I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in the rain - and back in the rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
Robert Frost

A line by Robert Frost keeps running around my head. It tramped home with me last night after I helped Josh tip Sam into bed and left him scrounging for a blanket for the sofa. It whispered to me this morning when I came in and saw Sam sitting at his desk, still shadowed, staring blankly at a piece of paper. It had offered itself to me as some sort of profound truth when I came in Wednesday morning and found my couch rumpled and Sam wearing yesterday's shirt and a brittle remoteness that made him seem like a stranger. Maybe this was the corporate lawyer; the hotshot, gonna-be-a-partner corporate lawyer I'd never been able to see in Sam? Even as I thought it, I knew it wasn't true. Whoever Sam had been in New York it wasn't this weary-eyed man who looked as though he had lost the certainties that kept him whole.

Now it's Saturday morning, a time when officially we don't work but traditionally we do. We come in wearing jeans and sweats and ease into the day by sitting around in each other's offices with Danishes and those big take-out coffees from Starbucks or the little place on the corner of 17th. Sometimes there are stories to share of last night, or of the night to come, but mostly it's office gossip, a little political plotting and some moaning about the impossibility of finding an electrician or plumber who will do house calls during the few hours of the night you are home. Today, though, there's a fault line running through our lives.

Josh has been drawn away - he's up on the Hill waging war with some over-eager staffers from the Minority Whip's office. CJ came by earlier bearing those custard-filled donut rolls that Josh usually calls gooey maggots until CJ threatens to take his away. Sam smiled and thanked her and now it sits untouched on his desk beside his silenced cell phone. CJ came into me then and we ate, drank, and discussed map making and social equality while we watched Sam sit there and be… not Sam.

I have been one acquainted with the night…

I still hear Frost's line and I pull down from my bookshelves an anthology of American poets and waste ten minutes writing out the first three lines in careful italics, as though I was back in fourth grade and waiting for Mrs Dunhealy and her box of stars.

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in the rain - and back in the rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I sit and look at it for a few minutes when I've finished… it holds a certain truth for me; I don't know if it does for Sam. I push it aside and stand up to return the anthology to my shelf. Through the window, I see Sam pecking desultorily at his computer. He still looks like one of those soulless husks left after an alien invasion in the tacky Z-grade sci-fi movies CJ makes me watch with her, but I tell myself it's good. He's writing - that's got to be good, that's the way out. Then as I sit down and pull my notes for the soybean speech towards me, I see my careful calligraphy and I remember those times when I have known the night and words have become walls that block me away from others or sharp-edged weapons that cut and sting.

With the soybeans finished, I'm ready to have a second run at the President's speech for the Leaders of Illinois breakfast, but before I begin I lift my head once more to watch Sam. I have long been one acquainted with the night… from my days as the strange fourth grader who wouldn't pray through to a failing and then failed marriage and endless lost campaigns and I know Josh walked through the darkest of nights last December, but Sam? Has his life been as golden as it looks? Money, charm and looks… college at Princeton, law at Duke, an almost partnership at some ridiculously important law firm, a fiancée who looks like you ordered her from dial-a-perfect-fiancée… I'm not seeing a lot of darkness there. Yeah, he's no more successful than the rest of us in maintaining a long-term relationship, but I'm not sure he cares much. He left Lisa for Josh and President Bartlett, and even Laurie he just wanted to save. I've rarely seen him down, maybe only when I screwed him over on that environment speech. Usually he's the obnoxiously cheerful, obnoxiously hopeful, obnoxiously trusting one.

My staring finally gets through to him and he looks up. He flushes a little as though he thinks I was reproving him for laziness and begins to type furiously. I didn't mean him to take it that way and I feel like I've been out kicking puppies. Actually, I might feel better if I had kicked a puppy - right at the moment Sam is considerably more pitiful looking than those annoyingly half-skinned rat-looking things celebrities seem to think are the latest accessory. For a minute, I think about going in - but what would I say? I didn't mean to imply you should be doing your work? There's nothing I can see I can do, so I get back to the work I should be doing.

