Taft 2012 Read Free Page B

Wilson was hardly the joking type.
    But it was neither Wilson nor Butt whose memory gnawed at the very core of Taft’s spirit. There was something or someone else—a soul so intimately tied to his own as to be invisible in its pervasiveness—that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. At first he recalled a touch, so brittle yet so strong. And then a gaze, gray and infinite. And then that scent again, the sweet, faint, tantalizing tang of cherry blossoms—
    His reverie was interrupted by his new bodyguard, Agent Kowalczyk, clearing of the throat. “Sir, you okay over there? You look a little out of it.”
    “Hmm? Out of
what
, exactly?”
    “Out of … ah, never mind.” Kowalczyk folded his shiny black device—it looked like a tin of lozenges—and slid it into his pocket. “Just making sure you’re feeling okay. After—you know—I, um, shot you.”
    “Again I say, don’t fret over it. I’m embarrassed to have collapsed from such a glancing scratch. A bullet is naught but a glorified pebble. Why, a worthy opponent of mine once delivered a campaign speech just moments after being shot by some lunatic in Milwaukee.
He
didn’t let himself be stopped by some paltry slug.” Taft frowned. “Now, why for the life of me can’t I remember who that was …”
    Just as quickly as he had regained his good cheer, he’d become troubled once more. But it wasn’t because of the agent’s handwringing. A swift and spine-tingling chill lanced through Taft’s body. “Kowalczyk, tell me,” he said with a rippling shudder. “What room are we in exactly? I should know, but I don’t.”
    “What room? Oh, right. Things have probably been rearranged in the White House since you lived here. This is the Roosevelt Room. He built the West Wing, didn’t he? But it didn’t get named that until the ’60s, I think.”
    Roosevelt
. The name flashed like lightning inside his skull. Theodore Roosevelt. His predecessor. His mentor. His friend. His greatest supporter, and then, later, his most terrible adversary. A man whose smaller yet somehow grander frame had always cast a shadow over Taft.
    But Roosevelt, he knew, must be long dead now. Dead like Woodrow Wilson. Dead like his children.
    Dead.
    Like Nellie.
    Taft dropped his snack cake as he felt a tightening in his chest. No, not a tightening. A clenching, as if the centuries themselves sought to rip his heart from his breast and send it hurtling back to its rightful place, its rightful time.
    Its rightful owner.
    Through a halo of pain and anguish, Taft heard Kowalczyk yell for the doctor. But Taft was already halfway out the door. Like an enraged beast—the kind Teddy used to make headlines shooting while on safari—he threw open the door of the Roosevelt Room and charged into the hallway, seeking only escape.
    Then he crashed into some other body and went down in a tangle of limbs.
    Hands pushed him. Arms pulled him. He unleashed a howl from the pit of his being. Like a tortoise rolled onto its shell, he found himself suddenly on his back.
    Next to him on the floor lay his wife.
    “Nellie! My dear, oh, my dear.” His tears came in torrents. “I thought you were gone, too. Oh, my Nellie. I thought you were gone.”
    As he pawed at his eyes, though, his vision came back into focus. This woman he’d collided with was small and slim like Nellie. She had the same serious look on her face, a fetching expression ofcertain, quiet determination.
    But she wasn’t his beloved. She wasn’t his wife.
    She wasn’t his Nellie.
    “President Taft,” the woman said awkwardly. “Ah … there now. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.”
    Taft, his head buried in his chest and his sobs coming in gasps, felt thin, cool arms around him.
    “Mr. Taft, please. Take a breath. Deep breaths, okay? Good. Are you all right now? My name is Susan. Susan Weschler. It’s an honor to meet you, sir.” Then the arms gripped him tighter. “Oh, you poor man.”
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