The Book of Luke

Chapter 1 Season 19, Episode 8 “Your Rent Is Due!”

“Your Rent Is Due!”

You caught me.” He sheepishly paused the TV as I emerged from our bathroom.

“You aren’t actually watching what I think you are.”

“Greta said last night’s episode was insane, so I recorded it.”

“She’s a good judge of insanity,” I replied. “Is it delivering?”

“Some bimbo from Texas went ballistic during the vote, screaming at this hairy goon, ‘Your rent is due! Your rent is due!’”

I squinted at the screen, where a shirtless hunk cowered before a blond tornado. Standard fare for Endeavor. “Glad they’re keeping the lights on.”

My husband then tapped his lips with a mischievous grin. “Luke? Your rent is due.”

“Wow, an invoice on April 15th? You’re a monster.” I chuckled. My mom was an accountant, so Tax Day’s eternally emblazoned on my brain.

“But I’m your monster.” He smirked, and I pressed my lips against his.

Thirty minutes later, I’d roused the kids, dressed them, and dispatched breakfast (their Eggo phase admittedly a time saver). My husband was already on a call with the Minority Whip, but he still managed one last kiss when I bundled the kids out the door.

As I maneuvered the Escalade down the driveway, I mentally noted that one of the box hedges by the front gate was definitely dying, a blemish on the otherwise immaculate property.

We’d been in our five-bedroom white Colonial almost ten years, the design choices no doubt influenced by my mother’s aspirational stacks of Southern Living magazines, though this house would have fit two of the modest brick split-level my parents had owned.

Once the kids were at school, my Wednesday was consumed with the standard errands.

Grocery shopping would come later, since Andie had become insistent about selecting her own fruit.

I fished Wallace from his gang of four-year-old bruisers at day care by early afternoon, then powered to Andie’s soccer practice in my usual grayscale uniform: hat, sweats, sunglasses.

A decade in the District had taught me to dress for a low profile, but when you’re “the happy homemaking husband of America’s only openly gay senator” (Page Six’s words), not to mention 6’4” and 235 pounds, you’re more conspicuous than the average citizen.

Unlike most journalists, however, the carpool moms willfully stonewalled me.

At Whole Foods afterward, I indulged Wallace’s fantasy that the shopping cart was a pony while Andie perused the oranges with the discernment of a Manhattan gallerist and recounted her coach’s strategy for the upcoming tournament.

“But it only works if the other team are troglodytes,” she concluded, her pronunciation wildly precise for a six-year-old.

“Where did we hear ‘troglodytes’?”

“Baba.”

That point had been brokered early. If he was the biological father, I got to be “Daddy.” My husband was allergic to “Papa,” protesting it sounded contrived by Brooklyn hipsters, but when our baby daughter’s P sounded like a B, he took the malapropism as a sign and “Baba” was born.

A frumpy woman passed us amid the lettuces and did the classic double take. No matter how neutrally I dressed, the combo of my black hair, pale blue eyes, and large frame usually betrayed me when people got a long enough look. Plus, the scars.

The lady clumsily snapped pictures, drifting perilously close to jars of tomato sauce. I hated people photographing the kids, but worse to call it out, especially if she was recording video. I discreetly guided us down the aisle rather than allow a full magazine spread.

My sister called as I ushered the kids into the checkout, but before I could answer, I noticed even the cashier’s jaw had inexplicably plunged. She’d seen us here countless times, but now her pained smile trembled, as if attempting condolences at a stranger’s funeral.

“Oh! Oh, hello! How are you?” she asked.

“We’re fine,” I replied, nodding awkwardly as I silenced my cell. “Right, kids?”

My phone pulsed again. My husband now, but I dismissed his call, too, swiping my Visa.

Andie pointed by the register. “Daddy, can I have a macaroon?”

“Take it, honey,” the cashier answered.

“We can pay,” I said as she shoved three macaroons into Andie’s hand.

“Just… to brighten your day.” She shrugged, practically wincing now.

Increasingly unnerved, I marched the kids outside only for Jenny to ring yet again, and this time I picked up. “Sorry, just finishing up the weirdest trip to Whole Foods.”

“You don’t know,” she said. A statement, not a question.

Though we spoke almost every day, it was unlike her to be this blunt unless my husband had found a new way to piss her off.

I tried to remember if he’d had an interview today, preparing to remind her I didn’t agree with all his policies either.

“Luke, are you with the kids?” she asked, her voice uniquely strained.

I lowered my voice, stomach hollowing. “Okay, you’re scaring me. What’s up?”

“Turn off your phone and drive home. Call me there.”

Had it finally happened? Had there been the shooting, the deranged homophobe, the cost for the life we lived? Had I just silenced his last phone call? I couldn’t bring myself to say his name, for then it would become real. “Jen, is he hurt? He just tried calling.”

“Jesus, how have you never set up Google alerts? He is… physically fine,” she gritted out. “He’s had affairs with five of his former staffers. It’s on every channel.”

But he loves me, I thought, despite instantly realizing the news was true. Those were my two truths: My husband loves me, and he has cheated on me. Still I asked, “Could they be lying?”

“Luke, there’s video. It’s bad,” Jenny continued. “I’m already driving down and should beat the traffic out of Philly. Go home and don’t let that fascist fuck past the front door.”

I hung up to find Andie and Wallace staring, clearly sensing my distress. Even as the heat simmered in my throat, I wouldn’t lose it in front of them. They’d always remember this.

His texts started coming then, but I shut off my phone rather than read them. Instead I gunned the car home, mumbling meaningless assurances to the kids and only realizing later I’d left the shopping cart filled with groceries in the parking lot.

News vans and protestors awaited us in our oak-lined cul-de-sac, photographers hanging on the streetlamps I’d always found so charming. At our driveway, the crowd engulfed my SUV. I rammed my fists on the horn, avoiding the questions Andie howled at me.

Suddenly, Secret Service agents cut through the morass, carving a path to the porch as I forced my way out of the car. I noticed him then, dumbfounded in our doorway. For once, he actually appeared scared.

Andie bolted from the back seat to his outstretched arms. They looked so alike, father and daughter, a photo-op pietà waiting to be documented—though like hell I’d permit that. “Get her inside!” I called, prying Wallace from his car seat and shielding his face against my chest.

As I slammed the car door, I noticed one of the protestors behind the stone wall surrounding our property.

She was almost six feet tall, long braids in a ponytail, skin dark, rainbow T-shirt, eyes unflinching.

For one impossible moment, I almost thought she was Imogen.

The woman stared at me with complete disgust and raised a simple handmade sign:

CONGRATULATIONS ON GETTING EVERYTHING YOU DESERVE.