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Wes raised his wrist and angled his arm to catch the moonlight shining into the room through the blinds. Four a.m., and the

plane was taking off from the Denver airport at five. That was the plan. It wasn’t the plan he’d wanted to make, but he couldn’t

deny it was the one that made the most sense. He’d stopped by the coffee lounge long enough to tell Phil to make the arrangements

with the pilot and then hurried away before any other subject could be broached. He couldn’t avoid it for long. He had no

desire to avoid it for long. He was furious with Phil for investigating Addie and digging up dirt on her. Of course he was furious.

But he also knew Phil was doing his job and, from what he could tell, doing it well. If things had been different, and if

Addie were different—if she were someone who acted impulsively or recklessly or followed the whim of emotion—Wes would have

married her today. Well, maybe not literally today. They were running on energy fumes, hanging out in a hospital, and he’d

chewed his last breath mint about three hours ago. As desperate as he was to spend his life with her, he wanted forever to

begin on a slightly mintier note than that. But if she hadn’t slowed him down, nothing else would have. That much was certain.

She wasn’t wrong, and neither was Phil, as much as he hated to admit it.

If she was his wife, he couldn’t be president.

It was everything Addie had pointed out to him, but it was something else too.

It was Joel. Yes, VE Ladder was classified.

Yes, Joel’s death certificate listed blunt-force trauma resulting from a head-on collision as his cause of death, and it listed the date as October 22, eight full months after the day Addie had to start grappling with the loss.

But people talked. They lived in the age of WikiLeaks, after all.

Be it reporters seeking a scoop or his opponents seeking a foothold, someone would find out things they shouldn’t be able to, and Addie would have to live through it all again—this time on the world’s biggest stage.

So that was one decision made. One possibility deemed impossible. Now he just needed to figure out if he wanted to spend any

more time in a landscape that made it impossible for him to be with her.

He scratched the back of his head with both hands and then lifted them as high as he could to stretch out his tired back.

At least on the plane he could sleep. He was going to hang on to that silver lining for dear life. At that particular moment,

he wasn’t having much luck finding another one.

Wes stood from the stiff upright chair beside Doc’s bed and looked around for a piece of paper and a pen. He spotted a napkin

under the tumbler of water on the table by the bed and a dry-erase marker on the board by the door. That would have to do.

He grabbed them and tiptoed as quietly as he could back to the chair. He began by using the palm of his hand as a writing

surface, but he only got as far as “Dear Doc”—which ended up looking more like an upside-down finger-paint interpretation

of the section of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam in which God’s finger touches Adam’s—before he gave up on that approach.

He stood and walked to the nearest hard, flat surface and began writing.

Dear Doc,

I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk before I had to leave. I really hope we can talk soon. There are things I’d like to say, and I know there are things you’d like to say. For now, just know that

Just know what? There was so much Wes wanted him to know.

Just know that I’m glad you’re okay.

Just know that I’ll never stop loving your daughter.

Just know that the best parts of me were instilled by you.

I’ll never stop being sorry.

“You know that disconnecting my oxygen won’t actually kill me, don’t you?”

Wes jumped and turned toward Doc’s bed.

“I am capable of breathing on my own, so you might need to try suffocating me with a pillow or something.”

Yeah, okay... Wes could see, in hindsight, how huddling over the machines may not have been the best way to encourage peace

and tranquility in an old man who had just had a heart attack.

“Sorry.” Wes held up his napkin and marker. “Just leaving a note.”

Doc pushed himself up in the bed. “Make yourself useful before you go, won’t you?” He motioned behind him. “Pull these pillows

up for me.”

Wes laid his materials down on the top of the monitor and hurried over and followed Doc’s leading. “Need to hang on to me

and pull up?” he asked as Doc kept slipping out of his desired position.

“Stupid rubber mattress,” Doc muttered, grabbing onto Wes’s arm and finally making the progress that had been eluding him.

“Thanks.”

