2015
SEASON 19, EPISODE 9:
“For My Next Trick…”
At Jenny’s urging, I hired Evelyn Harris, a lawyer friend she swore was a “bulldog.” Barnes remained shocked I’d proposed divorce. He was also adamant he’d never resign from the Senate (“Not even Clinton left office!”), authoring an op-ed in theWashington Postin which he “refused to marginalize elected representation of the queer community to fit a heteronormative definition of marriage.” His stance on certain watch words had conveniently evolved.
In the beginning, his political career felt like an extension of our personas onEndeavor: him as master strategist, me as loyal shield. This admittedly required different muscles of me; smiles and nods, rather than brute force. At the start, Barnes even asked me to write his speeches. He never publicized it, but at least I finally put my English degree to work. Years later, when the rhetoric changed and metastasized, I was so absorbed in the kids’ lives I couldn’t have penned a speech for him even if I’d wanted to. Not that he was asking.
The 2006 midterms swept him into office, and Andie was born almost two years later. Hope was the theme by 2008, and independent voters were even more interested in reelecting this openly gay, young Republicanwith the doting husband and infant daughter. Wallace arrived in February 2011, right as Barnes targeted a Senate seat that would open in 2012.
He was ambitious and determined; I was attentive and diligent. He never missed a soccer tournament; I appeared at every fundraiser. He never questioned my decisions at home; I never disputed his choices at work. Well, not at first. As a freshman senator, he needed to prove he was more than a token homosexual to trot out of the log cabin. He had to demonstrate his party trumped his identity. If only he’d lobbied for fracking.
Attacking other gays would lose the male bloggers who fantasized about hate-threesomes with us; criticizing lesbians would alienate moderate female voters; bisexuals were “way too nebulous” to campaign against. It seemed only one letter remained… NotL, notG, notB…
Using our own gender-segregated Trials fromEndeavoras a jumping-off point, he began with a speech about college athletics. About “fairness.” Then came the bathrooms. An issue of “safety.” He quickly learned transgender people were indeed “other” enough to ignite the cobwebbed corners of his constituency. I was repulsed and said so. “It’s just political theater to stoke the base! I can’t help it’s the only thing that gets me attention from party leadership,” he’d respond. “Speeches aren’t legislation, and none of this willeverpass on a federal level.” He underestimated though how many politicians on the state level would seize his baton for their own agendas. Soon enough, we’d gone from intriguing to infamous.
Ironically, he encouraged me to express my dissent openly (“It might help balance the optics, like when Cindy McCain posed for NOH8?”). My head patted, I vowed I would. I slipped an aside into a puff piece about senatorial spouses forPoliticothat never made the edit. I lobbed a pointed comment atThe Advocateon the Kennedy Center red carpet to little fanfare. I’d swung a long way from my fleeting days as a “gay icon” to my current reigning title of “homo Eva Braun,” and the only commonality was that neither distinction seemed to welcome me voicing an opinion, instead demanding I simply pose for a camera.
Still, I should have screamed to anyone who’d listen, especially him.But he’d arrive home so tired, desperate for relief. My big invective always got postponed. No bills were getting passed on his personal watch, I’d remind myself; it was just another performance. Thus while Barnes decried the categorization of transgender athletes in the Olympics, I took Andie to piano lessons. When Barnes argued insurance shouldn’t cover gender-reassignment surgeries, I scrubbed the paint Wallace smeared in his bedroom. The day Barnes spoke at a rally about who was allowed in what locker room, I hid the kids’ Christmas gifts in the garage. I don’t know what I was doing when he was fucking his employees, but I could always review my calendar.
Since Barnes had moved out, I’d ignored his attempts to contact me. He left a final voicemail the night before our first meeting with the attorneys, but I was reading to Wallace before bed. Afterward, Andie waited in the hall, cradling my phone. “Baba called.”
I’d promised myself I’d never say anything against him to the kids. “Did you answer?”
She shook her head and silently handed me my cell, the hope in her eyes breaking me.
“Well… he left a message, so I’ll see if he needs me to call him. Deal?” She nodded but stayed planted. “I mean after you’re in bed, young lady.”
“Daddy, that’s cheating,” she groaned, but I just kissed her on the head, refusing to clarify which of her fathers was more fluent in cheating.
I pressed play an hour later, Barnes’ voice filling the bedroom. “God, it’s so good to even hear your damn voicemail… I’m calling because… Look, I can never properly apologize, but we’re still on the same side. There’s no reason to put the kids through a divorce, so will you please meet me tomorrow without the lawyers? We can solve this if you’ll give me the chance,” he begged. “I have to fight for our family, Luke, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep us together… I love you. Don’t forget that.”
He sounded even more shattered than the night the scandal broke. Some animal part in my brain wanted to call him, but I had to hold my ground. No more zombie homemaker.
However, the next day when Evelyn and I walked into his attorney’s office, he wasn’t there. Only his slick prick lawyer Nick Krazny awaited us, the most recent episode ofEndeavorblaring from his iPad as we entered the conference room, more taunt than coincidence. “You watching?” he asked. “It’s a baller season.”
I stayed quiet as he blithely relayed that “Senate business” kept Barnes away. “Let the record show your client had better things to do,” Evelyn replied. “Where shall we begin?”
“Well, obviously full custody of the children is non-negotiable,” Krazny answered. “Senator Appleby is the biological father, after all.”
He might as well have fired a bullet into my gut.Thiswas how Barnes would “fight for our family.” By blackmailing me with the kids.
Evelyn cracked her knuckles. “The children were legally adopted by my client—”
“Yes, theiruncle. Senator Appleby fertilized the embryos, while your client’s sister was the egg donor—”
“To be a part of both our families! Barnes is an only child, and Jenny didn’t want kids!” I couldn’t contain myself.
Krazny cocked his head, ignoring me. “By your client’s own admission, he’s not the father of these children. There’s no paternity claim.”
“This is asinine,” Evelyn scoffed. “Luke is the primary caregiver.”
“And Senator Appleby has financially supported them, while Mr. Griffin has no employment history. Any court will see a dilettante who hasn’t earned a paycheck in a decade.”
Evelyn gripped my knee.Don’t talk.“He’s a Dartmouth graduate with a national profile in both media and athletics.”
“Who has virtually no assets in his name—”
