Tropical Depression: An organized system of clouds and thunderstorms with a defined surface circulation and maximum sustained winds of 38 mph or less.

My mother never calls me at work. Donna? Yes. Me? She always calls at home on the weekend or my cell after hours. Therefore, it’s a bit nerve wracking when Donna sticks her head in my office and says my mother is on the phone and wants to talk to me.

“Mom? What’s wrong?” I twirl my chair to face the wall so Donna can’t see the anxiety on my face.

“Nothing. Can’t a mother call her son?”

“Except you never call me at work,” I remind her. “What’s wrong?”

“Have you seen the weather reports this week?” she asks.

“There’s a tropical storm headed for Georgia.” I suffered through a briefing on the damn thing yesterday while I was staffing President Bartlet. I’m far more familiar with Tropical Storm Gaston than I want to be.

“Now they’re saying it might hit Florida,” Mom says.

I stop rocking in my chair. Mom’s never experienced a hurricane before. She’s probably nervous about what will happen.

“Do you want to come up here until it’s over?” I offer. “I won’t be home much, but you’ll definitely be safe here.”

I hear her sigh on the other end of the line. “I was actually wondering if you could come down here for a day. The Meiers left to visit their daughter’s family yesterday and I can’t board the windows up by myself.”

By myself. My mother’s less than subtle reminder she’s all alone down in Florida and I don’t visit or call enough to suit her.

“I’ll see if I can get away, Mom. When do you want me to come down?” I give in with no argument. After the summer we’ve had, I could use the opportunity to get out of Washington for a couple of days.

“Today is Monday. It’s supposed to hit on Wednesday. Could you come down tomorrow? You could fly home tomorrow night and only miss one day of work,” she begs.

“I’ll ask, Mom. I can’t promise anything though.” I highly doubt Leo’s going to let me take tomorrow off. We’ve got budget meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday and my presence is required. Mostly to make unreasonable demands while Leo moves the negotiations to the center. Call me the bad cop.

“Call me when you know.”

“I will. But, Mom?”

“Yes, dear?”

“The storm is going to hit Georgia and you live in Palm Beach, Florida,” I tease her, trying to soften the coming disappointment.

“I don’t appreciate your smart mouth, son,” she chastises me, but I can hear her smile across the distance separating us.

“No promises, Mom, but I’ll try. And I’ll call when I know either way.”

To call today hectic would be an understatement. My day is packed and Leo’s isn’t any better. Somehow Donna and Margaret manage to coordinate a few minutes when we can meet.

“What do you need?” Leo asks, tossing his glasses on his desk.

“My mom called this afternoon.” I shift from foot to foot.

“And?”

“She’s worried about Tropical Storm Gaston. There’s nobody to help her get the house ready and she lives on the water. She wanted to know if I could come down tomorrow and board up the windows and that kind of thing,” I say in a rush.

“Tomorrow?” Leo frowns and leans back in his chair.

“I know we’ve got the budget meetings, but…”

He rubs his hands across his eyes. “We really need you here.”

“They’re preliminary meetings,” I plead.

“Let’s ask the boss.” Leo gets up and knocks on the connecting door to the Oval Office, then sticks his head in. I can’t hear their exchange, but Leo gestures for me to follow him in.

“What do you need?” the President asks.

The past three months have been hard on Jed Bartlet. Even with Zoey’s safe return 50 hours after her abduction, the emotional toll on the First Family has been enormous. He’s kept his distance from most of the staff, rarely confiding in anyone other than Leo and occasionally Toby. Men who are fathers themselves and understand the quandary he was faced with.

“My mother called, sir. She’d like me to go to Florida tomorrow to help her get ready in case Tropical Storm Gaston takes a turn south,” I explain.

“Tomorrow’s the budget meeting, right?” Bartlet looks at Leo for confirmation.

He shakes his head in response to Leo’s nod. “I’m sorry, Josh. We need you here to protect our flank. These negotiations are important.”

“Yes, sir.” I understand. It will disappoint my mother, but I do have a job to do.

***

“Are they going to let you go?” Donna ambushes me in the hallway. I don’t know how she knows, but she does.

I shake my head and keep walking toward my office and the phone.

“Why not?” she badgers me.

Our relationship has reached some sort of nebulous no­man’s­land. A never­ending holding pattern while one of us works up the courage to make the next move. I decided after Zoey’s return it should probably be me, but in the aftermath, I couldn’t bring myself to broach the issue with Leo. I couldn’t fathom being happy when everything was in turmoil.

“The budget meetings,” I sigh, cutting into my office. “I need to call my mom.”

Donna stands at the door, her blue eyes soft and sympathetic. “Tell her I said hello.”

“I will.” I spare her a grateful smile, hearing the affection she hides within the words, and pick up the phone.

Mom is as disappointed as I thought she would be, making for a short and terse conversation.

“There’s no way you can get out of those meetings?”

“I’m sorry, Mom. Leo took it to the President and they won’t let me come down,” I tell her for the third time. “I wish you’d consider coming up here if you’re worried. Donna would love to see you.”

I’d rather listen to her lecture me about my continued failure to take some action on the Donna­front, as she calls it, than listen to her disappointment at my inability to be a good son.

“When, Joshua? When are you going to admit to that young woman how you feel about her?” She bites on my dangled offering.

“Soon. I promise, it’ll be soon.” My eyes fall on the schedule board that occupies an entire wall of my office. My assistant has already written DONNA’S BIRTHDAY in huge block letters in the square for October 14th. “Her birthday’s coming up in about seven weeks.”

Donna’s birthday is my target date. I don’t have a clue as to what I’m going to do, but with any luck it will involve professing my undying love for her.

Or at the very least telling her being near her makes me feel content in a way I want to experience every day for the rest of my life.

“She says hi, by the way,” I continue, wrapping the coils of the phone cord around my finger absently.

“Tell her the same, please,” Mom says. “And it’s okay, Josh. I know you tried and if you could, you’d come down.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I really am.”

“I love you, Josh. And despite the fact I don’t like what you do, I am proud of you.”

I wonder what brought that on and chew my lower lip against my own sudden surge of emotion.

“I love you too, Mom. I miss you.”

Tropical Storm: An organized system of strong thunderstorms with a defined surface circulation and maximum sustained winds of 39­73 mph.

I straggle in this morning to find Donna has my TV tuned to The Weather Channel and the latest forecasts from the National Hurricane Center on my desk already. Like I didn’t spend the entire six hours I was home last night watching The Weather Channel and feeling like a miserable bastard for not being down there to help my mother.

Gaston has been strengthening all night and was upgraded twice since Donna and I left the office at midnight. It’s now a Category Two hurricane with maximum sustained winds of about 110 miles per hour. Oh, and a high­pressure system barreling out of the Midwest forced the storm to the south. It’s forecasted to hit the Daytona Beach area late tomorrow afternoon.

“Staff’s at seven in the Oval Office.” Donna appears in front me, handing me the agenda for the staff meeting. “The budget meeting starts at 8:30 in the Mural and Roosevelt Rooms.” She hands me two folders: one green and one purple. “There are notes for each group. You’ve got two minutes before Debbie locks the door.”

I curse and throw my bag onto my chair. Grabbing the storm forecasts, I take off down the hallway. Donna keeps pace, ticking off the things I need to know for the staff meeting.

“Can you do me a favor?” We’ve reached the anteroom to the Oval Office.

“I’ll call your mom and check on her,” she states, for once not bitching that I’m asking her to take care of Mom for me.

“Thanks,” I call, slipping into the Oval Office under Debbie’s ominous glare.

Budget negotiations are like two virgins having sex in the backseat of a Yugo ­ none of the parts fit right, no matter how hard you try. After the debacle with Foreign Aid back in January and the fallout from Zoey’s kidnapping in May, we’re trying to be more inclusive of our Republican counterparts. Without giving away the store. It’s not unlike buying a house ­ an offer and then a counteroffer and then offers to include the washer/dryer set or the stove. Except there are about eight separate entities arguing over the minutiae of the Federal Budget. There’s the White House, House and Senate Leadership from both sides of the aisle; the chairs and vice­chairs of both finance committees, all their staffs and a partridge in a pear tree for good measure.

Donna slipping me updates on the status of Hurricane Gaston every couple of hours. Each time she ducks in, the other sides stop talking and sulk until she exits.

“If any of these negotiations leak to the press, the gloves come off,” Congressman Haffley, a six­term Republican from Texas and new Speaker of the House, threatens. Bipartisan cooperation isn’t anyone’s strong point these days, but we’re making a serious, public effort and forcing hands across the board. Nobody likes it and everybody is looking to accuse the other side of being two­faced.

“Donna Moss isn’t not going to leak anything to anyone,” Leo attempts to placate him. I think he knows what she’s bringing me, but he hasn’t asked about it, specifically.

“I’ve heard different,” his Chief of Staff scoffs.

“You heard wrong,” I reply, angry at what he’s insinuating.

Leo leans over the table, growling at all of us. “These discussions are as confidential as each of us makes them. There’s no need to accuse anyone of anything they haven’t actually done.”

Haffley and his aide grumble but return to the discussion at hand readily enough. I’m having difficulty concentrating, though. I didn’t get to read much of the report Donna brought in, but what I did read scared the crap out of me. Hurricane Gaston is expected to strengthen over the next 24 hours and continue a southerly track, ultimately reaching Category 4 status and making landfall in southern Florida sometime Wednesday.

While we break for dinner, I review the report in its entirety. The situation down there is starting to concern me greatly. The National Weather Service has issued hurricane warnings for the entire eastern coast of Florida. Donna talked to Mom a couple of times today and she was trying to get a flight to Washington, but it didn’t look good. As the storm turned last night, most of the available seats to anywhere were snapped up. She doesn’t want to drive, because there’s really no way she can get to safety in time. Mom was resigned to hunkering down and riding it out when she last spoke with Donna.

“What’s she bringing you?” Leo sits down next to me. I’ve secluded myself in a corner in order to read the report thoroughly.

“Weather updates.” I hand him the summary sheet.

“There’s a mandatory evacuation, Josh. Everything will be fine,” he says pragmatically.

“Yeah, everything will be fine,” I repeat and close the folder containing the update. If everything’s going to be fine, why do I still have this sinking feeling in my stomach?

