Fatherless: A Novel (19 page)

Julia took
one last look in the mirror hanging above the ladies’ room sink to inspect the renovation of her face and hair. The brisk
trek along Independence Avenue had subjected her uncovered head to brisk April winds only partially blocked by the Longworth
Building, situated between the Cannon and Rayburn Buildings. The walk had done her good, cooling more than her now-rosy cheeks.
It had helped her simmer down after the galling realization that Paul had given Monica Garcia equal access to Congresswoman
Florea and, Julia assumed, to Trisha Sayers.

Her shaken confidence had been bolstered as soon as Julia stepped into the building that held Kevin Tolbert’s office. She
assured herself that Monica could not possibly have similar access to a bright spots insider, a disadvantage impossible for
the younger journalist to overcome.

“Julia?”

Startled to hear her own name seconds after entering the hallway, Julia turned toward the voice. Troy Simmons smiled in her
direction from thirty feet away.

“Hello, Troy.” Julia surprised herself by the slight lilt in her voice.

“We didn’t expect you for at least another hour.”

“I just left a meeting at the Cannon Building.” She chose not to mention Nicole Florea. “It ended early. Since I had some
extra time I thought I’d pop over to make sure I could find Kevin’s office.”

“I’m heading there now. May I escort you?” He offered an arm.

“Lead the way.” She pretended not to notice his courtly gesture.

He quickly retrieved the extended arm to salvage his injured pride, then gestured with his open palm toward office number
202 just down the hall.

Kevin Tolbert’s suite was the second-smallest in the Rayburn House Office Building. It held a few tiny desks occupied by fresh-faced
interns in front of two enclosed rooms occupied by the congressman and his chief of staff. Freshmen were at the bottom of
the congressional pecking order, accepting whatever meager facilities remained after veteran representatives had finished
vying for larger accommodations vacated by retiring or ousted colleagues. A very different world from the more elaborate offices
of Nicole Florea, who had steadily increased square footage by winning several rounds of musical chairs. Julia found the cramped
space and functional arrangement of the congressman’s complex highly unimpressive.

“Welcome to Tolberton!” Troy announced.

“Tolberton?”

“As in Hobbiton,” he said proudly.

She didn’t follow.

“Come on. Middle-earth? The Shire? ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’?”

Nothing connected.

“We merged Tolkien’s world with Kevin’s last name and came up with ‘Tolberton’ as an apt label for our hole-in-the-ground
dwelling.”

“I see,” she said indifferently.

“Anyway, I expect Kevin to return from his lunch meeting soon. He has an important call at one thirty before your interview.”
Julia followed Troy ten steps, into his hobbit hole. He quickly removed a stack of folders sitting on top of the room’s only
vacant chair. “You’re more than welcome to wait in my office if you’d like.”

Julia glanced at her watch. Over an hour to kill.

“Or”—Troy seized on her apparent hesitation—“we could pop across the street. Have you been to the Botanic Garden?”

She hadn’t.

“A much better way to spend an hour than sitting in this dreary office,” he said.

“I wouldn’t want to impose. You have work to do and—”

“Are you kidding?” he interrupted. “I’ll get twice as much done if I recharge the old batteries. Besides, I need to get over
there before they level the place for the new office building. I’ve never visited. But I’m still sad to see it go.”

Every instinct told Julia to refuse. An internal tennis match ensued.

Don’t do it. You could give him the wrong idea.

But you might learn more about the Bright Spots proposal.

He’ll become a distraction.

He seems so sweet.

“That actually sounds kind of nice,” she said with too much enthusiasm.

“Great!”

The next sixty minutes flew by quickly as they chatted casually while admiring the oasis of deep green and floral colors on
display throughout the glass building.

“So you’ve known Kevin for a long time?” Julia asked.

“Met the first day of seventh grade,” Troy mused. “Both new to town and each condemned to lunchroom solitary confinement.
He noticed me first and joined my table. From that moment on we were pals, two self-doubting boys yearning to become insecure
teens.”

She laughed at the truism. “And look at you now. Obviously you helped one another along.”

“A little.”

“A little? I don’t know many men who have accomplished as much. You certainly found some measure of confidence.”

“That would be Kevin. Confidence found him.”

