THE PRESIDENT 2 (37 page)

“Yes.
 
He saw all of them visit.
 
Roman Wilkes, Max, all of the women too.”
 

Again, Gina was puzzled.
 
“Why would Max be visiting her?
 
You told him to?”

“He was scheming with her, no doubt.
 
He has an ambition to run for some political office and mother probably intended to provide financial backing.
 
Provided, of course, he did her bidding.”

“But what could he do to help her?”

“Provide the camera that filmed my encounter with Caroline, for one thing.”

Gina looked at him.
 
“Are you serious?”

“I can’t prove it, but I certainly believe it.”

“Then why haven’t you fired his ass?”

“Because I can’t prove it yet.
 
But when I do, I’ll take care of Max.
 
But Nathan tends to keep me posted with the goings on around mother’s estate.”
 
Then he exhaled.
 
“It’s his now.”

“The house in Nantucket?”

“Yes.
 
He had to deal with my mother for forty-some-odd years.
 
He deserves it.”

“Amen,” Gina said, unable to imagine anybody putting up with that woman that long.

“And now she’s gone,” Dutch said, exhaling.

Gina studied him.
 
“It doesn’t hurt you on any level?”

“It hurts.
 
I did love her.
 
Even respected and admired her once upon a time.
 
But it just doesn’t sting the way it should.
 
She’s gone.
 
May God have mercy on her soul.
 
But I don’t know what else I can say.”

“You’ll need to get to Nantucket and make the arrangements.”

“Or let Nathan do it.”

 
“But you can’t ask him to arrange your mother’s funeral,” Gina said.
 
“I think giving him that estate, and I would hope the finances to help him run it, is a great thing.
 
But she was your mother, Dutch.
 
You’re her only child.
 
You have to do it.
 
It’s only right.”

Dutch smiled, pulled Gina into his arms.
 
“And you’re right of course.
 
Yes, I’ll take care of the arrangements.
 
But I’m glad the truth came out before she died.
 
And I’m also grateful to your friend.
 
He may have saved my bacon.”

“Isn’t that something?
 
Way to go, Wilkie.
 
He always was an oddball.
 
But why would he do it?”

“I can only guess,” Dutch said. “He didn’t tell me a thing.
 
Nathan had to give me the heads up.”

“So why do you think he did it?”

 
“Because of you.
 
Because that man is still in love with you.”

 
“Oh, Dutch,” Gina said dismissively, “I’m sure that’s not it.”

“Don’t you
oh, Dutch
me!
 
I’ll bet that is it.
 
But he can forget that.
 
You are so off market, lady, that there’s no longer any market to be off of!”

“What?” Gina asked with a grin.
 
“Even you don’t know what that means.”

“It means,” Dutch said, serious now, “that I love you and I’ll not stand idly by for any man to so much as think about getting a piece of you.
 
They can’t have even a taste.
 
Not even Roman Wilkes.
 
Although I did phone and tell him how grateful I am for all of his assistance.”

Gina looked at him.
 
“You spoke to him?”

Dutch nodded. “We spoke.”

“And he admitted being the person who encouraged your mother to change her story?”

“He didn’t admit it.
 
But he didn’t deny it, either.
 
He just told me to tell you to keep your chin up, that it’ll get better before it gets worse, and that he’s still working his butt off on behalf of Marcus Rance.”

“Which will only mean more headaches for you, especially when the press gets wind of the fact that you’re bankrolling his defense and that my ex-lover is his attorney.
 
They are going to have a field day with that one.”

Dutch snorted.
 
“I kind of think I’m used to it by now.”
 
Gina smiled.
 
“Besides, what do they want from us?
 
Do they want us to sit by and let an innocent man rot in prison until I’m out of office, or do the right thing despite how it polls?”

“Let him rot, of course,” Gina said and Dutch smiled.
 
Then he moved her back on top of him.
 
“And now,” he said, “it’s about time you show me if you’ve learned anything at all in the eleven years since I first blew your mind in this very room.”

