*********************

My innocence died in a tragic accident in the summer of 1989, when I was 12. Looking back from 24, I can hardly believe it took that long. Seems like my cloud castles should have dissipated years earlier.

We Bartlet girls learned at a young age which parent to approach for which favor. When Zoey or Liz wanted to do something fun but dangerous, they went to Dad; if Zoey or Liz needed money, it was Mom every time. I had to ask Mom for everything. Dad was never an option. So I understood that whenever I wanted something, I really had to want it, and my arguments as to why I deserved it had to be flawless, because I didn’t have a back-up plan.

When Mom balked at giving me permission to go to Laura Krieger’s 12th birthday party, I thought it was just maternal reluctance about sleep-overs, but I had solid, mom-proof reasons, and she finally relented. She found it amusing that I, the Bartlet daughter least interested in politics, was the best politico in the family. If she hadn’t acquiesced -- had I known the real reason she didn’t want me to go -- I would’ve stayed home, and perhaps my illusions could’ve survived another summer.

On the day of the party, I wrapped Laura’s birthday gift in the Sunday comics (I was on a recycling crusade of ludicrous proportions), rolled my toothbrush and pajamas into my sleeping bag, and hopped into the station wagon. Only one hurdle remained.

Laura’s stepfather terrified me.

Oliver Babish was as tall as a tree and twice as big around. Loud, brusque, and humorless, he barely tolerated Laura and her brother Ryan and despised their friends, so I think we can be forgiven for being literally petrified whenever he walked into a room. I envied Zoey, who at 8 was young enough to hide behind the couch when he came around.

His marriage to Mrs Krieger was his third; he had two sons from the first marriage who Liz hung out with some in junior high, and a daughter from the second who lived with her mother in Ottawa. Our friends would sit around sometimes when Laura wasn’t there (and once or twice when she was), trying to determine what Mrs Krieger saw in him. Grace decided he must be good in bed, and although we were 11 at the time and didn’t really know what that meant, it became a running joke. Every time Oliver Babish did something cruel, Grace would say, "It’s the sex," and a group of pre-pubescent girls would laugh as though we knew what we were talking about. My only hope for the slumber party was that his big important lawyer-job would keep him at his office.

He was nowhere in sight as Mom and I came into the house. Laura grabbed me and dragged me to the basement, where most of our friends were already draped across couches and bean-bag chairs, giggling about boys in our class. Mom, I suspected, went to the sun porch to chat with Laura’s mom, who’d been her friend forever, or at least what passes as forever to 12-year-olds.

I don’t remember what we did at that party. We may have done each other’s hair; we may have gossiped more about what we thought of the boys at school and what they thought of us; we may have ridiculed Ryan, who had beaver-like teeth and headgear that made him look like an alien from a bad science fiction movie. These are the kinds of things we did at those parties.

I do remember that after we ran around the backyard for several hours, I decided to go inside and get something to drink. I’d passed out once, a few summers back, from dehydration, and the scolding Mom gave me was not something I was eager to repeat. As I slipped into the cool darkness of the house in early evening, I heard voices softly rising and falling from the kitchen, and one of the voices sounded like my mother’s.

I crossed to the kitchen on tiptoe, then stood just outside the doorway, out of view. Mrs Krieger sounded like she was crying.

"Whatever it is, Lynn, you can talk to me," Mom said.

"I know, Abbey, it’s just...it’s too awful to even think about sometimes."

"Is it Oliver?" Mom’s voice was sharp with concern. She didn’t like Oliver Babish any more than I did. Mrs Krieger didn’t say anything, but I assume she nodded, and when my mother spoke again, her voice had a dark and dangerous tone I’d never heard before. "Lynn, did he hurt you? Or the kids?" If the answer had been yes, I have no doubt Mom would’ve called Dad and told him to do whatever he was allowed to do, as Governor of New Hampshire, to Oliver Babish. Or maybe she would’ve packed Mrs Krieger and her children off to some domestic violence shelter and waited for him herself — with a large knife.