After two more hours, we finally adjourn. The White House team retires to the Oval Office where we spend the next four hours going over what we’ve gained, given up and still have to haggle over.

Leo’s plan to bludgeon the opposition with my unreasonable demands and then follow up behind with some lesser­known, more conciliatory faces is working fairly well. I think it’d be working better if I weren’t consumed by worry.

“Josh?”

“Hmm?” I snap out of my reverie to find everyone in the room staring at me. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m just tired.”

“It is late,” Leo acknowledges the clock on the wall ticking midnight. “Why don’t we call it a day?”

Hurricane: An intense tropical weather system of strong thunderstorms with a well­defined surface circulation and maximum sustained winds of 74 mph or higher.

Donna’s first note of the morning, slipped to me as I file into the Mural Room for today’s budget meetings, is simple: ‘landfall in two hours.’

Gaston finally did something it was predicted to: it picked up steam and it bore more to the south. I fell asleep in front of The Weather Channel around three o’clock and woke around five to discover the damn thing had been upgraded to a Category 4 and was now heading for Miami at quite a clip.

I skipped off Staff this morning to take a short meeting with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who will be coordinating disaster relief with Federal, State and Local authorities and civilian organizations like the Red Cross.

When I asked the representative from the National Hurricane Center how bad this was going to be, he shrugged and said. “It’s small and powerful. Probably on par with Andrew, maybe worse.”

His predication did nothing for the knot in my stomach.

“Are we ready for it?” Leo asks as we settle into our chairs. Gaston’s going to compete heavily for our attention today.

“As ready as we can be. The hurricane guy I talked to said it could be worse than Andrew,” I answer. “It’ll start coming ashore in the next couple of hours. Best case would have it making landfall between Miami and Daytona. Worst case, it hits Miami head on. The FEMA people are saying the course change occurred too rapidly for them to get many people out of the way.”

He opens his mouth to say something else when the Republican team arrives and demands a $15 billion increase in defense spending. I counter with $15 million, which is just enough to cover a 3% supplemental pay increase for every member of the military.

Haffley and Connolly spend the next hour hurling statistics at us in an attempt to justify what they want. I come back with $30 million.

Leo lets it go on another three hours before he steps in and offers a compromise of a $6 billion increase in spending with the assurance the military pay tables will be revised to reflect a 10% increase across the board. They jump on it, which is exactly what Leo wanted.

I head to my office when we break for lunch to find Donna at my desk, watching CNN.

“I don’t understand why they stand out in the middle of a hurricane like this.” She gestures at the reporter struggling to stand upright in the driving rain.

“Dunno.” I grab the other half of her sandwich, then reach for my phone. I tried to call Mom this morning, but nobody answered at home or her cell.

Donna shakes her head. “I’ve been trying all morning. They’re saying the phones are out.”

“It hasn’t even come ashore, yet!” I protest, dialing my mother’s number anyway.

“The leading winds have. About 115 miles an hour already.”

The rapid busy signal I’m hearing convinces me she’s right. Phone service in Palm Beach is out.

“She’ll be okay, Josh,” Donna reaches for my hand when I set the receiver down. I nod and try to smile when she squeezes it gently.

We watch the coverage of Gaston’s initial foray into Florida. The reporter is in Fort Lauderdale and the winds whipping around him are not encouraging considering the main brunt of the storm has yet to reach land and will do so about 50 miles north of where this idiot is standing. I pick at the half­sandwich I stole from Donna, uninterested in eating even though I haven’t had anything since dinner last night.

“There’s this part of me…” I begin in a low voice, stopping and then starting again. “There’s this part of me that…”

“Don’t say it,” she warns. “Don’t.”

Her superstitious nature brings the flash of a grin to my lips, which quickly dies. “I won’t say it, but…”

“I know.” Donna stands up, moving around the desk so she can rest her hand on my arm. Even though my jacket and shirt separate our skin, I still tingle under her touch. Our eyes meet and I know she understands what I’m feeling. Warmth floods my veins when she straightens my lapels and tie the way my mom used to do for my dad every morning before he left for work. “You need to go. Do good.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, wanting desperately to finish the ritual I remember from my childhood and kiss her pale lips. I can’t, however, so I settle for brushing my hand against hers and biting my lower lip.

She nods and returns to my chair to monitor the hurricane situation.

I return to the Mural Room with a heavy heart for more than one reason.

The meetings drag on even longer as I wait anxiously for Donna’s hourly updates. They’re increasingly bad. The storm slams ashore mid­afternoon, the eye passing directly over Palm Beach. There is no electricity, no phone service, no cellular service, no nothing. Not even those stupid, yet intrepid, reporters have ventured into the Palm Beach area. Governor Ritchie has the Florida National Guard poised to take action as soon as it’s safe.

I pass every update on to Leo, who is expecting less and less participation from me as the arguments over non­defense spending rage around the table. I sit silently, praying for some sort of mercy. I realized at some point today that when I say my mother and I are the only members of my family left, it isn’t an exaggeration.

My dad’s parents came to America in the 1934, after Hitler banned Jews from being able to receive legal qualifications. My grandfather was just finishing his law degree and had a premonition that Germany was headed down a slippery slope. After the war, Grandfather Lyman wasn’t able to find a single surviving relative.

My mother’s mother fled Czechoslovakia for Greece just before the German invasion. She and my grandfather were only able to afford bribes to get one of them false papers. Grandfather Vrba survived the German concentration camps and was able to join my grandmother in Greece after the war. The only two survivors of their families, they immigrated to America in the late ‘40s.

Neither my mother nor my father had siblings. Despite what Toby believes, my family is not that far removed from the immigrant slums of New York City. It was only after I was born and my father got promoted to a senior associate at his firm that we were able to move to the Connecticut suburbs. By the time I started Harvard, our family had shrunk to just my mother, my father and I. It really is just Mom and I now. The mere thought of something happening to Mom leaves me feeling desolate and empty inside.

The pressure of a hand on my shoulder gains my attention. Leo is standing behind me, indicating it’s time to end the meeting.

“You okay?” he asks as we head toward the Oval Office to fill the President in on today’s results.

“Yeah,” I lie, shaking my head to clear the impending doom.

Leo stops at a cross corridor. “Toby’s putting together a trip, once the storm blows through. Probably tomorrow afternoon, I assume you want to go?”

“Yeah,” I repeat, still smothered by the thoughts in my head even as we take our seats across from President Bartlet. The sun set long ago and I’m mesmerized the darkness outside. The thought of my mother going through something as horrific as this hurricane by herself is almost paralyzing. I should have been there or I should have insisted she come to stay with me.

The briefing comes and goes without my ever uttering a sound. I only know it’s over because someone taps my knee. I stand hastily, noticing I’m alone with President Bartlet.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I mumble, unsure if he wants me to stay or go at this point.

He nods wordlessly, saying absolutely nothing as he walks to his desk and picks up a folder. “We’re leaving around ten tomorrow morning unless circumstances change overnight. Leo says you want to go?”

“Yes, sir. I…”

“I need to you work, Josh, not go off half­cocked. There should be some time for you to contact your mother, but it’s not your primary purpose. If you want to take an extra day and fly home commercial, we can arrange something,” he says, sternly. “But while I’m down there, you’re working.”

“Yes, sir.” It’s all I can really ask for.

“I’ll see you in the morning.” Bartlet dismisses me.

The Eyewall: The dense wall of thunderstorms surrounding the eye has the strongest winds within the storm.

Wednesday night is one more night I barely sleep. I watch hurricane coverage until I pass out from exhaustion, only to wake in time to be in the White House at 6 am. At some point, they got video from Palm Beach. I have never seen such destruction in my life. They dig out footage of Homestead after Hurricane Andrew’s assault in ‘92 and it looks identical.

Every hour on the hour, I try my mother’s cell phone. There’s no point in trying her home phone, but I hope against hope I can get through on her cell. I need to know she’s okay.

I need to know I’m not alone.

CJ, Will and Donna round out the Presidential party. Donna is the only one aware of my circumstances. I didn’t want everyone hovering over me. I think CJ suspects something is wrong ­ she keeps looking at me funny.

Air Force One lands in Miami and we’re greeted by the mayor of Miami, who isn’t joining us on the tour and the Adjutant General of the Florida National Guard and Governor Ritchie, who are. Under the harsh lights of the media, we cross the tarmac to the helicopter waiting to transport us to the hardest hit areas. Governor Ritchie impresses me with his lack of animosity.

I listen with half an ear, relying on Donna to take notes. I stare out the windows of the helicopter at the scale of the destruction. What I saw on television last night was not an accurate representation of what Gaston really did to South Florida. All I see below me is debris, there are no recognizable streets or buildings. It’s as though a lumberyard vomited its contents willy­nilly across the city.

“Your phone probably won’t work,” General King says when I pull it out to try my mother’s number again. “Too many towers down to support much service.”

Someone cleared a parking lot near the beach for us to land on. It’s still raining some and the surf pounds the concrete barriers of the pier. The neighborhood looks vaguely familiar, but none of the landmarks I remember are present. The mayor of Palm Beach greets us when we disembark.

“Most of these folks evacuated,” he explains, guiding us up a residential street so the press can take pictures of President Bartlet surveying the damage. I stay a step behind, trying to reconcile what the mayor is saying with what I’m seeing. “Those who didn’t leave suffered a high casualty rate.”

Fear and adrenaline course through me when he says that. Only Donna’s hand on my back keeps me from dashing through the streets in a mad, desperate search for Mom.

The residents of this neighborhood who didn’t go far are filtering back in and we stop to talk with some of them. President Bartlet is listening and expressing his sympathy, so I take a moment to wander a few yards away to try Mom’s cell phone again.

It rings this time ­ which is an improvement from the ‘the cellular customer you are trying to reach is not available’ message I’ve been getting.

I pace the street, waiting for her to answer when the faint, distorted sound of Ave Marie reaches my ears for just a second and then fades away, coinciding with my mother’s voicemail picking up.

Hanging up, I quickly redial, not putting the phone to my ear ­ just listening for Ave Marie. It’s coming from the remnants of the bungalow to my left. I pick my way through the yard, oblivious to everything around me. The sound stops and I dial again, stepping over the studs of the blown­over wall to what I think is the living room, if I remember the layout of the house correctly. The music leads me to the kitchen, identifiable by the garish linoleum, where a cell phone lays on the floor. I pick it up, scrolling through the phone book to an entry labeled Josh cell. The ring of my own phone confirms it.

