The Stars Incline. They Do Not Compel.  She was as warm as an autumn night in Manchester.  Yes, she was about as warm as that.

 

Evan shuddered inwardly at Susan’s coldness. At some point, while he was crossing the globe for one cause or another, while he was advising the President, or corralling Congress into action, her agitation at his absence had transformed into supreme indifference.

 

He’d returned to Blair House tonight with the intention of making good on his promise eighteen-months old.  He’d promised himself and Susan that once Hillary was back on her feet that he’d devote a lot more time to their family.  He’d held up on half his end.  The boys couldn’t be more sold on him if he bought them both BMX bikes signed personally by Tony Hawk tomorrow and hand-delivered them to Sidwell Friends.  Susan was a tougher bet.

 

She was currently poking her fork unenthusiastically at her chicken picatta.  Sulking could not describe what was going on here.

 

“I know I promised, and I know it seems like I reneged big time.  I’m sorry, honey.”  The guilt wasn’t a new companion of his.  It accompanied him whenever he made a stopover at the Oval late in the afternoon when he could easily retire home.  It was an intruder on his near-dawn breakfasts in the Residence.  If there was ever a time when he was with Hillary for no foreseeable professional cause, the guilt was present also.

 

Susan gave him a crooked half-smile.  “I know you are.”

 

The platitude was kind, but not particularly warm.  It was roughly as warm as she had been all night. She talked to him like she’d talk to a distant friend she hadn’t seen in ages—a friend she didn’t expect to see again.  Strangely, the thought didn’t set his heart to pounding as many others did.

 

“Evan, I love you more than any man I have ever loved,” she declared unequivocally.  As she began to speak, her eyes lit up.  That did make his spirits soar.  When she was happy…he’d done something right.  “But what I know, what I don’t doubt—is that you don’t love me the way you used to.”  That had the opposite effect.

 

He took her hand.  “That’s not true. I love you just like I did the day we got married—just like the day you had the boys. I love you.”

 

She shook her head, formerly lit eyes shining with fresh tears.  “I know you love me.  I’m your wife, the mother of your sons.  It’s easy to love me for all those reasons.  But you can live without me, Evan.  You don’t need me or need to be with me.  You don’t call me…just because. You don’t ask how I am.”

 

He was at a loss. “I…don’t understand.”  He knew he was guilty of all those things, but even he didn’t doubt that he loved Susan.  It was just a fundamental truth of his life—he loved his wife.  Didn’t he?

 

She cupped his cheek.  “You have been so wonderful for so many years.  Even at the beginning of your term, you were great. You worked so hard but you always made time for me and the boys. It was perfect, but even then I knew it couldn’t last. I’d heard too much from Hillary about how hard it was to bring the family together at the end of the day when Bill was president.  Once you and Hillary starting having open showdowns with the Congressional Dems, I knew I’d be seeing less of you.  I could live with that.  I have lived with that. I’m okay with that happening.”

 

“Then why have you been so mad over the last few months,” he asked, perplexed.

 

                “Because for all that I never counted on two things:  I never counted on you not even making time for Beau and Nicholas.  They’re your world—at least, I thought they were.   And when I saw them getting shoved out with the rest of the stuff you didn’t have time for, I got angry.  They’re your sons, Evan.  They need you and you’ve never let them down before.  Don’t start today,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing it emphatically.

 

                He nodded dumbly. “The second thing,” he prompted, half-sure already of what it would be.

 

                Abruptly, Susan’s mood shifted from chastising disappointment to a greater reserve.  She frowned and released his hand.  “I didn’t expect that you would feel the need to spend so much time with Hillary.  I mean, I knew there’d be meetings and maybe even working dinners, but whatever the two of you are doing is so far beyond that I get dizzy just thinking about it.”

 

                Evan gaped.  The guilt that had tricked him into thinking it absent reared its head.  “What? No, Susan, all we do is work.  That’s what we do.  We discuss the legislative agenda and how it’s faring in Congress.  That’s all.”  His heart chose this time to speed up its tempo.  He was trying so desperately to appear earnest. He was. She was the one he loved, Susan was. He couldn’t understand what was happening here.

 

                His wife tucked a lock of corn silk blond hair behind her ear in a gesture he’d always loved.  She was still the same woman—wasn’t she?   He supposed he was the one who’d changed.  “I don’t know. Maybe you really are convinced that the amount of time you spend with Hillary is normal for a Vice-President—I don’t know.  I’m telling you that I read things and I hear things, and none of them make it easy for me to wait in bed for you at night.”

 

                He shot up.  “Rumors. They’ve been spreading them for nigh on three years.  Don’t believe them.  They want this to happen. Because they haven’t got any real scandal to report, they want to create some, so they print what amounts to libel in anyone else’s world.  It isn’t right, isn’t fair, and sure as hell isn’t true.  Please,” he pleaded, dropping down to his knees beside her, “believe that I wouldn’t betray you that way.”  Evan was many things, but he was not a philanderer.  Not in his most forbidden dreams would he be unfaithful to Susan.  Yes, he felt things as any red-blooded human being did, but he’d never act on them. As long as she wanted him, he’d never act in bad faith.

 

                She met him square on, glance for glance.  “I believe that you wouldn’t mean to do it. I don’t see you setting out to cheat on me. I don’t see you meaning for it to go so far.  What I do see is you holding her every evening before you come home.  I see you whispering in her ear when she’s upset.  I see you taking her hand, the hand she always has in her coat pocket, the hand that she hides.  Her scars are legend—and I know you’ve probably seen them all.”

