Page 46 of Keep

CHAPTER 7

The flight from Reagan National to Hartsfield-Jackson took just under two hours, which was exactly enough time to answer seventeen emails, review briefing materials for Monday’s agriculture subcommittee, and think about Chad approximately forty-three times.

He’d lost count somewhere over Virginia. The flight attendant brought a ginger ale, and Hank caught himself wondering whether Chad preferred ginger ale or Sprite—which was, he recognized, not a thought a serious person had while reviewing soybean subsidies. His briefing folder lay open on the tray table. He’d read the same paragraph four times without retaining a word.

This is who you are now. A United States senator who can’t focus on soybeans because a twenty-three-year-old bartender might prefer Sprite.

The plane touched down at 11:47 a.m. Georgia wrapped around him as he stepped out of the terminal—the humidity, the accents, the light softer here than in Washington. He’d missed that. How the air didn’t rush you.

His phone buzzed in the cupholder before he’d cleared the airport loop. A text from Chad: Safe landing?

Yes. Driving to Shelby’s now.

Quick response: Cool. Don’t text and drive!

I’m voice texting.

OK. Be careful then.

Your concern is touching.

I’m very concerned. You’re my ride to good restaurants.

LOL!

He set the phone down and focused on the road. His smile lingered.

The landscape shifted as he left the city behind—strip malls giving way to farmland, billboards advertising peach stands and personal injury lawyers, the occasional church marquee promising salvation or a fish fry. Sometimes both on the same Saturday. This was home. Or had been. Now it was a constituency, a set of appearances, a place that knew a version of him he’d been performing so long it had almost become real.

Almost.

Shelby’s house sat on three acres outside Cumming—white clapboard, wraparound porch, like something out of Better Homes and Gardens. She and Lowell had bought it right after the wedding. Shelby had thrown herself into the renovation the way she threw herself into everything—her dissertation, her garden, and her opinions about Hank’s love life.

Hank pulled into the gravel drive and parked beside Lowell’s truck. Before he’d cut the engine, the front door burst open, and a small figure came careening down the porch steps.

“Fuzzy! Fuzzy!”

Owen was almost two and already possessed of his mother’s determination and his father’s complete disregard for formality. Hank barely got the car door open before the boy was attached to his legs.

“Hey, buddy.” Hank scooped him up. Owen’s hands went immediately to his beard, grabbing with the scientific curiosity of a toddler conducting research.

“Fuzzy,” Owen said again.

“That’s me.” Hank settled him on his hip. “You’ve gotten bigger. What’s your mama been feeding you?”

“Dinosaurs.”

“Dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets,” Shelby clarified from the porch, dish towel over one shoulder. “Current obsession. We go through forty pounds a week. I’ve considered buying stock.”

She came down the steps and wrapped her arms around both of them—Hank and Owen together—and held on a beat longer than usual. When she pulled back, she studied his face with the look he’d learned to dread during their marriage: the one that meant she’d spotted something he hadn’t meant to show.

“You look different,” she said.

“I got a haircut.”

“That’s not it.”

“New shirt?”