His hands shook as he reached for the pen, He had some correspondence that Grace had prepared for him. So many letters, so many official documents to sign, would it never end? It had been a long twelve years, and he so wanted to lay his burdens down. But, he knew, there would be another three years before he could retire.
“Here you are,” Grace said, and placed a page on his desk in front of him. His heart raced and he felt light in the head. “The first draft of your speech.”
“Thank you, child,” he said, his voice sounding distant. Grace stood over him, a soft expression in her eyes. At once she looked immense to him, but then she shrank and looked small.
“Our correspondence is done for the day,” she said. “May I have the afternoon off? Lucy and Elizabeth will keep you company.”
“Of course, my dear, you may have the afternoon off. Make the most of this beautiful April day!” he said, his cheer restored at the mention of Lucy.
He’d been sitting for his portrait. Elizabeth had done one before, and he’d liked it immensely – even his wife had liked it, which had surprised him. And as the painter set up her easel, and he relaxed into his chair, comfortable in the knowledge that he only needed to proofread the speech, he settled his gaze on Lucy, on the settee with a pair of knitting needles.
She looked back at him, that gaze he so remembered from when they were young – ah, those years that would never come back to them. She’d married and lost a husband since then, and he’d gone back to Eleanor and they’d settled into an armed truce – but nothing had ever been the same.
And then a terrible pain seized both sides of his head. He raised his arm to his head, closed his eyes, and lurched forward onto the desk. “I have a terrific headache,” Franklin Roosevelt said.
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