The President's Daughter Read online

  "But weren't you lonely?"

  "Truthfully, honey, Frank and I hadn't been married very long. I grieved for him, but I was never really lonely." Jude smiled and repeated, "I had you."

  "Yes, but I was a kid." Dina wrinkled her nose.

  "You were all that I needed."

  "Didn't you ever want, you know, a relationship with a man?"

  "I never had much time to think about it. I was so busy raising you and working that I never missed having a social life, if that's what you're asking."

  "But, Mom, now that I'm older and on my own, don't you wish that maybe you'd met someone to share your golden years with?"

  "I loved raising you. Loved being your mother. More than anything else I've ever done, Dina, I've loved being your mother. I have no regrets. None at all." Jude grinned. "And I always figured I could count on you to pay a visit, now and then, when I finally hit those 'golden years.'"

  "You can count on it, Mom." Dina smiled back, all the while swatting away the sting of nostalgia. Jude had never missed a school play or a parents meeting. She'd been Brownie leader and Halloween costume maker.

  She'd stood on the sidelines for every tennis match, every field hockey game, through high school, had even tried her hand at coaching a club softball team just so that the team would let Dina play. Jude had been the best of mothers, the best of friends. If she felt she'd sacrificed for Dina's sake, she'd never let on. Still. . .

  "I wish you'd take some of the money from my trust and treat yourself. Maybe buy new furniture. A new car. A fabulous trip." Dina sipped at her tea. "To France. Italy. Spain. Russia. Who knows who you might meet? You're still young, attractive—"

  "That money was intended for you and you alone, sweetie, as we have discussed a thousand times."

  "I'll never understand why Dad's parents didn't provide for you, too. It would have saved me the trouble of nagging you to let me do things for you."

  "Dina, we've been over this so many times before. Your grandparents never really knew me, but you were their only grandchild."

  "Well, they didn't know me any more than they knew you."

  Jude stole another fry. "Frank died before his parents and I could make much of a connection."

  "Their loss."

  "Water under the bridge, honey. Besides, keep in mind that they'd never really had time to deal with the death of their son before they themselves were killed in that plane crash. Don't judge them so harshly."

  "Still, I wish they'd set things up differently, so that it could have been easier for you while I was growing up."

  "We never had things so very hard, if you recall. We had our sweet little house in our wonderful neighborhood in a wonderful town. And let's face it, neither of us ever wanted for anything, Dina."

  "Still, some of the McDermott money would have gone a long way to—"

  Jude held up a hand to stop her. "What would you have wanted that you didn't have back then?"

  "Besides a car on my sixteenth birthday?" Dina grinned. "Actually, I can't think of a thing. But you wouldn't have had to work."

  "Darling, I'm a librarian. I've hardly been out digging ditches in the hot sun all these years. I've loved my work. I have—have had—a wonderful life."

  "Isn't there anything you want that you don't have?"

  "Yes. There is one thing that I really, really want right now." Jude smiled longingly.

  "Name it and it's yours."

  "I'm about to do just that." Jude turned to the pony-tailed waitress as she approached their table. "I'll have a hot fudge sundae. Seriously heavy on the hot fudge. You can give the check to my daughter.. .."

  The wind had picked up and a fast rain had begun to fall by the time Dina dropped off Jude and returned home. The lights in the greenhouse assured her that Polly had kept her word and was checking the seedlings for signs of mildew, which could ruin all of the fledgling plants. Hoping to avoid a soaking of her favorite suede jacket, Dina parked as close as possible to the carriage house, then made a break for the front door through the deluge. Her keys were in her hand before she reached the shelter of the porch, and within seconds she had the door unlocked and pushed open and was dripping a path of fat drops of water from the narrow foyer to the kitchen.

  "Damn," Dina muttered as she shook off her jacket and hung it carefully over the back of a kitchen chair, slipped out of her wet shoes, and left them under the table.

  Then, "Ugh," as she caught a glance of herself in the mirror over the sink in the small powder room.