It seems like a long day. CJ ducks out for a haircut and comes back with Japanese (and a burger for Josh who doesn't eat anything more exotic than, well, a burger) and some interesting political gossip. Josh points out we should put CJ's hairdresser on the payroll, and he's right. Rick always seems to know more about what's happening on Capitol Hill than my communications department and the Washington Post's gossip columnist put together. Sam joins us and seems more with us than he has all day as he tries to explain to Josh, who's being deliberately dense - but it underlines how off-balance Sam is that he doesn't realise this is Politics 101 to Josh - about why it would matter if Newman gets traded off Natural Resources. Three or four times, though, he takes out his cell and then looks at it as though he's wondering how it got into his hand before putting it away. It's still switched off, I notice.

On the fifth time CJ says, "So, Spanky, Josh said you called your dad last night. It go well?"

Sam tightens his grip on the phone. He looks trapped.

"I…. It…" He stops and tries again - Sam who's usually got far more words than any of us need. "Okay. It went okay… there's not a lot to say."

At that, Sam gets up and, picking up his lunch debris, heads for the door. Clearly, he's said all he's got to say. Josh, CJ and I sit there and look at each other over burger wrappers and abandoned bits of sushi.

"Guess at least he's talked to him," says Josh.

"Oh yeah - and it seems to have done him a lot of good," I say.

The afternoon wears on. I finish the Illinois address and work through the diary for the next month, allocating out work across the writing team. I'm getting down into the small stuff - the notes, the correspondence, the quick sound bite remarks at different functions - when Sam knocks on my doorframe.

"If you're busy…" he says, hesitating.

"Nah, come in. I've nailed the prairie boys' breakfast talk and I'm just sharing out work."

"Oh," says Sam. He sits down and fiddles with his glasses. I wait, wondering if he's as lost as he looks and if so what am I expected to do about it. Finally, he looks up.

"It's this family values speech, Toby. I just, I can't get it. I'm not seeing much value in families at the moment."

He looks at me and I look back. I could just thump my head on the desk. Yeah, I'm sure he needed to go ten rounds with how the basis of our American society is strong marriages and strong families. It's a pretty stomach-turning topic at any time - I'd flicked it his way a week ago because I didn't think my blood pressure would stand it. One thing I've learnt, though, in these last three years is that successful politics puts you in bed with some pretty strange people… it's a bit like drinking mixed cocktails at your first frat party.

"Sam, give it to me. You can work on the forestry piece or Leo's welcome to the Canadian trade delegates or you could just go home and get some sleep."

He gives me an 'as-if' look at that.

"Thanks. I'll take a swing at forestry."

CJ comes by at about five to say goodbye before heading off on a date with some, to borrow Josh's word, gomer from the policy department over in the OEB. There are days when I swear CJ thinks she's our den mother or something and tonight she sits on Sam's desk, ruffles his hair and fusses over him as if he's one of the kids she should have had. From what I can see she doesn't get much back from him - a half smile, one or two answers and a long moment's eye contact at the end.

CJ shakes her head as she comes through my door.

"He's scaring me, Toby. You doing dark and brooding I can cope with - it's part of your manly charm - but Sam? It's just wrong. He's supposed to be the one who keeps us believing."

"He's a grown-up, CJ - things go wrong. He'll be fine."

CJ's watching Sam. He's holding that damned cell phone again.

"I could call Steve - tell him I'm held up at work; reschedule."

"You did that last week when you were too busy at work," I point. "You should go, CJ - at your age you can't afford to throw away any man still desperate enough to be interested in you."

The crack works to lighten the atmosphere and CJ takes a swipe at me before looking back at Sam who is typing again.

"Just go and stop doing the mother hen act or I'm going to start thinking you and those turkeys were more than just good friends. I think Josh said they're going to grab some pizza and watch the game at his place."

CJ smiles at me, pats my arm - "You're a good man, Toby Zeigler" - and is gone, leaving me wondering just exactly what part of doing nothing qualifies me for good man status?

