Don’t ever change, Kev.
Love you,
L.
* * * *
I read through the other letters, but the last one, dated that past February, not long after Charlesand Tory died, guts me.
Dear Kev,
God, this has been a fucking shitty month, but it opened my eyes.
We buried Charles and Tory and while my heart bled for their family, and for the kids, it shattered for you.
I watched you unable to step in, unable to take over, unable tofixthis.
I know you hurt most of all for him, for his pain, for being unable to flank him, drape your arm around him,and hold him through his tears.
You are the strongest man I know, Kev. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.
Why do I write these and tuck them away?
Because I know life is short. I know from talking to your mom before she died that I should never leave things unsaid.
I see how you love those kids as if they’re your own—because they are. They just don’t know it.
They’re your kids because they’rehis kids now, and you need no other reason to love them besides that.
Maybe that’s why you took this job, because he asked it of you and you take on that which you love for their sake to the very detriment of yourself.
I realized maybe that’s why you married me and stayed married to me for so long despite knowing I wasn’t the love of your life.
And that’s okay, sweetie. Really, it is.
I knowI said yes to you for this job not just because you would have talked me into it anyway, but because it was you. I stay long after most administrations have had two or three press-secs by now—because of you.
If you’re here, I’m here, even though I know I serve at the pleasure, yadda-yadda.
If you leave, I walk with you.
I love the kids, too, and realize that loving them is easy, because youlove them. I can close my eyes and pretend they’re our kids, the kids we never had, even though I never really wanted kids before.
How stupid am I?
I wish we’d had kids. They would have had your eyes, I hope, and your kind, beautiful heart. And they would have always tied me to you, at least in some small way, so you’d always be in my life.
Because I’ll stay as long as you stay, but I worry.Those two years of the campaign were miserable as fuck for me, because even though I had your old office, I didn’t have you. I couldn’t drop in on you. I couldn’t watch you when I got home.
You weren’t there.
I said yes to stay in your life, to see you almost daily again, and I’m lying if I say otherwise.
Life is short. Love is hard. Losing is even harder.
I know you’ll be here setting somesort of masochistic COS service record for your reasons, likely because he asked it of you. I’ll be here with you.
Where we go from there? I’m afraid to think that far.
