TITLE: Still Time to Make Things Right AUTHOR: Kasey RATING: PG, some EMF, some EZoeyF SUMMARY: “But right now she couldn’t care less about the press…she’s got a full-scale war going on in her home.  And her parents…don’t think she notices.  So she comes to me.” DISCLAIMERS: Don’t own ‘em. THANKS: Flip.  O’Course. Poor Zoey. She never asked for her father to be famous and powerful.  She never wanted the photographers on campus or the reporters asking her questions. She never meant to cause trouble by having Abby sign the medical form.  She didn’t want to cause people to shoot at her just because she was in love. She never tries to cause trouble.  She’s a good kid. She’s also a press target.  The President tries to deter them from talking to her, but it doesn’t work all the time.  And she can’t always keep her mouth shut when she should. But right now, she couldn’t care less about the press and the rest of the world, she’s got a full-scale war going on in her home.  And her parents, for some unknown reason, don’t think she notices. So she comes to me. Why me? Because I have some experience with parents being angry with each other and Charlie doesn’t get it on any level other than professional with her family and he’s not supposed to be involved or discuss the arguments anyway. We go to dinner every Thursday (and have ever since she came down from Hanover to start going to Georgetown) and she laments about how her mother’s refusing to speak to anyone and her father is spending more time in his office than my father spends in his and it’s tearing her apart. She’s seriously starting to get afraid that her parents are gonna get a divorce and that stops me cold.  Uncle Jed and Aunt Abby are the pillars of what marriage and love and family are supposed to be.  Both worked but put family first (unlike my father being away for months on end) and they always talked and consulted each other (unlike my mother keeping stony, stubborn, angry silence) and their house was always a happy place to be, a good atmosphere (unlike when my father would scream at us in his drunken rants). I’d always put that family on a pedestal as a child – they were so much more typical (ironic considering Uncle Jed was a United States Congressman – that was typical to me), so much “better” than my family.  Now they were turning into the same thing, becoming the same thing mine had become. Like finding out there’s no Santa Clause. But, in a way, it’s not surprising.  The President stopped putting family first (and working instead); He stopped talking and consulting with his wife (Zoey told me about the Deal); And so they argue instead of being in love. I don’t tell her how much it’s starting to sound like the McGarry Marriage Saga without the liquor.  Instead, I assure her that they’re not gonna get a divorce, they’re just having a rough time right now. There is, after all, still time to make things right.