economies and never look back. But still, for a lot of big and small
reasons that I really can’t explain, I do love my country. That’s why
this nightmare disturbs me so much. I don’t want it to happen. But
it’s getting harder and harder to feel any hope.”
“If that’s the case, why do you do it?”
Buchanan stared at the old photograph again and said, “Do you want
something pithy or philosophical?”
“How about the truth?”
Buchanan looked at his old friend. “I deeply regret never having
children,” he began slowly, then paused. “A good friend of mine has a
dozen grandchildren. He was telling me about aPTA meeting he had
attended at his granddaughter’s elementary school. I asked him why he
was bothering with doing that. Wasn’t that the parents’ job? I said.
You know what he told me? He said that with the way the world is now,
we all have to think about things beyond our lifetime. Beyond our
children’s lifetime, in fact. It’s our right. It’s our duty, my good
friend told me.”
Buchanan smoothed out his napkin. “So maybe I do what I do because the
sum of the world’s tragedies outweighs its happiness. And that’s just
not right.” He paused again, moistness creeping into his eyes.
“Other than that, I haven’t the faintest idea.”
CHAPTER 28
BROOKE REYNOLDS WAS JUST FINISHED SAYING GRACE, and they all started on
their meals. She had burst through the door ten minutes earlier,
determined to eat dinner with her family. Her regular hours at the
Bureau were eight-fifteen A.M. to five P.M. That was the funniest joke
at the Bureau: regular hours. She had changed into jeans and a
sweatshirt and exchanged her suede flats for Reeboks. Reynolds took
much pleasure in scooping out spoonfuls of peas and mashed potatoes for
all their plates. Rosemary poured out milk for the kids while her
teenage daughter Theresa helped three-year-old David cut up his meat.
It was a nice, quiet family gathering, which Reynolds had come to
cherish and which she did everything possible to make each evening,
even if it meant going back to work later.
Reynolds rose from the table and poured herself a glass of white wine.
While half her brain focused on finding Faith Lockhart and her new
confederate, Lee Adams, the other part was looking ahead with much
anticipation to Halloween, less than a week away. Sydney, her
six-year-old daughter, was dead set on being Eyore, for the second year
in a row. David would be the bouncy Tigger, a character that fit the
perpetual-motion child perfectly. After that, Thanksgiving, perhaps a
trip to her parents’ in Florida, if she could find the time. Then
Christmas. This year Reynolds was taking the kids to see Santa Claus.
She had missed last year because of-what else?-Bureau business. This
year she would pull her 9mm on anyone who tried to stop her appointment
with Kris Kringle. All in all, a good plan, if she could just make it
work. Conception was easy; execution was the key that so often fell
out of the lock.
As she put the cork back in the bottle, she looked sadly around a home
that would not be hers much longer. Her son and daughter sensed that
the change was coming. David hadn’t slept through the night in over a
week. Reynolds, home after working fifteen-hour days, would hold the
quivering, wailing little boy, trying to calm him, rock him back to
sleep. She tried to tell him that things would be just fine, when she
was as uncertain as anyone whether they would be. It was sometimes
terrifying being a parent, particularly in the midst of a divorce and
all the pain it caused, which you saw every day etched into the faces
of your children. More than once Reynolds had thought about calling
off the divorce for that reason alone. But hanging on for the sake of
the children wasn’t the answer, she felt. At least not for her. They
would have a better life without the man than they’d had with him. And
her ex, she thought, might be a better father after the divorce than he
had been before. Well, at least she could hope. Reynolds simply did