Josh arrives half an hour later, trailing Donna and looking agitated enough to draw even Sam out of his room. Apparently, Hoynes has all but got himself in a fistfight with the Deputy Senate Leader at a golf day in Texas and Leo wants Josh down there five minutes ago. I don't envy Josh this one in the slightest. Rumour has it, though (via Donna, a couple of cell phones and a - I quote - cute but geeky Vice Presidential admin assistant) that Hoynes was fighting on our side. Now that seems more newsworthy to me than a couple of blood noses, even if they had got that far - but I doubt CJ will see it that way. I wave Josh off with a reminder to keep CJ in the loop and to keep this story contained even if it means using chains or duct tape on the Vice President.

"Yeah, right! You first... and Toby, I don't want to hear your fantasies about Vice President Hoynes. That's just wrong!"

Josh turns to Sam, even as Donna starts trying to tug him out of the room - he'll blame her, after all, if he misses the plane.

"Sam - I'll probably make it back by tomorrow night. I'll catch up with you then, 'kay?"

Sam nods. He doesn't look like he cares - he doesn't look like he cares about anything. Turning to go back into his office, he takes off his glasses to rub his eyes and he looks so tired I think about having another try at sending him home to get some sleep. I'm not CJ or his mother I remind myself.

I've started a preliminary draft of a speech on education policy - and how many times have I been here? - and it's running well. I've found a good quotation that summarises, I think, why education has to matter to all of us - "Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today" - but somehow I don't think quoting Malcolm X is going to fly in South Carolina. Even so, by 8 o'clock I've nailed a first draft and it's good. I sit around and look admiringly at it for a few minutes. As a writer, I know these giddy moments of infatuation aren't to be hurried. It'll never look this good again. By the end of Monday every ungainly angle, every awkward word, every smug condescension will sticking out like the ribs of a rotting carcass. By some time Friday, after two, three days of rolling in it, you'll feel unclean and sickened by the shallowness of your thoughts so brutally splayed out across the page. Fortunately, by the next week, it will have either been buried in your graveyard of failures or a fairly comfortable compromise made of regret for the greatness that could have been and acknowledgment of what you have achieved will have been reached. It's sort of like a marriage on fast-forward.

Sam's still typing when I get up to go and I pause in his doorway.

"You ought to go home and get some sleep tonight. You can finish up on Monday - those forests aren't going anywhere."

It doesn't deserve a laugh and I don't get one, but he does look up at me.

"I'll finish up in a while. You know how it is when you're in the swing," he says, all earnest lies.

Still it's none of my concern and I head off for a bar where I can get a decent scotch and something to eat.

There's a ball game on and they do a good steak. I'm there for a couple of hours and when I come out it's dark and cold, with the moon a clear bright light even through the haze and glare of city lighting. I could go home - get what would be by White House standards an astronomically early night, or deal with the backlog of family e-mails on my computer. I suppose I could even deal with such mundane things as unpaired socks and food splatters in my microwave. Instead, I head back to the White House.

It's very quiet by now but Security aren't surprised to see me. All of us senior staff are in and out at all hours. They'd probably be more surprised if one day we went home at six and stayed there. Hell, they'd probably call out the Secret Service to look for the bodies.

Sam's still in his office, but he's given up all pretence at work. He's just sitting at his desk tracing over and over again the screen of his cell phone. His other arm is gripped tightly across himself as if he's holding himself together. The bullpen is still in darkness so he doesn't see me and I stand and watch him. And as I stand there, all I can hear is that damned line of Frost's echoing through my head.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Sam's found his night.

I take his coat off its hook and drop it on his desk.

"Come on. Get up and put your coat on."

Sam looks up and I see one of his rare flashes of temper.

"Leave me alone, Toby. I am not going home."

"No, you don't have to. You are coming with me, though, so put your coat on."

Sam's standing up and holding his coat now, but he's showing no inclination to move. Well, so be it - CJ always tells me I'm a natural bully; clearly it's time to use it."

I get a little closer - intimidation's always good.

"Sam, you can hold your breath until you turn blue if you like - but you're putting on that coat and you're coming with me. And if you think I'm going to stand around all night arguing with you, well, CJ is going to have a more than the Vice President's almost punch-up to worry about."

I haven't punched anyone since grade school and I'd be as likely to punch Sam as to dance on my desk and I think he knows that (surely he knows that?) but it gets him moving. He follows me out of the bullpen and down the corridors. It's only after we have crossed the lobby and are at the outside doors that he stops.

