She was still feeling very weak the next day, but the children were being very good to her, even Abby brought breakfast to her room, and at lunchtime Grace went downstairs for a cup of tea, and happened to look out the window. There were pickets lined up outside carrying signs of “Murderess!” “Baby Killer!” “Abortion Monger.” There were photographs of aborted fetuses, and Grace had an asthma attack the moment she saw them.

She had Charles paged, and when he called her he was horrified, and told her he'd call the police immediately. They came half an hour later, but the pickets only moved across the street, in peaceful demonstration. And by then, a camera crew had arrived, and it became a circus. Charles came home shortly after that, and he was beginning to wonder if they would ever have a normal life again. He refused to comment to the camera crew, and said that his wife had been in a car accident and was ill and he would really appreciate their leaving, after which there was a lot of hooting and jeering.

But that afternoon, when the children came home, the pickets were gone, and only the camera crew remained, and Grace, looking deathly pale, was fixing dinner.

Charles tried to force her to go upstairs, but she flatly refused. “I've had enough. I'm not going to let them ruin our lives anymore. We're going back to normal,” She was determined, although she was visibly shaky, but he had to admire her, as he pushed a chair under her and suggested she sit down while he made dinner.

“Could you maybe wait a week before this show of strength?” he suggested.

“No, I can't,” she said firmly. And much to everyone's surprise, they had a very pleasant dinner. Abby seemed to have calmed down again while Grace was gone, and if anything, she seemed helpful and sympathetic. It was hard to know what, but something had turned her around. Maybe there had just been so much grief, that she had figured out they all needed each other. And Andrew commented on the ghouls outside, and said he was tempted to moon them from his bedroom window, which made everyone laugh, even Grace, although she told him not to.

“I don't think we need to see any more Mackenzie flesh in the tabloids,” she said ruefully.

And afterwards, while she straightened up, Abby asked her quietly. “That wasn't true about the abortion, was it, Mom?” She looked a little worried.

“No, sweetheart, it wasn't.”

“I didn't think so.”

“I would never have an abortion. I love your father very much, and I would love to have another baby.”

“Do you think you will?”

“Maybe. I don't know. There's an awful lot going on right now. Poor Dad is under a lot of pressure.”

“So are you,” she said, sympathetic for the first time. “I was talking to Nicole's mom about it, and she said she felt really sorry for you, that most of the time, they tell lies and ruin people's lives. It made me realize how awful for you all this must be. I didn't mean to make it worse.” There were tears in her eyes as she said it.

“You didn't” Grace leaned over and kissed her.

“I'm sorry, Mom.” They hugged for a long time, and had a quiet moment, and then they walked upstairs arm in arm, and Charles smiled as he watched them.

Life was peaceful again, for the next few days, with the exception of hate letters about her alleged abortion. But by the weekend, another of Marcus's photographs had been printed in Thrill again. She wore the same black velvet ribbon around her neck, and the same lack of clothes. It was essentially the same photograph they'd seen before, just a slightly different position, and only slightly more suggestive. It didn't shock her anymore, it just made her angry. And, of course, his supposed “release” from her allegedly covered this one also.

“What are we supposed to wait for here? An entire album?” Grace said in fury. But Goldsmith told them again that they had no legal recourse, all the same conditions existed as before. There was supposedly a signed “release” with her signature, and the fact that Marcus owned the pictures and she was a so-called celebrity because of whom she was married to allowed him to publish whatever he wanted. As celebrities, they had no right to privacy anyway, so they could not be “invaded,” and they couldn't prove loss of income, or actual malice. “Do you suppose we should call that bastard Marcus and try to buy the rest of what he has?” she asked Charles, but he shook his head.

“You can't. That would be like paying blackmail, and he might not sell them to you anyway. He might keep some of them back, there's no way of knowing. Thrill is probably paying him a pretty penny for this. Pictures like that of someone like you are worth a lot of money.”

“Nice for him, maybe we should get a commission.”

She was so angry, but there was nothing she could do. And the following week she went to some campaign events with Charles. It was hard to determine how much damage the tabloids had done, people still greeted her warmly. But it was certainly unsettling for all of them, and very distracting.

