The Family They Chose / Private Partners

Lights, decorations and a blanket of new-fallen snow transformed the stately home into a winter wonderland. An army of children ran and played on the rolling lawn. Some made snow angels; others joined forces in a collaborative snowman building effort. The bittersweet sight of all those children brought tears to Olivia’s eyes.

She wanted to believe that someday her kids would play on that lawn, but she and Jamison seemed further away than ever from having a family of their own. That morning, the double whammy of a Christmas present he’d dropped into her lap was not only that he was returning to Washington early, but also that he wanted to put their baby plans on the back burner. It was the last thing she’d expected. The last thing she wanted. Because of that, the two-hour ride up to the Berkshires was mostly silent. What more was there to say? They were officially at a standoff. Jamison insisted they shouldn’t have children until they were happy as a couple; Olivia couldn’t see how they’d be happy until they had a baby. Or at least she couldn’t be happy. Not with Jamison spending more and more time away from her.

They were supposed to spend Christmas week together, but he’d said something about an unexpected diplomatic visit. She’d always prided herself on being supportive of her husband’s demanding career. But lately it seemed the more she gave, the more onesided their life became. And balance didn’t seem to be a part of Jamison’s New Year’s resolutions.

She tried to persuade him that this was the perfect example of how there was no perfect time to have children. It was simply another excuse to wait. Even worse, she didn’t understand why he felt compelled to wait. She got the distinct feeling that he wasn’t telling her the real reason behind his hesitation. But no matter how many times she told him having children was exactly what they needed to mend things, he’d come back around to “We need to fix us first.”

So, what was she supposed to do?

Passively give in?

Just give up?

No way would she do that. Not when their future depended on it.

So they’d reached a standoff, except for agreeing to not saying anything to the family about their separation until they’d had a chance to talk more. That seemed code for “Let’s continue this vicious cycle of pretending.” She had a sinking feeling that they were set on a collision course with disaster.

As Jamison steered the car under the porte cochere, anxiousness threatened to pin Olivia to her seat. She really wasn’t in a mood to put on a happy face for her mother-in-law and extended family. After the disastrous discussion with Jamison, this masquerade felt beyond her. But the alternative of announcing their marital problems to the bunch was worse. With one last wistful glance at the kids, she steeled herself to enter the lion’s den.

The only consolation was that Jamison was a true gentleman. No matter how bad things had gotten between Jamison and her, he still stood up for her when his mother started in with her power plays—such as her insensitive queries about why Olivia wasn’t pregnant yet and her attempts to pressure them into selling the house in Boston.

For the past year—since it had become clear that Jamison had garnered enough support to be considered a viable candidate for his party’s nomination for a future presidential race—Helen Mallory had been turning up the pressure for Jamison to claim his birthright and move up to the family home in the Berkshires. Olivia knew it was a posturing on Helen’s part, away of positioning herself as close to her influential son’s inner circle as possible. If the future president of the United States lived with her, in her house—because if she and Jamison moved in it didn’t mean Helen would move out—then she would have an even better chance at having his ear and an even stronger chance at asserting her considerable influence, much in the same way she’d done with her late husband.

Stanhope Manor had been in the Mallory family for seven generations. It had always been passed down to the oldest son. At thirty-nine, Jamison was still young, and would have plenty of time to enjoy the place with his own family, just as he and his five younger brothers had when they were growing up.

Despite how much Olivia wanted to uphold the Mallory legacy, she wasn’t in a hurry to move out of the city into the rambling, eleven-bedroom, twenty-two-thousand-square-foot mansion until she could give her husband a son—or a daughter—who would carry on the tradition. What was the point without a family to fill the rambling house?

At least in Boston Olivia had her family and her volunteer work. One thing she did not need was further isolation.

Nor did she need—or want—to live with her mother-in-law. Especially with Jamison spending so much time in Washington. That living arrangement would surely prove to be a ticking time bomb ready to explode.

Residing in Boston meant Helen was a safe two hours away in the Berkshires. Long distance, it was more difficult for her to remind Olivia that she and Jamison had yet to gift the family with children. Except for the occasional obligatory phone call, Helen mostly ignored Olivia, saving the pregnancy barbs for personal delivery. For times such as this.

