“Ohhhh, now I’m scared.” The Scottish terriers here at Drayden Hill are so pampered, they’d probably expect an intruder to come equipped with designer goodies from the dog bakery.
I ruffle Courtney’s hair and slip past her. “Allison!” I yell down the stairs, and start running. “Your daughter is holding up the family picture!”
Courtney squeals, and we race to the lower landing. She wins because she’s an agile little thing and I’m wearing heels. I don’t need the extra height, but mother will not be happy if I show up for the Christmas photo in flats.
In the formal receiving room, the staff and the photographer are on a mission. Christmas photo mania ensues. By the time we’re done with the shoot, my eldest sister’s teenagers are exasperated, and I’m ready for a nap. Instead, I grab a toddler and start a tickle war on the sofa. The others quickly join in.
“Avery, for heaven’s sake!” my mother protests. “You’re making a wreck of yourself, and you’re supposed to leave with your father in twenty minutes.”
Leslie cocks an eye my way, showing her iguana-like ability to focus in two directions at once. She wags a finger at the green dress. “That’s too formal for the town hall forum, and this morning’s outfit isn’t formal enough. Wear the blue pantsuit with the cording around the bottom. Very senatorial but not overstated. You know the one I mean?”
“Yes.” I’d rather wrestle with the triplets or talk to Missy’s kids about their plans to be junior counselors at summer camp, but nobody’s offering me those options.
I kiss my nieces and nephews goodbye and hurry upstairs to change. In short order, I’m sharing another limo ride with my father.
He pulls out his cellphone and scrolls to the recorded brief for this afternoon’s events. Between Leslie, numerous aides and interns, the staff here and in D.C., and the newspapers, the man is always well informed. He needs to be. In the current political climate, there’s a very real danger of a change in the senatorial balance should his bout with cancer force him to step down. Daddy would go to his deathbed before he’d let that happen. The length of time he ignored his symptoms and remained in D.C. for the congressional session is proof, as is the fact that I have been called home for grooming and reestablishment of residency, as Elliot put it, just in case.
In South Carolina, the Stafford name has always trumped political dividing lines, but the publicity about the nursing home scandal has everyone sweating like tourists on a Charleston summer afternoon. There’s a new story breaking every week—residents who’ve died after bedsores were left untreated, care facilities with unlicensed staff, places that were far from complying with the federal regulations requiring at least 1.3 hours of care per day for each patient yet were still allowed to bill Medicare and Medicaid. Devastated families who believed that their loved ones were in competent hands. It’s heartbreaking and horrible, and the slim connection to my father has provided his political enemies with endless emotionally charged ammunition. They want everyone to believe that if the pockets were deep enough, my father would use his influence to help a friend profit from human suffering and escape prosecution for it.
Anyone who knows my father knows better. He isn’t in a position to insist that supporters and campaign contributors offer up their balance sheets, and even if he were, the truth would be hidden beneath layer upon layer of corporate entities that look fine at a glance.
“Better brush up,” Dad says, and hits play on the voice memo. He holds the phone between us and leans my way, and suddenly I’m seven years old again. I get the gushy, warm feeling I always had when Mom walked me through the hallowed halls of the Capitol, stopped outside my father’s door, and allowed me to go in alone. Very quietly, with great gravity, I’d march to the secretary’s desk and announce that I had an appointment with the senator.
“Oh, well, let me confirm that,” Mrs. Dennison would say each time, lifting an eyebrow and restraining a smile as she picked up the intercom. “Senator, I have a…Miss Stafford here to see you. Shall I send her in?”
After I’d successfully been admitted, my father would greet me with a handshake, frown, and say, “Good morning, Miss Stafford. Wonderful of you to come. Are you prepared to go out and greet the public today?”