The press conference wouldn’t start for another thirty minutes, but parked cars already snaked down the length of the driveway. Sweating men and a few women set up video cameras in the grass while polished on-air personalities touched up their makeup in palm-sized mirrors.
The setting couldn’t have been lovelier. John Senior was scheduled to speak from a small podium in the garden with a view of the glistening lake behind him. The exterior of the house had been adorned with flower wreaths, and an enormous American flag hung like a banner along the front of the garage.
It all seemed a bit much to Mary-Beth, who thought the setting should be more reflective of the somber occasion. But Patty said this didn’t need to feel like a funeral, so that was that.
But of course, this was a funeral. The press conference had been called to announce the death of John Bright’s campaign and, it seemed to Mary-Beth, the death of the long-standing myth of who the Bright family really was. Something had died here. Philip’s previous understanding of himself—of his family—was gone. And no matter what her mother-in-law said, Mary-Beth was sure that this should look more like a funeral than a wedding.
“You think I need a tie?”
Mary-Beth turned from the kitchen window to her husband, who looked expectantly at her in his crisp shirt. Little sacks of exhaustion hung from beneath his eyes.
“No, I don’t think so. What’s your dad wearing?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him yet. He’s been in the study all morning working on his remarks. I really wish he’d let Spencer review them first.”
“Your dad’s a good writer.”
“It’s not that...” JJ rubbed his face. “Spencer thinks he’s having second thoughts about this press conference.”
“What? There are sixty people here already. It’s too late for that.”
“No, they think he’s having second thoughts about ending the campaign. It seemed crazy to me until I started thinking about it. I wouldn’t put it past him.”
Mary-Beth closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply. Now was not the time to say all the things she was thinking about John Senior. Now was the time to do as Patty did and just smile. “I need to check on the boys. I’m sure you’ll make your father do what he needs to do.”
JJ nodded and pulled her toward him. “Hey, I love you. This is almost over.”
He kissed her lips with a restorative force, and she kissed back.
“Hopefully, this is almost over.”
“Ha.”
But JJ wasn’t laughing and neither was Mary-Beth, because nothing about today was funny. The campaign would end (probably) and they would go home. But JJ would be returning to an uncertain professional future. And Spencer would go back to torturing Ian with his own insecurities. Charlie would be unemployed indefinitely. And Philip...poor Philip.
They would get to the other side of today, but things were still irrevocably broken for the Bright family. That wasn’t going to change overnight. It was hard to think beyond this terrible morning, but eventually they would have to, and Mary-Beth had the feeling that things were going to get worse before they got better. All because of John—John and Patty. Mary-Beth had grown accustomed to blaming everything around them on her father-in-law, but it was now clear that Patty was implicated in all this, too: the lies and secrets, the cold ambition. They’d been working together all along.
Mary-Beth took another look outside. Ian and a cable camera guy were trying to fix the mult box out in the garden. God bless him, Ian was on his knees plugging and unplugging wires. Chelsea was carrying a doughnut wrapped in a paper towel down the driveway, presumably to Charlie, who was checking press credentials at the gate. And dozens of media people were milling around the Bright family vacation compound, cracking jokes to the voices in their earpieces, putting cigarette butts out in flower pots and waiting for the circus to begin.
Mary-Beth thought it was all so ugly, these vultures here to feast on a family’s downfall. But it was what this family deserved—not her, or her boys or JJ. Certainly not Philip. John and Patty Bright deserved it all. Mary-Beth had no sympathy left for either of them.
As she made her way to the boys’ room, Farah passed Mary-Beth on the left, a blinking camera held out before her. Mary-Beth pretended not to notice, because that’s what they had all been conditioned to do. Behave as if you cannot see the camera (but stand just so to avoid blocking the shot). It was second nature to her now.
Farah seemed like a nice girl. She wasn’t like the reporters outside, not exactly. She’d been invited here on happier, more high-minded terms. But she still evoked in Mary-Beth the same urge to grab the recording device and send it flying through an open window.
