Anton let out his breath slowly. “Mom likes her,” he said absently. Then, “I’m afraid it’s gonna look like I just used her for the election. You saw the crowd tonight—they love her.”
David nodded. He looked out the window into the dark and then at Anton. “If I were advising you only as a fellow politician, I’d agree with you. To some people, it will look like you used her. But I’m talking to you as your father. One thing I’ve learned about politics—you’ve got to carve out a little space that’s all your own. A place where you don’t let in any of the outside chatter. If you don’t, you’re finished. Know what I mean?”
“Not really.”
“What I’m saying is, you can’t let everything be about politics. If you do, you end up soulless, not knowing who you are. Some things have to belong only to you. Take me, for instance. When I—when Delores and I—first took you in, Pappy hoped I’d enter politics someday. And he was nervous, you know, how it would come across in this lily-white state, us fostering a boy who looked like you. He told me on the phone that he was opposed to it, that it was political suicide. He said my future opponents would have a field day with it.” His voice cracked. “And they did. By golly, the bastards did.”
“Dad—”
“No, it’s okay. Let me finish. So after we’d had you for a few months, I invited Pappy to come visit. He came and stayed for a week. I don’t know if you remember. He and I didn’t discuss his apprehensions again. He just watched us going about our daily life. I took him to see you play soccer one evening, I remember that. And then, during the drive to the airport, I asked him if he still thought having you was a bad idea. If he believed that my being governor or senator someday would make me happier than fostering you.” David fell silent, a muscle in his jaw moving compulsively. “And he didn’t say a word. But when he got out of the car, he leaned in and said that I was a better man than he’d ever be. And that’s how I knew that he approved.”
Anton didn’t know what he found more shocking—that Pappy once was opposed to him, or that his father could be so affected by the memory. This was unlike Dad, to be so sentimental. He looked at his father closely and noticed how tired David looked, took in the thinning hair, the sudden stoop of the shoulders, and the unhealthy paleness of his skin. Dad’s getting old, he thought, and it frightened him to think that the man who had always seemed invincible to him, supremely capable, the most self-assured man in the room, could show the first signs of mortality.
Anton reached over and put his hand on David’s shoulder. “It’s late, Dad,” he said. “You’re tired. Let’s go to bed.”
But David shrugged his hand away. “What I’m trying to tell you is—what I’m trying to teach you—is you gotta be guided by your own lights. If you love Jenny, marry her. If you don’t, then let her go. But for chrissake, don’t use her. She’s a woman, not a political mascot.” He took a breath, then turned toward Anton. “The most important decision you’ll ever make in your life, son, is whom you marry. I pray that you find someone who makes you as happy as Dee has made me.”
Without warning, a picture of Carine making blueberry pancakes for him on a Sunday morning flashed in Anton’s head. He had mentioned Delores’s famous pancakes to Carine during a stroll at a Saturday farmers’ market, and she had risen early the next day to make him breakfast. He shook the memory out of his head. “There’s no woman as good as Mom,” he said. “She’s the best.”
David smiled. “No argument there.”
Anton rose to his feet and stretched. He faked a mighty yawn. “Lord, I’m tired,” he said.
As he could’ve predicted, David rose to his feet immediately. “Let’s get you to bed. We can’t have the new AG facing the world sleep-deprived.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
They were in the nation’s capital, Anton and Katherine. It felt good to be out of the state with her, away from the scrutiny that usually followed him. Earlier this afternoon, he had delivered a well-received keynote address at the national convention of federal prosecutors. It was an honor to be asked, but what was even better was getting together with his former colleagues in the Department of Justice. Even among the smart, ambitious men and women who made up the government’s lawyers, Anton had distinguished himself for the systematic way in which he had targeted white-collar crime in his state. In fact, during the 2012 campaign he had played up his successful crackdown on the money-laundering scheme involving local casinos—an achievement that Eric Holder, the nation’s AG, had mentioned in his introduction earlier today.
But now he was off the clock, and he and Katherine were looking forward to dinner at Tamarind, the new Indian restaurant on Capitol Hill that they’d heard so much about. They had been dating only a few months, but he was plenty smitten by her. He had met Katherine Banks at a fund-raiser for the human rights organization where she worked, and drawn to her good looks, he had gotten her phone number before he left that evening. What made him ask her out on a second date, and then a third, was the fact that unlike many of the women he came in contact with, Katherine seemed not the least bit impressed by his position or his family history. That and the fact that she teased him mercilessly, deflating his self-importance and ego every chance she got. The only girl in an Irish family of four boys, Katherine had learned to stand up to her brothers’ teasing from an early age and had, as a result, grown sharp elbows. Anton thought she was the most intriguing combination of femininity and an almost masculine briskness that he’d ever known.
It was a beautiful night in May, and they decided to walk to the restaurant. Katherine looked ravishing in her black shirt and tight blue jeans, but Anton eyed her high-heeled sandals dubiously. “It’s at least a seven-block walk,” he said. “You think you can walk in those things?”