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  Mary put her coffee together then sat down with her at the table. "I'm dying to ask you what you want to do next but first I need to confess that I looked at your phone last night," she paused. "Then I called Jake."

  Casey thought about it. She should have called him herself knowing he would be among the first of those the network would have contacted when nothing else panned out for them. She didn't have a problem with how he would have handled it but he deserved to know it was coming his way. "I should have called him myself," she shrugged, there was nothing to be done about it now. "To say I wasn't thinking clearly yesterday is probably understated."

  "I would say you'd reach your limit and did what you had to just to get through it all."

  "Always gracious." She looked, really looked at her cousin. "I barged in on you completely unexpected and lost to boot at two something in the morning." She reached over to the counter for the coffee pot, putting aside for the moment the suddenly clear memory of her mother doing much the same to many years ago to count. "You listened to me when you could have just put me to bed so you could do the same."

  "You needed to talk. Sleep would have been a long time coming if you hadn't been able to get it out," Mary shrugged, "Anyone would have done the same."

  "Anyone may have answered the phone," Casey countered evenly. "Even fewer would have opened their door to me without a thought to what time it was." She rubbed her forehead pushing her hands through her hair trying to thwart the oncoming headache. "Jake maybe, Aunt Charlie for sure," she allowed thoughtfully. "My other brothers would have kindly given me directions to the closest hotel." She took a sip of the hot coffee hoping relief might be found there. She had never been a morning kind of person. "They wouldn't have sat up with me though." She looked again at the woman across from her, dressed in jeans and a ragged looking sweatshirt and still had the gall to pull off that classy look and worse than anything else, she still looked ten years younger than both of them actually were. "You've always been the best of us, Mary," she sighed at the denial on her cousin’s face. "I always aspired to be what comes naturally to you. Worked pretty darn hard at it. Maybe now I can begin to catch up."

  "Oh, Casey, that doesn't just sound foolish, it is foolish. I am so far from the best of anything."

  "You have no idea just how great you are. But beyond that I feel pretty foolish at the moment so I'll agree with you on that." While she still felt good, even great about her early morning phone call, she was beginning to think about all the ramifications that could easily come of it. "I just walked away from what I spent almost twenty years wrestling for." She stood and paced. "I may or may not get another paycheck from them and even though I've stashed a goodly sum away, it won't last forever."

  She went through in her mind what she had and what it meant to her. "I've got a condo that looks like it came out of one of those classy decorating magazines and while I've loved every moment living there I don't care to go back other than to pack and I don't look forward to that either." She paced over to the back window and looked out. "I have a nice little sailboat I haven't been out on for over two years because I haven't had the time. I have to call my brother which I don't look forward to and hope the promise of that boat which he's always loved will help to ease things there," she chuckled at the idea that just popped out of nowhere. "Maybe if I offer him the boat he'll pack up my condo for me. Lord knows he's always hated it as much as he's lusted after the boat."

  Mary stayed silent. She understood the rush, the intensity of suddenly feeling like changes had to be made. And made quickly. Sometimes life simply needed to take a new course.

  "I need something different," Casey continued thinking out loud as she fiddled with the phone that now sat silent in her pocket. "I just don't know what."

  "I might be able to help you with that, but never the less, until you work all that out you know...or you should know, you're always more than welcome to stay right here." She looked around, taking in the room that had been and continued to be her favorite. "The house isn't completely redone. There's still a lot to do, some I'm working on myself and some that I have a neighborhood boy doing, who is actually family through my Dad's side in some complicated way. But you have a place here until you figure out what place you want for yourself."

  "I have to call my brother." It came out like a death sentence though in her heart she knew better.

  "I think you'll find more comfort there than you expect." Mary thought about it. She knew more of the history between the two of them than either were aware. "Jake could very well be more understanding than you're anticipating," she paused then added albeit somewhat dryly. "Or that he himself cares to be."

  "Bad for his image."

  "Or something," Mary pressed. "Call him Casey. He asked me last night to have you call. And it wasn't just to sound good to me. You know as well as I do he doesn't give a flip what people think about him." She glanced out the window. "Then if you're up to it we'll talk about something you might find challenging for a time."

  Casey studied her cousin contemplatively. Something was up but she just wasn't sure what. Mary wasn't normally secretive, was usually the most open person she'd ever known. There was something there that she wasn't quite ready to talk about yet. But she was right about one thing. She needed to call Jake. She needed to call all her brothers but hoped Jake would suffice for now, maybe even take on the chore of calling the others and get that off her back. She sighed almost wistfully thinking of the likelihood of that. She hoped for political harmony too but wasn't going to hold her breath waiting for it to happen. Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the front door.

  Mary gestured Casey to stay where she was as she walked past her hoping she hadn't overstepped or at least overstepped too far. And if it turned out she had it wouldn't be without the best of intentions.

  As she opened the front door she gave Grace a smile that encompassed both welcome and gratitude. Mary had said very little in their early morning phone conversation, only that a cousin was visiting and her insight could prove invaluable. As they walked into the kitchen together Mary realized almost immediately that introductions wouldn't be necessary.