“How so?” she asked.

“Angie.”

Julia’s surprised reaction halted their stroll.

“He started seeing her the year I moved across town. He couldn’t stop talking about this amazing girl I’d never met. Kevin
will tell you she made him into the self-assured man you see today. I’ve just been lucky enough to glean the scraps.”

She flashed a quizzical expression. “What does that mean?”

He thought for a moment. “Ever hear of a rainmaker?”

“Someone who lands the big deal?” Julia guessed.

“That works. You could call Kevin the rainmaker, the guy who makes things happen.”

“So what does that make you?”

“I guess I’m Sam Gamgee.” He seemed proud of the label.

A blank stare. “Sam Gam-what?”

“Sorry. Another Tolkien reference. Sam Gamgee. My favorite of his characters.”

“I guess I should read
The Hobbit
.”

“You should. But Sam Gamgee shows up in Tolkien’s longer work,
The Lord of the Rings
.”

She waited for further explanation.

“To make a thousand pages short, Frodo Baggins is given an enormous assignment to save Middle-earth from certain doom. Sam
goes along to support, encourage, and protect his friend. Without Sam, Frodo would have failed in his quest. But without Frodo,
Sam would have lived without adventure.”

Julia sensed Troy’s pride in his identity as Kevin’s right-hand man. “I admire that. Not many men have such calm confidence.”

“Kind of you to say, my lady,” he said playfully.

“Have you ever wanted to switch roles? You know, grab the limelight. Have Kevin defer to you instead of the other way around?”

“Sure. But that’s not my calling.”

“Calling?”

“My assignment. The unique contribution only I can make,” he explained. “I could no more fill Kevin’s shoes than he could
fill mine.”

Julia felt a twinge of indignation on Troy’s behalf. “But why should he get all the attention? Give all the orders? You seem
every bit as sharp, articulate, and successful as Kevin.”

“You forgot handsome,” Troy jibed.

“Definitely as handsome!” Julia agreed with a slight blush.

“More handsome,” he added with a wink.

“I guess I don’t know many people who are content sitting in the second chair.” She wasn’t sure whether she found the trait
admirable or weak. “Isn’t that—”she reached for a word besides
demeaning
“—difficult?”

“Sometimes,” Troy confessed. “But I draw inspiration watching Angie. She’s pretty amazing, like a Sam Gamgee who can have
babies.”

Julia clenched her teeth as she tried to suppress offense at the blatantly sexist comment. She waited a moment to allow three
elderly ladies to pass. “So Kevin puts Angie in the second chair? ‘Take care of the kids while I conquer the world’?”

Troy appeared startled by the reaction. “Not at all. The only place I’ve ever seen Kevin place Angie is on a pedestal. Angie
puts herself in the second chair.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Do what?”

“You know. Sell herself short. She’s a smart woman who could do anything she put her mind to. Why would she throw away her
dreams so that Kevin can—”

“She said that?” Troy asked.

Julia went silent.

“Did Angie say she threw away her dreams to support Kevin?”

“Well, not exactly,” Julia confessed. “We had dinner the other night and she seemed, I don’t know, less confident than when
we were younger. She was never like that before. I guess I just assumed—”

“You assumed no intelligent woman would choose to raise kids or give up a career to support her husband?” Troy interjected.

“Well, yes,” she answered.

The faint sound of ventilating mist filled the tense silence as surrounding plants received an early afternoon spray of refreshment.
Julia felt an urge to quote from a long line of her own columns.

The days of patriarchal dominance are dead.

Our generation of women can see an endless horizon because we stand on the shoulders of our courageous grandmothers.

Show me a home with more than two kids and I’ll show you an oppressed woman.

“Can I ask you a question?” Troy asked tentatively.

“Of course.”

“Why does my second chair imply calm confidence but Angie’s implies weakness?”

Julia realized her unintended offense. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Listen, Julia. Angie is the strongest woman I’ve ever met,” he continued. “It takes great courage and dignity to serve.”

Julia felt another flare of anger. “Serve? Like a slave?”

“A slave is not better than his master,” Troy replied.

“Meaning?”

