Chapter 8 #3
“You’re guessing what Mom thinks instead of telling her what you need. So, just tell her.”
Jameson stared into her coffee.
Jonah leaned back in his chair and watched her.
He had spent enough time with Jameson holding lumber, measuring walls, handing her tools, and listening to her mutter at crooked framing to know when she was working through something.
Jameson didn’t always talk her way to understanding.
Sometimes she had to build her way there.
“You think it’s that simple?” she asked.
“No,” Jonah said. “But think you're making it more complicated because then you don’t tell Mom.”
Jameson looked up.
He shrugged. “What? You wanted honesty.”
She laughed despite herself.
“JD, Mom disappears into legislation when she needs to think. She’ll sit with a bill or a speech or some impossible policy problem until she figures out the problem she's dealing with.
And we both know, most of the time it isn't something buried in those papers. That’s how she works.
It's how she works things out in her head. Even things about you or me.”
Jameson nodded.
“You build things,” Jonah said. “That’s how you work through what's on your mind.”
“It’s a barn, Jonah.”
“No. It’s not.”
Jameson sighed.
“It’s not,” he said again. “It matters to you. It’s something you can build for the future.”
Jameson smiled. She looked toward the window. The barn sat in the gray light, half-finished, ribs exposed, waiting for hands and time and patience.
“I don’t want your mother to think I’m unhappy with our life,” Jameson said.
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Then why would she think that?”
Jameson gave him a skeptical look.
“I’m serious,” Jonah said. “Tell her the truth. You love her. You love Coop. You’ll stand beside her anywhere. But you need something that feels like yours, too.”
Jameson looked down.
“The White House isn’t yours,” Jonah said.
“Not really. It’s a place you live because Mom serves there.
And I know it matters. I know what she’s doing matters.
But you’re walking through rooms built by other people, filled with other people’s history, following rules somebody else wrote.
Maybe you forget that Mom is in charge. She can write some new rules. Let her.”
Jameson nodded. “Good advice.”
“You’ll get the bill.”
Jameson laughed.
“So? Are you going to talk to her?”
“I will.”
“Good. Besides, I’d like to help with the barn.”
“Mm-hm.”
“What?” Jonah asked.
“You want a dry place to sleep when the kids want to camp outside in the rain.”
“No.”
Jameson laughed. “Yeah. You do.”
“No. I don’t care about the rain,” he said. “The last few times we camped, I ended up with Maddie’s old princess tent.”
Jameson bit her lip.
“I can deal with the pink princesses. That thing isn’t even four feet wide! I’m not a pretzel!”
Jameson gave up and laughed. “Thanks.”
“So? Are you going to stay for the week?”
Jameson shook her head. “No. I heard Coop talking to Mackenzie about an assembly at his school. Something about mid-year recognition.” She sighed. “I think he kept the paper instead of giving it to us.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he doesn’t want us to feel like we need to rearrange everything for his assembly.”
“Oh, man.”
“I know. Your mom won’t be able to go. She has the Indian Prime Minister visiting on Tuesday, and meetings all week with congressional leaders before the holiday break. God knows what else might come up. I figured I’d call the school tomorrow.”
“So, you’re going to head back for Coop?”
“And the truth is I miss your mom.”
Jonah smiled.
“You’re right, I need to talk to her—or maybe I should say I need to stop trying to protect her from my feelings.”
“You realize she knows you’re doing that?”
“Yeah. I know she does. We both do it. Sometimes it’s necessary. But it can become a bad habit,” Jameson admitted.
“So I’m learning.”
Jameson nodded. “There is hope for us.”
“For me, maybe.”
Jameson laughed. “Now, you’re an ass.”
He chuckled. “So... You want to finish that coffee, and we can go back out to the barn?”
Jameson smiled. “Nah.”
“Really?”
“It is cold,” she said.
“You could share my beer.”
Jameson blinked. “I think I’d rather sleep in Maddie’s tent.”
“It’s here. Scott left it when?—”
“Don’t get any ideas.”
“Want to see the plans Mel designed for the new cancer center in Maryland?”
Jameson grinned. “Sure.”
Jonah pushed out of his chair. “They’re really great,” he said.
He turned back and looked at Jameson.
“What?” she asked.
“Did you really design a rehab center with stripper poles?”
Jameson shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Jonah laughed. “You did it to freak Mel out, huh?”
Jameson shrugged again. “I can add them to her plans if you’d like.”
Jonah’s eyes sparkled. “Only if you add lighting.”
“Done.”
Jonah took the first deep breath he had in months.
He knew it would take time for him to reconcile the man who was absent most of his childhood with the dying man he’d spent time with.
And he missed his father. Truth be told, every version of the man.
