BACK IN his office Reen sat at his terminal while the shadows of the trees outside lengthened and the day faded to night.
At six-thirty Natalie came in, her coat on her arm. “I’m going.”
“Yes.” He nodded, barely looking up from his work.
She hesitated at the door. “I mean, I have to go home now, you know? Sam’ll want dinner.”
He stopped scrolling the report, the cursor blinking on an item concerning unrest in Italy. “I understand,” he said, although he didn’t so much understand as accept. After years of frustration at his secretaries’ holidays and vacations, he’d stopped trying to change them. He’d discarded the idea that humans were lazy. He’d even once, not long ago, taken a sort of vacation himself.
He expected her to leave, but she didn’t. She stood with one hand on the jamb. “You want me to turn on the light?”
“No.” He went back to his work but then looked up again. Natalie hadn’t moved. “Is anything wrong?”
She took a breath to speak, then let out the air and the thought in a barren sigh. “Well. Don’t work too late.”
“I always work late.”
“It makes me feel guilty. Thural’s usually with you. I don’t feel so bad when he’s here.”
“Thural is seeing about Jonis.” Reen lifted his hands from the computer and set them primly in his lap. The room slowly darkened. The spill of light behind Natalie tossed a rectangle of gold across the carpet like an abandoned evening wrap. “You’ve worked for me now, what?” he asked. “Two months? When you work here long enough, you’ll get used to my hours and the fact that I often work alone.”
She scratched idly at the doorjamb with one long fingernail.
With a kind smile he said, “What would I do when I go home other than sleep?”
“You could watch TV. Sometimes they have great stuff on TV. Sitcoms. True-life murder stories. Ought to try it. I’ll tell you when something good is coming on, and maybe you can bring in the portable.”
“That would be nice,” he said vaguely, thinking how distasteful it would be to watch a program on crime. Human life was short enough without other humans bringing it to a premature close. He’d known twelve presidents, had loved three of them, and now had outlived all but one.
“Sam,” he said finally, because apparently she was not leaving. “Is that your husband?”
Natalie walked forward. Reached into her purse.
Startled by the unexpected gesture, Reen shrank back against his chair. He thought of the graffiti, of the boy with the backpack, and expected to see a gun in Natalie’s hand. Instead she took out her wallet.
“My kid.” She flipped open her wallet and held it toward him.
Reen took the wallet and switched on his green-shaded desk lamp. In the photo it was high summer. A blond boy with a smile and a baseball cap stood in the batter’s box, bat in hand.
Sam had the doomed, sad beauty of his dying breed. The pool of light under the lamp washed the freckled face with brass. His hands held the bat with nonchalant grace. There was arrogance in the set of his shoulders, a fearlessness in his eyes.
“He’s a good kid.”
Reen handed back the photo. “Such photos are to be valued.” He knew Natalie could not understand what he meant and that she would never be allowed to. One day his own daughter would look at such pictures to remind herself of the debt she owed the past. When the Cousins died out, as they one day surely would, and when Reen, for her sake, made humans extinct, he wanted Angela to remember.
Natalie tucked the wallet back into her purse. “His dad, the son of a bitch, never sends us any money. That’s why I got a little upset with you today about the blouse.”
Reen folded his hands. “You must have a raise. Thural will see to it.”
Her mouth fell open. Even in the dim light of the reading lamp, he could see her cheeks blanch. “I didn’t mean–”
“I know. Go home to Sam. Don’t worry about me. Mothers and fathers should concern themselves with their children.”
“Okay. But stress can get to you. All work and no play ...” Her voice wavered in indecision or perhaps in futility. Without finishing the thought she turned and made her way from the room. Reen watched her go, thinking of the photo of the boy, of the baseball game.
All work and no play.
He didn’t understand the concept of baseball; he didn’t understand games. Take the snow and pack it, Marian had said. His daughter, so instructed, had thrown the snowball with somber dedication and only because her mother had told her to. Angela had the wide shoulders of a brachiator, the generous musculature of her mother. But Reen knew she would never stand in a batter’s box, her face agleam with joy.
All work.
He lifted his hands diligently to the keyboard. After a few moments of reading, his mind immersed itself in the Italian crisis, and Natalie and her son were forgotten. At eight o’clock a maid wordlessly brought his dinner. By eleven he was so tired, the letters on the screen began to blur. He checked to see that the French doors were locked, flicked off the terminal and the reading lamp, and left his office.
The Secret Serviceman on duty in the colonnade gave him a brief glance. Other than that quick, furtive movement, nothing stirred.
Reen paused at the open doorway of the pool that Roosevelt had constructed, Nixon had made a press room, and reporter-weary Womack had reconverted. The White House was otherwise quiet, but something by the pool was making a sound. He entered. The lights in the pool were on, reflecting blue ripples across the ceiling. The filtration system gurgled. Water lapped the tiles.
On a lounge chair lay a bundle of old clothes, and from it came a noise like a buzz saw. And an arm. The hand, clutching an empty bottle of Mogen David, rested knuckles-down on the concrete.
Reen tiptoed to the guard. “There is a man sleeping by the pool.”
“Yes, sir. The President’s new medium.”
“Why is he sleeping here?”
“Passed out, sir.”
The guard looked away. An oppressive silence fell. Reen waded through it to the exit. Outside, the night air was cool, and sparse traffic growled down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Reen walked across the grass, nervously searching for the boy with the backpack. The fence was empty. Beside the West Wing the commuter ship gleamed dully in the full moonlight, Thural a ghost beside it. Reen trudged up the ramp. At the door he paused.
“Jonis bought liquor from a homeless man. Were you aware of this, Cousin?”
Did Thural’s gaze shift in alarm? The movement was so quick that Reen couldn’t be sure. “Yes, Reen-ja. Although I never personally–”
“Keep this information from the FBI but order the Guardians of the Community to find the man and bring him to me.”
“I will give the Guardians his name and description–”
“Good.” Reen turned his back on Thural and marched into the ship.
The lounge seemed perversely vacant without Marian there to vex it with her colors. He sat. A few minutes later Thural came to him.
“Reen-ja? We have landed at Andrews, and I have alerted the Guardians about Jonis’s human friend.”
Reen stared at his feet. Stress will get you, Natalie had said.
All work.
Every part of Angela functioned. Her hands were marvels, her brain clear. But had he made some terrible mistake? Quiet, shy Angela had the strength of a human in her body and the stamina of a Cousin in her mind. How would she handle the stress that was bound to follow her as an unkempt dog its master? As countless parents had before him, Reen wondered whether she would be happy. And if she could not find peace, he wondered, would she ever forgive him?
“Reen-ja?”
Without meeting his aide’s gaze, Reen stood and followed Thural down the ramp.