The news broke before dawn, so it was everywhere by the time they woke up.
John Senior and Patty—always the first downstairs—saw it all first. They saw the original story in the Electorate Informer and held their breath, because the Informer was a partisan rag bankrolled by the political right, and so there was still hope that it wouldn’t catch fire in the mainstream. But it did. And by the time the coffee was ready, the Washington Post had verified the story of the two women; and then CNN put their pictures on TV. And by the time the rest of the Brights emerged from their bedrooms with bleary eyes, the truth was already breeding conspiracies, and everyone had a take.
Farah, with bed hair, moved swiftly about the house as she tried to catch each of the Brights waking up to their new reality.
That was when Patty Bright took her coffee mug back up to her bedroom without a word to her husband, her children or their partners. She didn’t yell or cry. She just left.
From behind her camera, Farah watched them watching Patty leave. It was remarkable to Mary-Beth that no one protested being filmed at that moment, but they didn’t. No one said a thing, not even her.
“It’s just two women,” Spencer finally said as he poured cream into his coffee. “That’s all they’ve got, right?”
His father nodded. “Right.”
“There are no other bombshells we should expect?”
“No, no.”
But what Spencer obviously meant was, Is that all there is? He wanted to know what the actual truth was, but all John could tell him was the known truths, as if the rest was unknowable.
Mary-Beth was glad the boys would sleep until noon on that day (as they always did). She looked at her husband, who gave her a small smile because the mood in the kitchen was sad but he was not sad about her. They were okay.
“When do we turn our phones back on?” Charlie asked.
“Not yet,” JJ said. “We need to have a plan before we start commenting.”
Spencer ran his hand through dirty hair and leaned against the kitchen counter. “I think we should go dark for a day. Acknowledge nothing. Don’t add fuel to this fire. Just wait for the next news cycle.”
“It might last longer than one cycle,” JJ said, and then no one said anything. He had the final word on the media strategy.
Philip, who’d been sitting at the kitchen table reading the story on Mary-Beth’s phone, looked up at them. “So there were three women in total. Is that how many women you had affairs with, Dad? Is it three?”
“I believe so, yes.”
And with that, everyone knew there might be more. Mary-Beth hoped they knew this, anyway. She hoped that her husband and his brothers would allow themselves now to see what was plainly obvious. Their father was capable of things they wished he wasn’t.
“And it was years ago?”
“Yes, many years ago. All of them.” John made a broad time-sweeping motion in his pale blue pajama pants. He looked unusually old and frail before them. “This is all decades behind us. I made mistakes years ago. It was a different time, which doesn’t excuse it, but it’s true. And there are no secrets anymore between your mother and me. She and I worked through all this.”
His tone and confidence suggested to Mary-Beth that perhaps the last part was true.
“Excuse me,” Philip said, sliding his chair back against the hardwood floor. He refilled his coffee mug and went out the back door, toward his tree. It was partly sunny now, but the ground was saturated from yesterday’s rain.
Briefly, it seemed as if maybe this was going to be the moment at which the Brights really went for it, the moment of real confrontation with their father—yelling and crying and true catharsis. But it wasn’t; of course it wasn’t. And Mary-Beth felt foolish for thinking it might be, but not for wishing it.
“We should monitor things” is all Charlie said, and he went to the living room to turn on the TV.
Mary-Beth realized that Chelsea wasn’t there, and she hoped for her sake that Chelsea’s escape plan could be executed soon. If you were going to leave the Brights, now was a good time to go.
JJ, Spencer and their father joined Charlie in the living room. Farah followed them.
It was just Ian and Mary-Beth left in the kitchen.
“This has to be the end,” Ian said. “Right? I mean, this campaign has to be over.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It should be, but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be.”
He rubbed his eyes.
“Maybe I’ll take the boys with me back to Washington.”
“I was thinking about going back to New York. Spencer won’t like it, but I don’t need to be here for this.”
“We all have to go back eventually.” Mary-Beth looked out the window. “God, this is a terrible vacation.”
Ian laughed a small laugh. “Is that what this is? Vacation?”
They listened to the voice of the TV news anchor from the other room as she brought all of America up to speed on the developments.
“As of this morning, two more women have admitted to affairs with former Democratic senator John Bright, who recently launched a bid to be governor of Massachusetts. The Senator did not respond to our request for comment, and both of the women have asked for privacy at this time. It’s unclear still how this may affect his gubernatorial campaign, though we do have a statement from his challenger in the race...”
“Someone should talk to Patty,” Ian said. “Ask her if she still wants this campaign.”
Mary-Beth nodded. “Her kids should. She doesn’t want to talk to us about this. Or, she doesn’t want to talk to me. I already tried.”
“Maybe Philip. He’s better than the rest of them at things like this.”
Philip was still outside, under his oak tree. He seemed to be taking it the hardest of all of them.
“Philip has been really quiet. He’s been spending so much time under that tree. I don’t think Philip’s okay.”
“No, I don’t think so, either.”