“Of course.” Wes fluffed the top pillow one more time before Doc rested his head on it. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine. I’d be better than fine if I could sleep in my own bed.” He pointed to the table. “Hand me that water?”

Wes scurried to the other side of the bed and handed the tumbler to him and watched Doc drink it up through the bendy straw until it started making the gurgling noises that signaled there was more ice than water. “Need me to get you a refill?”

“I thought you were heading out.”

Wes glanced across the room at the note and then back to Doc. “Soon. But I can—”

“So are you leaving for good, or should we leave the light on for you for the next twenty years?”

Wes sighed. “Doc, I—”

“Here.” Doc handed him the tumbler. “I’m good for now. Just set it over there.”

He set it back on the table. “I don’t know what I should say right now, Doc. I don’t want to cause you to—”

“My heart’s fine, Hobbes. Lay it on me.”

Suddenly “I’ll never stop being sorry” seemed so inadequate. What could he say to the man who had looked him in the eyes and

told him he was proud of him just hours before he ran out of town?

Wes sat on the edge of the chair on the near side of the bed and took a deep breath. “You trusted me, and I let you down.

I’m sorry.”

“Tell me why you left.”

“I wasn’t good enough for her.” Wes paused and waited, but Doc just kept looking at him. Well, at least we agree on something. “I’d been telling her for weeks that I thought we should wait—”

“I see.” Doc pushed himself up higher in the bed after once again slipping down. “So it’s Addie’s fault.”

Wes chuckled nervously. “See, um... that’s my bad.” He leaned over and adjusted the pillows again. “When I talked this

through with Addie, I issued this sort of general disclaimer right at the top.”

“What did you think would happen? For her, I mean. After you left.”

“I don’t know, Doc. I really don’t. I’d love to tell you I was smart enough to have thought it all through, but clearly—”

“Well, clearly you weren’t.”

Wes cleared his throat. Still stings, even when it’s true. “Yeah, I know. That’s what I was saying. Trust me, no one sees what a putz I was as well as I do.”

“Do you know that I couldn’t get her to leave that tree until after dark?”

“What tree?”

“That tree in the meadow. She just sat there at the foot of that tree in her wedding dress all day long. And even then, it

took Cole and me both dragging her away. She was so sure you were coming back. Did you think that would happen?”

He swiped at his nose. “No, I guess I didn’t.”

“You had to have thought something —”

“I guess...” He growled in frustration over not having any better answers than he’d had twenty-two years ago. “I guess

I thought she’d be sad for a little while, and then she’d realize she’d dodged a bullet. She’d go to some Ivy League school

or something, and then before long she’d meet some great, smart, really good guy who loved her as much as I did but who actually

deserved her and who she wouldn’t have to scale back all her dreams and expectations for.” He shrugged. “I guess that’s what

I thought. That’s definitely what I hoped.”

The beeping of the heart monitor and the whooshing of the oxygen machine seemed louder as silence otherwise overtook the room.

“You sure you don’t need some more water or something?”

Doc ignored the question and instead said, “It may have taken longer than you thought it would, but I guess you weren’t too

far off in the end. Joel was a good guy. And he sure loved our girl.”

Wes sniffed and roughly brushed away the tear that fell. “How could he not?” He sighed and scooted the chair closer. “I never

stopped loving her, Doc. I didn’t. I haven’t.”

“So why are you leaving?”

“Yeah... that is the question of the day.” He exhaled and laughed humorlessly. “Do you remember in ninth grade or so when

I wanted to be a rapper? Never mind that I wasn’t all that great at rapping. I mean, Cole had to do all my beats for me because

I kept losing the rhythm. Nevertheless, I just listened to The Slim Shady LP on constant repeat and learned all the lyrics, and I knew that one of these days Dr. Dre and Eminem were going to be walking down Main Street in Adelaide Springs and maybe stop into my mom’s restaurant for a cup of coffee, and they’d hear me spitting bars, and before I knew it I’d have a recording contract.

” He laughed softly as Doc nodded and rolled his eyes.

