Page 303 of Incisive

Which completely explains why she didn’t divorce him after he lost his re-election and he was indicted by the grand juries.

Because he was never convicted.

Which I suspect also explains at least some of her rationale regarding her timing releasing the video. She hoped Ellis would be arrested down in Ft. Lauderdale and she could file for divorce immediately.

None of that matters anymore. Regardless of our relationship, Stella didn’t deserve to die like that.

It’s unfair I’ll never have a chance to hug her again after her belated revelations. There will never be “good” memories for me of her as my sister, except for when she was literally a baby.

We settle in at the kitchen table and I finally speak. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect her, Mom. I should’ve made her keep a Secret Service detail.”

She sadly smiles and lays a hand over mind. “Do youhonestlythink you could have, Elliot? She had a stubborn streak even wider than your father’s. I don’t know what she ever saw in that man. While it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead I’d be lying if I said I ever liked him. Because I didn’t. I hated him the first time I met him. If she’d been any younger I would have grabbed her by the shoulders right in front of him and shook her and asked her what the hell she thought she was doing. I want to say he used her but it’d be leaving out half the truth, which is I think she used him just as much, if not more, than he used her.”

I slowly nod. “I think you’re right about all of that.”

She squeezes my hand. “I don’t blame you, honey. Neither does your father. Just because he doesn’t talk about his feelings doesn’t mean he doesn’t have them.”

“I feel like I let her down, and both of you.”

“You put up with more from her throughout the years than any brother ever had a right to. She was no angel. If I’d known the things she and Grace Martin would get up to I never would have let them hang out together as kids. Guess having money doesn’t mean you come from a good family.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

She pats my hand again. “You’re a good man with a good heart, El. You’re a good president. I’m sorry the two of you butted heads because she had a stick up her butt. I can’t honestly say I agree with everything you’ve done as president but I know your heart and that you want what’s best for us. You nearly gave your life for this country and we couldn’t be more proud of you, or the fact that you’re our president. Don’t ever let anyone try to tell you that you haven’t been a good president.”

I’m…stunned. “Thanks, Mom.”

She blinks back tears. “We’ve lost one child. We almost lost you once already. I won’t alienate you over something so…stupidlike politics. Something that doesn’t evenmatter.”

I know how she means it but I’ve learned first-hand how much politicsdomatter. Maybe not to her on a microlevel and with pain shrouding every inch of her soul.

Except I’m an economist and see the bigger picture by training and profession. Politics nearly got me killed, when you pull out to the macro view of the world.

Politics got my sister killed, if you boil it down to its most basic elements. Politics, and greed. Greed for power and greed for money both. I won’t victim-blame Stella and say she deserved it, because she didn’t. But she wasn’t blameless in the micro view of events. She and Grace connived for years, schemed their way through life. Then when Stella lost Grace, the larger predator in whose shadow Stella swam and enjoyed protection, like a remora, my sister turned to the next available shark and latched on to its belly.

Unfortunately, that predator devoured her.

No, Stella wasn’t directly at fault in her death but she spent a lifetime making deliberately selfish choices that didn’t leave her blameless.

Not that I’ll ever say that to my parents. I’m not even certain I should broach that topic with either of my men. It makes me feel like a shitty human being for framing it that way in my head.

Perhaps politics has hardened my soul and sanded the fine edges off my empathy after all.

Maybe I’m losing my humanity in different ways than Stella did.

Fuck, I’m glad this is my last term in officeever.

I’m also sitting here mourning the mythical sibling relationship I never had and now never will. The relationship that, despite knowing in my heart it was impossible to have with Stella because she wasn’t capable of it, I still always hoped might one day come to pass.

That there might be a time when I was truly her big brother and she wasn’t simply being transactional when acting nice to me.

Where I might not have to weigh every word I said to her, or where I had to evaluate everything she said to me to look for her angle.

As sucky as it sounds, that’s my true grief. I can no longer cling to…hope.

There will never be a time at some future point where we can sit on a front porch on a mild spring evening with drinks in hand and laugh about past shit. I’ll never have the kind of relationship with her that Leo, and even Jordan, have with Kayley.

I can’t ever have that kind of relationship with Kayley because to her I’ll always be President Woodley first instead of her brother-in-law. Despite her claims that she loves and accepts me I sense that, somewhere deep inside her, I will also always be the guy who “stole” Leo from Jordan.