***

“Where’d Josh go?” President Bartlet looks around, having finished talking with some victims. I was busy taking notes, so I didn’t notice my boss wander away, but I quickly spot him.

“He’s over there, sir.” I point out his red­shirted figure in the middle of a destroyed home. “I’ll go get him.”

I walk quickly across the street and watch Josh kneel down in the rubble. He picks up what looks like a book and opens it. I can’t believe he’s just randomly going through someone’s things. I know he’s worried about his mom, but this is weird.

The storm seems to have ripped the roof off and then blown the house over like a stack of dominoes. It’s strange what weather can do to a home, an odd wall still stands and you can see the floor plan of the house, but everything is destroyed.

“Josh?” I call, joining him in the room.

He looks up at me, his face blank, but his eyes filled with immeasurable grief and I know.

“Oh, no. Josh…” I squat next to him and look at the book in his hands. It’s a photo album, all the proof either of us need. I remember Josh’s mom showing me these pictures when we were in Florida on a campaign swing last fall. We stopped by for the afternoon and she delighted in torturing Josh by showing me the few embarrassing photos from his childhood that survived the fire.

“Maybe she’s at a shelter. Have you tried her cell again?”

He doesn’t say a word, he just hands me a battered phone.

“I’ll go see what I can find out,” I say, squeezing his shoulder and leaving him in the remains of another destroyed family home.

President Bartlet is still chatting with the mayor and Governor Ritchie, so I head for them, figuring the mayor will know how we can find out where to start looking for Josh’s mom.

“Excuse me, sir,” I come to a breathless stop.

“What’s going on?” the President demands, reminding me how Josh said Bartlet had been rather short with him the previous evening, telling him work had to come first.

“Can I talk to you alone for a moment, sir?” I ask, unwilling to discuss Josh’s private grief in front of strangers.

He frowns, but steps away from the group, gesturing for me to get on with it.

I point to where Josh is kneeling in his mother’s living room and speak low and quickly. “That’s Arella Lyman’s house. Her cell phone was still inside and the last time I talked to her yesterday, she was planning to ride the storm out. I know Josh wasn’t supposed to be actively looking for her right now, but I think…”

Bartlet’s eyes don’t waver from Josh. “It’s okay, Donna. I understand. Let’s see if we can find anything out, shall we?”

He catches Mayor Nichols attention and waves for him to join us.

“Yes, sir?”

“Is there some kind of record of what happened to the people to whom these houses belong?” President Bartlet asks.

“I’m not sure what you mean?” Nichols takes his hat off and scratches his head.

“You said earlier that response teams had already been through this neighborhood and brought out the injured and the deceased. If we wanted to know if a person was removed from a particular house, is that possible?” Bartlet tries to clarify.

“It’d be easier if we knew a name. Although we have some unidentified victims, both injured and dead.”

The President nods at me. “Donna will give you the name. We need this done quickly and with the utmost discretion, please.”

Mayor Nichols nods his understand and then turns to me. “Do you know the person’s name and approximate age?”

“Arella Lyman. She’s in her late 60s,” I answer.

“It might take me an hour to get an answer. We’ve got to get the information from the Red Cross,” he says.

The glare he receives is one I fine­tuned by watching Leo. “We need it to happen faster than that.”

“I’ll do what I can,” he says, heading off to find someone from his staff.

Will and CJ intercept me on my way back to Josh.

“What’s up?” CJ asks, glancing over her shoulder at my boss. They both look concerned as opposed to curious. There’s no point in keeping the truth from them.

“Josh hasn’t been about to get a hold of his mom since yesterday afternoon. She couldn’t get a flight out and was going to ride the storm out at home. Except,” I point at what’s left of Mrs. Lyman’s bungalow, “That’s home.”

“Oh my God,” CJ breathes. She takes two steps toward the wreckage and then stops, unsure of what to do.

“Has he been able to talk to her since he got down here?” Will asks.

I shake my head. “The President just asked Mayor Nichols to see if the Red Cross could tell us anything.”

CJ continues to stand rooted to the street, staring. “How’s Josh?”

“He’s…” I trail off with a shrug. How do you explain the devastated look on Josh’s face, the lack of anything except misery? Fortunately, I don’t have to. Josh is stumbling toward us, the old photo album clasped to his chest.

His appearance propels CJ into motion and she greets him at the curb. I can’t hear what she’s saying to him, but I appreciate the way she pulls him into a comforting hug, letting him know he’s not alone. He nods at something she says when she releases him and starts toward the President, CJ at his elbow. I fall in on his other side, slightly surprised when he reaches out and grasps my hand. Will detours over to the press pool to give them the barest details of what’s going on.

The whole group knows by the time we rejoin them. Governor Ritchie even pats Josh on the shoulder, offering to do whatever he can to help. Josh, who hasn’t spoken since he found his mother’s cell phone, just nods his thanks. His face is blank mask, but his brown eyes are overflowing with anguish.

President Bartlet takes him by the arm and guides him to the helicopter, speaking in low tones. By the time we’ve all strapped in Mayor Nichols’s cell phone rings. The pilots delay firing up the engine and the rotors.

Except for Josh, we all look at Nichols expectantly. Josh continues to clutch the photo album to his chest and stare at the deck of the helicopter. From where I’m sitting next to him, I reach over and rub his back.

Nichols gets out of his seat and squats in front of Josh, but begins in a voice loud enough for the rest of us to hear. “They don’t have any information on your mother specifically.” He pauses before continuing in a softer voice. “There are three unidentified bodies in the city morgue. One of them is a white female in her mid to late 60s.”

The trembling of Josh’s lips is the only indication of comprehension he gives. There’s nothing I can say, so I just continue to rub his back.

CJ is across from us and overheard what Mayor Nichols said. She unbuckles herself and crosses to where the President and Governor Ritchie are seated, relying the information to them. President Bartlet looks at Josh and nods, telling CJ something.

She returns and takes the mayor’s place in front of Josh.

Resting her hand on his knee, CJ tells him what’s been decided. “We’re going to the hospital to talk to some victims and Red Cross people. A car is going to meet us there to take you and Donna to the morgue. We’ll play it by ear from there, but the President says you’re done working today, okay? He said you’d understand what he meant.”

Josh nods once then closes his eyes and bites his lip. CJ squeezes his knee and then returns to her seat so the pilots can take off.

“It’ll be okay, Josh,” I murmur, not sure if I’m trying to hold out hope his mother might possibly be alive or trying to express my sympathy at what we both know is the likely outcome.

The flight to the hospital is mercifully brief. Josh and I wait until everyone else has climbed off the helicopter before we exit and make our way to the waiting car. A National Guard soldier opens the back door for us. As soon as he can get behind the wheel, the car takes off.

We’re met at the morgue by a city official who has obviously been informed of the sensitive nature of the situation. He shakes Josh’s hand and ushers us to a private viewing room and pulls back the sheet. I don’t particularly want to be here, but Josh has hold of my hand again and doesn’t seem keen on letting go.

His eyelids flicker rapidly as he blinks back the tears.

“Yeah,” he says only the one word.

“There is some paperwork that has to be done before we can release the body,” the man says as tactfully as possible.

“Yeah,” Josh repeats, following the man out of the room and into a deserted office.

He continues his battle against the tears when he starts on the papers and to my surprise doesn’t succumb to them.

“Do you plan to bury your mother in the area, Mr. Lyman, or will you need to transport her somewhere else?” A funeral director has replaced the city official. I know he’s a funeral director because he’s wearing a little nametag identifying him as Neil from Weiss Memorial Gardens.

“Um… My dad is buried in Connecticut,” Josh whispers. “I’m pretty sure Mom bought two plots when he died…”

“Do you know what cemetery? I can call and find out for you and make some preliminary arrangements,” Neil offers. I’m impressed with his sensitivity.

“It was the cemetery affiliated with our temple. I’m not sure of the name,” Josh rubs his forehead. “Temple Israel in Westport. I don’t…”

Neil smiles, clearly knowing how to deal with people in the clutches of grief. “It’s okay, Mr. Lyman. That’s enough. I can contact the rabbi there and get things taken care of as quickly as possible. I’ll also arrange for someone from a local temple to sit with your mother until you leave for Connecticut. Is there a phone number I can reach you at?”

Josh glances at me. I dig one of his business cards out and swap it for Neil’s.

“If either of you have any questions, Mrs. Lyman, feel free to call me.”

“Thank you.” I don’t say anything about his gaffe, figuring it would just make the situation more uncomfortable for Josh.

Neil turns us back over to the city official, who escorts us to the hospital. CJ is pacing the lobby.

She rushes over to us breathlessly, biting off her question when she gets close enough to see the answer written on Josh’s face.

“Oh, Josh,” CJ cries, wrapping her arms around him.

He pats her back and extradites himself from her arms. Our arrival timed out perfectly. CJ doesn’t have time to ask any questions before the Presidential Party exits the elevator.

President Bartlet nods his head when he reaches us, confirming what he feared.

“Okay, this is what we’re going to do. Donna, take Josh and head to the hotel in Miami. Call Leo. Fill him in and have him take care of the details. CJ, give the press as little information as possible. Josh, do you want to make a statement?” Bartlet waits for Josh to shake his head no before continuing. “We’ll finish up here and meet you in Miami before we head back.”

There’s no argument to the President’s plan, which, due to its comprehensive nature, I assume came from Leo.

Josh takes my hand again as we walk back to the car.

“You know where we’re going?” I ask the driver.

“Yes, ma’am,” he answers, snapping the door shut.

I glance at Josh while I dig my phone out of my purse. He’s still hugging the photo album while he stares blankly out the window at the passing destruction.

“Margaret, it’s Donna.”

“He’s been waiting for you to call. How’s Josh?” Margaret sounds genuinely concerned.

“Not good.” I steal another look at his pale, expressionless face. “Can I talk to him?”

The line clicks and Leo’s somber voice greets me. “Hey, kiddo.”

“Hi, Leo. The President told me to call in.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “How’s he doing?”

“It’s about what you’d expect.” I’m intentionally vague to keep Josh from knowing I’m talking about him.

“What’s going on?”

“There was a funeral director at the morgue. He’s going to make the arrangements with the temple in Westport for us. I’m going to call the rabbi for Josh when we arrive in Miami, to start making arrangements.”