  Her black hair was plastered to her head, her nose and cheeks red with the cold. She toweled off the hair and padded back to the kitchen in stocking feet. There she made tea and skimmed through the pile of mail she'd brought in earlier that morning but hadn't had time to look at. Dina left it all on the counter and went upstairs to change into dry clothes.

  A vintage University of Maryland sweatshirt and a pair of well-worn sweatpants suited the day and the weather. On her way back down the steps, Dina paused at the small square landing and pushed the curtain aside to look through the window. From this vantage, she could see the entire expanse of fields that, on this miserable March afternoon, lay frostbitten and hard. Under a blanket of straw and last year's leaves that covered the frozen soil, the perennials she'd planted a year ago simply waited out the cold, withstanding heaving earth and enduring unpredictable changes in temperature. What was predictable was that, within the next few weeks, the daylilies would break through the ground and the peonies would appear seemingly overnight. The hiss of sleet that bounced off the window assured her that tonight would not be that night.

  The teapot summoned from the kitchen, and Dina hurried to silence its annoying shriek. She made her tea and went into the den, where she studied the notes she had made for Monday's 6:00 A.M. appearance on the local news. Last visit she had talked about caring for shrubs through the winter. This week, she'd talk about pruning—which shrubs to prune in the spring and the best way to do it. The station liked to shoot these segments on location there at the nursery, which was perfect. Besides the fact that she'd have plenty of specimens to choose from, it was excellent publicity for her business.

  While her tea cooled, Dina called down to the greenhouse, expecting Polly to answer, and was startled when a blast of unintelligible sound assaulted her unsuspecting ears.

  Dina pictured William scrambling to turn down the music.

  "Yeah, Dina, hi."

  "Wow, William." Why, she wondered, was this child not deaf? "You know, you shatter the windows down there, you're going to have to clean it all up."

  William laughed self-consciously, then turned the radio down even more.

  "I thought soothing music was recommended for plants, William. What is that, anyway?"

  "Motley Crue," he told her. "The hollyhocks like metal."

  Dina rolled her eyes and shook her head as if to shake away the ringing in her ears.

  "Now, the annuals, I think they like classic rock the best, but the perennials, they definitely prefer metal."

  She could imagine her young employee, his brown hair pulled back from his face in a ponytail, his glasses etched with a touch of condensation, his quietly amused smile as he offered his theory on the musical preferences of plants to his boss.

  "Is Polly down there with you?" As soon as she asked the question, Dina realized how unnecessary it was. If Polly had been there, the radio would have been tuned to golden oldies and the Crue would have been replaced by the smooth sounds of Motown at a fraction of the decibel level.

  "Polly went up to her place around one. She was here for a while, but she was sneezing and coughing a lot so I told her I'd finish up mixing the soil for the stuff you wanted to pot up this week." William paused, then asked, "Was that okay? I mean, she seemed really sick."

  "No, that was fine. Absolutely. She's been coming down with that cold for the past few days. Thanks for taking over there."

  "No problem. I like this part of the work, you know? I like the gr
eenhouse and all. Planting up those flats and watching the little shoots come up. It's cool."

  "William, you have the makings of a fine nurseryman."

  "Thanks," he mumbled.

  "You're welcome." She smiled, knowing that his adolescent face had turned scarlet, as it always did when Dina praised his efforts. "I'll be coming down in a while. If you leave before I get there, just leave the door unlocked."

  "Okay. I'll probably be heading out after I finish with this mix. Unless you need me for something special."

  "No, you go on whenever you need to. There's nothing that has to be done this afternoon. Just don't forget to fill in your hours on the calendar."

  He was a good kid, she thought as she hung up the phone. In spite of his dizzying taste in music, he was an all-around good kid. Hard worker. Honest. Dependable. A quick study. A raise was probably in order, she was thinking as she pulled on waterproof boots to prepare for her short trek to the greenhouse.

  Dina stopped in the kitchen to call Polly, then chatted with Erin, who informed her that her mother was napping because she had a cold.

