Alex Buckley walked out of the Delta Shuttle terminal at LaGuardia and into the black car where Ramon was waiting behind the wheel.
“Everything went smoothly, Mister Alex?”
“Some rain in D.C., and protestors outside the capital, but here I am, only ten minutes delayed.”
“Were you able to see Andrew and the kids?” Ramon asked.
Ramon knew how close Alex was to his younger brother, Andrew, who was a corporate lawyer in D.C. “I checked into the Ritz yesterday,” Alex said, “but ended up staying the night at his house. Johnny is a bit confused and thinks Uncle Alex is about to become president, but I will say they were happy to see me.”
Andrew’s son, Johnny, was in the first grade and was just aware enough of government positions to confuse a lower-court judicial appointment with being elected President. His twin sisters were only three, and still thought of Uncle Alex as the man who taught them how to sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” To this day, they placed their fingertips together to act out the song the second they laid eyes on him.
“Johnny may have a crystal ball,” Ramon said. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all if you ended up President someday.”
As they made their way up the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and across the Triborough Bridge, Alex reviewed the paperwork he had been given by the Senate Judiciary Committee to complete for his confirmation hearings. The day had been a whirlwind of activity he never could have dreamed of, ending with a meeting in the Oval Office with the President himself and the other judicial nominees. Alex only wished his parents had lived to see it happen. The President had welcomed them all collectively with a joke: “You may come to regret this honor once you see the hoops you’ll be jumping through.”
He hadn’t been kidding. The questions in these documents would take him days to answer, touching on everything from his roommates in college to his thoughts on the most influential Supreme Court decisions in United States history.
He had read all the questions twice when he flipped back to the second page in the packet. The information requested here was relatively straightforward biographical information, but one section gave Alex pause. At the top of the page, he was asked to list contact information for anyone with whom he currently lived. After that, he was asked to identify spouses, ex-spouses, children, parents, and siblings.
None of this would be difficult for Alex. He was a bachelor who lost his parents at a young age. He had one live-in employee, Ramon, and an adult brother with his own family.
But the third question on the page was a catch-all: “Please provide biographical information for any individuals who serve a role similar or comparable to those listed in parts (a) and (b), above, regardless of legal affiliation or formal definitions of family (such as intimate partners, part-time roommates, financial dependents [whether or not adopted], etc.).”
I can only wish that I could write, “Wife: Laurie Moran Buckley, Stepson: Timothy Moran.” Even thinking it was painful. Once again he asked himself if he lost Laurie by pressing her for a firm commitment before she was ready.
This is my fault, he thought. I told Laurie I would wait as long as necessary, and then I pushed her away, forcing her to experience a “freedom” from me that she never asked for.
He tucked the papers back into his briefcase, praying that something would change before he had to submit his answers.