 

                The former Senator from Indiana was struck dumb.  It was a quandary he was in, the dichotomy of being the good husband and acting as the fair confidante.  It wasn’t a dual part he was meant to play.  “I’ve seen some, but not for the reasons you think.  Sweetheart, I have never been unfaithful to you and will never be unfaithful.  Besides, Hillary would never do that to you. She’s been through this; she wouldn’t wish it on someone else’s wife.  She laughs at the same headlines that bother you.”  His President had always seemed vaguely amused by the ongoing saga of the Presidential Affair, as it was dubbed by the Associated press.  She shook her head and would sometimes ask what he’d be giving her for their adulterous anniversary.  It was a growing in-joke with them, as many things were.

 

                “She can laugh at them because she knows the truth, whatever it is.  I don’t know because I’m not there with you during your sixteen-hour days.  I don’t know, and it’s the not knowing that’s killing me. I can’t live this way.”

 

                “I can work less.”  That reminded him of how hard it was that Hillary already worked to give him more opportunities with his family.  He often wasted those chances loitering in the West Wing.  It always felt  wrong to end the day without seeing her for a last time.

 

                As though reading every thought, Susan scoffed.  “You do work less, Evan.  I know that because Hillary looks like death warmed over most mornings and you don’t.  She’s worked this hard for a year and a half so that you could be with us more.  Wonder of wonders, the woman’s actually failed at something.  We’ll call it a first.”  The coldness returned with an icy blast.

 

                “What do you know about the President’s work habits?”  There was something bothering him about what Susan had just said.

 

                “I know that she’d work herself into an early grave for you.  You’re her best friend—really, the only one she has left in the Party—and she wants to see you succeed her.  That’s what I thought when she offered to lighten your workload.  I thought she wanted to ensure that you wouldn’t be washed out by the end of the first term. I don’t think that now.”  She pursed her lips, resigned.  Evan wasn’t even listening.

 

                “When did she offer to take on more of the work?”  He couldn’t recall any times when Hillary and Susan might’ve spoken that he wouldn’t have known about.  This—this smacked of something unsavory.

 

                Not for the first time, Susan looked unsettled.

 

                “When?” he questioned with growing frustration.  He had the most foreboding feeling that he wouldn’t like the eventual answer.

 

                “When I went to visit her in the hospital,” she disclosed hesitantly.  “I didn’t go for this reason, Evan.  I just wanted to ask her to have you take it easy.  You were bending over backwards, in those days, trying to be all leaders to all people.  You were about to run yourself ragged.  The boys were starting to worry and I was way past just being worried.  Unbeknownst to me, and I guess, you, she shared my concern.”

 

                “I’m sure she did,” he acknowledged distantly.  He stood up from where he’d remained crouched at her feet.  “You know, I can understand worrying about me. I appreciate it. Your compassion is so much of what I love about you that I can’t even really be mad about the fact that you went over my head to tell my boss not to let me do my job.” He smiled somewhat derisively.  “What I can’t quite wrap my head around is the suggestion that she should run herself ragged to make sure I come home in time for The Daily Show.”

 

                Susan was quick to defend herself.  “I never asked her to do that.”

 

                “What exactly did you think she’d do?  She’s the President of the United States. I’m her second-in-command.  Accountability shifts up in our department, not down.  There is no sideways, there are no temps-for-hire at the National-level.”

 

                “Look,” she snapped, angry that this was becoming her fault at last, “I didn’t make Hillary care so much about you that she’d just about kill herself to make your life easier.  I thought that if things were easier in the Office that you’d consider spending more time with us and less time with her.  I didn’t expect that you’d take the ‘paid-leave’ as freedom to lounge around the Oval.”

 

                “That’s not what I do,” he let off with a dismissive grunt.

 

                “That’s exactly what you do,” she pointed accusingly at him.  “You sit with her and laugh with her for hours—for absolutely no reason.  Evan, you even talk about her to the boys, like she’s a part of their lives, a part of this family.  They could tell their friends stories about her that will never be in history books.  Regardless of how you wish you felt, you love her.”  He was stunned.

 

                “That’s not--”

 

                She grabbed an arm crossed on his chest.  “Tell me you don’t.  Look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t love her.”  She waited.  He retreated into his head.  She knew.  “I didn’t think you could.”

 

                “Of course I love her.  We’ve been through hell and high water together.  It makes sense, Susan.  That doesn’t mean it’s anything greater than just regular, run-of-the-mill love.”

 

                “Run-of-the-mill?  Regular?”  She rolled the borrowed phrases around her lips.  “Love isn’t just regular with you, baby.  It never will be.  You love her, and I think she loves you back.”

 

                He held up his hands in denial.  “No way.  It’s not like that for her; she’s still mourning Bill, and she probably always will be.  She just sees me as a friend who’ll go to bat for her. You know how few she has left that will.”

 

                Susan gave up.  “It’s okay. It’s fine.  I’ve had more than a year to get used to the idea that you’re in love with her.  I’ve had about the same amount of time to accept that she loves you, too.  I guess it’ll just take longer for you to deal with it.”

 

                Evan turned his back on her, shaking his head.  He was done with this.  “There’s nothing to deal with, Susan.  There’s no there there.”

 

                His wife—for now—stood up to approach him.  He was as still as the Lincoln Monument, as wintry too.  She stood on her toes to kiss his cheek.  “I wish to God there wasn’t, but there is.  Just look.”  She left him alone to contemplate.

 

                She was ready to see Indiana again.

 

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