“Is there any family you can think of who need to be notified? I couldn’t come up with anyone.”

“None that I know of, but I’ll ask to make sure.”

“We’ll all be there, Donna. Don’t let him think he has to go through this alone,” Leo says, sorrowfully. He’s quiet for a minute before resuming in a more business­like tone. “After the funeral, he’ll probably need to go back to Florida to deal with the insurance people and her estate. Tell him he can take as much time as he needs, okay? And I want you to stay with him.”

“I will, Leo. Thank you.” I’m truly grateful. The idea of leaving Josh to deal with this alone is not a pleasant one.

I turn to Josh after I shove the phone back in my purse. When he meets my eyes, I start to fill him in on the side of the conversation he couldn’t hear.

“Leo says…” I stop when Josh presses a finger to my lips.

He shakes his head and returns to staring out the window. It isn’t long before his hand finds mine again.

***

It’s like I’m watching myself from across the street. I don’t seem to have conscious control of my body. Someone speaks to me, I nod. Someone points me in a direction, I walk. I cling to two things ­ the tattered old photo album I took from Mom’s house and Donna. One is the only evidence I have of ever having had a family. The other is my only hope for the future.

The damage I see out the car window lessens as we get closer to Miami. Gaston was a small storm, a mere 70 miles wide. The city of Miami only suffered minor damage when compared to the complete destruction of Palm Beach.

Donna doesn’t say anything the rest of the drive, but I can feel her eyes on me. I’m sure she’s worried, but right now I’m just overwhelmed with loss. I have no desire to speak or listen or anything for that matter. I just want to curl up in a ball and cry myself to sleep with the hope I wake up in the morning to learn this has all been a terrible nightmare.

The doorman at the Hyatt Regency gives me a look of disdain when he opens the car door, clearly believing I don’t belong here. I’m dressed in hiking boots, jeans and a work shirt, all of which are dirty and stained after only a few minutes of picking through my mother’s home. If you didn’t know me, you wouldn’t believe I work in the White House. Donna’s no more dressed up than I am, but she strides confidently across the lobby to the concierge. I can’t do anything but tuck the photo album under my arm and attempt to look like the world as I know it didn’t just collapsed around me.

“My name is Donna Moss.” I hear Donna say to the impeccably tailored woman at the desk. “I’m with…”

“Ah, yes,” the woman interrupts, rifling through a stack of message slips. “Mr. McGarry’s office called. You and Mr. Lyman require two suites for at least two nights, correct?”

“I’m not sure how long we’ll need them for,” Donna says. “We’ll know more in a couple of hours.”

“There’s only one problem.” The concierge looks at Donna apologetically and then over Donna’s shoulder at me. “With so many people displaced because of the storm, we’re packed full. We can only give you one suite. It has a bedroom with a king sized bed and a sitting room with two sofas that pull out to double beds, but…”

Donna looks at me questioningly. I shrug, leaving the decision up to her ­ I could care less.

“We’ll take it,” Donna sighs. “Our luggage should be arriving shortly. Can you have someone send it up?”

“Of course, Ms. Moss,” the concierge hands over the keycards. “Enjoy your stay.”

With great effort I force myself to put one foot in front of the other and follow Donna to the elevator.

“We’re on the 21st floor, room 2124,” she notes, looking at the keycard folder. About eight other people join us and she falls silent. This time, Donna grips my hand when we press ourselves against the back of the elevator.

Room 2124 is an incredibly long walk from the elevators. When we arrive, Donna works the keycard and opens the door to an impressive sitting room overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. I stumble over the plush carpet to the nearest sofa and collapse under the heavy burden of my grief.

“Do you want something to eat?” Donna turns away from the picture window.

I can tell she’s struggling against the urge to mother hen me, but I’m really not hungry so I just shake my head no.

“You should…” she begins and then stops before crossing the room and sitting next to me with her legs curled up under her. She takes the photo album from me and sets it on the coffee table.

“I’m sorry, Josh,” she whispers, a tear slipping down her face. “Your mom was a wonderful woman. She was always so nice to me…”

“Mom thought the world of you. She always asked about you and worried about you,” I interrupt, my voice harsh with the pain I’m fighting to control.

Her hand cups my face and I reach out to brush a stray hair from her face. Donna is the only one who has any clue what I’m feeling right now. Sam would, if he was here, but Sam’s gone ­ off being an environmental lawyer in Los Angeles.

We’re inches apart and I never realized how blue Donna’s eyes are or how perfect her skin is. Under any other circumstances, I’d close the remaining distance between us and kiss this fabulous woman. Today? Today, I fight the all­encompassing sense of desolation and loss that comes with losing the last member of your family. My jaw aches from clenching and I can feel my lips quivering again.

Donna wraps her arms around me and pulls me to her shoulder. I try to let go and grieve, but finally given the opportunity, I can’t.

“Do you want to lie down?” Donna suggests, running her fingers through my hair. “You haven’t slept since Monday.”

“Yeah,” I whisper. Now that she mentions it, I am exhausted. I pry myself off the sofa and immediately miss Donna’s warmth.

The bed is so enticing I don’t even bother to remove my shoes. I just let myself flop face first on the scratchy bedspread. Some part of my brain notices that no matter how expensive the hotel, the bedspreads are always itchy.

***

It’s dark when the buzz of voices from the other room wakes me. Donna must have come in and taken my boots off. And my shirt and my trousers, I notice. She also tucked a pillow under my head and covered me with a blanket. Mom used to do this when I was little. I’d crash in the car on the way home from some place and Dad would carry me to bed. Mom would strip my clothes off and tuck me in without ever disturbing my dreams.

Mom…

I close my eyes against the memory of her chalk white face discolored by a large purple­black bruise on her temple, probably from a piece of loose plywood. Plywood that would have been firmly nailed to the house if I’d insisted on coming down here.

Guilt triggers the tears that finally slide down my cheeks. I don’t bother to fight them, but I bury my face in the pillow to stifle the sound of my sobs. If it were just Donna on the other side of the door, I wouldn’t bother. I can hear the low murmur of President Bartlet, however, and the mingled pitch of CJ and Will’s voices. I’d prefer they not witness my emotional meltdown.

I have no such luck. I’ve barely lost it and there’s a knock on the door. Hastily pulling myself together, I resort to wiping my nose on a pillowcase.

“Josh?” It’s the President who opens the door and slips inside the room.

“Yes, sir.” I swipe at my eyes and scramble off the bed.

“I didn’t wake you?” Even in the darkened room, I can see his genuine concern.

“No, sir.” I’m hopeful the lack of light hides the evidence of my tears.

“Sit down, son.” He closes the distance between us and lowers himself to the bed. I’m reminded of the last time we were in this situation, in Chicago after Dad’s passing. “Donna’s worried about you.”

I nod, resting my elbows on my knees and dropping my face to my hands. “Yes, sir.”

“We’re all worried about you,” Bartlet pats my back. “If you need anything, we’re here. You don’t need to go through this alone.”

I swallow hard. Part of me appreciates his kind words, but another part of me resents that he ordered me to stay in Washington when Mom wanted me to come help her. I feel the mattress shift when he stands, having ascertained I’m not in the mood to talk.

“Take as much time as you need. Don’t come back until you’re ready. In fact, you and Donna should both consider yourselves on emergency family leave, all right?”

“Yes, sir,” I say without moving.

“Do you feel up to seeing CJ?”

I answer with a shake of my head. I didn’t even feel up to what just occurred.

“Okay.” He pauses and then speaks again commandingly. “Josh.”

Looking up is a reflex action. His face is a weathered map of guilt.

“I’m sorry. If I could go back and make it right, I would.”

My mouth tries to form the words ‘yes, sir’ but I can’t bring myself to say them and absolve him of culpability.

He nods to himself after a moment and then leaves me to my heartache.

The door to the suite has barely slammed shut before Donna joins me in the bedroom. She finds me curled up, hugging a pillow to my chest. I silently thank whatever possesses her to wrap herself around me and give me shelter in her warmth and sympathy.

The tears won’t come again, so I just lie there in Donna’s arms, shaking, listening to her croon softly in my ear. In some hazy part of my brain, I begin to understand just how much I need her and how much I love her.

The Right Side of the Storm: As a general rule of thumb, the hurricane's right side (relative to the direction it is traveling) is the most dangerous part of the storm.

I don’t know which of us instigated it. It being what happened last night. I know I was curled around Josh, holding him until he fell asleep. Then some time in the middle of the night I woke to the sound of him sobbing. He had his face in a pillow, trying to muffle the sound. I know I reached out to touch him and it was like an electric shock passed between us. I pulled him to me and intending to let him cry himself out. I truthfully don’t know who kissed whom first but before either of us could stop it, we were doing something I had previously only fantasized about doing with Josh.

It wasn’t a dream or fantasy because we’re both naked this morning.

It isn’t lost on me that this is really, really bad. Josh is the White House Deputy Chief of Staff and I’m his Senior Assistant and we work in an administration that just suffered a sex scandal involving the Vice­President and several other high profile moral crises. My personal desires aside, this can’t have happened.

Oh, God, this can’t have happened.

Except Josh just tightened his arms around me and pulled me closer and this feels so right. This is the way I long to wake up every morning. Well, the part where Josh’s mom died yesterday puts a damper on things, but the waking up in Josh’s arms part is definitely something I’d like to repeat ad infinitum.

Except the thing where Josh is my boss and we work in the White House is the same problem it was yesterday.

I roll over in his embrace in order to watch him sleep. The dark circles are still prominent under his eyes and the anguish of the past 24 hours hasn’t gone anywhere. If anything it’s accentuated by his morning stubble. His lips are slightly parted and I can’t resist the urge to kiss him before getting up to make some phone calls. Josh moans deeply and sinks further into the bed, but stays asleep.

I shower and dress in the complimentary hotel bathrobe, then settle myself in the sitting room to start figuring out what to do.

Neil, from the morgue yesterday, has booked us on an afternoon, non­stop flight from West Palm Beach to Hartford and made arrangements for the transport of Mrs. Lyman’s body to the funeral home the rabbi at Temple Israel in Westport recommended. Josh was right, his mom bought two plots when his dad died. She also left instructions on file for her own services. All we need to do when we get to Connecticut is drive to Westport. I need to see about shopping for some clothes for Josh’s mom to be buried in. The funeral will be Sunday afternoon. Margaret informed me everyone from the staff is planning to attend and she’s had some congressional inquires as well. She sounds oddly excited when I tell her I doubt Josh would want anyone from the Hill attending and she should feel free to tell them to stay away.