He didn’t need to miss Jameson. Somehow, that made his grief just a little more bearable.
Maybe finishing the barn wasn’t only for Jameson. Maybe he needed her to do that, too.
He grabbed the plans and spread them across his mother’s old desk.
Jameson grabbed a pencil. “What do you think? Three poles?”
“Make it five. I want to see Mel sweat.”
Jameson grinned. “Five it is.”
The White House
"I thought you'd want to bowl," Candace said.
Cooper shrugged. "You like Scrabble."
"I do. I didn't think it was your favorite game."
"We don't always have to play my favorite game, Mom."
Candace smiled. "I suppose not. I don't mind."
Cooper looked at her.
"What?" Candace asked.
"It hurts you."
Candace's brow knitted, and she shook her head.
"Your wrist," he said. "Since you broke it. It hurts you to throw the bowling ball."
The observation left Candace speechless. It probably shouldn't have. Cooper had always been observant. He had also grown up more than she wanted to admit.
"It's okay, Mom. You know, you can tell us if something hurts."
Candace nodded. "I wouldn't say it hurts," she said. "It can be a little... uncomfortable."
"Then we can play Scrabble instead."
She smiled, watching as he contemplated his tiles, scratching at his eyebrow the way Jameson often did when she was pondering something.
"You look like Mama when you do that," Candace said.
Cooper glanced up. "Do what?"
"That." Candace touched her eyebrow.
He grinned and dropped his hand. "I do?"
"You do."
He smiled. "She chews on her pencils a lot. Spence says if she's not careful she'll get lead poisoning."
Candace chuckled. "I don't think pencil lead is that dangerous."
He shrugged and looked down at the board again, then placed three tiles beside the word Candace had played earlier.
H-O-M-E.
Candace looked at the board.
"Not a lot of points," Cooper said. "But I had the letters."
"It's a good word."
"It's not as good as zither."
Candace lifted a brow. "Do you have zither?"
"No."
She smiled. "How do you know the word zither?"
"Our music teacher has one. She has loads of instruments. I haven't played that one yet. I think she saves the strings for the older kids—like Kenz."
"I guess that makes sense."
Cooper smiled and reached into the small bag for new tiles. "This is kind of a weird home."
Candace's fingers stilled over her own tiles.
He looked around the room, taking in the high ceiling, the old furniture, the careful history of a place that belonged to every American and no family for very long.
"I don't mean bad weird," he said quickly.
"I know."
"It's just a little?—"
"Weird," Candace said.
He shrugged. "Too many people whisper."
"Do you think so?"
"Yeah. Kind of. Like they don't want us to hear or something," he said.
"I think it's more because they're trying not to disturb us."
"I guess. Mom told Agent Miles he sounded like Mr. Bean."
Candace laughed before she could stop herself. "She said that?"
Cooper nodded. "Last week. I don't think Agent Miles knew what to say."
"I imagine not."
"Who is Mr. Bean?"
Candace couldn't help herself; she laughed.
Cooper wrinkled his nose at her and shrugged.
"I'm sorry, Coop. Mr. Bean is a silly British character."
"Oh."
Candace smiled. "Think of him as a little boy inside a man's body, trying to deal with serious problems."
He nodded, then shrugged. "That sounds kind of like what you say about Senator Birch."
Candace stared at him.
"You do!"
She shook her head and laughed. "I suppose I do."
Cooper smiled, pleased with himself. He liked listening to the adults around him.
That was something he had in common with Mackenzie.
Neither of them understood why grown-ups thought they weren't interested.
Everything about his parents and siblings fascinated Cooper, and he wanted to learn how their world worked. Mackenzie felt the same in that way.
"Do you still like it?" he asked.
"Like what?" Candace asked, placing her tiles on the board off of Cooper's E in HOME: E-X-P-L-O-R-E
He looked up at her. "That's a lot of points."
She winked.
"Do you? Like it?"
"Most of the time."
"But not all of the time?"
Candace reached into the bag to grab more tiles. "Do you like school all of the time?"
He shrugged. "Yeah. But I don't really like Mr. Moore's gym class."
Candace tilted her head.
"He does weird stuff. Like we have a parachute that he makes us play games with! It's just... weird. It's not skydiving."
Candace smiled, then nodded. "I can see that," she said. "Well, I think everything is a little like that."
"Gym class?"
Candace chuckled. "No. And not skydiving, either. Although, some days I feel like I could use a parachute."
Cooper giggled.
"I don't think anyone likes everything about their job or their school. There are more things I enjoy about being the president and living here than there are things that I don't like."
He placed his tiles on the board off of the letter X in EXPLORE. E-X-C-U-S-E., then looked up at her and grinned.