“It’s something Jesus said, that he came to serve rather than to be served. Like I said yesterday, I’m still new to this whole
Christianity thing. But that’s one of the ideas I find very appealing. Imagine a world of people trying to out-serve, out-love,
out-sacrifice, and out-honor one another. Sure beats a world of people trying to outdo and outsmart one another. Don’t you think?”

Monica Garcia came to mind instantly. Then Paul Daugherty. Then herself. “I guess I never thought about it like that before.”

“I get a small taste of that world when I watch Kevin and Angie in action with each other and with the kids. The scraps are
so good it makes my mouth water for the full banquet.”

Noticing the time, Julia suggested they start walking back. As they turned toward the exit Troy hesitantly extended his arm.
“May I escort you?” he asked with an air of gallantry.

An awkward second passed between them. Then she permitted herself a smile before self-consciously accepting his offer.

“Sorry to
have kept you waiting.” Kevin stood just outside Troy’s open office door. “My one thirty call took longer than expected.”

“Everything all right?” The question seemed to carry weight, as if Troy knew the call pertained to an ailing relative.

“Fine. Possible good news, in fact. I’ll brief you later.”

Troy looked at Julia like a dance partner reluctantly accepting another man’s request to cut in. “Well then, the time has
come for our parting. I thank you for the pleasure of your company.”

Julia rose from a chair nestled between Troy’s overflowing desk and the windowless wall. She extended her hand toward Kevin’s.
“Thank you for granting me an interview.”

“How could I refuse?” he said while navigating Julia out Troy’s door and through his own three feet away. “You were holding
my kids hostage at the time of the request.”

“I figured that might do the trick,” she said, laughing.

“I did want to say thank you, again, for giving Angie and me a much-needed evening alone. It’s been a bit stressful lately.”

She wondered whether that stress was somehow linked to the potential good news from Kevin’s phone call, a concern neither
he nor Angie had invited her to share.

“They’re great kids. You must be proud.” She hoped the compliment sounded sincere.

“And busy! For some reason kids don’t stop demanding attention just because Dad gets elected to Congress. Pretty selfish of
them.”

Julia smiled politely as she took the seat Kevin offered. It was still a tight squeeze, though his office offered a bit more
breathing room than Troy’s, including the miniature sitting area essential for the many occasions when a congressman receives
visiting guests and colleagues. To describe the office in print Julia would choose the word
functional
. A room more suited to getting things done than to making a good impression.

She reached into a bag for her tablet, then glanced at the display screen listing three recent files: the interviews with
Jeremy Santos, Hannah Walker, and Nicole Florea. She hit
RECORD
before remembering her manners.

“Sorry. Do you mind if I record our conversation?”

“I do.”

The answer caught Julia by surprise. She couldn’t recall anyone’s refusing the request. A bit flustered, she quickly tapped
STOP
.

“I’d like to keep our conversation off the record for now,” he explained.

A hint of outrage rose in Julia.
Off the record
? She wanted to object, to remind Kevin that smart politicians craved the kind of exposure a RAP feature might give, or at
least feared the kind of damage it could do. Either way, they never risked spurning a journalist. But she thought again.
I’ll make more progress as a friend seeking a favor than as a reporter cornering a victim
.

“I’m involved in some highly confidential work right now and I can’t take a chance that I might inadvertently leak anything.
I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course,” Julia forced herself to say. She switched to Plan B. “Then can I ask for first break?”

“What’s that?”

“You would give me a twenty-four-hour window ahead of other journalists to report on what we’ve discussed.”

Kevin appeared to be examining the request in his mind to check for scratches and dings before deciding to buy.

“Listen, Kevin.” Julia appealed to sympathy to close the deal. “It would really help me out. To be honest, I’ve been in a
bit of a dry spell lately. I thought a feature on a young congressman’s efforts to tackle tough economic issues might play
well.”

As she’d hoped, Kevin seemed flattered by the suggestion. “Sounds reasonable,” he said. “I’ll think it over and let you know
by the end of the day.” Still cautious.

“That’d be great.” Getting her story was going to be more difficult than Julia had hoped.

“Am I correct in assuming you asked for an interview because you know about my role on Franklin’s austerity team?”

The question made her feel as if the teacher had caught her peeking at another student’s paper. She decided to come clean.
“Well, I confess that had something to do with it.”