Josh emerges from the bedroom around noon, clad only in a pair of boxer shorts. He continues to be subdued, which is an unusual mood for Josh Lyman. He walks up behind me and presses a kiss to the top of my head in an attempt to shoot my ‘ignore it and it never happened’ strategy to hell.

“Good morning.” His voice is gravelly and disturbingly sexy.

“We’re on a 3:30 flight from West Palm Beach to Hartford.” I’m all business. “Neil took care of the details and I talked with the rabbi and they’re taking care of everything once the body arrives in Connecticut.”

Josh, who has taken a seat on the coffee table in front of me, flinches when I use the word ‘body.’

I can’t stand the grief in his eyes so I look down at my notes. “The funeral is scheduled for two o’clock Sunday afternoon. Your mom left instructions with the temple after your dad died.”

“Donna,” Josh interrupts, reaching for my arms. “We need to talk about last night.”

“No, we don’t,” I shake my head, still staring at the note cards in my hands. “If we don’t talk about it, it didn’t happen and if it didn’t happen…”

“Stop,” he commands, getting to his knees so he can try to catch my eye. “It happened. We can’t ignore it. We can’t.”

“It was the emotion of the moment,” I theorize. “You were distraught and I was comforting you and it got out of control. You need to get showered and dressed. There’s a car picking us up in thirty minutes to take us to the airport,” I order firmly, making it clear I am entertaining no further conversation on the matter.

Josh remains on his knees in front of me for a moment. I’m left speechless when he leans in and kisses me.

“We’re not done talking about it,” he states, as adamant as I just was.

***

I’m mildly surprised when he lets it go for the entirety of our trip to Connecticut. He spends the flight flipping through the photo album he took from the rubble of his mother’s house and telling me stories about the individual pictures. I don’t have the heart to remind him his mom already did this. And the stories have a different flavor coming from his point of view.

We rent a car at the airport and, at my request, Josh drives us to a mall. With his guidance, I pick out a suitable outfit for his mother and we both get a couple days’ worth of underwear and toiletry items. Margaret told me earlier that Leo sent the Secret Service to our apartments to get us more clothes.

The drive to Westport takes about 90 minutes. We check in with the funeral home as soon as we arrive. I wait in the car while Josh goes in and delivers the clothes to the funeral director.

“Do you want dinner before we go to the hotel?” Josh asks, sliding behind the wheel.

“Let’s just get room service,” I suggest. Josh continues to look like hell. I’d like him to get another good night’s sleep before facing everyone tomorrow.

He appears disappointed to learn I reserved us adjoining rooms instead of one suite. It’s part of my ‘ignore it’ strategy. One of us needs to be thinking clearly about this and since Josh is consumed by his mother’s death, I’m going to have to be the grown­up.

I putter around my room, hanging up my clothes to air them out and hand­washing everything I can. The only thing I’m wearing when Josh finds me in the bathroom is the robe I stole from the Hyatt in Miami.

“Can we talk now?” he asks.

“Josh!” I squeal. I didn’t see him coming.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen your underwear before,” he points out with a sad smile.

It’s good to see him coming out of his shock. The subject matter of our conversation is likely to dampen his mood, however. I don’t intend to give in, no matter how much I hate my decision.

“We’re not talking about it because it didn’t happen,” I insist, trying to ignore the way my heart is pounding in my chest.

“It did happen, Donna.” He steps forward, invading my personal space. I suck in my breath when he tugs the tie around my waist, opening the white terry robe. His warm hands on my hips again cause an electric shock to course through my body, betraying my plan to be the adult in this situation.

Those deep brown eyes bore into my heart. It did happen and I’d give anything for it to happen again.

“It happened,” I softly acknowledge, surrendering.

Our lips meet and it happens again.

The Spiral Rainbands: The storm’s outer rainbands (often with hurricane or tropical storm­force winds) can extend a few hundred miles from the center.

The ceremony was simple and beautiful. Josh, who had been increasingly less morose on Saturday, remained silent throughout except when he took the podium to recite a prayer. He left the eulogy to the rabbi ­ a man who had known his mother for many years. We were snuggled together last night when he asked me if I thought it would be inappropriate. He had been unable to put anything coherent together and feared he would be unable to contain his emotions when reading it.

Since I hold him every night when he wakes up crying, I understood his concern. He doesn’t want to lose control in front of his friends and colleagues.

The rabbi did a wonderful job of memorializing Arella Lyman as a proud, loving mother and wife and respected member of the community.

Toby, Sam, Will, Charlie and Ed and Larry served as pallbearers. Despite my preference to fade into the background, Josh has kept me at his side, rarely letting go of my hand. I feel as though I’m wearing a neon sign proclaiming ‘I’m having sex with my boss.’

There’s a reception of sorts after the interment. Toby tries to explain to me that it’s supposed to be in the family’s home. But since Josh’s mom sold the house when she moved to Florida, Rabbi Fineman kindly offered us the use of the temple basement.

There are more people here than I thought there would be and more than one little old lady refers to me as Josh’s girlfriend. They’ve all known Josh since he was born and several of them delight in pulling me away from him to ply me with stories about how he tormented his mother when he was a child. The way they tell their stories, though, you know he was just a high­spirited little boy and his mother was very proud of him. The Josh in those tales is never more than seven or eight years old, though, and they speak obliquely of his sister Joanie.

After a couple of hours, people start to filter out. Leo snags me and tells me to take care of Josh and to not let him rush back to work.

“The tickets back to Florida are taken care of and the Hyatt is holding your suite. Call this guy when you get back down there,” he says, handing me the business card for a FEMA guy. “He’ll make sure the insurance adjusters don’t dawdle.”

“Thanks, Leo,” I impulsively hug him.

He brushes his thumb across my cheek in a rare gesture of affection. “Take care of him, kiddo. He needs you.”

“I will,” I whisper, wondering if Leo suspects and if he does what his reaction would be.

I doubt it would be good. Fortunately, Josh and I made a tacit agreement this morning ­ the affair must end when we return to work. Well, I said those words, I don’t know if Josh believes I plan to stick to them.

***

We spent Monday in New York City with the lawyers going over Mom’s will and estate. Tuesday we flew back to Florida. The call from Leo comes on Thursday while Donna and I are working at Mom’s house. The insurance company needs a list of her possessions to pay off the homeowner’s claim.

“Have you seen the news?” Leo demands.

This is the first time we’ve talked since Mom’s funeral on Sunday. Donna’s been keeping in touch with Margaret and what she gleans from Leo’s assistant is the only info I have on the status of things in Washington. When Donna and I return to the hotel at night, we’ve been occupying ourselves in highly enjoyable ways that don’t lend themselves to television.

“No,” I groan, collapsing on a soggy patch of ground. Today is the first day since Saturday it hasn’t rained down here and cleaning up the wet debris is back­breaking work.

“We’re going to need a new FBI director,” he says.

“Why?”

“His wife caught him with a cadet at Quantico,” Leo growls.

“Ah, shit,” I sigh, knowing this is going to have serious, negative repercussions in my own life. “He’s going to resign?”

“Yeah. Any idea on when you’re coming back to work?”

I know he’s only asking because they need me. A second sex scandal and the continuing political fall­out from Zoey’s kidnapping is not the type of workload Leo can easily handle on his own. Damage control on this is going to be my responsibility.

“Probably Monday. My appointment with FEMA is Friday morning. We finish up with the insurance adjustor Friday afternoon. Donna’s got us on a flight to D.C. on Saturday and I was planning to take Sunday to get my personal stuff squared away.”

“Okay. It broke this morning. He’s resigning this afternoon. Plan to make vetting a new FBI director your top priority when you get back. How’s Donna?” He lowers his voice when he asks about Donna.

“She’s okay. We cry a lot at night,” I admit.

“Josh, I know… I know things are on the verge of changing for you two, but…” he stammers. Leo at a loss for words is unnerving.

“I know. I hear you,” I answer, disgusted at the circumstances. There has to be a way to make this work.

“Just be careful,” Leo admonishes.

“I will be.”

I snap my phone shut and look up just in time to dodge Donna’s playful kick as she passes on her way to the garbage pile.

“Get up, lazy!” She calls over her shoulder.

She’s so beautiful it makes my heart stop. She’s wearing the briefest of tank tops and worn jeans, her hair is tied back in a pony tail revealing her long neck and sculpted shoulders. Her mission over the past several days seems to be to make me laugh at least five times a day. Under her watchful eye, I find myself dwelling less on the loss and more on the good memories.

“I’m up!” I clamber to my feet and head back into the house, but my mood is shot.

We finish in Florida on the schedule I gave Leo. FEMA, the insurance company and even Mom’s mortgage company offer quick and fair settlements. Just the same, Dad taught me to never sign anything without having a lawyer review it first. Donna taught me never to think I’m really a lawyer, so the offers to go to the firm in New York.

I don’t tell her about Leo’s phone call until we’re on the plane to Washington Saturday. My theory is she can’t explode on me in public ­ it would contradict her own ‘it never happened’ plan. A plan I’m not particularly fond of. A plan I’m trying to think of a way to circumvent.

“Leo called on Thursday,” I whisper. We’re sitting in the middle of a mostly empty first class section, but I don’t chance being overheard.

“And?” Donna closes her magazine.

“Gordon Miller,” I begin, getting no further before Donna interrupts.

“Gordon Miller? The director of the FBI, Gordon Miller?” she clarifies.

“Right. His wife caught him with a cadet at the FBI academy at Quantico,” I finish.

She narrows her eyes at me, pursing her lips. I can tell she wants to rip into me for keeping this from her. I can also see the wall of professionalism slam down. The sparkle that’s been in her eye all week vanishes.

“He’s resigning, I assume.”

“Resigned Thursday. We have to start vetting candidates on Monday. Leo said to make it our priority.”

“I think the list from when we filled it with Miller is in storage in the EEOB. I’ll go over there Monday morning and find it,” she says crisply.

“Donna,” I reach for her hand, trying to make her understand it could be different for us.

