Page 9 of Main Event

“Yes.” Then, after a moment. “But it cost something.”

“I know it did, babe.”

“But it went to the right people.” She looks at the door ahead of us. “That’s what it was for.”

She cooked, which she does when she needs to do something with her hands after a day that emotionally drained her. Spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad. Nothing complicated. The kind of meal that is about the process more than the result. I set the table and stayed out of the way, and we ate and talked about small things—a call she has tomorrow with MaxMorgan’s distribution team, whether the contractor who’s been promising to fix the back gate for six weeks will show up this time.

We were doing all right… until the leak surfaced at seven-fifteen.

Her phone lights up on the kitchen table while we’re eating dinner with the tenacity that means something has broken.

I see the notification preview before she does.

EXCLUSIVE: Music Mogul’s Daughter Uses Foster Care Testimony to Settle Scores with Late Senator’s Legacy—Sources Say Morgan’s Advocacy a Calculated PR Move Following Year of Controversy.

She reads my face across the table.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

I turn the phone so that she can see it.

She reads it once fast, then again slower. The controlled stillness of someone who knew something like this was possible, but she still has to focus just to absorb the reality of it.

“Precise,” she says.

“Constructed,” I say. “That’s not a reporter who just happened to be in the room. That’s someone who had the prepared remarks beforehand and knew how to strip the context.”

“She had access to the testimony before I delivered it.” Andi sets the phone face down on the table with deliberate care. “The framing is designed to discredit the policy asks by making them personal. If it’s a vendetta, the data doesn’t matter.”

“The full transcript goes public tomorrow morning,” I say. “Anyone who wants to read what you said can read it. And the people who matter were already in that room today. The chair put her phone down. The skeptic looked up. That happened. This—,” I nod toward the phone, “doesn’t unhappen it.”

She looks at me for a moment. Something in her expression shifts—not quite a smile, but maybe the beginning of one.

“The center’s communications team is going to want guidance tonight,” she says.

“Bill, too.”

“I’ll call them in an hour.” She picks up her fork. “After I finish dinner.”

That’s Andi. She finishes her pasta, and I finish mine, as if the world outside our kitchen didn’t just catch on fire.

We spend two hours on the response.

Not the public statement—that goes through Bill and the communications team and is kept to three sentences that say everything by saying almost nothing. What takes time is the conversation underneath: who had access to the prepared remarks, how far back the reach goes, and what it means for the spaces they thought were clean.

By nine, the statement is drafted, approved, and sent. Travis texted two words.

Record stands.

She smiled at that.

We tidy up the kitchen as a team. She handles the washing, and I take care of the drying. This simple routine forms the quiet rhythm of our shared life, underlying everything else, no matter what.

“Did you mean what you said in the car this morning?” I ask. “About movement being enough. Not unanimity.”

She hands me a bowl. “I meant it.”

“Because the noise from this leak is going to run for a few days⁠—”