Olivia braced herself at the thought.

It hurt that she and Jamison had confided in her about their fertility struggles, yet Helen publicly persecuted them as if their childlessness were a choice. Sometimes Olivia had to summon every ounce of strength to keep from tossing Helen’s barbs and patronizing tone right back at her. But out of respect for her husband, Olivia bit her tongue.

To Jamison’s credit, he fully understood how painful it would be to live with his mother. Despite how he longed to move into the house in which he’d grown up, he always sided with Olivia, refusing to let Helen bully them into moving and demanding she lay off when her pregnancy digs got out of hand.

The valet opened Olivia’s door and helped her step out of the Jaguar. Jamison walked around the car and took her hand, expecting her to play along. To put on a happy face and pretend they were the perfect couple with the perfect marriage.

“Are you okay?” he asked as they climbed the steps to the porch.

“Truthfully?” She slanted him a look. “No, I’m not.”

His face fell, as if her words had knocked the wind out of him, but before he could say anything, the elaborately carved wooden front doors swung open and a uniformed doorman greeted them.

“Merry Christmas, sir, madam.”

Ever the politician, Jamison flashed his famous smile. “Merry Christmas.”

Olivia managed a polite nod. She didn’t recognize the man at the door. He wasn’t part of the small band of live-in staff employed by Jamison’s mother. He was obviously among the extra help she’d hired for the holidays. Like a steadfast queen clinging to her castle, she’d remained in the house after Jamison’s father died and all six boys had moved out to begin their own lives.

“Mrs. Mallory is in the great room. Follow me, please.”

“Thank you, but that’s not necessary,” said Jamison. “I grew up in this house. I know the way.”

The doorman stood back and motioned Jamison and Olivia onward. “Very well, sir. Happy holidays.”

Their footsteps sounded on the marble floor. The place had a museumlike air that inspired silence. As they made their way down the long, arched hallway toward the great room at the back of the house, neither said a word.

Instead, Olivia let her gaze stray over the elaborate paintings lining the walls. Generations of Mallorys dating as far back as the Revolutionary War hung in grand, gilded frames. Their eyes seemed to follow Olivia and Jamison as they passed. Though she’d experienced this sensation many times, today it was eerie and a little unnerving. She shifted her gaze straight ahead, focusing on the crown molding at the end of the passageway.

In the great room, a harpist strummed Christmas carols from her post in the corner. Her angelic music was barely audible above the crowd that was at least seventy-five strong. A giant Christmas tree stood in front of the large picture windows on the west wall that looked out over the snow-covered back lawn with its beautifully frozen pond. In the distance, the mountains painted a breathtaking picture. A roaring fire blazed in the oversize fireplace. The room was a little stuffy with all the people milling about talking, laughing and filling plates with fancy hors d’oeuvres that had been laid out on an antique trestle table that stretched nearly the entire length of the wall opposite the windows.

In the center of the crowded room, Helen Mallory was holding court, talking to her loyal subjects who were dutifully gathered around her. Her platinum hair, as white as new-fallen snow, was teased into a meringuelike coiffure. Her white cashmere suit and plethora of diamonds brought to mind the term “Ice Queen.” As if sensing their presence, she looked up as Jamison and Olivia approached.

“Darlings, there you are,” she said. Her drink sloshed as she raised her glass toward them. “I was beginning to think you’d never arrive.” It was barely noon and judging by the glass Helen held like a scepter, she’d bypassed the traditional Christmas Day pomegranate mimosas and had dived headfirst into the martinis. Depending on how many she’d had, they could be in for a bumpy ride.

Jamison bent down and kissed Helen’s cheek.

“Merry Christmas, Mother. You’re looking… well. We would’ve been here sooner, but last night my flight in from D.C. was delayed, and I didn’t get home until after three.”

Helen held out a diamond-laden hand to her daughter-in-law.

“Merry Christmas, dear.” She looked Olivia up and down with disapproving eyes. “You’re looking beautiful, as always. But awfully thin. I was so hoping you would’ve plumped up by now.”