If it were up to Mary-Beth, she’d have sent Farah packing two weeks ago when the boys were stuck in Spain. She’d have closed ranks around her family and hunkered down privately. But it wasn’t up to her, and that was a thing that she was fed up with, too. From here on out, they would leave nothing in the hands of JJ’s parents. Too much had been left to them in this life.
Spencer appeared in the hallway and looked around. “We ready?”
Mary-Beth shrugged.
“Let’s huddle up!” he shouted.
Two minutes later, they were all there in the kitchen: Philip, Chelsea, Spencer and Ian, JJ and Mary-Beth, Cameron and Lucas. (John and Patty were still holed up in their room.) They stood in a tight circle, waiting for their marching orders. The din of outside voices and ringing phones was all around them, but for now it was just them, the Brights and their extras.
JJ rolled up his sleeves and put his hands on his waist. “Okay, so here’s the game plan—Dad takes the podium in five minutes. At the start, I want Mom up there with him, and all of us standing behind them so we’re in the shot. Dad will give a short, sweet speech, then take two or three softball questions from friendly reporters—he knows who they are. Then Spencer will send out the press release and we’ll kick these animals out. That’s the whole show. Got it?”
Everyone nodded.
“Where’s Charlie?”
“He’s still down at the gate,” Chelsea said.
“Can you get him up here? I think all the press on our list are here now. Maybe someone can stand in for him for a few minutes. We need all Brights present for the speech.”
“I can do it,” Chelsea said.
JJ was skeptical. “Can you spot a fake press credential?”
“Probably not.”
“Farah can do it,” Spencer said, and everyone turned to her.
“Farah, can you watch the gate for, like, five minutes? You’ve got plenty of cameras on us up here, so you won’t miss anything. All you have to do is let credentialed press in, and make sure the gate latches behind them, until Charlie is back.”
“I, I really can’t do that,” she sputtered. “I should be up here with the—”
“It’s just five minutes. C’mon, I think we’ve been more than accommodating, considering everything that’s happened here. Help us out.”
Farah swallowed and looked around. Mary-Beth almost felt bad for her as she squirmed. Finally, she nodded and left the house. She checked each of her cameras, which were mounted on tripods around the grass, then left for the front gate.
Seconds later, the sound of John Senior’s heavy steps and Patty’s heels clattered down the stairs. They looked great—disturbingly so. If either of them had missed an hour of deep sleep over the drama of their family, they didn’t show it. Mary-Beth hated them.
“Are we ready?” John boomed. He had the look of a child who knows he’s supposed to be frowning but can’t suppress a grin.
JJ folded his arms tightly. “Do you have remarks?”
“I do.”
“May I see them?”
“It’s standard pablum...just like we discussed...apology, contrition, lessons learned...”
“Resignation?”
“Right,” his father said.
JJ looked at his mother, who revealed nothing.
“If he doesn’t resign, I’ll do it for him,” Patty said.
JJ rubbed his tired eyes. “Okay, then. Time for the firing squad.”
They filed through the screen door one by one, out into the bright summer day. Charlie joined them outside and they formed a sort of procession to the garden, with John and Patty at the front.
Mary-Beth walked in step with her husband, trying to hold a pleasantly blank expression as she watched her sandals move in the grass.
As they approached the roped-off section of the garden, conversation among media people ceased, and all eyes turned to the Brights. The machine-gun clatter of cameras began firing all at once. Photographers stretched their bodies out over the rope, trying to get as close as possible with their lenses.
The Brights did just as JJ had instructed: waited for John and Patty to reach the podium, then formed a tight row behind them.
Mary-Beth wished she’d worn her sunglasses. The glare made it difficult to see into the crowd. JJ put a hand on the small of her back, and she smiled up at him. Big circles of sweat were already forming at his armpits. Maybe he should have worn a tie after all. Mary-Beth could feel Lucas bouncing on his heels to her other side, a nervous habit he’d had since toddlerhood. She wanted to tell him to stop, but that would only make it worse. She shouldn’t have agreed to let her children stand up there. What sort of mother would submit her children to this? Everything about that moment was more humiliating than she’d imagined it would be.
Cameras kept going off, and it wasn’t clear whether they should be smiling or not. Which would look worse, Mary-Beth wondered, a frown or a smile? Which would make them look less like liars and opportunists?