  Casey looked up as the two women walked into the room and saw the subtle but noticeable shift in the newcomer's demeanor from open welcome to cagey wariness.

  She rose from where she sat and extended her hand in the hope of soothing whatever was at hand.

  "I know you," Casey took the hand extended to her, felt and saw the nerves that brimmed close to the surface. "I apologize, but I can't for the life of me put a name or a place to it, but I know we've met somewhere."

  "I don't know that we were actually ever introduced but I believe we were at many of the same functions," Grace allowed. She hated to be caught off guard...more she hated for it to show.

  "I remember," Casey gently squeezed the hand in hers before letting it go as a flood of memories clicked in along with the recognition of who the other woman was. "You worked for Senator Marlini."

  "I worked for several of the senators, but yes, at one time I worked for Marlini," Grace acknowledged as she walked over to the counter and poured herself a cup of coffee and wondered if this little get together was going to be anything like Mary hoped for. "Mary didn't mention her cousin was one of WNO's major anchors." And would have been far better prepared if she had Grace thought dryly. "I always admired your ability to report the news concisely with both mind and heart."

  "My boss always claimed I did it with too much heart," Casey responded without thinking. It had been a sore point, obviously much more so than she had allowed herself to accept.

  Grace heard the underlying emotion, saw it in the tightening around the other woman's eyes. As she joined them at the table she saw too the worry in Mary's. She spoke her words honestly because of that. "Perhaps his view came from having too little himself to understand the value of it."

  "Okay, this is obviously not necessary but my mother wouldn't be pleased at all if I don'
t do this." Mary decided it was time to guide the conversation where she wanted it to go. "Making proper introductions was drummed into me since my pre-grade school days, so Casey, this is Grace Delaney, former speechwriter for various political icons and now the exceptional owner of Joe's old place on the corner. Grace, this is one of my favorite cousins, Casey Kyle, long time favorite and now former anchor for WNO network."

  "You own Joe's place?" Casey was stunned.

  "Former anchor?" Grace spoke at the same time wondering if she'd possibly misheard that last sentence.

  Mary heard both statements despite the fact they'd pretty much spoken over each other. And thought it was interesting where Casey's first thoughts landed. Not Grace's former career but her connection to Burlington.

  "He was my grandfather," Grace responded first. "Excuse me for sounding stunned, but when did the "former" happen?" She left the why unasked. It had been the question she hated most when she took her own jump off that unforeseen cliff.

  "Yesterday or today, I'm not certain how they'll see it." Casey wasn't certain how far to go, she'd already figured out Mary had set this little gathering up. She just wasn't certain why. "And I have no clue how they're going to play it."

  "Casey had an epiphany," Mary added with a quiet smile to the unspoken question.

  Casey simply couldn't help the chuckle that bubbled up and spilled over. "Epiphany." The laughter felt good. It felt good to know there was still some left in her. "More like an epitaph." She saw the questions in Grace's eyes and the concern in Mary's. She turned to Grace first. "I was one short step from a breakdown and walked out of the studio barely minutes before I was due to go on air." She nervously ran her hand through her hair, a bad habit left over from her teens. "Probably the only saving grace is I walked out when I did instead of when I was on air or fallen apart while I was," she sighed. "That certainly would have given all of America an eyeful."

  Grace looked straight at Mary, stared into eyes that met hers without regret. Her new friend had left out a whole lot of the details. But now she understood only too well why Mary had asked her over. She also knew from her silence and her calm composure that anything she said, anything she chose to say, any way she chose to add to this conversation was completely up to her. And if she chose to say nothing at all it would be understood and accepted without question or judgment. She took a deep breath and gave what she could.

  "Three years ago I was where you are today. I walked away, maybe not out of a studio, but I walked and did so as quickly as I could. I didn't leave behind a newscast, but I did leave behind a number of commitments that were incomplete." She thought back to those days, thought back to who she had become, or had been close to becoming. "I did what I had to at that time and at that point at least for me. It was about survival." She studied Casey who was in turn studying her. "If I had any regrets, whether professional or personal, I know today...in this moment that to have done anything else, to have done it differently, would have cost me in ways I'm not certain could be counted or measured." She took a sip of the strong coffee, took a steadying breath. "Some people can live the kind of life I was living and I did for a while. A long while. It was all I knew for a long time. I let other things I wanted out of life slide by when I shouldn't have," she shrugged away the regrets she couldn't change, couldn't wish away no matter how much she might want to. "But at that point I felt like I was being sucked clean of everything I was meant to be," she shrugged again. "I know that sounds morbid and extreme, but it's exactly how I felt."

  "And after you left?" Casey asked.

  "Clean. I felt clean." There was simply no other way of putting it. "It took some time. It didn't happen overnight and truth be told I'm still working on it."