“But Dutch,” Gina said, amazed at his stamina, “I just showed you.”

“Show me again,” he said, looking at her lips and then kissing them.
 
“And again,” he said, still kissing her.
 
“And again.”

“Don’t you think, given the news of your mother’s passing, we should, you know?”

“What?” Dutch asked, puzzled.
 
“We should what?”

“Ease up, Dutch.
 
Out of respect.”

“Respect for her?
 
But we didn’t respect her.”

Gina smiled.
 
“You know what I mean!”

Dutch nodded.
 
He knew.
 
He wrapped her in his arms.
 

Then he looked at her.
 
“Ready to go back?”

“Back to the pettiness and the hypocrisies and the complaints about my clothes and my hair and my speech and why I’m so focused on the poor and not on the middle class?
 
Go back there?
 
Ah, let me see: No.”

“Then you know what that means?”

“What?”

“More of this,” he said, rolled her over onto her back, and began kissing her.

As he moved on top of her, however, he reached over to the nightstand, grabbed the TV’s remote, and with all of that Washington chatter still ringing in his ears, shut the whole thing off.

EPILOGUE

Seven Months Later

The crowds were in the thousands by the time the Harbers prepared to leave the hospital.
 
The city of Newark was still amazed that the First Lady of the United States would choose their still-struggling but beloved city, and her hometown, as the place for her baby to come into this world.
 
Although neither she nor the president would admit it publicly, everybody who had an opinion believed that they did not want their child to ever have to say that he was born in the Beltway.

Dutch sat in the corner of the hospital room holding his son with the nervousness of a brand new dad, and with the assuredness of a determined father.
 
Every time he looked down at his tiny seven pound frame; at his big hazel eyes and little button nose; at his mother’s ears and forehead and his lips; and every time he smelled his wonderful baby smell, he wanted to cry.
 

He had a son?
 
Really?
 
This was
his
boy?
 
It still seemed surreal.

And that was why he couldn’t stop praying.
 
That was why he couldn’t stop thinking about the awesome responsibility he now had for this tiny little baby.
 

Walter Robert Harber, Jr.
 
Robert they would call him.
 
Or Bobby, Gina had said.

And Dutch looked back down at the baby.
 
And prayer some more.
 
He prayed that he would get this right.
 
He prayed that he wouldn’t be too tough on the boy, that Gina wouldn’t baby him, that they would somehow manage, even their clumsiness, to get it just right.
 
He looked at Gina, who was standing on the side of the bed, her baby bags all packed and ready to go.
 
Looking like a kid herself.
 
And Dutch smiled.
 
Because he knew now, not the night he became President of the United States, not the night he won reelection, but even when he married Gina.
 
But he knew now, at this very moment, in this hospital in this struggling, wonderful city, that he was above all men the most richly blessed.

After Gina complained no end about their requirement that she ride a wheelchair downstairs, despite LaLa and Christian’s pleads, she ultimately agreed to ride down on the elevator and then get out and walk.
 

“Thank-you,” LaLa said, moving over to Dutch and looking at the beautiful baby that would become her godchild.
 
Christian looked too, and although he was slated to be the godfather, he felt more like the big brother than anything paternal.
 
But he smiled, said his goo-goo-ga-ga’s and stood beside Dutch.
 

And then all of them, Dutch, Gina, Robert, LaLa and Christian, and the contingent of agents, made their way onto the elevator and after Gina got out of the wheelchair, out of the hospital.
 
The Secret Service had wanted them to go out a back way, away from the crowd that kept on swelling.
 
But Dutch had said no.

These people, mostly poor, mostly happy black faces, were the people he represented.
 
The real America, not that plastic society they had to deal with.
 

And he wasn’t running away from them.

The festive crowd went wild as soon as the happy couple appeared.
 
And as soon as they realized the president was carrying the baby, they became nearly hysterical.
 
Hundreds of cameras flashed as they all tried to take pictures of the newborn even though the perimeter the Secret Service had set up was too far away, and the president had the baby too snuggled, for them to be successful.
  
But they tried anyway.