Chapter 21
Three weeks later.
Three weeks of meetings with the FBI, of coordinated statements, of Abigail on the phone at all hours, of Eleanor learning to loosen her grip on something she'd always handled alone.
Breakfasts in the kitchen and cold coffee, Abigail pacing the living room while she thought, Eleanor watching her sideways from behind the laptop.
Three weeks that had changed everything and, in reality, nothing at all — because what existed between them was what it's always been, and they've finally let themselves have it.
Today is Tuesday, and Abigail is reviewing the last documents of the case when her phone rings and she sees it's the FBI agent in charge of the investigation.
The call isn't long. Abigail's expression doesn't change; she answers in monosyllables and short sentences, jots down two things in her notebook, and when she hangs up she stands still, staring at what she's written for a moment.
Then she walks out into the hallway and heads straight for the kitchen, where she knows Eleanor has slipped out to the patio to get some air and clear her head.
When she steps outside, Eleanor is sitting in a chair facing the sun, cigarette between her fingers, legs crossed.
Her gaze shifts to the door as Abigail comes through it, and something strange tightens in her chest at the lawyer's expression, because Abigail doesn't blink as she crosses the patio, slow.
Eleanor feels the pull just from looking at her — before Abigail reaches her, stops at her side, and takes the cigarette from her fingers without a word.
The lawyer brings it to her lips, takes a long drag, exhales slowly while looking down at her, then crushes it in the ashtray with a calm that throws the politician off.
"What are you doing?" Eleanor complains. "I just lit that."
Abigail doesn't answer. She settles into her lap and loops her arms around her neck while Eleanor holds her breath and circles her waist.
"I just got a call from the FBI," Abigail says.
Eleanor's face doesn't move.
"It's over. They're clearing you. David cut a deal — he'll do a few months in prison and he'll never hold public office again. End of story. So you don't need to keep smoking."
Eleanor stares at her with that cold expression, so hard for anyone to read. But not for the lawyer. She knows the politician's mind is running full speed, turning over what she just heard.
"That's it?" Eleanor asks after a moment.
"That's it."
Abigail runs her fingers slowly along her cheek and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear while Eleanor watches her without a word.
"You're allowed to feel something, you know," she murmurs, half-teasing, but with the gentleness the politician needs before she'll let herself react.
Eleanor holds her gaze for a few more seconds, until a smile pulls at her mouth — the most disarming smile Abigail has ever seen on her.
"Thank you," Eleanor whispers, and leans in to press a brief kiss to her lips. "I don't know what I would have done without you."
Abigail raises an eyebrow. "Neither do I," she says, dry. "I'm still trying to figure out how you planned to prove your innocence without a lawyer."
Eleanor looks at her, completely serious. "I guess deep down I was hoping you'd come. And you did. You showed up and you saved me from myself."
"I'd never leave you alone, Ellie."
Now it's her turn to lean in, and she kisses her with the full weight of the tension they've both been carrying these past weeks. Abigail mutters a curse against her mouth when her phone starts ringing.
"Don't answer it," Eleanor breathes.
"You know I have to. Once the Cooper news breaks, it won't stop."
She pulls the phone from her back pocket and turns the screen toward Eleanor — a call from the party. She stands and answers, circling the patio for almost ten minutes as she talks, Eleanor's eyes fixed on her the whole time, until she hangs up.
"What do they want?" the politician asks.
"To let you know they'll do everything they can to get your seat back as soon as possible.
It won't be soon, but it's possible. What matters most right now is that Patricia Webb is calling a press conference this afternoon.
She'll announce that you're no longer a person of interest to the FBI, and that you're a decent citizen of the United States who got caught in the crossfire of a corrupt politician. "
"There will still be people who think I was involved."
"Yes, but they'll be a minority," Abigail confirms. "We can put together an aggressive, well-targeted campaign — one that doesn't just clear your name, but makes it clear you are, and always have been, the right person for that office."
Eleanor rises and walks toward her. "Right now all I want is to rest. To forget what happened and get a few days of peace, where the first thing we do in the morning isn't sit down in front of the laptop and work on something that never should have happened."
Abigail steps close and takes her by the waist. "It's going to be hard for you to rest. The same way the journalists have been hounding you about your possible involvement, they'll hound you now, asking how you're feeling, whether you think the party betrayed you by pushing you out, whether you plan to stay in politics. "
Eleanor sighs and goes quiet for a moment. "We could run off to a deserted island for a few days," she says, exhaling in frustration.
"We don't have an island, but we can get away for a couple of weeks. Out of state, somewhere quiet, somewhere that keeps you clear of the media," Abigail offers, while Eleanor holds her gaze.
"Let's do it, Abby."
Abigail smiles and slides a hand along her neck.
"Okay. I'll find something, but give me a couple of days to tie everything up.
People need a statement from you — we'll put it together carefully, you'll give it, we'll accept a couple of interviews where we control everything that's said about you, and then we leave. "
Eleanor smiles and nods, and Abigail takes her hand and they walk inside together.
The Patricia Webb press conference is at five.
Abigail has coordinated it with Erin, who's coordinated in turn with Patricia Webb's team and with the press, and the result is that at ten to five Eleanor and Abigail are on the living room couch with the tablet propped on the coffee table, showing the live feed from the local Chicago station.
They don't talk while they wait. Eleanor sits with her legs folded, arms wrapped around her knees; Abigail is beside her with her phone face-down on her lap, because it hasn't stopped ringing all day.
At five sharp, Patricia Webb steps up to the microphones.
She's a woman who knows exactly what she's doing in front of a camera — Eleanor already knew that — but this afternoon there's something in her posture that says what she's about to say isn't just political.
That she's saying it because it's true, and she can prove it.
"I'd like to make a statement regarding former Congresswoman Eleanor Montgomery," Patricia Webb begins.
"Following the agreement reached between David Cooper and the FBI, it has been confirmed what many in this party already knew: Eleanor Montgomery had no part in, nor any knowledge of, Cooper's irregular activities.
She was always innocent." She pauses. "The party regrets the damage done to her reputation during this process, and will work to ensure that — when she chooses, and on whatever terms she sets — her place in the public life of Illinois is restored. "
The reporters' questions start before Patricia finishes her last sentence.
Eleanor doesn't hear them. She's thinking about fifteen years of work built stone by stone, of timed speeches, of meetings in windowless rooms, of hard decisions made with the certainty that no one else was going to make them for her.
Fifteen years that nearly vanished in two months, and that this afternoon — with Patricia Webb at those microphones saying she was always innocent — begin to have the chance of still existing.
Abigail switches off the tablet when Patricia finishes, and the living room goes quiet. For a moment Eleanor says nothing. Then she leans forward, slow, and ends up with her head resting on Abigail's legs, the same way she had that afternoon on the bedroom floor.
This time there are no sobs, no shaking from the crying. This time it's silent tears sliding down her face — only these aren't born of pain, but of relief, of the need to let her body release all the pressure she's been carrying for so long.
Abigail runs her fingers through her hair, slow. Over and over. Watching the blond strands slip between her fingers, Eleanor's wet cheek against her legs.
She doesn't say anything, because she knows Eleanor doesn't need it. All Eleanor needs from her right now is to be her anchor, that steady wall to lean into when she has to — and Abigail will always be there, whatever Eleanor needs, in every painful moment of her life.
"Are you okay?" Abigail whispers a while later.
"Yes," Eleanor answers without moving, and Abigail keeps stroking her hair, needing to do nothing more.