What Mrs Krieger said was, "No. He just can’t be bothered with me anymore, you know?"

I stood in the hallway, devastated, shocked, immobilized. This happened? People just fell out of love like that? My parents fought often, but they always made up, and it was clear to my sisters and me that they still loved each other very much. Wanda’s mother, a large, loud woman who drank too much and said things we kids weren’t supposed to hear, once made a list of reasons she would leave her husband. If he abused her or their children. If he had an affair. If he committed a felony and got sent to prison. I thought these were the only reasons to leave someone; until that moment I hadn’t known that love could just...die.

We didn’t normally sleep at these sleep-overs, but running around wore us out, and most of my friends zonked out on the rec room floor by one in the morning. I couldn’t sleep -- couldn’t think of sleep. Staring at the ceiling, I tried to decide if I would rather try to make sense of what I’d heard or shove it into a dark, unvisited corner of my mind and never think of it again, but before I could choose, the front door opened.

From the general air of disapproval that settled over the house, I could tell that Oliver Babish had come home, and for a split second I debated what to do. I was recently 12 and spindly, and Oliver Babish was the largest man I knew; I would hardly be able to do him physical damage, but I had an overwhelming urge to see this man who could no longer be bothered with his own wife, so I slipped out of my sleeping bag and padded upstairs. At the top of the stairwell I was brought up short by the voice that had started it all.

"Hello, Oliver." I couldn’t see my mother, but I could guess how she was sitting: on the edge of her chair, back ramrod straight, hands and ankles folded into a picture of "don’t try me."

Oliver Babish froze, but his voice, when he spoke, didn’t sound nearly as surprised or worried as I thought it should. "Dr Bartlet."

"You’re home late tonight."

He didn’t move from the hallway. "A crisis at work."

"Ah. How is work?"

"It’s fine, Dr Bartlet. How’s your practice?"

"Thriving, thank you."

"I’m glad to hear it. The governor?"

"Temperamental as always." I couldn’t see if this attempt to scare him had worked, but I doubted it.

"And the girls?"

"Our pride and joy. Ellie’s sleeping in your rec room even as we speak."

He grunted. "Laura’s sleep-over."

"Yes, Oliver, Laura’s sleep-over. You hadn’t forgotten, had you?"

He shifted slightly; I imagined his shoulders slumping defensively and his hands sliding into his pockets, just like Dad. "I don’t usually..." his voice faded.

"No, you don’t." Mom’s footsteps sounded lightly on the carpet, and I knew she was standing toe to toe with him. He was at least a foot taller than she was, and huge to boot, but if I‘d been a betting child, I’d have put all of my money on Abigail Bartlet. "You’re pathetic," she told him. "Your commitment to this marriage is a tenth of what it should be. A tenth. Lynn is at her breaking point. I won’t meddle in your lives, but I’m warning you: if you don’t start putting more effort into your relationship, I’ll tell her to leave you." She paused. "And if you ever hurt her or her children, I will make you wish you had never left your mother’s womb."

I heard the rushing exhalation that wanted to be a derisive snort. "Dr Bartlet," he said, and words cannot describe the contempt I heard in his voice, "I have had two other wives, and none of their friends ever—"

"None of their friends was married to the governor of New Hampshire," she snapped. "Get this through your thick, enormous skull, Oliver: Lynn Krieger is the best thing that will ever happen to you. If you want to destroy that for yourself, you go right ahead, but I know your type of man too well to let you take her down with you."

The room grew ominously still, and the house held its breath as Oliver Babish said softly, "And what type of man is that, Dr Bartlet?"

"The type that will leave no proof they lived on this Earth."

In the silence that hung heavy after my mother’s words, I stepped into the hall so they could see me. "Mom?" They turned. Oliver Babish looked like he wanted to strangle me; Mom looked terribly sad.