  "Don't wake her, honey," Dina told her. "Just let her know that I called and that she can get back to me whenever she's feeling better. It's nothing important."

  "Okay."

  Dina was smiling to herself as she got a rain jacket out of the closet. Erin was such a sweet child. For the briefest of moments, Dina considered the special tie that held Polly to Erin, mother to daughter, that same tie that connected her to Jude.

  Endless circles, Dina reflected as she trod on stepping-stones touched with a silvery glaze where sleet had turned to ice. Mother to child and child to mother, on and on, through time, a certain and necessary continuation. Dina wondered if it was in her cards to one day form a link of that chain with a daughter of her own.

  Assuming, she thought wryly, that she'd find that man who could ... what had she said to her mother? Raise her heart rate? A man who set her pulse racing and brought a smile to her lips and filled her nights with dreams.

  He had to be out there somewhere.

  She wondered what it was going to take to find him.

  Chapter Six

  Miles Kendall reminded Simon a bit of his grandfather, who, in spite of his frail physical condition and his own loss of memory, had lived to the ripe old age of eighty-six before succumbing to pneumonia five years ago. Simon had never quite forgiven himself for not making the trip back to Iowa during those last few weeks before his grandfather's death. The fact that he probably wouldn't have recognized Simon didn't matter. He should have made the effort and hadn't. He'd never ceased to regret it. That regret may have been at the heart of Simon's decision to pay a second visit to St. Margaret's.

  On his way, Simon stopped at a convenience store where he filled up the Mustang with gas and stocked up on mints. Minutes later, he parked in the lot at the home, locked the car, and headed for the front door, mints in one pocket, his tape recorder in the other.

  "You're back." June, the nurse's aide he'd met on his first visit, waved from a concrete bench that was set in a patch of sunlight to the left of the steps.

  "I thought I'd stop in for a minute and drop off some mints for Mr. Kendall."

  "That's nice of you. He's feeling pretty spunky today." June closed the book she'd been reading.

  "Spunky?"

  "Oh, yeah. He's been talking all morning about a trip he and his sister took to Chicago on the train. Sounds like they had a hell of a time." June laughed.

  "Is he in the same room?" Simon paused with his hand on the doorknob.

  "The dayroom, yes. You remember how to get there?"

  "Yes. Thanks. Through the French doors and straight ahead to the end." Simon paused in the doorway. "Did he say what his sister's name was?"

  "Yes." June nodded. "Dorothy."

  Simon stepped into the cool quiet of the lobby and waved to the receptionist, who never missed a beat in her telephone conversation while pointing to the sign-in book. Simon wrote his name and the date and proceeded on his own to the dayroom, where he found Miles Kendall in the same chair close to the windows.

  "Hi, Mr. Kendall," Simon said as he approached the chair.

  Kendall turned and smiled. There was a life in his eyes that Simon hadn't seen in his previous visit.

  "How are you today?"

  "Quite well. And you?" Kendall appeared alert and tuned in to his surroundings.

  "I was just speaking to June outside," Simon said as he pulled up a chair.

  "June?"

  "One of the aides."

  "Ahhh, the cute little strawberry blonde?"

  "Yes." Simon smiled. The old man may be forgetful, but he wasn't blind. "June was saying that you'd told her about a trip you took to Chicago with your sister."

  Kendall nodded. "I met Dorothy in New York, and from there we took the train to Chicago. It was very pleasant; do you remember?"

  "I wasn't there with you," Simon told him. "What year was that?"

  "It was for Cousin Eileen's wedding. Lovely week in May we spent there."

  Simon's heart fell. He couldn't even begin to guess at what year it might be in Miles Kendall's world.

  Simon dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a box of mints. He had started to hand them to Kendall when the old man said, "Dorothy wanted to stay an extra week, but I had to get back to Washington."

  Simon's hand froze in midair and his heart tripped at the words.

  "Flying was faster, but Dorothy wouldn't fly, so I took the train out and back with her," Kendall added.

  "Why were you going to Washington?"

