She leaned over and said quietly, “Jane, you have told your mother about this, right? About your involvement in the campaign and especially the interview?”
No, I hadn’t. I honestly didn’t know how she’d react. One part of her would rejoice thinking about the time I’d be spending with my father, and howshecould get in on that. The other part of her would totally lose it thinking of me spending time with Caro—putting forth a united front with the woman my mother felt was her nemesis.
She wasn’t, of course. My mother wasn’t important enough to my father to be Caro’s nemesis, but she’d never understood that.
The problem was, I wasn’t sure what part of my mother would show up when I told her about working on the campaign and going out on the trail this summer.
“Umm…” I couldn’t outright lie to Caroline Stratton, but maybe I could hedge a little bit.
“You really need to tell her, Jane. She should not have to find out by watching Amanda Teller.”
“When’s the interview going to air?” I asked, trying to buy time.
“I’m not sure.” She looked up at Grayson.
“Four weeks,” he said with absolute certainty. I could tell by the way Caro sat up straighter, and moved a bit away from the back of her chair, that she didn’t like that he knew something she didn’t.
Four weeks. Four more weeks of pseudo-anonymity at Bribury. Four more weeks of not having to tell my mother. Four more weeks before my life as I knew it would change forever.
“But they’ll probably start running promos for it in a week or two, once they make sure they’ve got all the footage they need,” Grayson added.
Shit.
“I’m kind of surprised that Amanda Teller would do an interview for just a candidate for governor of Maryland. Seems like it would be more of a local news thing.”
Caro looked over at me like I was a total newbie. Which, of course, I was, though I had picked up an awful lot about the political world in the last couple of months. More than I’d wanted to know.
“This is bigger than Maryland, Jane,” Caro said, a bit of hurt in her voice, like I should know that fact. “Joeis bigger than Maryland.”
Wow. All these years later, with the man’s infidelity by-product sitting right next to her, she was still sipping heavily from the Joe Stratton Kool-Aid.
“Tell your mother, Jane,” she said again.
“I find it interesting that you care about my mother finding out from someone else, about her feelings at all,” I said to her, still speaking quietly even though my father and Amanda had wrapped up and were now out of the living room chairs and the crew was setting up for Caro to join them. “She certainly wouldn’t care if you found out something the hard way. She wouldn’t care about your feelings at all.”
Caro looked off into the distance, out the side windows, and for a moment I thought she’d lost her train of thought. That was happening more and more regularly. That and her not being able to remember certain words; it was incredibly frustrating to her—a woman who knew her way around a thesaurus.
“At one time I wouldn’t have cared about hers either,” she finally said, turning back from the window, but not looking at me. “At one time I would have relished how she’d take the news.” She took a deep sigh, then continued, “But I find that staring the grim reaper down has made me a bit more compassionate toward your mother.”
“Yeah, that’s probably what it would take for me to be compassionate toward her too,” I said before I thought better of it.
She looked at me, shocked. After a second she burst into laughter, and I couldn’t help but laugh along with her.
* * *
Stick
Caro and Janelaughing over whatever Jane had said (and with Jane, who knew what that could be) was about the only truly honest moment of the whole damn day.
Caro and Joe were interviewed together, and the topics of forgiveness and second chances played a big part. As did Caro’s illness.
She was forthcoming about her health and how much time she felt she had left. And damned if she didn’t spin it to help Joe Stratton by saying things like dying had made her see what was really important, and it was the future for “our kids.” And that Joe thought so too, and that was why he was reentering the political world—to make a difference.
Shit like that.
They really were something. Even in Caro’s diminished state (mostly physical, but they did have to stop a few times because she had stumbled on some words), the respect and affection they had for each other was evident. And genuine.
At one point the interviewer asked Joe about losing Caro and never marrying again. I couldn’t quite hear his answer, but it must have pleased Caro, judging by the look on her face.
