“Senator, your ex-husband has suggested that—”
“My ex-husband’s opinions about my professional conduct are not something I’m prepared to speak to.” She let a beat of silence land. “What I am prepared to speak to is the infrastructure bill, which represents three years of work on behalf of communities that have been underserved for decades. If anyone has questions about that, I’d welcome them.”
Two hands went up for the bill. Six stayed up for the scandal.
She answered the bill questions. She deflected the rest. She smiled when appropriate and left the podium feeling like she’d left something behind it—some part of herself she hadn’t valued enough until she’d traded it away.
In the car, David handed her a tablet.Senator Brandt Addresses Rumors with Characteristic Composure.
“It’s playing well,” he said. “Professional, composed, exactly what we needed.”
Melissa looked out the window and said nothing.
The days that followed were a kind of purgatory.
She went through the motions—meetings, calls, the endless strategy sessions with David about the Thornfield complaintand the ethics committee review and the three weeks left in the legislative session. She should have been focused. She was barely present. She kept reaching for her phone to text June something small and meaningless—Lila ate the rest of the blueberries, you were right about the library book, the herbs on the windowsill need water—and then remembering.
The temporary nanny she’d found at two days’ notice was competent and entirely wrong. She supervised. She maintained. She showed up on time and left on time and produced no music, no otter facts, no bread that filled the house with warmth. Lila tolerated her with a politeness that set Melissa’s teeth on edge.
Thursday, the Herald ran a follow-up piece.Ongoing Questions Surround Senator Brandt’s Infrastructure Bill.It quoted unnamed colleagues. It referenced the nanny situation, this time with language aboutpoor judgment in personal matters extending to professional decisions.And at the bottom, almost an afterthought:Senator Brandt’s ex-husband, Michael Reeves, declined to comment, but noted he “wished the best for his daughter during this difficult time.”
Melissa read the quote three times. She knew exactly what it was—Michael, careful as always, deniable as always, sliding the knife in at the angle where it would hurt most without leaving marks.His daughter.As if Lila were something he’d thought about at all in the past six months.
Her phone rang. David.
“Hendricks is pulling his support.”
“What?”
“He says the optics are too complicated. He doesn’t want—his words—‘personal drama distracting from serious policy work.’”
“Personal drama.” Melissa’s voice came out flat. “Three years of coalition building and that’s what it comes down to.”
“Senator.” David’s voice was careful. “We need to consider postponing. Coming back next session with a clean slate.”
“The next session is six months away.”
“I know. But right now we don’t have the votes, and every day this story stays in the news we lose more ground.” A pause. “Sometimes retreat is the right strategy.”
Melissa looked at the wall of her office—the framed photographs, the commendations, the careful architecture of a career she’d built brick by brick for twenty years. She thought about the communities waiting for broadband access. She thought about Lila at the breakfast table, face gone still and closed. She thought about June sayingI keep ending up in the same place.
“I’ll call you back,” she said, and hung up.
She sat at her desk for a long moment. Then she got up, walked down the hall, and knocked on Lila’s door.
Silence.
She knocked again. “Lila. I’m coming in.”
She opened the door.
Her daughter was on her bed, otter book open in her lap, not reading. She looked up when Melissa entered and then looked away again, a gesture so adult it made Melissa’s chest ache.
“I know you don’t want to talk,” Melissa said. “That’s okay.”
She crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. Lila didn’t move toward her. Didn’t speak. Kept her eyes on the unread page.
Melissa’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out, looked at the screen—David again—and turned it face-down on the nightstand.