“Tell me what you know.”

“Not much. Just that Franklin invited you to be part of a confidential austerity team and that you chair a subcommittee exploring
something about bright spots.”

“Any idea why the austerity team was formed?”

“I assume a new phase of Franklin’s SLASH project,” Julia replied. “I read the other day that epi-genomic research would be
his next target, after the project received a thumbs-down from his constituents.”

“And who told you about the Bright Spots proposal?”

Julia feared losing control of the conversation, if she’d ever had it. “I’m afraid I can’t name sources. But I do have a list
of questions I’d like to ask.”

“Off the record?”

“Right.”
For now
, she thought.

Julia scrolled through her tablet to find her prepared list.

“First, is there more to the austerity coalition than meets the eye?”

“That depends. What meets your eye?”

“To be honest, a group of heartless fiscal conservatives slashing vital governmental services.”

“In that case, yes, there is more going on than meets the eye,” he said. “Our economy faces dire problems, more than you probably
realize. We hope to propose solutions before things get out of hand.”

“How out of hand?”

“I prefer not to comment on that at the moment.”

“Is something going on our readers should know about?” She sounded a bit more like the hard-hitting journalist she aspired
to be. “I’d hate to think the government is withholding information from the public.”

“Nothing has been hidden. All of the information we are discussing is currently accessible to anyone who cares to look.”

Julia ran through a mental list of usual suspects.

The quarterly report on housing vacancies?

The mushrooming cloud of national and personal debt?

Another stock market decline?

There were so many possibilities, since nearly every economic trend had been moving in the wrong direction for years. Which
would prompt a sudden call for draconian budget cuts?

“Look where?” she asked.

“Again, I’d rather not comment. Except to say I’m surprised how little attention the news syndicates have given to falling
fertility.”

The topic hadn’t crossed her mind, but the comment stepped on her toes. “Not true. Just last week I did a column on the topic.
And we did that big hoopla last August over the population tipping point.”

“I stand corrected,” he conceded.

“But I don’t understand what fertility has to do with austerity measures.”

“You’ll need to figure that out on your own. Next question,” he said.

Dissatisfied, she reluctantly looked at her list. “What are bright spots?”

“A reference to the process of finding isolated pockets of success or health in the midst of an otherwise dismal situation,”
he explained. “You know, like finding the silver lining, only applied to economics. When we identify micro–bright spots we
can learn a lot about potential solutions on a macro level, or at least what behaviors to encourage rather than dissuade.
The specific subcommittee I chair has been looking hard at pockets of economic strength. I think we’ve identified strategies
that will give the ailing patient a health spa membership instead of admitting him to an intensive care unit.”

“That sounds like a speech applause line,” she chided.

“A pretty good one too, don’t you think?”

“Maybe for a speech. But it sounds naïve for national policy. You can’t just tell a sickly patient to suck it up and run the
Boston marathon.”

“I’ll grant you that,” he acknowledged. “No one thinks any single idea will turn things around. My proposal will become part
of a much larger package.”

She remembered Paul’s concern that the Bright Spots proposal would likely advance a radical breeder agenda. Nicole Florea
had said the same. Julia decided to go out on a limb.

“I understand you plan to propose reintroducing child tax credits.”

The statement seemed to jolt Kevin. “Who told you that?”

“I can’t reveal sources,” she said, sustaining the ruse. “But you could confirm or deny that part of my story. Assuming, of
course, you’ll go on the record.” She held her breath as he formulated a reply.

“Nice try, Julia,” he said. “But I refuse to say anything about specific proposals. And I won’t confirm speculations one way
or the other. Next question.”

The conversation went on in a similar fashion for fifteen minutes, Julia fishing for details while Kevin remained vexingly
evasive. After nearly half an hour she had managed to extract few details, none of which could be used since everything remained
off the record. Paul would be displeased.

She threw in the towel, abandoning her prepared list of questions. “Come on, Kevin. Can’t you give me anything?”

He leaned back in his chair like a high school teacher hoping to nurture a student’s curiosity rather than give the answers.
“What was your reaction to the most recent census?”

“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“Like I said earlier, all of the information is available to anyone who cares to look.”

