Too Much and Never Enough, стр. 2
Once inside the White House, we walked in twos and threes through the long corridors, past windows looking out on gardens and lawns, past life-sized paintings of former first ladies. I stopped in front of Hillary Clinton’s portrait and stood silently for a minute. I wondered again how this could have happened.
There was no reason for me ever to have imagined that I’d visit the White House, certainly not under these circumstances. The whole thing felt surreal. I looked around. The White House was elegant, grand, and stately, and I was about to see my uncle, the man who lived here, for the first time in eight years.
We emerged from the shadows of the hallway onto the portico surrounding the Rose Garden and stopped outside the Oval Office. Through the French doors, I could see that a meeting was still in progress. Vice President Mike Pence stood off to the side, but Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Senator Chuck Schumer, and a dozen other congresspeople and staffers were gathered around Donald, who sat behind the Resolute Desk.
The tableau reminded me of one of my grandfather’s tactics: he always made his supplicants come to him, either at his Brooklyn office or his house in Queens, and he remained seated while they stood. In late autumn 1985, a year after I had taken a leave of absence from Tufts University, I took my place in front of him and asked his permission to return to school. He looked up at me and said, “That’s stupid. What do you want to do that for? Just go to trade school and become a receptionist.”
“Because I want to get my degree.” I must have said it with a hint of annoyance, because my grandfather narrowed his eyes and looked at me for a second as if reevaluating me. The corner of his mouth lifted in a sneer, and he laughed. “That’s nasty,” he said.
A few minutes later, the meeting broke up.
The Oval Office was both smaller and less intimate than I’d imagined. My cousin Eric and his wife, Lara, whom I’d never met, were standing right by the door, so I said, “Hi, Eric. It’s your cousin Mary.”
“Of course I know who you are,” he said.
“Well, it’s been a while,” I said. “I think the last time we saw each other, you were still in high school.”
He shrugged and said, “That’s probably true.” He and Lara walked away without his introducing us. I looked around. Melania, Ivanka, Jared, and Donny had arrived and were standing next to Donald, who remained seated. Mike Pence continued to lurk on the other side of the room with a half-dead smile on his face, like the chaperone everybody wanted to avoid.
I stared at him, hoping to make eye contact, but he never looked my way.
“Excuse me, everyone,” the White House photographer, a petite young woman in a dark pantsuit, announced in an upbeat voice. “Let’s get you all together so I can take some pictures before we go upstairs.” She instructed us to surround Donald, who still had not gotten up from the desk.
The photographer raised her camera. “One, two, three, smile,” she said.
After the pictures had been taken, Donald stood up and pointed to a framed black-and-white photograph of my grandfather, which was propped up on a table behind the desk. “Maryanne, isn’t that a great picture of Dad?” It was the same photograph that had sat on the side table in the library of my grandparents’ house. In it, my grandfather was still a young man, with receding dark hair, a mustache, and a look of command that I had never seen falter until his dementia set in. We’d all seen it thousands of times.
“Maybe you should have a picture of Mom, too,” Maryanne suggested.
“That’s a great idea,” Donald said as though it had never occurred to him. “Somebody get me a picture of Mom.”
We spent a few more minutes in the Oval Office, taking turns sitting behind the Resolute Desk. My brother took a picture of me, and when I looked at it later, I noticed my grandfather hovering behind me like a ghost.
The White House historian joined us just outside the Oval Office, and we proceeded to the Executive Residence on the second floor for a tour to be followed by dinner. Once upstairs, we proceeded to the Lincoln Bedroom. I took a quick look inside and was surprised to see a half-eaten apple on the bedside table. As the historian told us stories about what had happened in the room through the years, Donald pointed vaguely once in a while and declared, “This place has never looked better since George Washington lived here.” The historian was too polite to point out that the house hadn’t been opened until after Washington had died. The group moved down the hall toward the Treaty Room and the Executive Dining Room.
Donald stood in the doorway, greeting people as they entered. I was one of the last to arrive. I hadn’t yet said hello, and when he saw me, he pointed at me with a surprised look on his face, then said, “I specifically asked for you to be here.” That was the kind of thing he often said to charm people, and he had a knack for tailoring his comment to the occasion, which was all the more impressive because I knew it wasn’t true. He opened his arms, and then, for the first time in my life, he hugged me.
The first thing I noticed about the Executive Dining Room was its beauty: the dark wood polished to perfection, the exquisite place settings, and the hand-drawn calligraphy on the place cards and menus (iceberg lettuce salad, mashed potatoes—Trump family staples—and Wagyu beef filet). The second thing I noticed after sitting down was the