She pulls her hand away and lowers her voice even more. “It never happened. We agreed when we got back to Washington it would stop anyway.”

“You agreed. I said we ought to consider all of our options,” I object.

“It. Never. Happened.” She hisses harshly before turning to stare out the window.

Those three little words destroy the dam holding back my anguish and her rejection makes me think I’ll drown in the flood of despair. We go our separate ways upon landing. Donna takes a cab home and I take one to the White House, where my car is parked.

The hallways are empty. Most staffers seem to be taking advantage of what may well be the last decent Saturday of summer. One look around the chaos of my office and I decide to take refuge there and start catching up before Monday.

Storm Surge: Water that is pushed toward the shore by the force of the winds swirling around the storm. The greatest potential for loss of life related to a hurricane is from the storm surge, which historically has claimed nine of ten victims.

Hiding in my office, consuming myself with work is a strategy no one questions. Everyone chalks my reticence up to Mom’s death, and they’re partially correct ­ though it mostly has to do with my inability to cope without Donna caring for me. The merciful part is nobody knows what to say, so they all leave me alone.

Day slips to night slips to day and I hide in my office, watching Donna go about her daily grind as though we never crossed the line. A week passes, two weeks and it’s obvious nobody, aside from Leo, suspects a thing. CJ doesn’t come storming into my sanctuary demanding to know what possessed me to sleep with my assistant. Leo takes a page from Donna’s book and refrains from speaking to me about my personal life.

At least for a while.

I’ve been back to work a month before he calls me to his office late one night.

“How are you doing?”

It’s not lost on me he’s closed both doors even though both Margaret and the President cashed in a couple of hours ago.

“It’s going well,” I choose to interpret his question to be about the selection process for the FBI vacancy. “I’ve got it narrowed down to four guys, including the interim guy.”

He takes the seat next to mine, leaning forward. “I’m not talking about work, Josh. Your work is fine. Too fine, actually. Are you going home at night?”

“Yes!” I try to sound indignant. I go home every night some time after one o’clock. I put on one of the flannel shirts Donna appropriated in Florida, one that still smells like her and sort through the boxes I had shipped back from Florida until I pass out from exhaustion.

Leo stares at me without blinking. “Did something happen between you and Donna while you were in Florida? Before I called you about Miller?”

“Leo, I really have work to do,” I bolt out of my chair, desperate to not answer his question.

“Josh…” He calls before my hand can turn the doorknob. I wait without turning to face him. “She doesn’t look any better than you do.”

Damn, I thought we’d been putting up a good front. Or at least Donna had been. She doesn’t refuse to interact with me, but she respects the boundary of my office. I’ve secluded myself from contact with everyone, not just her and when we do stalk the halls together, we’re professional. I’ve only grabbed fleeting glances of Donna in the last month, however. We’re like we were after the fiasco with Cliff Calley and her diary ­ a miserable time in my life if ever there was one.

I’ve never felt this way about a woman before. When my relationships have ended in the past, what I normally feel is relief. Now, I’m wallowing in the prospect of what Donna and I could have had, what we so fleetingly enjoyed. I woke up while we were together and knew I could face the rest of my life. The past month, I have found myself brooding over the loss of my family, past and future. The only relief I have is in my work.

***

The past six weeks, since we returned from Miami, have been the longest of my life. Josh is crumbling before my very eyes. He only leaves his office for meetings. He doesn’t bellow for me. He doesn’t look at me. He seeks me out and speaks to me only when necessary.

Everyone seems to be chalking it up to his mother’s death and the grief process, but I know better. I’ve experienced this before, when he had to fix my mistake with Cliff Calley. I know I did this to him and it makes me miserable. I wish I could fix it, but I don’t know how. I refuse to be responsible for ending his career in scandal. I don’t want to be that woman because I don’t think his infatuation will last long enough to suit me. I want to be with him forever and Josh doesn’t do forever. Josh does politically expedient relationships designed to promote his career.

I have to talk to him tonight, though, after everyone else has gone home. The good news is he’s staying late. He and Leo are putting their candidate for Gordon Miller’s job through his final paces tonight.

It’s after ten o’clock when Josh returns to his office, looking as tired and haggard as he did three Christmas’s ago.

“Josh?” I knock on the closed door.

“Come,” he calls. I hear the uncertainty in his voice; I haven’t violated his sanctuary in six weeks.

“What?” Josh asks when I close the door behind me.

I take a deep breath. There’s no use pussy­footing around it.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Go ahead.” He’s leaning back in his chair with his feet on his desk.

I close my eyes. I can’t stand to see his reaction to my negligence. “I’m pregnant. You don’t need to worry, though…”

“You’re pregnant?” His chair squeaks as he slams forward and his feet thud on the floor.

“I didn’t have my pills with me while we were in Florida. I didn’t remember to pack them and I didn’t even think about it until I got back and found them on my nightstand,” I explain in a rush. “You don’t have to worry, though. It’s my fault and I’ll take care of it. I’ve already made an appointment to have the abortion.”

My rehearsed lines complete, I open my eyes. Josh looks more devastated than he did when he identified his mother’s body. He doesn’t utter a word at first; he only stares down at his desk, biting his lip and nodding.

“I just wanted you to know I was taking care of it,” I whisper. I turn to go because my resolve is dissipating rapidly.

“When?” he croaks when I’m about to close the door again. “When are you…”

I peer through the crack. “Saturday. Tomorrow afternoon. You already okayed my taking the weekend off.”

***

Her words ring in my ears. “I’m pregnant. You don’t need to worry, I’m having an abortion.”

I sit in shock for long minutes, trying to process what just happened.

Donna’s pregnant. With my child. She’s going to have an abortion ­ tomorrow.

My eyes fall on the schedule board. Tomorrow is Donna’s birthday ­ which is why she has the weekend off. Six weeks ago, I was planning to do something grand on her birthday to show her how much I love her.

Another conversation reverberates in my head. “Soon, Mom. I promise, it’ll be soon. Her birthday’s coming up in about seven weeks.”

I jump to my feet and dash after her, but Donna’s already made her escape. I skid to a stop at the northwest entrance and consider my options. There’s one thing I have to do before I go after her.

“Leo?” I rush into his office, a nervous ball of energy.

He looks up, startled. “What is it?”

“I have to do something and it’s going to probably hit the papers and I want you to know, I’m sorry. I didn’t plan for it to happen like this.”

“What’s going on, Josh?” Leo gets to his feet.

“Donna’s pregnant,” I blurt.

“It’s yours,” he states unequivocally.

“Yes,” I nod, clarifying the situation unnecessarily. “Donna is pregnant and I’m the father.”

“Sit down and tell me the whole story before you go do something stupid,” Leo orders.

“I can’t. I have to go find her,” I plead, bouncing on the balls of my feet in my impatience. “I have to talk to her. She just dropped this on me like five minutes ago. She told me she was pregnant. She told me she had an appointment tomorrow to have an abortion and then she ran out.”

Leo blanches at my revelation. We might be Democrats and rabid supporters of a woman’s right to choose, but Donna going through with this decision would kill me and Leo knows it. “Go find her. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

The closest parking spot I can find to her building is eight blocks away. I pound down the street full bore, my dress shoes slipping on the frost­coated asphalt. I take the steps two at a time and ram her buzzer with my finger.

“Come on… Come on…”

I know she’s home. Her car is across the street and her lights are on.

“DONNA!” I scream at her window. “DONNATELLA! YOU CAN’T DO THIS! YOU HAVE TO TALK TO ME!”

I hear a window slam open behind me. “SHUT UP OR I’M CALLING THE COPS!”

“DONNA, PLEASE!” I jump up and down, shivering in the early November cold because I’m not wearing a coat or even a suit jacket.

“SHUT UP!” her neighbor screams again.

I decide to take his warning about calling the cops seriously. Bounding up the stairs, I ring her buzzer again. After five minutes, I sit down, huddling on the cement stoop, content to stay here until she lets me in ­ even if it means freezing to death.

***

“He’s still down there,” my roommate peers at the front door of our building through the curtains. Josh stopped bellowing outside our window over an hour ago. I had hoped he’d given up and gone home.

“He can stay down there,” I mutter without taking my attention from the magazine I’m reading.

“Donna, it’s November. He’s not wearing a coat. He’s going to freeze to death.”

“Where did your sudden concern for Josh Lyman’s well­being come from? You can’t stand him.”

“How about from watching you mope around the house the past month and a half? I don’t know what the hell happened between you two while you were in Florida, but I was ready to chalk it up to your boss redefining the word asshole or something. However, his sudden appearance here tonight, in conjunction with this,” she tosses me the home pregnancy test I thought I’d safely concealed in the garbage, “leads me to believe you freaked on him.”

“I freaked on him?” I drop the magazine into my lap, wondering why I ever moved in with a woman as perceptive as Janice.

“Yes. You started a relationship with someone you actually care about, someone who apparently cares about you in return and you didn’t know what to do. Then you realized your relationship with him could end his career ­ you being the perky, blonde assistant and he being the older, manipulative boss ­ and you decided to make the choice for him. You broke it off. It happened outside of Washington, nobody has to know. Except for one thing. You weren’t as careful as you should have been and there’s incontrovertible evidence of the relationship.”

My roommate is way smarter than I give her credit for most days.

“You should talk to him before you do something you can’t take back, Donna,” she says, pulling her coat on. “I’m going over to Brandon’s for the night. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I wait, staring at the dark screen of the television. Janice will let him in the building and I didn’t hear her lock the door, so it won’t be long before Josh comes bursting in the apartment.

I count to fifty before I hear the door open and close.

“Donna?” Josh’s teeth are chattering.

“What do you want, Josh?” I ask without turning from the TV.

“I want to talk to you,” he pleads. “You didn’t give me a chance earlier.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” I reply flatly.

“Yes, there is.” The floor creaks under his feet as he cross the living room to kneel in front of me.

I refuse to look at him. “I made a mistake, Josh. I’m going to fix it.”

A mistake, that’s how I’ve been thinking of this since I missed my first period the week after we got back from Florida. Then I missed a second one. I went to my gynecologist yesterday at lunch, after the home pregnancy test Janice found came up positive. If it’s a mistake, then it’s not a baby ­ Josh’s baby. I can abort a mistake, I did it once before. Before I picked up and moved to New Hampshire.

