INAUGURATION March 4, 1837. Washington, DC
A pity the sun chose today to shine for the first time in months. A shame he couldn’t use the freezing rain as an excuse to cut short his time in the Senate. He did not want to leave the warmth of his bed for an upstart ray of sunlight. He needed the stillness of his grief more than the trouble of his inauguration. Let a man bereaved of wife and daughter remain in the shadows where all good vice-presidents belong. Thirty years ago, he thought he was everything, and Washington behaved as hopelessly naïve, as maddening in its optimism as he had. And by 1814 that second war with the King had left his body and this town in ruins. In the quarter century since the war, he’d used his battle scars to good effect. But the town had taken a turn toward faithless ignorance and aimed its terrifying, deliberate cruelty towards too many, including himself. It happened without anyone in particular getting the blame, and it happened in that slippery, small-town fashion: a look cast with the lighting of a cigar, a word murmured after a sip of floral tea.
At night, unable to sleep, he fancied the wind full of the cries of good boys like he’d once been, as they threw over their good intentions in order to survive just one more election. And when he walked each morning to the Senate and turned his head toward the sky, he could almost see the impossible promises and muttered threats lift into the air to join the mists rising off the Potomac. In a few hours, he would swear an oath of office. And what would that be? To uphold the past two terms of promises and threats from his old friend Jackson. Marty got picked for the top instead of him, and it was a sore that would never heal, but they both accepted the fact that their mentor’s hands would still hold the reins.
He thought of the wreckage left in Jackson’s wake and his stomach clenched with the sure knowledge every whipping boy learns the hard way: he would pay the price, not Marty. The new president had little in common with the old. Marty played the indoor games, while he and Jackson earned fame the hard way as Indian killers. The president’s expulsion of the Civilized Tribes stank of cruelty, and Marty planned on finishing the order. But who would get the blame? He would, because he’d killed too many Indians twenty and some odd years ago while Marty’d stayed indoors. Because of that damned reputation, his penance‒the Indian Academy back home ‒might very well be put to the torch. He and Jackson shared another fame that he thought had made the president more his brother than Marty’s. They had shared the exquisite torment of ridicule from the press and the public because of their wives. And his ambition for the White House–knowing Julia and their daughters would never be allowed to cross its threshold–made him pander to such childish policies as letting Peg O’Neale tear up Jackson’s Cabinet.
A sudden screech of wind through the chimney agreed with his thoughts. Bitter cold, despite the sun, would punish old Jackson and Marty both, as they made their victory ride down Pennsylvania Avenue. It would punish him as well, making his battle scars constrict and his hands rigid as old leather. At least his swearing-in would be in the Senate chamber by a nicely stoked fire. That would serve as a bit of consolation for playing second fiddle. The thought encouraged him enough to throw off the covers, careful not to ruffle Lydia in her sleep. He sat on the edge of the mattress for a minute, waiting for some sign of feeling in his toes and stared at the painting over the fireplace mantel. It depicted an old castle fortress, clinging to a sea cliff. How Julia had feared it, as if one day she’d pass by and find the castle fallen into the waves below. Her superstitious notion that it portrayed their lives had led him to give way to his own superstition after her death. Each morning he stared at it reverently and prayed the briefest moment. Don’t be too disappointed. I almost made it. You would have made it had you left my girl where she belonged.
Not Julia’s sweet consolation; not Adi’s teasing assurance. He heard his mother. With a sigh, he crawled back under the covers, but closing his eyes did not close off the memories or the regrets. It was no use; he sat upright again and stared once more at the painting. As he watched, the sunbeam that had roused him expanded and lapped gently at the castle ruins. Suddenly, millions of dust bits entrapped within the beam turned brilliant, taking on a life of their own. He felt a familiar warmth embrace him, a pressure on the bed by his thigh.
It’s our first morning, isn’t it? He asked. The pressure moved up his scarred arm.
They had shared breakfast for the first time as man and wife in a humble widow’s kitchen where the sun lit up Julia’s face and made her sparkle like a jewel. Richard stared in wonder at the shimmering air until his chin trembled and he could bear the memories no longer. Then he put his head in his hands and wept.