John and Patty were smiling. They were standing at the podium now, holding hands. John was enjoying himself.
Spencer cleared his throat in an apparent effort to get his father to stop preening and start talking. Let’s get this over with, they all begged silently. But John Senior made a few more turns, a few waves and a personalized hello to three of the reporters he recognized in the crowd.
Finally, he adjusted the microphone and took a deep breath. “Good morning!”
Patty let go of her husband’s hand and took one step away from the podium.
“Thank you for coming out today to the lovely Berkshire Mountains in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts!”
JJ looked over at Spencer, who avoided his gaze. Mary-Beth knew they were thinking this was too cheerful, too boisterous. It wasn’t the right tone. They all held their breath as their father went on.
“As you all know, the past few weeks have been trying for my family and me. We’ve had to do a lot of soul-searching. I’ve had to do a lot of soul-searching. Because in the long story of my life, I haven’t always been the man I want to be. I haven’t always been the spouse or father that these people deserve.”
John Senior looked back at his family, and they all smiled as the cameras clicked.
“I’ve made mistakes in the past for which I’m deeply sorry—to my wife, my children and my constituents. There are no excuses for my transgressions. That’s not what I’m here to do. I’ve asked for my family’s forgiveness—and today, I ask for the public’s forgiveness.”
He paused to take a long slug from a water bottle.
Mary-Beth could feel her husband relax slightly beside her.
“Now, as for some of the other stories you’ve read about my wife and son, I take responsibility for everything. I violated my wife’s trust years ago. I am responsible for the wayward path our marriage took. I hope you will spare them the public scrutiny that I deserve. All four of the accomplished Bright men who stand behind me are my sons, and I am their father. Please respect our privacy on the matter of Philip’s patrimony.”
Mary-Beth thought that was a nice touch.
“I hope, too, that there is room in the public’s heart for forgiveness. I’ve spent every day since those early dark days reforming myself, improving my commitment to family and faith and country. I’ve redeemed myself in the eyes of my family, and I believe I can redeem myself in the eyes of my fellow Bay Staters.”
JJ wiped his sweating forehead with the back of his hand and looked down at Mary-Beth, whose heart was racing now. This wasn’t right. John Senior wasn’t steering this speech in the right direction. She turned to read the expression on Patty’s face, but Patty wasn’t there any longer. Where had she gone? Spencer was whispering to Ian, who was trying to maintain a smile for the cameras. In the press scrum, Mary-Beth could see Farah and her camera looking back at her from the crowd. Charlie must have seen her, too, because he made a breathy little gasp. If Charlie was there, and Farah was there, then who was at the gate?
Meanwhile John was still talking about his reinvented self, and all the cameras were still rolling.
Mary-Beth squeezed JJ’s hand, and he held on for dear life. They were trapped up there, for however long John talked, no matter what he said.
“And so I’ve brought you here today,” John continued, “to ask for your forgiveness and understanding, to tell you that I’m not the foolish young man that I once was, and to announce that—”
At that moment, a whooshing roar blasted them all from the western side of the lawn. It sounded like an enormous sucking of air and felt like a hot breath from the gods.
John Senior stopped talking and every head on the compound turned to the place where the sound originated: the driveway. It was then that they saw it: the billboard-sized American flag that hung down the face of the garage ensconced in flames. Every inch of the polyester writhed in fire.
For half a second, the crowd was frozen and silent. They felt the heat from the flag on their stunned faces and struggled to understand what they were seeing. Then a woman screamed, two car alarms went off and the flames jumped from the wick of the flag to the garage itself. It was swallowing the building whole.
“Someone call the fire department!”
People were screaming and running now, hurdling over the ropes that penned them in. Some went down the driveway toward their parked cars, others toward the water.
JJ herded his wife and two children to the lake without a word. Mary-Beth nearly tripped trying to kick off her shoes, but Lucas caught her with the strong arms of an adult she hardly recognized. “I’ve got you,” he said as she planted her feet back on the ground.
Another car alarm joined the cacophony.
Someone pushed her as he rushed past.
Mary-Beth held more tightly to Lucas.
She didn’t know where all the Brights were, but she knew where hers were.