My hands start to shake uncontrollably and I can feel the tears start. It didn’t hurt like this the last time, though. Then I didn’t see any other choice. I had just found out my fiancé was cheating on me and then I discovered the perils of mixing antibiotics with the pill. I was 24 years old with a crappy job, no health insurance and a cheating boyfriend. Getting an abortion was the best option for me then. I don’t know what the best option for me is now.

“It’ll be okay, Donna,” Josh whispers. I let him pull me out of the chair and into his lap on the floor.

“I’m scared,” I admit through my tears. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want them to think of you like Hoynes or Miller, because you’re not. You’re not, Josh and I don’t want to be responsible for that.”

“Oh, Donna…” he strokes my hair as he rocks me. “There’s one big difference between me and John Hoynes and Gordon Miller. I’m not a married man having an affair. We’re single, consenting adults. We’ll figure out a way to make it work.”

“How?” I blubber, unable to see anything at the end of the road we’re on except a huge scandal.

“I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out. Together. We’ll tell Leo and CJ and Toby and they’ll help us. Please, Donna, don’t take this away from me.” Josh is crying now, too. Our tears mingle when he presses his cheek to mine.

“I’m not ready.”

“I’m not ready either, but neither was Toby and he’s doing okay,” Josh points out. “You won’t be alone. I’ll be there every step of the way. I swear it.”

“You’ll pass out in the delivery room,” I laugh through my tears at the thought.

We giggle together for a minute before Josh kisses my temple. “I want this, Donna. I want to be with you and have a family. I love you, more than anything. If I have to quit, I will, but I want this. The week we had was the most inspiring week of my life. Even though Mom was gone, I had hope because I had you.”

I snuggle closer to him. The anxiety of the past six weeks seems to melt away, but I don’t want to give in to him just because he showed up on my doorstep and begged.

“I don’t know, Josh.”

“What if you sleep on it?” he suggests, offering me some time.

“I suppose you want to sleep with me?” I crawl out of his lap and stand up.

“If you want me to go, I will,” Josh gets to his feet.

The mental debate is a brief one. In my heart I’ve already made my decision. “Stay.”

Wind speed usually decreases significantly within 12 hours of landfall. Nonetheless, winds can stay above hurricane strength well inland.

I awake Saturday morning after dawn the happiest I’ve been in my life because I woke up with Donna in my arms.

Getting up to use the bathroom, I encounter her roommate coming in the front door.

“You guys work things out?” Janice asks, eyeing my boxers and the red marks Donna’s fingernails left on my chest after we went to bed last night.

“Yeah. Thanks for letting me in last night. I appreciate it.” I also appreciate the temporary détente we seem to have reached as well. Her dislike of me is well documented.

“How long would you have sat out there last night?”

“Until she came out this morning,” I answer truthfully.

“You’d have frozen to death without a coat.”

“It’s a possibility,” I agree, hoping she understands I wasn’t trying to be a martyr.

“Am I going to need to find a new roommate?”

“Hopefully.”

“Hopefully what?” Donna’s sleepy voice asks from behind me. I turn and she slips under my arm. “I woke up and you were gone.”

“I had to use the bathroom and then I was talking to Janice,” I explain.

“Good morning,” she greets her roommate before tightening her arms around my waist possessively.

“You look better this morning,” Janice smirks.

“I feel better this morning,” Donna smiles up at me radiantly. How women can go from utter despair to tranquility in the space of six hours amazes me.

Janice rolls her eyes. “Are you guys working today?”

“No,” Donna states emphatically.

“I’ve got to go in for a couple of hours,” I answer, leaning down to give Donna a kiss. “I’ve got a meeting I can’t cancel. I should be done by noon, though. How about I pick you up and we’ll go do something for your birthday?”

I deliberately avoid mentioning her two o’clock appointment. I can’t bring myself to think she’ll go through with it.

“I’m just going to go to bed now,” Janice drawls, sauntering past us on the way to her bedroom.

Donna and I share a smile, we’d both spaced her roommate’s presence off.

“I’m going to run home and shower.” I kiss her again.

“You could shower here,” she points out.

“True, but I need clothes. My pants are dirty from sitting on your stoop for an hour last night.”

“What time is Staff?” Donna asks, nuzzling her lips against my chest.

“8:30.” It’s Saturday. We get to sleep in.

“It’s only six o’clock,” she purrs, snaking one hand into the waistband of my boxers.

In the end, I shower at Donna’s and go to work in the same clothes I wore yesterday.

Leo waylays me in my own office before the meeting.

“You’ll be happy to know you’re not on the front page of the Washington Times,” he announces.

I smile at him for the first time in weeks. “I wasn’t sure if she’d talk to me or call the cops.”

“And?”

“Her roommate let me in after I sat on the steps for over an hour. We talked. Donna and I, I mean, not me and Donna’s roommate. I think we’re okay… I hope we’re okay.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Leo’s clearly exasperated with the situation.

“There was a significant amount of begging on my part,” I admit. “But I don’t know if she changed her mind about the…”

“Yeah. That situation figures into how we handle this, Josh,” Leo throws his hands up.

I wonder if Leo realizes that he’s reacting the same way I did to Zoey’s kidnapping ­ focusing on the political impact instead of the personal side. I’m beginning to understand why he was just letting me out of the doghouse.

“I’ll know for sure this weekend. Is it okay if I tell you Monday?”

Leo nods, but he continues to look upset. “I don’t want to discuss this in Staff until we know for sure. I only want to concentrate on one end game.”

“Fine with me.” CJ will beat me round the head and neck until I bleed and that’s an experience I’d rather put that off as long as possible.

Staff drags on forever. Toby brought in new pictures of the twins. I think I linger on them a bit too long. CJ’s frowning at me when I hand them over.

I head down to my office after the requisite oohing and ahhing to make a phone call. An old law school professor of mine, one who actually liked me, is a district judge in Virginia.

***

Josh calls me from the office to say I ought to pack enough clothes to be gone the rest of the weekend and for work on Monday. I’m ready to go when he arrives at noon. He’s been home to change, he’s wearing blue jeans and a comfortable flannel shirt with a white t­shirt underneath.

“I have to ask you something,” he says after I let him into the apartment.

“Hmm?”

“You… you said yesterday you had an appointment at two o’clock today to…” He stops and gulps, but he’s looking me in the eye and stammers on. “…to abort the pregnancy. Do you still… Do we… Are you going to…”

“I cancelled the appointment, Josh,” I tell him.

“Okay, then.” He takes a deep breath and gives me a big smile, one that shows his dimples.

“My turn,” I grab my bag and head toward the door. “Where are you taking me?”

Josh laughs. “It’s a surprise.”

It certainly is a surprise when we leave D.C. and head two hours south through Maryland, across the Potomac to the quiet tourist village of Colonial Beach, Virginia.

“Josh? What’s going on?” I ask again as we ascend the steps to a towering, three­story Victorian bed and breakfast.

“We’re celebrating your birthday,” he says over his shoulder.

A middle­aged man in his late 40s comes out to great us.

“Welcome to Bell House! You must be Josh. I’m Doug,” the man reaches out to shake Josh’s hand. “Judge Livingstone called this morning. He said you should call him when you get in.”

Judge Livingstone? What the hell is Josh up to?

“Thank you. This is Donna,” Josh introduces me and lets me proceed him into the house.

Doug talks a mile a minute as he leads us up the narrow, winding staircases. “We’ve put you up on the third floor in the Melville Bell Room. It’s the off­season for us, so we’re not as busy as we would be during the summer ­ there’s only four other guests. My wife, Trish, is giving them the grand tour of Colonial Beach. How long were you planning on staying?”

“Tonight and tomorrow night. We have to be back to work Monday morning, but we were planning to leave early,” Josh replies.

Doug shows us the room and I nearly drool over the fireplace.

“Just holler if you need anything,” he says, closing the door on his way out.

Josh wanders out onto the third floor porch while I hang up my clothes. When I’m finished, I go out to find him sitting in the crisp fall air, staring at the Potomac River.

“This is nice.” I take a seat on his lap. “Thank you.”

“Actually, I brought you down here to tell you a story,” he blushes.

“This should be good,” I tease, resting my head on his shoulder and relaxing in his embrace.

“Remember when I called Mom to tell her they wouldn’t let me go help her? We were talking and she asked me this question she always asked when she was feeling particularly feisty. She asked me when I was going to tell you how I felt about you. And I told her your birthday was coming up soon and I promised her I was going to tell you before that day was over.”

“And you did, Josh. You told me last night.”

“Did I, Donna? Did I tell you I can’t imagine my life without you in it? That I sleep better at night when you’re in my arms? Did I tell you I love you with all my heart and soul? Did I tell you I don’t dread us breaking up because I know it will never happen?”

The tears start and my only response is to nod.

“Did I tell you I want you to be my wife? If you’re willing?”

Through my tear­filled eyes, I can see he’s holding a ring between his thumb and forefinger.

“You want to get married?” I gasp in disbelief. I hadn’t even considered marriage.

Josh nods. “I want to marry you and have a family with you.”

“Is this because of the baby?” I don’t want to get married just because I’m pregnant.

“This is the ring my dad gave my mom. The rabbi in Connecticut gave it to me with Mom’s personal effects. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was meant for you. I’m giving it to you now because you’re giving me something of far greater value. Will you wear it, Donna? Will you marry me?”

I hold my hand out and let him slip it on my ring finger. It fits as if it was meant to, the diamond sparkling in the sunshine.

“Who’s Judge Livingstone?” I ask after giving Josh a long kiss.

“Judge Livingstone was one of my professors at Yale. About ten years ago, he decided he would rather torture lawyers as a judge than torture law students. He’s the district judge down here. I got both of his kids internships on the Hill and he owes me one.”

“And how do you plan to collect?”

“By getting him to issue me a marriage license on a Saturday and marry us tonight.”

“Tonight?” I squeal. “You want to get married tonight?”

“I want us to go back to Washington and there be no question at all about our relationship. I want to preempt any scandal and subvert any attempt to hide us,” he says fiercely. “I want them to have to take me down for marrying the woman I love.”

We spend the rest of the afternoon in the quaint little shops in Colonial Beach. I need to find a dress to wear tonight and we need to find Josh a ring.