Julia sensed Kevin was changing the game. “Well, like everyone else I’m a bit concerned about how we’ll deal with so many
senior citizens. But on the whole I’m optimistic. Birth rates continue to drop. That should reduce the drain on scarce resources.”

“What kind of resources?”

“Fuel. Trees. Food. Everything.”

“So you think food is a scarce resource?”

“Come on, Kevin. You know as well as I do that millions are starving.”

“Really? Where?” he pressed.

“I don’t know. Africa.”

“What part of Africa?”

“Do you want the ZIP codes?” she objected. “I don’t know what parts. What are you getting at?”

“Did you take Economics one-oh-one?” he asked.

“I did.”

“Then you know about the law of supply and demand.”

“Of course.”

“Are you aware of the fact that it costs less to buy a calorie of food today than ever before in history?”

No, she wasn’t.

“So why do we continue to consider food a scarce resource? I agree there are starving people in the world. But when you get
specific about where they starve, you find it invariably the result of war or corrupt leadership.”

“Is there a reason we’re heading down this rabbit trail?” Julia asked.

“Just to say that we don’t have a global food shortage, especially in this nation where more people become obese than go hungry.
So, when you say scarce resources, don’t you really mean money?”

“Well, you wouldn’t be trying to find cuts in federal spending if we were rolling in cash. Would you?”

“There. Now we’re back on the main trail,” Kevin confirmed. “In this country we face a financial crisis, not a resource crisis.
Just to be clear.”

“Okay. You win. Scarce financial resources then.”

“And you think children cost a lot of money?” he continued. “Money that could be spent on…?” His voice lingered, inviting
Julia to complete the sentence.

“Taking care of seniors, for one.”

“So we need more money to take care of our elderly citizens. Is that what you’re saying?”

“I feel like I’m talking to Socrates!” she mocked. “Yes, we need more money for things like health care. Isn’t that obvious?”

“And where does the money required for those expenses come from?”

Julia thought the answer too obvious. “From taxes.”

“Paid by…?” Another fill-in-the-blank.

“Taxpayers, of course.”

“Wrong,” Kevin said, as if he were swatting a fly with a magazine. “The money comes from human beings. And the fewer human
beings involved in the economy there are, the scarcer that all-important resource called money becomes. In each of the past
ten decades this country has followed the rest of the developed world down a path toward depopulation. The same reality squeezing
the federal budget is also creating a housing glut, a manufacturing slump, and an overburdened health-care system. Our scarcest
resource is not food, trees, or fuel. Our scarcest resource is people.”

The idea struck Julia as sacrilege offending an orthodoxy to which she and her readers unquestioningly subscribed. She started
to search for a hole in Kevin’s rationale but stopped when she suddenly grasped his likely motive.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “You
are
considering tax credits for having kids, aren’t you?” She felt herself becoming upset by the possibility. “You want to go
back to the days when the federal government stuck its nose in America’s bedrooms. I thought we outgrew that kind of nonsense
decades ago. I assume you’ve heard that we had a sexual liberation movement on this planet. Kids are a choice, not an obligation.
Women are good for more than becoming baby factories!”

Mid-diatribe Julia remembered Angie. She regretted her statement immediately, the look on Kevin’s face confirming an offense.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply…”

“No need to explain yourself, Julia. I understand your position. You think women like Angie are squandering their potential.”

Julia sat silent, owning the accusation.

“Well, I respectfully disagree,” Kevin continued. “A lot of people consider bearing and rearing children a noble and highly
meaningful calling. But we can set that aside for the moment. More to the point, both short- and long-term economic trends
make it an important national priority.”

She felt the need to pull back, softening the edge of her heat-of-the-moment speech. “You know I think the world of Angie.
I don’t mean to minimize what she’s done or any other woman who chooses motherhood. My own sister decided to keep a baby.
We share the load raising my nephew. But you don’t really think you can coerce women to have more babies in this day and age,
do you?”

“No, I don’t,” he answered. “But I do think we can stop making it so difficult to do so. We can stop penalizing those willing
to have children to reward those who don’t. Take a look at the numbers, Julia. Our tax code makes doing what’s difficult harder
and doing what’s selfish easy.”