and tired. “Maybe no one cares, Lo. I shouldn’t even be here, but can’t you listen? You’re in over your head. And I’m not sure how much longer you have. Things aren’t good on the Hill, you know that. They don’t like what you’re doing.”
And this was true. It was a dicey time: January 2005. In December, a tsunami had overrun Sumatra, which mobilized a big relief effort that forefronted just how discrepant was the government’s will to aid victims abroad and those at home. The White House had just been returned to the incumbent, in large part because his opposition was a drip. It was the highest voter turnout since 1968; the electorate was engaged and angry, and finally disappointed. The two-party system was offering up leaders no one wanted to champion. The Helix filled a niche, its membership had spiked a thousand percent, and now North Korea wanted in. To fund what it presumed was a dissident movement poised on revolt.
Not that Thurlow had given them this idea. And yet they had it. Perhaps because he was attracted to the North Korean principle of juche—independence of thought and self-reliance alongside an intermingling of people united behind a common cause, which was to be together. That, or because Thurlow had actually accepted their money in the name of friendship. Sure, North Korea was broke, but only insofar as it refused to fund anything but the military, which is to say that it was not broke but discretionary, and that diverting funds into the Helix coffer from a sale of missiles to Syria was not out of the question.
But that did not make him a militant, never mind what the North Koreans thought. Never mind what half his followers thought. There were the members, steeped in apprehensions of the forlorn, who just wanted to belong. And there were the fringies, who wanted to blow up Capitol Hill.
Dissidence and despair. Should he confess this was not the miscegenation of feelings that had birthed the Helix? That this movement’s origin had, instead, everything to do with her?
He’d been back in the States for three weeks, but his sleep schedule was still a wreck. That, plus regular insomnia, and he could lose track of his thoughts for whole minutes at a time.
“Stop staring at me like that,” she said. “I’m serious,” she said. “Stop it.”
“Did you get my letters, at least?”
“Have you been listening to me? You haven’t changed at all. Always in your head. Always thinking about yourself. What am I even doing here?” And she stared at her palms as if they had an answer.
His mouth opened. His heart frothed. “No, no—” he said, but she cut him off. She had to go. Fine, he said, but would she come to his hotel later? She could yell at him all she wanted at his hotel. He said he was sorry. For everything. Just please come. He had a Helix event this morning, but how about later? Any time this week? He’d cancel Seattle and Eugene and Santa Cruz.
“I’ll do anything,” he said. “Just ask.”
And then he commanded all the readiness and solicitude in his heart to show in his eyes, so she would know he was in earnest. After all, he had gone to North Korea for her and botched it entirely. And now North Korea wanted something in return for its investment that he was not willing or even equipped to give. What was he supposed to do? The Helix was not the Confederate Army. It was single dads, divorcées and widows, lawyers and dermatologists. It was average Americans. People with migraines and high blood pressure. People who watched a lot of TV. Who tested poorly on the UCLA Loneliness Scale and, if asked, would sooner trade the invisible companionship of God for someone to share with in this life until such time as they had to meet God on the other side.
“I might come,” she said, but she frowned saying it.
He felt a trembling down his legs but hid it as best he could.
“But listen,” she said. “Whatever you’re thinking about North Korea, it’s not too late to change your mind. To think if it’s worth it.” And she reached over and touched his sleeve. Then she zipped up her coat in a hurry.
Thurlow didn’t say a word. He was faint with hope and fear, which countenanced each other, but warily. She was up and walking out the door.