***

I get shivers when Donna slides the ring we bought this afternoon on my finger. Her face lights up when I do the same for her. We’re standing in the scattered leaves under a huge oak tree on the banks of the Potomac with our required two witnesses ­ Doug and Trish from the bed and breakfast. Judge Livingstone smirks at me paternally the entire ceremony, which is quite short to be honest.

A few pictures are taken and we go inside for dinner as Mr. and Mrs. Josh and Donna Lyman.

I excuse myself after dessert, overwhelmed by what I did today. Wandering out onto the veranda, I stare up at the stars in the sky and recite the prayer I say every day for Mom.

“Was this what you had in mind?” I ask when I’ve finished. A sudden warmth floods my body and I know, she and Dad and Joanie are up there, looking down at me and I finally got something right.

“Josh?” Donna calls. She gave me twenty minutes to myself and then came to find out what was bothering me. “Who are you talking to?”

“Nobody.” I wrap her in my arms.

“The next couple of months are going to suck, aren’t the?” she asks.

“More than likely. But we have each other.”

“Get a little more cliché there, baby,” she laughs then gets serious. “CJ’s going to kill you for this.”

“You going to let her do that? Kill your husband and the father of your unborn child?” I try to lighten it back up, knowing Donna’s more right than I want to think about.

Our stay at the Bell House ends in the Monday’s early morning darkness. We arrive in the West Wing at 6:30 a.m. to a phalanx of curious faces. The reason is on my desk. The conservative Washington Times got a hold of Donna’s pregnancy, and printed an editorial speculating it’s mine based on the observations of their reporter on the Florida trip.

I arrive at morning Staff to face a livid CJ. How could I not warn her about this?

“CJ, calm down. I knew about it,” Leo finally yells to stop her screaming. He looks at me. “What did she decide to do?”

“She’s going to have the baby,” I say, still cowering away from CJ.

“Is it yours?” Toby asks.

“Yes.”

“At what point did you decide this was a good idea?” CJ goes for the sarcasm.

“It started while we were in Florida. Donna forgot her pills and well… unprotected sex.” I have the good graces to look slightly embarrassed.

“She was comforting you?” CJ is really pissed.

“I think that’s a little uncalled for,” I protest, bringing my folders up to my chest defensively. “It was going to happen anyway. Don’t think I didn’t know there was a pool. Who won by the way?”

Toby winces.

“Wait a minute,” Will points at the ring on my left hand. “What the hell is that?”

Leo groans. “Oh, God, you didn’t.”

“What did you do? Go to Vegas?” Toby goes white.

“No, we didn’t go to Vegas.”

“But you did get married? To Donna?” CJ takes a step toward me, her clipboard at the ready.

“I did get married to Donna. In Colonial Beach, Virginia. I know a judge there who owed me a favor and he got me the marriage license on Saturday. He’s filing it today.”

“What do I say in the briefing?” CJ looks at Leo.

“The White House doesn’t comment on the personal lives of the staff. If they want a comment from Josh or Donna they’re going to have to ask Josh or Donna. Who aren’t going to say a word.”

Leo’s mandate of silence is difficult to follow when the fourth estate is camped out on your doorstep. Donna and I decide to face them together and we go home to my apartment.

It continues for a solid week and the same images of Donna and I shoving our way through the reporters and cameras appear everyday on every cable news network with the same sound from CJ. I’m taking most of the abuse ­ an over­the­top pundit on one network actually referred to me as a rapist and sexual predator. Donna is portrayed as a young, ignorant and unwilling victim ­ much is made of her lack of formal higher education and the way in which she was hired. We sit and wait for someone to turn up the marriage license, but it doesn’t happen.

Leo won’t let me so much as sit in on a meeting involving non­White House personnel until this blows over. Not that plenty of people who work here don’t wander by to offer their own views on the situation. I truly enjoy listening to Amy Gardner expound on how I lied to her when I told her I wasn’t dating my assistant. Donna’s parents freak out about the baby. They calm down some when she tells them we got married, only to get riled up again when we ask them to not speak to the press.

One late night, I’m wandering the halls when I find Toby in his office alone.

“Hey.” I lean against his door.

“Hey,” he answers gruffly.

“Can I ask you something?”

“They come with little hats,” he replies without looking up from his notes.

“Yeah.” I remember when he said that back in May, I thought it was funny at the time how he fixated on the hats, but over the past week I’ve realized there’s just no way to explain the feelings inside me.

I turn to go when he speaks again. “Something else will come up. And when the press goes away, you still have something I don’t and that’s a woman who loves you more than anything.”

“Thanks, Toby,” I say softly.

“Yeah.”

***

The press debacle comes to a screeching halt when Josh and I agree to appear on a live, two­hour 20/20 with Barbara Walters about two weeks after the story of my pregnancy broke. President Bartlet gave us his blessing to talk about anything and everything without repercussion. We both were, he reminded us, single, consenting adults. It doesn’t make the prospect of a two­hour grilling by Barbara Walters more enticing.

We sit side by side in the Mural Room, Josh holding my left hand. It keeps Barbara from noticing my ring, but it’s an accident of seating ­ if they’d put Josh on my other side, he’d have held my right hand.

The questions are hard to answer comprehensively. When did our affair start? Josh objects to the word affair, he says because it wasn’t an affair ­ it is a relationship. When did it start? When I walked into his office in New Hampshire, but we ignored it, misdirected it and dated other people in an attempt to not turn it into what less understanding people have made it. It turned physical when we were in Florida in September. Josh concedes his overwhelming grief at the death of his mother might have clouded his judgment but he refuses to say it was the only factor. Where do we go from here? We raise our baby, together. Did I ever consider not having the baby? Yes, I considered an abortion. I even went so far as to make an appointment, I say tearfully. Josh reaches over and brushes the tears from my cheek and his ring catches the TV lights.

The story dies away quickly afterward. The American public isn’t overly interested in the reproductive habits of married politicians and their spouses.

Besides, Ben and J­Lo finally got married over Thanksgiving and that became the lead story. Josh wanted to send them a sympathy card. Leo told him to just be glad he wasn’t getting fifteen hours of face time on cable anymore.

Know What to Do After a Hurricane Is Over: If you evacuated, return home when local officials tell you it is safe to do so.

“Josh? What are you still doing here?” I look up to see President Bartlet lurking in the doorway.

I start to scramble to me feet, but he motions for me to stay seated.

“I’m just catching up on some stuff, sir.” I indicate the vast quantities of reports and forms overtaking my desk.

“Where’s Donna?” he asks, moving into my office and sitting in the only chair not buried by paper. “Leo wasn’t kidding about us needing to change your workload, was he?”

I ignore his second question, the decrease in my workload is a point of contention between Leo and I. “I sent Donna home, sir. She was tired and since there isn’t a pack of tabloid reporters on our doorstep anymore, I thought she’d be okay getting home without me.”

“Did you two do anything special for Thanksgiving?” He’s making small talk, indicating he wasn’t necessarily looking for me, but just taking one of his late night trips around the West Wing.

“Congresswoman Wyatt invited us to have dinner with her and Toby and the twins. It was nice. Huck has quite the future as either a pitcher or a quarterback. He threw more of his dinner at Toby than he ate.”

My chuckle is bittersweet. I enjoyed spending the day with Toby and Andi and the twins, but yesterday was hard for me. Thanksgiving is the one holiday a year I made an effort to get home. Today isn’t much better. Donna went home without me tonight because she knew I needed time to brood and wouldn’t do it around her.

Bartlet sits in silence. I don’t know what he’s down here looking for, therefore I don’t know what to say. The President sits in my guest chair, his elbows propped on his knees as he rubs his hands together slowly. This is a posture I know leads to deep, heart to heart discussion with other people, but rarely with me.

“How are you doing?” he finally asks. From the way his eyes are trained on the photos hanging on the wall, I know exactly what he’s referring to.

“Okay. The prospect of being a father is a bit overwhelming, but with Donna I know it’s right.” I intentionally misinterpret his question.

He stands and examines the pictures more closely. I hung a new one next to the old black and white of Grandfather and I. The new one is of Mom, Dad, Joanie and I at a beach somewhere. I couldn’t have been more than six or seven when it was take. The sun had turned the water an incredible shade of red.

“It looks like an ocean of blood,” President Bartlet comments quietly. “There’s so much blood on our hands.”

“Sir?” I’m no longer sure what we’re talking about.

“I’m sorry, Josh,” he says, his fingers tracing the picture frame. “I should have let you go. There never should have been any question. You’d have think I, of all people, would understand the need put your family first.”

I lean back in my chair, surveying him intently. I understand what he’s looking for now. He asked me for forgiveness that horrible day in Miami and I wasn’t in any position to grant it. After months of soul­searching I’m finally able to give him the absolution he wants.

“It wouldn’t have changed anything, sir,” I answer softly. “Really. Would my skill with a pneumatic nail gun have made any difference to what you saw down there?”

“You don’t have any skills with a nail gun,” he replies, unable to resist taking a jab at me.

“Exactly, sir,” I stand up to look him in the eye. “As Donna points out to me on a near daily basis, there was nothing I could have done.”

He thinks about it for a minute and then nods his agreement. We saw the same devastation in South Florida, we both know the only thing that would have saved my mother is if she’d have left her home. Something she was unwilling to do.

“I appreciate it, though, sir. I think we could all do to remember our families more,” I offer.

President Bartlet sticks his hands in his pockets and starts to leave, but he stops on the threshold of the office.

“Have you thought about names?” he asks.

“Donna gets to pick a boy’s name. I’m picking a girl’s name. We’re going to wait and be surprised,” I reply, my eyes flicking down to the newest photos on my desk. There’s one Donna had taken of Mom and I when we were in Florida campaigning and one of Donna and I taken on our wedding day. I came back from a meeting one day to find them on my desk.

“Go home, Josh,” Bartlet orders. He turns and heads down the hallway, the Secret Service agents falling in around him.

I sit for a few more minutes, looking at the photos and thinking. It’s nice to have them here, reminding me my past and my future. Maybe someday, I’ll be able to look at the one of Mom and I and not be flush with sadness. It ebbs some when I remember in due time I’ll add another photo to my desk ­ one of my child.

Donna’s probably waiting up for me, I realize. With a heavy sigh, I get up and throw on my suit jacket. Grabbing my over coat and bag, I walk out the door and head home to Donna.

[other tales]

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