“I’ll never forget what you said to me, Doc. You didn’t discourage me or tell me how ridiculous that dream was. You just said,

‘If that’s what you want, go after it. But in the meantime, make sure you can pay your bills.’” Wes ran his hand through his

hair. “My own father didn’t always give me such supportive advice.”

“Well, it’s amazing what you come up with when you’re just trying to make sure your little girl doesn’t end up with a rapper

who, let’s face it, had a better chance of paying the bills with that buffalo-grooming business he tried starting.”

“I still think that really could have taken off if the Fieldings had had more than just the one buffalo.” Wes smiled as Doc

chuckled softly and nodded.

“Seems like you’re doing okay for yourself now. That was your private plane I rode here on, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t own the plane.” And still, it had been a long time since he’d had to worry about making his own airline reservations or having

enough money to pay the bills. For that matter, it had been a long time since he’d even received his own credit card statements.

It was possible he wasn’t even equipped for normal life anymore. “The thing is, I honestly don’t know if I’m one of the lucky

ones whose dream pays the bills or if I just gave up on dreaming. I really don’t know. All I know is I don’t have a backup

plan. Twenty years of my life have been building toward the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. I don’t know if I

want to run for president or not, but I also don’t have a clue what else I would do.”

As long as Wes had known him, Doc had always been comfortable with silence.

What Wes instinctively felt an itch to compensate for, Doc understood was a thing to be revered.

It was beautiful not to feel a compulsive need to fill the gaps in conversation.

To take the time to consider, or to be able to think without fear that you’d miss your chance if you waited too long, or even worse, that someone else would beat you to the words you should have said.

If Wes had finished out his formative years in the presence of Doc Atwater rather than Governor McNeese, would he, too, have

someday shifted into that content, peaceful gear without the assistance of therapists and campaign strategists who never really

helped him be content and only ever taught him how to bury and conceal his internal turbulence?

All he knew for sure was that in Doc’s presence the silence was freeing rather than suffocating, and Wes was relieved that

he didn’t have to be the one to bring it to an end.

“Thank you for that, by the way,” Doc muttered.

“For what?”

“The plane. Jo says... Well, she says you moved pretty quickly to make all of that happen.”

“Oh, that was nothing—”

“It wasn’t nothing. I probably would have been okay regardless, but I’ve been in Jo’s passenger seat driving over those mountain

passes when there isn’t any real rush. It might not have been a heart attack that killed me if we’d had to go that route. And I’m saying I’m grateful.”

The dim light didn’t hide the sincerity and intensity in Doc’s eyes as he stared at him unblinking, forcing Wes to accept

the appreciation it would have been so much more comfortable to deflect.

Because of course he was going to do all he could, and of course it was the least he could do, and of course he couldn’t imagine a single thing he wouldn’t do for this man who had never once expected anything from him apart from the

one simple request that he be a man worthy of his daughter. Which of course had been too much to ask.

“You’re welcome.” The men nodded at each other, and Wes finally exhaled when Doc pulled his eyes away and began staring out the window on the other side of the room.

“You know, if I get elected for the new job, I’ll have a much bigger plane to fly you around in when you have your next heart attack. ”

“I think there will be a bunch of us having heart attacks, watching you try to land Air Force One in Adelaide Springs. I’m

pretty sure the plane itself is longer than the runway.”

Wes chuckled and raised his wrist to catch the light from the hallway on his watch. “Well, on that note, my paltry little

non-nuclear-blast-resistant plane awaits. Tomorrow is one year since my father died, and the good people of Connecticut—or

at least the people who want to make me president—just refuse to let him rest in peace.” He stood from his chair and said,

“I’m really glad you’re okay, Doc.”

“You said goodbye to Addie?”

He understood the subtext, and it was justified. But again, it stung. “I’m leaving but I’m not leaving . She and I are going to keep talking and figuring things out, and—”

“But you said goodbye to Addie?”

“Yeah, Doc.” Wes slapped him gently on the shoulder and headed toward the door. “I said goodbye to Addie.”