I appreciated that more than an apology. I’ve had a lot of apologies now. That was the first thing anybody said to me about that night that wasn’t shaped for my benefit.

We are not in touch. She sends a message on my birthday and I read it and don’t answer, and I think she understands the arrangement, because she keeps sending them and she’s never once asked why I don’t reply.

Chapter 15 — The Ask

Senator Rebecca Chase announced her candidacy for governor of Washington in the second week of April.

She called Daniel personally the day before it broke, which she did not have to do, and she called Lily separately, which she also did not have to do, and Owen sent a drawing of his mother standing on the state with her arms up.

Three weeks later, a woman named Corinne Baptiste asked for twenty minutes.

She was the campaign’s communications director and she was pleasant and direct and she came to the house, which Daniel understood afterward was a decision somebody had made.