Helen pulled her hand from Olivia’s and patted her daughter-in-law’s flat stomach.

Trying to ignore the uncomfortable stares from the others gathered around them, Olivia took special care to keep her smile firmly in place. Especially since she had a feeling of what was coming next—right in front of everyone.

Olivia did a mental countdown. Three, two, one—

“When on earth are you going to give me a grandchild?”

Right on schedule.

“You do know that Payton is pregnant again, don’t you?” Helen slurred the words.

Olivia fought back a sudden rush of emotions that brought with them the stinging threat of tears.

Payton. The wife of Jamison’s younger brother, Grant. The perfect, fertile daughter-in-law. One only need talk about pregnancy in the vicinity of Payton and she got knocked up.

“Mother, don’t start.” Jamison’s voice was flat.

Helen sighed and dismissed him with a curt wave of martini, diamonds and bloodred nails. The gesture sent a wave of gin sloshing over the side of her glass, leaving a wet spot on her white suit. She seemed not to notice.

“I’m not starting anything,” she slurred. “I’m simply finding it terribly ironic that Olivia’s father is one of the nation’s leading fertility experts—Gerald Armstrong, of the Armstrong Institute—yet they’re still not pregnant. I just don’t understand.” Helen directed her words to the others, spouting off as if this weren’t a deeply private issue, acting as if Olivia and Jamison weren’t standing right there.

Every fiber in Olivia’s body went numb and she had to inhale sharply and bite the insides of her cheeks to keep from defending herself. Because what was the point?

Helen was drunk. Again. Come to think of it, Helen always said what was on her mind and seemed to get more brazenly outspoken with each passing year. Her drinking was also out of control, and the family seemed to be in complete denial about it.

It wasn’t Olivia’s place to say anything about her mother-in-law’s imbibing, but these barbs … they were inexcusable. Talking as if Olivia’s father were a banker refusing to lend money rather than seeing it for the intensely painful, sensitive—and private—issue that it was.

“Mother, stop it,” Jamison insisted.

Normally, when Helen started with her polite bullying, Olivia didn’t let the woman’s barbs get to her—but today Olivia felt vulnerable. Fragile, almost.

So, when Jamison put an arm around her and locked gazes with his mother, Olivia sank into him. Against her will, her body responded to her husband’s offer of solidarity and protection.

Despite what had transpired earlier, she was glad that at least he was taking her side, as he always did.

At least that hadn’t changed.

Before Helen could say anything else, the uncomfortable standoff was interrupted by a ringing voice.

“Merry Christmas, all!” Payton waddled over to them, her freckled cheeks rosy and her baby bump looking much more pronounced in the holly-green velvet maternity dress than it should for a woman five months’ pregnant. Of course, it was her fourth pregnancy.

Fourth baby in four-and-a-half years. Olivia swallowed the lump of sad envy that had burned in her throat until it slid down, settling like a hot coal in the pit of her barren belly.

“Payton, darling.” Helen stood and pulled her favorite daughter-in-law into a gentle embrace. “How are you feeling, love?”

Payton pushed an auburn curl off her forehead, then beamed and rested her hands on her swollen belly. “I’ve never felt better.”

Helen held her at arm’s length, taking in her entire being. “It shows. You are positively radiant.”

Payton preened. “I always feel my best when I’m pregnant.”

Of course she did.

Lucky for her since she was always pregnant. Resentment flared inside Olivia. It seemed like Payton and Grant produced a child to commemorate each wedding anniversary.

“Here, sit, sit. Next to me. Get off your feet.” Helen returned to her seat on the sofa and patted the cushion beside her.

“Well, Mom, we have been in the car all morning.” She braced her right hand on the small of her back, which made her stomach stick out all the more. “But I guess I could sit a while longer while we catch up.”

“You know, if you keep giving me grandchildren at this rate, I’m going to have to move you up here to Stanhope Manor so that there’s a place big enough to house all of you under one roof. Jamison doesn’t seem to have any interest in the place.”

Helen shot a pointed look at her son as Payton planted herself next to her mother-in-law.

