. “And I’ve hurt him. Never intentionally, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have; with Emma and my disease and so many other things. I couldn’t live with myself if I did it again. Add to the fact that if something like this were to get out…” she trailed off as she realized the impact of her words. “Oh my God, no. No please tell me that…”
“No, it’s fine,” Toby assured her. She heaved a sigh of relief. “For now anyways. Nothing came up on a regular Internet search. I had to call and lie to your doctor’s office to get access to your medical files so I could find out for sure. The California people just said it without knowing they were saying it. No one else will get it unless we get to the big dance, of course.”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “But right now, no one…”
“No one has it except us. Don’t worry Josh is safe. This won’t end his career.” As Toby said this, he saw something in Donna’s eyes. It almost looked like a flicker of disappointment. It disappeared almost as soon as it came but Toby nonetheless saw it. “But still,” he continued. “This is going to be an issue one day.”
“And your point is…?”
“And my point is, I think it would be better if Josh found out from you rather than ‘The National Enquirer’.”
Donna closed her eyes and sighed. ‘As if I don’t have enough to deal with already,’ she thought harshly. She got up and walked over to the bookcase. Among the numerous law and political books there, several framed pictures lay on the shelves. She carefully picked one up and stared at it. It was one of all of them at Christmas time, more than a year ago. Natalie was only about three months old and Emma had just turned six. They were home at Langley House and Donna had somehow gotten Josh to wear one of those ridiculous red Santa hats. They were kissing each other while Josh held a cherubic Natalie against his chest and Emma had her arms wrapped around Donna’s neck, hanging from her like she was a tree and grinning. ‘God, we were so happy,’ she thought. ‘I was so happy. What’s changed since then?’
“Donna?” she heard Toby ask.
“Will you tell him?” Donna inquired, still looking at the picture. “If I don’t tell him, will you?” Toby thought about it for a second before he nodded his head to the affirmative. Donna sighed and put the picture back down on the shelf. She wiped at her eyes with both hands, trying to destroy any trace of tears. She took a deep breath and turned back to Toby. “Fine. I’ll tell him tonight.” She walked over the door and opened it. “Now come on,” she said in a voice full of fake cheer. “You’re gonna miss the cake, Toby,” she called out as she strode out of the room, leaving a bewildered and guilt-ridden Toby in her wake.
Later, after all the guests had gone, Donna was upstairs with Emma in her room helping her pack for her sleepover. Emma was bursting with excitement over her overnight trip and was babbling on to her mother endlessly. Donna tried to focus on her as she packed the small suitcase but her thoughts were elsewhere at the moment. Until Emma asked her a strange question:
“Mommy? How come Melissa’s daddy doesn’t live with her anymore?”
“Um,” Donna began as she folded a tee shirt. “Because Melissa’s parents are divorced, baby. That means that they don’t live in the same house anymore. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t love Melissa anymore, they just can’t live together.”
“Oh,” Emma nodded her understanding. “Does that mean they don’t love each other anymore?”
“I…I don’t know. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. Sometimes people just can’t be with one another without fighting all the time and that’s not good for anyone.”
“Yeah,” her daughter agreed, flopping down on her stomach on the bed next to the suitcase. “That would be bad because they’d be yelling at each other and that’s really not fun.”
“No it isn’t.”
“You know what Nana Mena told me about divorce once?”
“No,” said Donna, closing the packed suitcase and going to sit next to the child. “What did she say?”
“She said that sometimes when mommies and daddies fight all the time, they get so mad that they don’t hate each other. They just kind of forget that they love each other because they yell so much.”
Donna nodded her agreement and lovingly stroked Emma’s hair. “I think that Nana Mena is a very smart lady.”
“Me too.” Emma bit her lip thoughtfully. “Mommy?”
“Yeah baby?”
“Would you and Daddy ever forget that you love each other?”
Donna, surprised by the question, opened her mouth to answer no but found that she couldn’t get the words out of her throat. She was saved from answering when a voice bellowed upstairs, “Emma! Time to go.”
“Yes!” Emma squealed as she jumped off the bed, grabbed the small suitcase by the handle, and raced for the door, forgetting what she’d questioned her mother on. Donna, on the other hand, remained rooted in her spot on the bed, her lack of ability to answer what should be a no-brainer paralyzing her. “Mommy, come on!” Her daughter’s voice pulled her back to reality and she tried to forget the gnawing feeling she had in the pit of her stomach as she joined Emma.