FRIDAY, APRIL 21
The signs posted at the E Street entrance to the White House read NO STOPPING and AUTHORIZED VEHICLES ONLY. Lee stopped anyway. He was authorized.
Karen stood near the guardhouse waiting for him. She waved to Lee as he drove up. Standing behind Karen, a stern-faced uniformed guard, white shirt, no tie, kept a close watch on Lee. With a glance Karen got the guard to relax.
“Don’t you look dapper,” she said, leaning into the open window of Lee’s car.
For his meeting with the first lady, Lee had selected his best suit from Brooks Brothers, and did an extra-careful job with his morning shave.
“Thank you,” he said. “I actually tried.”
“How come you never dressed like that when we were married?” she asked playfully.
“I did. You were never home to notice.” Lee said this with an equally playful wink.
Karen, who wore her usual attire—a navy blue pantsuit and durable shoes, good for chasing down wall jumpers—facilitated the ID check. She climbed into the passenger seat of Lee’s Honda, directing him to the next checkpoint, where a bomb-sniffing dog, sleek and muscular, waited for work.
“Speaking of home, Josh is with me for a few days,” Karen said.
Lee raised an eyebrow. “I thought he was going to the camp.”
“He is, but I guess his plans got delayed for some reason, and he didn’t offer to explain.”
“The less you probe, the better.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Karen.
Lee noticed the time on the car dash. “I have to be at the MDC for morning rounds at eight thirty. Do you think I’ll be late?”
“Ellen is about the most directed and task-oriented person I know,” said Karen. “I’d be surprised if your meeting lasts more than five minutes. Are you going to talk to her about the nootropics?”
Patrolling outside Lee’s car, the dog, a glorious German shepherd, sniffed away busily.
“And say what? We want to have them tested to make sure Cam’s doctor isn’t poisoning him so his son Taylor can play in some chess tournament? Are you crazy? I’d be thrown out of here by the same people who work for you, and you’d be tossed out right after me.”
“I don’t disagree,” Karen said, sounding a bit frustrated.
“Look, I don’t trust Gleason to do right by Cam with or without ProNeural in the picture. That’s why I can’t be cut off right now. We have to tread carefully here.”
The guard handling the canine waved them through. Following Karen’s instructions, Lee drove slowly down East Executive Avenue with the White House looming nearby. He came to a stop at an open parking space near the covered East Wing entrance.
“So what’s this meeting all about?” Karen asked as they exited the car. “I thought you had already convinced Ellen to have Cam take the antiseizure meds.”
“No, I did not. She said she wanted to discuss it in person before speaking with Gleason.”
After his meeting with Paul, Lee called Ellen to follow up on Cam’s condition since his return home, and more important, offer his opinion about the meds. Never having used the private number before, Lee figured he would be patched through to Donna Whitmore, Ellen’s chief of staff, but no: the first lady answered as if he had phoned a close friend.
In a preemptive strike, Lee voiced his concern that Gleason might not put Cam on levetiracetam as he and Dr. Piekarski recommended. Instead of coming to an understanding, Lee got an invitation to come to the White House to present his case. He hoped Dr. Gleason would not be there, waiting in ambush.
Karen escorted Lee into a long, richly paneled hallway and past a manned security desk. They took a right turn into another corridor lined with stiff-backed wing chairs and artwork in gilded frames.
“For your information, this area is not part of the official tour,” Karen said in a conspiratorial tone.
The first lady’s office was located on the second floor of the East Wing, just down the hall from the White House calligrapher, a job Lee did not know existed until Karen pointed him out.
“What does he do exactly?” Lee asked.
“The calligraphy for all the official White House invitations.”
“Sounds torturous.”
“Not if you enjoy calligraphy. Don’t worry, Lee. I’ve seen your handwriting. You’re in no danger of getting the job.”
The last door in the long hallway was wood paneled and stood out from the others. Karen knocked on that door. A moment later, Ellen Hilliard appeared, invited them inside, and gave them both a warm greeting. She looked like she did on TV, completely put together, wearing a black skirt and white blouse topped with a black cardigan, a strand of pearls secured around her neck.
“It’s wonderful to see you, Lee,” Ellen said in a pleasant voice. To Karen she said, “If I may, I’d like to speak with Lee alone for a few minutes. Would you mind waiting outside? I’ll have you escort him out when we’re through.”
“Of course.”
Ellen had a spacious, nicely decorated office with a cream-colored carpet and upholstered couches and chairs. She worked at an eye-catching, two-tone executive desk, framed by two built-in bookcases painted the same color white as the house and stacked full of books. On the walls, in addition to some modest artwork, hung pictures of Cam (some taken during chess matches) and several of her and President Hilliard in various phases of life.
“Tea? Anything to drink?” Ellen asked.
“No, thank you, I’m fine.”
She took a seat on a comfortable-looking couch and motioned for Lee to take a nearby chair and join her.