“It would be wonderful to live with you up here. If you keep talking like that, we just might take you up on it.”

Olivia glanced at Jamison, who was wearing an over-my-dead-body look on his face. She had a hunch that his sour expression wasn’t simply a remnant of his mother’s earlier indelicate blurting, but had more to do with the threat of his younger brother’s status-hungry wife bumping him out of his birthright with her pregnant belly.

Maybe, for once, Payton’s selfish antics could actually help Olivia by making Jamison change his mind about holding off on having children. Even so, it seemed unlikely that an army of children could keep Helen at bay if they moved in with her.

Payton must have sensed Olivia staring because she smiled up at Jamison and Olivia and said, “It’s been a long time. How are the two of you?”

They made small talk for a few moments until Grant entered with an infant seat in one hand, a toddler on the opposite hip and their oldest boy trailing behind him. Grant flashed his trademark toothy, white Mallory smile, greeting everyone as he walked over to kiss his mother’s cheek.

Grant had been a latecomer to politics, winning a New Hampshire congressional seat just last year. He and Jamison had always been competitive, but when it came to politics, there was an unwritten agreement that Jamison was the one who would make a bid for the White House. After he’d had his go, then, if Grant was game, it was all his.

Olivia wondered if the same accord applied to Stanhope Manor or if Helen would seriously offer the home to Grant and Payton—even as a strategic move to force Jamison and Olivia’s hand. On top of everything else, the thought was more than Olivia could deal with. So she pushed it out of her mind, vowing only to worry about it if and when the crisis came up.

“Merry Christmas, son,” Helen said to Grant. “And where’s your nanny? Surely you didn’t give her this week off? Now more than ever your wife needs the extra hands to help her.”

Grant and Payton had imported a woman named Ingrid from Sweden to help with the kids. Payton took pride in flaunting her Swedish nanny, so it was a surprise when Grant said, “She went home for the holidays.”

Helen shot Payton an alarmed glance. “Oh, you poor dear. However will you manage?”

Olivia was delighted to fall off of Helen’s radar as Payton dutifully played the martyred mommy, regaling her audience with details of how it would indeed be a challenge, but that she would somehow get by.

Anger and shame rose in Olivia’s throat like bile, as she moved as far away from Payton as possible.

As the day progressed, Helen wasn’t the only one driving the baby train. Payton and her brood—and pregnant belly—drew inevitable comparisons and incessant questions from friends and relatives about why Jamison and Olivia weren’t keeping up with his younger brothers.

If Olivia had been in a certain frame of mind, she would’ve taken offense at their questions. Asking a couple about when they were going to have a baby was not so far off from quizzing them about their sex life. It was a private matter. Didn’t people understand that?

Obviously it took sex for pregnancy to happen.

Unless the couple went the in vitro route, as Jamison and Olivia well knew. They’d tried to conceive the usual way, and when that failed, they’d opted for in vitro.

The hormones to help Olivia produce more eggs for harvesting had wreaked havoc with her physical well-being, causing headaches and mood swings and overall malaise. She and Jamison had ended up fighting, so much so that they’d decided to separate.

The thought of how something as wonderful as having a baby could create such turmoil in a marriage was beyond Olivia.

She wished Jamison could understand it was the side effects of the hormones that had caused their problems. Not the possibility that their marriage was unstable. And certainly not the act of having a baby and building their family. Looking at it rationally, she could understand his hesitation. She just wished he could believe that it would be different when they tried again.

Because it would be.

This time she knew what to expect. This time she would be prepared.

A new doctor had recently joined the Armstrong Fertility Institute. Chance Demetrios was one of the leading fertility research specialists in the world. Her brother Paul had hired him away from a teaching hospital in San Francisco. Olivia had seen him once, just before she and Jamison decided on the trial separation, and she hadn’t followed up when he’d said there was a slim chance she could get pregnant. Slim, but a chance nonetheless. Since the pain of their separation was so fresh, Olivia’s mindset made her question the point of following up if her husband wasn’t on board.