"Hi, sweetheart," she said. "What are you doing up?"

"I don’t feel so good." This was not a lie. "Can we go home?" They both tried to figure out how much I’d heard and how much I understood.

"Are you sure? You’ll miss the rest of the party." I nodded. She looked at Oliver Babish like she wasn’t through with him, then said, "Get your stuff and tell Laura good-bye."

I didn’t bother changing out of my pajamas. I rolled my toothbrush and yesterday’s clothes back into my sleeping bag, put on my shoes, and woke Laura to say I was leaving. She said it was okay, though she didn’t understand why I was going. I whispered, "And Oliver Babish just came home."

That she understood. "Call me tomorrow," she told me. I nodded and left.

Our drive home was silent. Mom didn’t pry into how much I’d heard; I didn’t ask her to explain it; and when we got back to the mansion I went straight to my room and fell into what I believe was a dreamless sleep.

Six months later, Mrs Krieger left Oliver Babish and moved Ryan and Laura back to her hometown outside Reno. Of course losing a close friend devastated me, but I was happy for them for getting free of him. About four years after that I heard through the grapevine that Oliver Babish had married again; five years later, another divorce. Toby Ziegler and Andrea Wyatt divorced. Uncle Leo and Aunt Jenny divorced, for crying out loud. Sure makes a girl want to run right out and get married.

When you’re 24, forgetting the things you don’t want to remember is nearly impossible. I can’t erase a dozen short-tempered phone calls where my father tried to justify running for President without telling the nation about his degenerative and possibly fatal autoimmune disease. I can’t forget how many times CJ lied to the press about Dad’s health, how many times Leo swore that no one was asked to lie, or how he believed it less every time he said it.

At 12, it was much easier. By the end of the month, the entire incident at Laura’s house had faded from my mind.

Until three months later, when Elizabeth came to visit. She was 19 and pregnant, wild about a boy. For four days, she talked of little else, and I saw stars forming in Zoey’s eyes as she fantasized about a day when she would have a life like that.

"Don’t listen to Liz," I told her. "Love is evil. Love dies, and there’s nothing you can do to bring it back." I wanted to give the same advice to Liz, but she and I had never gotten along too well, and I don’t think she would have understood. I’m eternally grateful that Zoey wasn’t old enough to know what the hell I was talking about. When I think I could have done to her what I’ve done to myself -- I see her with Charlie, and sometimes I get so jealous I could scream, but I would have screamed much louder if I’d killed her ability to believe in the possibility of what they have.

I can’t trust men in relationships. I’ve had relationships, of course, but none of them progressed much beyond the physical, and none lasted longer than 6 months. Every time I get to the place where I knew we had to "take it to the next level" emotionally, I hit a Babish-sized brick wall and run like hell before they can hurt me. And so I’ve had one relationship my parents approved of, one they couldn’t stand, and one they can never know about, and they’ve all been hollow. I don’t have...expectations of love, the way other women my age do.

Maybe someday I’ll meet someone who will help me climb over that stupid wall, and we’ll build a new castle on a firmer foundation than the clouds. In the meantime, I have devoted myself to my studies and vowed to be the best damned oncologist Western medicine has ever seen. It doesn’t salve an aching spot in my chest, but it keeps me sane, and it keeps me from paying too much attention to the blurry edges of my life.

**********

He’s still enormous. I’ve grown, which gives me a better perspective, but still I almost take a step back when he takes one forward. Then I recall what he’s accomplished this week. Bitch-slapped CJ. Ran roughshod over my mother. I stand up straight and hold my hand out to him. "Mr Babish."

"Miss Bartlet." As he shakes my hand I can tell that my having made the first move has thrown his entire game plan. I’m glad of that.

We’ll go into his office now. He’ll ask loud, brusque, and humorless questions about what I did or did not know or say regarding my father’s MS. I will give quiet, brusque and humorless answers. He will not make me cry.