Ellen spent a few moments expressing her gratitude for Lee’s involvement with Cam’s medical care. As was the case during their brief phone conversation, the pleasantries did not last long.
“How’s he feeling?” Lee asked.
“Sore. Tired. Out of sorts.”
“That’s not at all unexpected. He’ll feel much more like himself in no time. What did you decide about the medicine?”
“Dr. Gleason went over the side effects with me in detail. Moodiness, fatigue—the same as Cam’s earlier symptoms, but now add to that the possibility of hallucinations! Goodness, Lee, are you sure this is absolutely necessary? Dr. Gleason doesn’t seem to think so.”
“Well, like I said on the phone, I’m not surprised there,” Lee replied. “But Mrs. Hilliard—”
“Please, call me Ellen.”
“Ellen, then. This is not just my opinion, but the opinion of the neurologist, Dr. Marilyn Piekarski, as well. We can start Cam on a very low dose and build it up slowly to a more therapeutic level. We’ll watch closely for side effects. If his symptoms resolve, if he stops waking up extremely fatigued, we will be that much more confident in our diagnosis that Cam is experiencing seizures. It could have a positive impact on his mood. We won’t know until we try. This is Dr. Piekarski’s plan, and she will repeat his EEG and MRI in six to eight weeks.”
Ellen got up from the couch and went over to a window, which showed off a view of the South Portico and White House grounds.
“It’s funny,” she said. “Weekday or weekend, every day is a workday around here. My husband’s at work in the Oval Office right now, getting his morning debrief, keeping the world from imploding, all the weight and responsibility of millions of lives on his shoulders—and here I am, responsible really for one life in addition to my own. Yet somehow it feels equally as weighty.”
“He’s your son,” Lee said. “I understand your struggle, but I strongly advise he take the medicine.”
Ellen returned to her seat. “My job, my—role, here at the White House, can be challenging at times.”
“I can imagine.”
“There’s no clear objective, no defined path for a first lady, but it comes with tremendous scrutiny. One wrong move can get you branded in the harshest possible way. Motherhood feels a bit similar. You do your best without much guidance, and you hope you don’t do damage to your kids.”
“In this case, I don’t believe you will.”
“Perhaps that’s true. But I’d like to make another observation, if I may. My job here, Lee, is mostly to stay on the sidelines and support my husband. Sure, I have my causes. My Aim Higher initiative. My work with military families. But my most important role, aside from motherhood, is to present a unified front to the American people. That’s what they want from a first family, and it’s what they’ll remember most when we leave the White House. We’re role models whether we like it or not. And people want a team. They like things to be together, not fractured.”
“I can sort of relate to your struggle,” Lee said. “I was married once. Didn’t do a very good job presenting my own unified front.”
“Well, I need you to do a good job of it now. I’ll confess it’s not always easy for me to play the good wife, not let the East Wing affairs mix with those in the West. I may not agree with everything Geoffrey has done as president, but my support of him has never wavered. Not for one instant. For Cam’s sake, I need you to take a similar approach with Dr. Gleason. You might not agree with everything he says and does, but I do think he has Cam’s best interests at heart.”
If ever there was a time to bring up the nootropics it was then and there, but Lee worried it would add confusion to the levetiracetam issue.
“I’ll make sure Cam takes this medication you’re recommending,” Ellen continued. “But you need to do something for me.”
“What’s that?” Lee asked.
“I don’t want to be at odds with my husband over the direction of Cam’s medical care. I need you to get on the same page as Dr. Gleason. Immediately.”
“I’m trying, he just seems—opposed to the idea.” Again, Lee resisted the urge to say more.
“None of us has an easy job, Lee. I know you have your work cut out for you. I’ll cover all of your expenses for Cam’s care, and not to worry, no scandal here. It’s not the government paying, it’s me. I’ll have my chief of staff, Donna Whitmore, coordinate. Just make sure Dr. Gleason sees things your way from now on. I’ve come to trust you, so I believe your way is the right way.”
Ellen stood again. This time Lee took it to mean, and correctly, that he should do the same. He shook Ellen’s proffered hand.
“For now, I’m content standing on the sidelines, doing my part while my husband fights the bigger battles,” Ellen said. “But when it involves my son, I’m the one in the game getting muddied and throwing punches. I’m counting on you, Lee, to make it all work out.”
Ellen opened her office door. Karen was standing there.
“Thank you again for your time,” Ellen said.
She closed the door, leaving Lee and Karen alone in the quiet hallway. Meeting adjourned.
“What did she say?” asked Karen.
Lee chuckled softly to himself as they ambled down the hall past the calligrapher’s office.
“I think she and Geoffrey are perfectly suited,” said Lee.
“How so?”
“She wants me and Gleason to get on the same page and then in the next breath tells me she trusts me completely.”
“Bit of a double message, don’t you think?” said Karen.
“More like a pitch right down the center of the plate.”