16

John Bright’s full statement was all over the news within minutes of its release:

By the grace of God, our sons Lucas and Cameron arrived safely in Barcelona with the rest of the Our Lady of Mercy High School soccer team last night, following the tragic attack in Madrid. We are deeply grateful to Spanish and Catalonian authorities; to the US consulate; and to the public for their concern. Our hearts go out to the victims of this horrific attack and their families.

We will be working closely with US government officials to ensure the safe return of all the children as soon as possible. Until then, we ask that you respect our privacy.

Thank you and God bless America,

Mary-Beth and John Bright II

Once it was out there, it belonged to the world. The story of Lucas, Cameron and the Footy Fifteen was public property after that. Social media mined the internet for personal details of the Bright family, dredging up every photo and minor bit of DC gossip available on them. Left-leaning media lionized the former senator for his history of progressive(ish) votes and causes, making a hero out of a man they had been ambivalent about for most of his political tenure. And right-wing media seized on the beautiful irony of the offspring of globalist elites traveling to Europe—for soccer, no less—and only narrowly surviving the ubiquitous scourge of Islamic terrorism. The story wrote itself.

From Mary-Beth’s perspective, as they sat around the living room watching TV and scrolling through their phones, none of the Brights were particularly bothered by these disinformation campaigns. Every version of who the Brights were was a-okay with them. The relatable white American family, the privileged brats, the political powerhouses—it was all untrue. Everything Mary-Beth saw was a simplistic reduction of a small part of who they’d been at one time or another, but none of it was right. And yet she seemed to be the only one who cared. Anything to get the boys back, is what JJ told her. And he was right about that, though it wasn’t clear to her how the media frenzy was getting them closer to having their children home.

JJ and Mary-Beth’s phones pinged, and they looked down from their posts on the couch. It was an email from the consulate. John Senior had convinced officials there to set up a generic address on the secure State Department server to allow the children to email their parents during this time. It was intended to complement the twice-daily phone calls the kids were allowed, and probably to keep pushy DC parents at bay for a while.

It was from Lucas.

Another email arrived right behind it from the same address.

“I’ll write them back,” Mary-Beth said. “You go help your dad.”

JJ nodded and left the room.

She considered telling him to go take a shower, to change his clothes and brush his teeth. They’d been at it all day, and it was taking a toll. But neither of them wanted to stop watching the news or reading the internet. With nothing useful to do, monitoring the chatter felt like something.

Mary-Beth got to work at the thing the Brights were best at: putting on a brave face. In an email, she told the boys that they were working hard with government officials to get them home soon. She advised them to be polite and remember that they were representing their country abroad. She suggested that perhaps they should employ those yoga breathing skills she’d told them about for stressful situations, which they would roll their eyes at, but maybe eventually use. She was upbeat and assured because that’s what everyone needed. And from across the ocean, she could still sense that they weren’t buying it.

The truth was that Mary-Beth had no idea what was really going on. Her father-in-law had been on the phone with dozens of people that day. He was paying a private security company for two guards to hang around outside, which seemed wholly unnecessary. He’d also alerted the local police, whose expertise seemed to be primarily over-capacity jazz concerts. JJ and John Senior were taking all the media calls, directing people to their statement and providing terse on-the-record responses to the follow-up questions. The volume of incoming calls seemed to be increasing.

Mary-Beth stood up and turned the TV off. She went into the kitchen, where Ian was preparing two vegetable tarts. (Of course, only Ian was allowed to commandeer the kitchen from Patty.) Spencer was hovering around him, drinking a beer and talking excitedly about coordinated anti-terrorism efforts between the US and Europe. He didn’t notice Mary-Beth come in.

“I spent all of chapter twelve elaborating on the idea that if we removed some of those bureaucratic barriers, we could do counterintelligence sharing much more efficiently among Western democracies.”

Ian nodded as he arranged a fishtail design of sliced squash in a pie crust. It was unclear whether he was interested in this. If he wasn’t, he was doing a convincing job with the nodding.

Farah angled a wheeling camera closer to the couple and pointed the lens at the vegetables, then back up at Spencer as he talked.

“And that’s what we need to be focusing on today. This is an ideal moment to push for the counterintelligence legislation again.” Spencer paused and studied his husband. “Do you think I should send out a media avail? Just let the shows know I’m free for cable appearances?”

Ian caught Mary-Beth watching them, and he gave Spencer a not now expression.

Spencer smiled at her and popped a cherry tomato into his mouth. “Mary-Beth! How are you holding up? You need a glass of wine.” Spencer filled a glass with something white while the Bright household buzzed around them. He put it on the counter beside her. “Here, drink this.”

She smiled and took a sip. It was instantly calming, but it also made her aware of her empty stomach and fried nerves. She couldn’t drink now.

Patty walked in. “Ian, how long do the tarts need?”

“Thirty minutes.”

She set the timer on the stove and looked out at the dimming sun. “Let’s have a sit on the deck while they cook.”

Just then John Senior and JJ burst into the room. “Little schedule change, guys. We’re doing a sit-down.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a brief on-camera TV interview,” JJ explained. “It will be someone of our choosing, someone friendly from a major network.”

“What? In DC? Why?”

“We can do it right here. They’ll send a producer. Dad’s done them before in the study. He thinks it’s important to address all the incoming questions in one swoop.”

“But why does anyone have questions for us? What can we answer?”

John Senior popped a cucumber slice into his mouth. “The shows want us because it’s a very personal angle to the terrorism story. And it’s a good move for us because it will help keep public pressure on federal officials to get Lucas and Cameron back on home soil. Trust me, Mary-Beth, you don’t want the public to move on from this until the boys are home safe. It could be a week before seats are available on commercial flights. But if we keep the squeeze on the administration, they’ll cave and send a military plane in a day or two.”

“I think it’s smart,” Spencer said.

Ian agreed.

Mary-Beth wasn’t sure that she believed them, but she was at a disadvantage when it came to things like this.

“Okay, then.”

Everyone nodded, and the planning for their television appearance commenced. (Mary-Beth suspected it was already locked-in.) They ate the vegetable tarts with goat cheese on the back deck. No one had much to say at dinner. There was some casual conversation about the mild evening temperatures. JJ squeezed Mary-Beth’s hand twice under the table. Philip said a quiet prayer to himself before he ate a bite. No one joined him, but they waited patiently before digging in.

A windsurfer glided across the surface on the far side of the lake. From that distance, he seemed to be going so slow that you wouldn’t know he was moving at all. And it occurred to Mary-Beth that, most of the time, she couldn’t perceive life’s progression until she was looking back at the distance she’d covered.