  "In that moment...when I walked out," Casey spoke slowly...cautiously into the silence. Searched for the words, she who always had plenty of them and now found herself struggling for a handful. "I couldn't have said so then, but now, after taking a hard look of where I was in that moment, it was like the very core, the soul of who I am felt mortally threatened." She raised her hands in front of her as if to ward off an unknown foe. "I know that sounds excessive but..."

  "No." Grace spoke quietly but that made it all the more adamant. "No, it doesn't sound excessive at all...I use the word extreme and there's not much of a difference between the two." She turned the glass around. She hadn't come prepared for a tell-all but knew this much she could do. She understood the self doubt, the steady flow of self incriminations, and the continual lack of confidence Casey was going through, or would.

  "It isn't just a matter of coming to terms with what you feared you became or were becoming. You recognized it in yourself and walked away. But a lot of it's also about acknowledging there's all these people you included in so much of your life. They're still there. Still doing what you were doing. And you wonder...why can't they see what I see and why don't they understand? And as times goes by...and they're still there doing what you walked away from, seemingly oblivious you begin to doubt yourself...you wonder if you're making more out of it than you should...maybe they're right and I'm wrong." Grace felt her heart racing, going back...remembering had never been easy.

  "I can't claim to have been naive," she continued on. "Not beyond the first year or so at least. I was every bit as willing as the next person to do whatever it took to win that next election. It didn't even matter whose election it was. I wanted them to win. If they won, I won."

  She stood up and walked to the kitchen window at the back of the room, looked out over the back yards of the many simple wood bungalow homes that graced so many of the streets of this city that was her new home. She turned around with her back leaning against the wall, looked into the somber and accepting faces of the women waiting for her to go on.

  "I don't believe as I did then that I was responsible for damaging or worst...destroying someone's life," she paused and swallowed hard. "But my words did." She looked steadily at Casey, seeing herself as she had been in those first difficult months after she had walked away from what was no longer tolerable, no longer an acceptable way of life. But the means didn't always warrant the result. And the result didn't always warrant the means. It was a simple and cruel reality. "I had an odd talent for framing words to attack the opponent's most vulnerable weakness and I did. Whatever it took, what or whoever it cost. To win." She closed her eyes and took a deep calming breath. Then continued.

  "Living with yourself, what you did and might have done is hard enough. Finding a way to live with the fact that those around you, people you trusted, people you cared for, continue on and have no understanding of why you walked is in some ways even more difficult. But it can be done." She knocked her tightly clenched fist on the kitchen table with a gentle vehemence. "You can't be responsible for their souls no matter how much you wish you could make that difference." She looked straight into the depths of Casey's sad eyes. "In this you're lucky just to salvage your own."

  There was a comfortable quiet in the small kitchen. Mary silently sipped her coffee as the other two seemed very much lost in their own thoughts. If it was an overstep she decided, it had been worth it for both of them. For all of them if she was honest with herself.

  Casey was the first to break the silence when she pushed away from the table. She reached out to Grace, took the hand that steadily lifted to hers. "Thank you." She who was never at a loss for words found herself again searching for the ones that wouldn't sound pithy.

  "I appreciate your insight, especially since I know it couldn't have been easy to share it." She looked at Mary. "I'm going to call Jake while I'm feeling I can handle just about anything," she sighed, thinking that would likely be necessary in the case of her oldest brother. Then she turned her gaze on Grace and repeated herself. "Thank you."

  Grace nodded and watched her walk past the attic door to the back bedroom. "Jake?" She wondered out loud.

  "Another cousin and in this case her brother. Jake is the oldest of the five boys."

>   "Five brothers?" Nothing like a little absurdity to lighten the mood. "Is she the only girl?"

  Mary nodded. "Same for me. I think it was that more than anything else that drew us to each other when we were growing up," she laughed as she spoke. "We felt duty bound to live our own lives and each of us had to fight hard and long for the right to do so."

  "Wow." She swallowed the teenage type giggle that threatened. "I knew you had several siblings but didn't realize you were the only girl. Not that it matters now but I can't imagine how it must have been growing up." She thought of her own brothers and sisters and the distance between them that couldn't be measured just in miles.

  "Not necessarily," Mary gestured to the back bedroom. "Casey had to work herself up to calling Jake because he has this quiet way about him that has a tendency to make you feel foolish, whether you are or not. Worse if you are." She smiled at the happy memories. "But he always came through for us, they all did, whether we wanted them to or not," She said as she fiddled with her cup. "Thank you for coming over as quickly as you did. Closing the store to make time for this. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it." She reached out and took Grace's hand, needing to somehow impart to her just how important. "I knew I could calm Casey. I could care for her. But I simply couldn't help her in the same way you were in the position to. You were better able to help her to understand she wasn't alone." She looked steadily at the woman who had quickly become a close friend. "You were able to help her to see beyond today. And tomorrow."

  Grace smiled, felt a simple warmth flow through her that came from being part of something more than just herself. "I'm glad that I could," she said. "I don't know that I want to indulge in such self purging too often, but I think this helped me as much as it did her." She rose to leave. "I need to get back." She started to the door then turned, "If she feels up to it bring her by the store later."