  Bony fingers reached out and grabbed the box of mints. "Because I worked there, of course." He scrutinized the box, shook it, and started to bite into an end.

  "Of course. I'd forgotten." Simon took the box and opened the bottom flap before handing it back to him. "When Graham was President, you worked in the White House."

  "You do remember." Kendall popped a mint into his mouth and sucked on it loudly. "Remember when the bagpipers were there? They always had bagpipers around Christmas. That Christmas ... remember the Christmas Ball?"

  Simon nodded and slipped a hand into his pocket to turn on his recorder. He shouldn't, of course, record without permission, but since asking for permission might only serve to distract Kendall, Simon let it pass. After all, no one would ever know about the tape. Simon only intended to use it in place of the notes that he would normally take on paper, and who knew that even that might serve as a distraction to the old man? The last thing Simon wanted was to run the risk of stopping the flow of memories now that Kendall apparently had some.

  "Wasn't she lovely that night?" Kendall stopped chewing for a long minute and looked out the window, as if watching something that only his eyes could see.

  "Beautiful." Simon leaned forward hoping to catch every word.

  "She wore that long dress of pale lavender. Matched her eyes. We danced and danced.. . ."

  "She was your lady friend?"

  "She danced like . . . well, light as a cloud. Everyone was watching us." Kendall began to slip into the past. Simon wasn't sure where it would take them, but he was happy to follow. "All the women, they all wanted to be her; you could tell by the way they looked at her. And all the men wished they were me. If they only knew ..." He shook his head slowly; a sadness settled into the lines of his face.

  "She was who, Mr. Kendall?"

  "She could light up a room just by walking into it. And her laughter . .. just like those little silver bells on the tree." He cocked his head slightly to the side, as if listening. "She loved to dance. And everyone wanted to dance with her. Cut right in whenever they saw a chance. But not him. Not that night. She was watching him like a hawk that night."

  "So all the other guys were lining up to dance with your lady?" Simon wondered who him and she might have been. "That's some feeling, isn't it, when all your friends stare at your girl and wish she was with them?"

  "Oh, not reall
y my girl," Kendall said softly, the sadness deepening. "Not really. She never could see anyone but him."

  "Your lady had her eyes on someone else?"

  "Who could blame her? He was everything. Had everything ..." The tired blue eyes drifted to the window and beyond once again. "He couldn't stop looking at her, couldn't take his eyes off her. And she knew; if I'd suspected it before, I was pretty certain then. 'This is dangerous,' I told him. 'Can't you see that she's watching every move you make?' Of course, he knew that I loved her, too. Maybe he thought I just wanted her for myself." He turned back to Simon and smiled a half smile that was etched with pain. "And of course, I did."

  "You and a friend were in love with the same woman," Simon said softly.

  Kendall nodded.

  "And he was married? It was dangerous because he was married and his wife was there, too?" Simon was touched that, so many years later, Kendall still felt the loss of his old love.

  Another nod.

  "I'm sorry, I don't remember her name—"

  "Blythe."

  "Of course, Blythe. And she came to the party with you."

  "She always went there with me. Everyone thought she was my girl, because she always came there with me. But she was his. She was always his. Only his."

  "Remind me again who he was." His curiosity piqued, Simon leaned forward.

  Just far enough for Kendall to drop a bomb in his lap.

  "Graham," Kendall whispered. "She was always Graham's."

  When his wits resurfaced, Simon asked, "Graham Hayward? The President of the United States, Graham Hayward?"

  Kendall paused, his face softening just a bit, as if suddenly amused. "She was so young. Much too young for him. Much too young for me. And yet, we both ..."

  Kendall stopped, as if unable to speak the words.

  "Loved her." Mr. Morality, Graham Hayward?

  "Yes. We both loved her."

  "And you took her out in public because he could not?" Graham "High Road" Hayward?

  Kendall's eyes welled up.

  "That must have been very hard for you, sir. To be with the woman you loved, knowing she loved someone else." These were the ramblings of a confused old man, weren't they?