A third photograph was released two weeks later, and this time when Matt came home from school, he was crying. And when Grace asked what had happened, he said that one of his friends had called her a bad name. She felt as though she'd been slapped when he said it.

“What kind of a name?” She tried to sound calm, but she wasn't.

“You know,” he said miserably. “The ‘H’ one.”

She smiled sadly at him. “It doesn't start with an ‘H.’ Unless you mean harlot.”

“It wasn't that one,” he said miserably. He didn't want to tell her.

“Darling, I'm so sorry.” She put her arms around him, and wanted to run away again. But she knew she couldn't run away anymore. She had to face it with them.

It happened again at his school, and again the day after. And Charles and Grace got into a fight over it that night. She wanted to take the children back to Connecticut, and he told her she couldn't run away. They had to stand and fight, and she told him she refused to destroy her family over his “damn campaign.” But that wasn't what it was about, and they both knew it. They were just frustrated at their own helplessness, and needed to scream at someone, since they couldn't do anything to stop what was happening.

But Matthew didn't understand that, and when Grace went to tuck him in, she couldn't find him. She asked Abby where he'd gone, and she shrugged and pointed to his room. She was on the phone with Nicole and she hadn't seen him. And Andrew hadn't seen him either. She went downstairs to Charles in the den, still annoyed at him, and asked if he'd seen Matthew.

“Isn't he upstairs?” They exchanged a look and he suddenly caught Grace's concern, and they started looking for him in earnest. He was nowhere. “He couldn't have gone out,” Charles said, looking worried. “We'd have seen him.”

“No, we wouldn't necessarily.” And then in an undertone, “Do you think he heard us fighting?”

“Maybe.” Charles looked even more upset than she did. He was worried about kidnapping if Matt was wandering the streets somewhere. Washington was a dangerous city after dark. And when they went upstairs again, they found the note he had left in his room. Don 't fight over me anymore. I'm leaving. Love, Matt. Mom and Dad, I love you. Say bye to Kisses for me. Kisses was their chocolate Lab, because when they'd gotten her Grace had said she looked like a little pile of Hershey Kisses.

“Where do you think he went?” Grace looked panicked as she asked him.

“I don't know. I'm calling the police.” Charles's whole face was tense, and his jaw was working.

“It'll wind up in the tabloids,” she said nervously.

“I don't care. I want to find him tonight, before anything happens.” They were both frantic and the police reassured them that they would find him as soon as possible. They said that kids his age wandered off all the time, and usually stayed pretty close to home. They asked for a list of his best friends and a picture of him, and they set out in the squad car. Charles and Grace stayed home to wait for him, in case he came back. But the policemen were back with him half an hour later. He had been buying Hostess Twinkies at a convenience store two blocks away and feeling very sorry for himself. They had spotted him at once, and he didn't resist coming home. He was ready.

“Why did you do that?” Grace asked, still shaken by what he'd done. She just couldn't believe it. None of their children had ever run away. But they'd also never been under that kind of pressure.

“I didn't want you and Dad fighting over me,” Matt said sadly. But it had been scary outside, and he was glad to be back now.

“We weren't fighting over you, we were just talking.”

“No you weren't, you were fighting.”

“Everybody fights sometimes,” Charles explained, and pulled him down on his knee as he sat down. The police had just left and they had promised Charles not to tell the papers. There had to be something private in their lives, even if it was only their eight-year-old running away for half an hour. Nothing else was sacred.

“Mommy and I love each other, you know that.”

“Yeah, I know … it's just that everything has been so yucky lately. People keep saying stuff in school, and Mom cries all the time.” She looked guilty as she thought about it. She did cry a lot these days, but who wouldn't?

“Remember what I told you the other day,” Charles explained. “We have to be strong. All of us. For each other. We can't run away. We can't give up. We just have to stick together.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said, only half convinced, but happy to be home again. It had been a dumb idea to run away and he knew it.

His mother walked him upstairs and tucked him in and they all went to bed early that night. Grace and Charles were exhausted and Matthew was asleep almost the moment his head hit the pillow. Kisses was lying at the foot of the bed, and snoring softly.