One Year Later - Epilogue

"And in our last 30 seconds, there is a proposal on the floor to change House rules to ban relationships between members and their staff? Mr. Lyman, your thoughts on such a proposal?"

I take a deep breath, must stay on point.

"The White House doesn't take a position on House rules, Mark. If they'd like to make a rule that required members to wear striped socks on Wednesday's that's up to them," I say smoothly, silently congratulating myself for keeping on point.

"Right, and what about your personal opinion?" Mark says with that sly television smile that has earned him hundreds of thousands of Capitol Beat viewers.

I shrug, "I'm a democrat, as long as there's no abuse of power I don't think I much care who people choose to share their bed with."

I let out a long breath, I'm the king of putting my foot in my mouth and while I think I may have done that earlier in the interview, I think I did ok there. I'm sure CJ will still have comments about what I could have said, though.

"Ms. Marsh? Your thoughts?"

"Well, Mark, I think it's a step in the right direction for rooting out the rot in our American political system. However, I think there should be a marriage exemption. The sanctity of the family unit is something that our government needs to defend which is why I've been a vocal proponent for marriage incentives."

"Well, that's certainly true. Thank you Ms. Marsh, and thank you to Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman for being our guests today. Join us next week for the post-Thanksgiving show down."

As soon as I hear "Cut!" I jump out of my seat and begin to pull the microphone out from under my jacket. I am running late, because of course I am. Between having a child and working in the White House I am destined never to be on time ever again. Strangely, having a child has made Donna more prompt. She's often pushing me out the door well before we really need to leave. I can probably blame my lateness today on her having taken a day off work to finish packing. If she had been around to interrupt my last meeting I would have made it on time to the television studio and they wouldn't have pushed my live Capitol Beat square off to the second segment of the show. If we had gone first, I would have been on my way home to pick up Donna and the kiddo to head to the airport for our trip to see my mother for Thanksgiving.

But that's not what happened and now Donna is picking me up, luggage and child in tow. And she looks pissed.

I am already in a bad mood from squaring off with Mary Marsh, so I take a deep breath to center myself. I suspect there will be some loud marital discourse today, but I would like to try to hold that off until we can get somewhere more private.

"I know, I know, everything ran late. I am sorry!" I say preemptively as I jog up to her. She wordlessly hands our daughter to me and starts digging in her purse. She pulls out a baby wipe, presses it to my hand and says, "for your face," before turning on her heel and heading toward the studio exit, leaving me wiping furiously, one handed, at the television make up on my face and trying not to trip on any of the cables.

We are this-close to the door before Mary sees me and stops me.

"Josh, Al would really like the President's ear on 529."

"Oh, ah, that's Toby," I say, thanking God I had delegated that one to his office last week. "Call Ginger and have her set up an appointment."

Mary looks expectantly at me and motions with her eyes to Donna who has stopped and turned back to look at us.

"Oh, sorry, Mary, this is my wife and daughter." I don't think she has ever met Donna as my assistant, but yet I still don't introduce Donna by name. If she does make connection I don't want to have to stay and answer questions, or worse yet, do damage control. We are late enough as it is.

"Josh, I didn't know you were married...with children," Mary says as she reaches out to Donna for a handshake and a polite, but still slightly stunned, "Mrs. Lyman." Donna returns a terse "Ms. Marsh." Apparently first names aren't necessary. It's moments like these when I am reminded of how pretty Donna is. I wish it was equally evident she is wickedly smart, too, because Mary is clearly making some assumptions about her that simply aren't true.

"Well they call it a private life for a reason," I say quickly. Hoping she'll catch the message, I reach out to touch Donna's elbow in an effort to steer us to the door. Mary looks like she's about to say more, but she's interrupted by my daughter.

"Down Daddy?" She asks. I am not falling for those shenanigans, though. "No, sweetie, not here," I say as I hold tight. A toddler, especially my toddler, running around in a television studio spells trouble.

"Josh, our flight?" Donna says quietly, but urgently.

"Well, we really need to go, Thanksgiving holiday at Grandma's awaits." Mary snaps out of it and looks back to me.

"Of course, Happy Thanksgiving, Josh."

"You, too," I answer over my shoulder as we step out of the studio into the cold November sun.

That's it, thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.