But now, especially as she watched Payton, Olivia was looking at things differently. Suddenly, there was an urgency. There was no time to waste. Maybe it was Jamison’s sudden hesitation, but Olivia was feeling her full twenty-nine years. She certainly wasn’t getting any younger. Maybe, if Jamison wasn’t willing to cooperate, it was time to take maters into her own hands—even if it meant getting pregnant without her husband’s blessing.

After all, once she was carrying his child, he’d come around.

Wouldn’t he?

Jamison retreated into the library with his glass of wine. As a kid, he’d always enjoyed the solitude of the room—the built-in mahogany bookcases and never-ending stacks of books felt like comfortable old friends. When life overwhelmed him or he had a problem that needed sorting out, he’d come here, grab a book and sit in the window seat. Sometimes he’d lose himself in a classic. More often than not, he’d lose himself in his thoughts as he gazed at the panoramic view of the mountains that stretched like a grand painting framed by the horizon of the backyard.

Tonight, the moonless sky hid the mountains as if nature had drawn a black velvet curtain. So he bypassed the window seat, placed another log on the dying fire and settled into one of the leather club chairs in front of the hearth.

It was late. He and Olivia really should head home soon, but he needed a few minutes alone to gather his thoughts before they climbed into the car and endured another long, silent journey.

He didn’t blame her for being mad at him. It seemed that since he’d been home he’d committed one seemingly thoughtless blunder after another. He’d even managed to blow it with Olivia this evening after the friends had gone and the party shifted into a mode of opening Christmas presents and snapping family photos. Oh, she hadn’t said it straight out—in fact she’d barely said more than, “Thank you,” but the flash of confusion in her eyes had been unmistakable when she’d opened her gift from him and had seen the gaudy cocktail ring that was not in the least bit her style—and several sizes too big to boot.

Crunched for time, he’d asked his mother to pick up a gift for Olivia from him—jewelry, something nice, of course. “You know Olivia. Pick out something she’d like.”

When his tiny, pearl-wearing wife had opened the jewelers box and pulled out the multi-colored boulder of a cocktail ring, he’d wanted to snatch it back and claim that there had been a mistake. On her delicate hand, it looked like a wild, golf-ball-size piece of stained glass; certainly nothing he would’ve ever picked out for her. And that had been obvious. He hadn’t shopped for his wife. She’d been well aware of that since the ring had his mother’s signature written all over it.

For someone who prided himself on intelligence, he felt pretty dumb for entrusting his mother, of all people, to shop for Olivia. That blunder, on top of the fact that it probably hadn’t been the best time to tell Olivia he wanted to hold off on getting pregnant. Not on the heels of disappointing her with the change of plans for Christmas week. But thoughtlessly, he’d done it. It had slipped out as they’d talked earlier that morning. They’d digressed back into the dubious tug of war over commitment and priorities, which went from bad to worse when he’d broken the news that he had to leave because he had to play host to the visiting ambassador. She hadn’t taken it well. No matter that a lot was riding on this meeting, and if he pulled it off it would be a major coup, a feather in his political cap.

The flames crackled in the fireplace.

The ridiculous ring felt like a third strike in a game he was already losing. He was between a rock and a hard place. Olivia knew their life would be this way and if he did make that run for the White House in 2016, not only did they need to find solidarity in their marriage, they had to be a solid twosome before they could add to their family.

Still, it didn’t mean he loved her any less. As a matter of fact, he was standing firm on his position to hold off starting a family because he loved her. Children added a whole different dynamic to a marriage, and he wasn’t so naive to believe that a child would fix something that was broken. He’d seen plenty of evidence to support that fact as he’d watched his parents’ marriage come apart under the pressure of public office and the weight of lies and deception. The only reason his mother and father hadn’t divorced was because of his father’s untimely death.

Well-shrouded secrets and, of course, the soft focus of layers of decades had allowed his mother the privilege of playing the well-respected, grieving widow of a political hero—a senator who would’ve been president had his life not been tragically snuffed out. But as the oldest of six boys, Jamison had gotten a first-hand look at the real life behind the gossamer curtain that cloaked political power couple, Judson and Helen Mallory.