This 44-part series began running in WCT Nov. 8. Readers can read all the installments to date at www.windycitymediagroup.com .
From the journal of John 'Jack' Quincy Adams, Chief Secret Service Special Agent in Charge, The White House. Code Name: One.
Part 14. The Door Closes.
Jack Adams, the Secret Service agent charged with assassinating President George W. Bush and being held for psychiatric evaluation, is telling about his ongoing affections for his high school sweetheart Laura Welch, who later became Laura Bush. In this scene Jack is recounting the second of two fateful trips abroad with the First Lady that revealed to him just how unhappy she was. Laura has just told Jack that he mustn't worry about her so much, that she will be all right once they are all out of The White House.
'I don't think you will be all right, though,' I said. I don't know why I was being so bold. It was one thing to sit with her after a long day and go over the day's events or reminisce about Texas; it was quite another to act like a young Galahad wanting to sweep her up and take her away from 'all this'. 'I think it's going to go on long after you go back to the ranch, and they're never going to stop demanding things of you. If it's not that you do things, it will be that you don't do things.'
'Jack….'
I had a strong feeling it would be my last chance to convince her there were people who would support her if she decided to break away. 'It's true and you know it, Laura.' Her eyes widened when I used her name. 'What about teaching and gardening and curling up with a book? What about the friends you can't be seen with? You're about to be swept up by the Carlyle Group. I want you to understand if you want to get out there are people who will help you. I will help you.'
'It's not quite that bad.'
I had insulted her, but I couldn't stop now.
'It is that bad.'
'He needs me, Jack.'
'I need you, too.'
There it was at last, out in the open, lying there like the red beaded bag on the coffee table.
'He's my husband,' she said finally. It came out weakly, like a confession.
'It doesn't matter. This is life and death now.'
'I'm his wife,' she said firmly.
'We're talking about your soul here.'
She stood up, quickly turned right then left, like someone had just shouted 'Fire' and she was searching for a way out. Then she looked at me again, fiercely.
'He loves me,' she said with more force.
'I love you,' I said.
'I'm…he's….'
'I've always loved you.'
There was a long silence. I thought I had won, that I had trumped all her reasons. Then it happened. That Stepford look came over her. It began in her eyes and swept outward and down, changing her whole body language. And finally there was the smile. She said simply, 'Thank you, One. I'm very tired. You can go now.'
Here it is, I thought. The end. Her surrender. Her capitulation—not to herself, but to them.
I tried one last time. I had to. 'Laura, please.'
She picked up her shawl and her bag. 'This was my fault,' she said, moving toward the bedroom. 'It was my fault from the beginning. I was weak. I confided when I should not have. I broke the rules. I was sentimental when I should have been strong. It's not your fault. Please don't blame yourself.' She was standing at the bedroom door now.
We stared at each other. She was so beautiful in her red dress, with her bare feet sticking out on the carpet. So lovely and so fragile. I wanted her to want me, but she couldn't do that. She wouldn't do that. Just like she wouldn't give me a chance when we were in Dallas, she wasn't going to give me a chance now. It would be a betrayal of everything and everyone: her upbringing, her mother's hopes, her husband, her determination to find a place for herself in the world outside Midland. If she wasn't the Good Wife, she wasn't anything. At least that's what she thought.
'Maybe God has also given me a purpose,' she said. 'Maybe being a good wife is not nothing.' She began to shut the door that separated the bedroom from the living area, but just before it closed she stopped, looked at me, and for a second I thought she might open it and run into my arms. I saw it there on her face, in her eyes; she wanted to. But it wasn't in her to do that. Loyalty had to trump everything. Even love. Even fear. She looked down at the floor and slowly closed the door.
It wasn't our last conversation, or the last time we would be together, but every time after that, she would be half present, trapped in her world the way a guest is trapped in a burning hotel room. Looking out the window at me, knowing it is too far to jump, knowing no one—not even I—could save her.
Follow this 44-part serialized book in Windy City Times for the next several months. See www.WindycityMediaGroup.com for past columns.
