It might have continued like that for longer if he wasn’t a politician, and if his name wasn’t starting to be bandied about as a future presidential candidate. But as it was, the press had taken a keen interest in him, especially once he decided to run for the Senate. Ellie was four when the story broke. And in its wake, everything else broke too.
For three months, Mom tried to stick it out. For three months, she was hounded by the press, followed everywhere with cameras, harassed by reporters and peppered with questions. The pictures Ellie had seen online showed a younger version of her mother hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses. In every one, she’s carrying Ellie on her hip, pressing her daughter’s face into her sweater to protect her from the glare of the unwavering spotlight.
There were a million reasons to leave. But even so, Mom hadn’t meant for the whole thing to turn into a secret. At first, she just wanted to get away for the summer, and so she rented a cottage in Henley, a place she remembered visiting once as a kid. But when she arrived there, she’d told Ellie, she felt a powerful rush of relief at the quietness of it all. The clouds were scudding across the sky, casting shadows on the water, and there was a man playing guitar on the village green. It all felt so far away from Washington, D.C., with its sleazy scandals and fast-talking politicians, and, mostly, from the father of her child, who had responded to each and every question from each and every journalist since the story came out with two simple words: “No comment.”
So when the first person introduced herself in the ice-cream shop that day and then looked expectantly at Mom in return, apparently oblivious to the infamy that had trailed after her back home, the words Margaret Lawson got caught in her throat.
Margaret Lawson was a twenty-four-year-old waitress from Vermont who had dreamed of changing the world, of saving the environment, of making a difference in Washington, but who instead ended up serving coffee to men in business suits to make enough to pay the rent. She was a woman without parents, without family, without roots. Someone whose name had been splashed across the glossy covers of a dozen magazines, someone entirely ill suited for any kind of spotlight. She was a woman who had made the very worst kind of mistake, even if she had gotten the very best possible thing out of it.
Margaret Lawson had no place in this new town, this new life. And so what slipped out instead was a childhood name, which had gathered dust for too many years, paired with her mother’s maiden name.
“Maggie O’Neill,” she said, extending a hand.
And just like that, Margaret Lawson disappeared, taking Eleanor Lawson with her.
They rarely talked about it anymore, she and Mom. But it was there all the same, when they flipped past C-SPAN a bit too quickly while changing channels, when the newspaper arrived on their front step with a thump each morning, carrying with it news of the political world. And especially when they spoke about money and college, all the things that would have been so uncomplicated if she were still Eleanor Lawson or even Eleanor Whitman, rather than just Ellie O’Neill.
Her father was a U.S. senator now, and a serious contender for the Republican nomination in the next presidential race. The scandal had eventually subsided, as scandals always seem to do. And in every article and blog post and news story on the subject, there was usually still some disclaimer about his alleged affair with the waitress, even after all this time. Sometimes they mentioned the potential illegitimate daughter, but most often that seemed to get lost in all the rest of it. Everyone was far more interested in his real family: his very forgiving wife and their two boys—one a year older than Ellie and one a year younger—who were each as blond as their mother and always seemed to be pictured doing some sort of bonding activity with their father, hunting or camping or fishing.
They undoubtedly ate at fancy restaurants instead of fish shacks, went to private schools with uniforms rather than public schools with budget problems. And they probably wouldn’t think twice about asking their father to help pay for a summer poetry course. And though most of the time Ellie couldn’t imagine trading the life she had for any of that—even if it were an option—it sometimes seemed unfair that she’d never had a chance to see what it was like to be Paul Whitman’s daughter.
If he’d ever looked for them, Ellie wasn’t aware of it. She tried not to think about the fact that a man like him could probably have found them quite easily if he really wanted to, could have been touch, called to talk to her now and then, sent birthday cards, or otherwise marked the passing of years. Maybe it was Mom’s fault, or maybe it was his; maybe he wondered about them, or maybe not; maybe he missed them sometimes, or maybe the articles were true: maybe they were nothing more than a footnote.
Ellie watched as the little girl handed her father a postcard with a picture of the sun rising over the ocean. But the mother had managed to corral the boys out the door and was calling sharply for the other two to join them. The dad shrugged helplessly at his daughter, whose chin trembled as she clutched the postcard to her chest.
“She can just take it,” Ellie found herself saying, and the man spun around with a look of surprise. His daughter beamed at him, then skipped off with the card in hand, a memory that might only make it to the corner, or to the end of the trip, but that would—with any luck—be carried with her at least a little bit further than that.
When they were gone, Ellie turned back to the computer.
I don’t think I can, she wrote to Graham. Sorry.
Afterward, she sat and she waited.
Nine minutes later, he wrote back: Then I’ll just go by myself and bring one over to you later tonight.
Ellie couldn’t help smiling at the idea of him showing up on her porch again, then bit her lip and stared at the keyboard. Tonight isn’t good for me either, she wrote, and then thought for a second before adding, And I still have no idea what a whoopie pie is anyway…
Not even a minute had passed when there was a little ding, and his name appeared again. Then let’s find out.
Ellie hesitated. No cameras?
A minute passed, then two, but it felt like much longer. Finally, an e-mail arrived: No cameras.
This time, she didn’t wait. Okay, she typed, before she could change her mind.
And so, five hours later, she found herself taking the long way down to the cove, wondering if she was making a mistake. She understood that there were certain turning points to these kinds of things, opportunities to think better, chances to turn around. But as she made her way past the bait shop and the hut where they rented out Jet Skis, as she wandered along the edge of the main beach and into the clusters of trees that marked its border, Ellie had the distinct impression that she was barreling past those very warning signs, and that soon it would be too late to take any of this back.
There were dozens of reasons why she shouldn’t go. He would get bored with her and move on. He would be going home in just a few weeks. He was too famous. He would give away their secret, just by the very fact of being him. He would hurt her without even trying.
But there was a sense of momentum that carried her on anyway, pushing back branches as she neared the cove, the dirt giving way to rocks beneath her feet. She barely noticed any of it, though; she was thinking of the look on his face when he’d stood on the porch the night before, and of all those words they’d sent sailing across the country, each e-mail a kind of poem containing the very best versions of themselves.
Maybe seeing him here was nothing more than a simple addendum to a conversation that had been going on for months now. If the time before she’d known him had been a kind of prelude, then maybe this was all just the postscript.
P.S. Hello there.
P.S. Thank you for coming.