"Toby? Where are we going?"

"Walking," I say. "Just walking, Sam."

Neither of us says anything until we're heading out along New York Avenue. We're just walking along looking at the city lights and the way the moon is being shadowed on and off by cloud and the way our shadows dip and fall along the pavement. At least I am - I suspect all Sam is looking at is his world falling apart. Sam stops suddenly.

"I left my cell - back in my office."

He sounds a little panicked and I take hold of his arm in case he has some fool idea of running back for it.

"Well, what if you did? You don't need it, Sam, you really don't. You've got your pager, yeah?"

He nods.

"So you're good to go in case of nuclear attack or a Presidential bike crash. There are lots of phones in the world - if you do want to ring your dad you can use one of those."

He nods again and lets me draw him on. We turn left at 9th Ave and head north for a way. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing or whether it will work for Sam, but I've walked out some of the worst nights of my life. I've walked through Washington and New York and, during ill-fated campaigns, the streets of towns so small I'm not sure they had names. I've walked out betrayal and despair and just cold ugly failure.

We walk past monuments and office buildings, and later on past houses and apartment blocks. We walk at random, taking turnings where we find them. I keep us to the lighted roads though and roads where two well-dressed men won't be seen as prey. We're passing a schoolyard when Sam suddenly says,

"I thought I had all of him, and now it turns out that's only half of him. And you know what really gets me - the half I had was just a lie anyway. How can you go back and unravel what was true?"

He stopped walking to look at me. "Do I just, I don't know, take him out of my life… or do I try to find out where this man I don't even know fits in? Nothing I thought I knew is true."

His voice is bitter and angry. He looks at me as though I'll have an answer for him. I don't, not one that's going to be any comfort.

"I don't know, Sam - but you've got every right to be pissed."

He nods a little, seeming to accept the offer of comfort, even if there is no substance to it. He begins to walk slowly down the street.

"I know my mom needs me, but I don't even want to call her. I'm pissed at her too, I guess. I was just a kid, but she must have known something. Did she see it, but not want to know it? Did she know it, but not want to say it? Why now? Is this really the first time he's stuffed up… or just the first time she's called him on it?"

"I've got no answers. Maybe you do need to talk to her."

"I don't want to talk to her!" he shouts at me and speeds up. He's really pacing it out now, burning anger and I settle for trailing him a few yards behind. He stops and waits at the corner, though. I catch him up and he looks at me tiredly.

"I'm sorry, Toby. None of this mess is your fault."

He looks more like Sam now. He has the worried look that he gets when he's upset someone and it occurs to me that I could happily kick his father.

"It's not yours, either."

"No," he agrees sadly. He puts his hands in his coat pockets and gazes around the deserted street.

"I wanted to be like him, you know. I wanted to be a lawyer like him, I wanted to be good at sport like him, I wanted to be a dad like him." Sam snorts and tries to laugh. "Today I nearly had to tell someone to go home and tell her dying father that his father was a traitor. This isn't so much, is it…." he trails off uncertainly.

I don't say anything. It isn't for me to decide if it matters that Sam's dad hid half his life from him. My grandfather saw his father gassed and burnt for his faith… you could say nothing matters after that, but he never did. He never told me it didn't matter when I didn't get picked in a team or some jerk decided to throw half a bacon burger at me because I was a Jew.

"I did ring him."

We're standing under a streetlight and I can see him shivering a little as he tries to find words.

"I tried to tell him it's all right, but it really isn't. I just want to shout at him. I just want to know if any of it was true. When he wasn't there because he was on a business trip, when he was at a conference, when some big company flew him interstate to consult with him… was he always just in her bed? When he missed out on all that stuff was he always just with her?"

Sam stops and pulls his coat in tighter around as though he could keep the cold out. "He said he was sorry - said he wanted to keep the family together. For God's sake, Toby - it's like we weren't even important enough to leave!"

"You know, I thought he was wonderful. I went to Duke because that's where he went. I wound up in New York doing corporate law to make him proud of me. I'd be there now - partner in Gage Whitney, helping big companies evade their social responsibilities and married to Lisa - if Josh hadn't come along that day. And wouldn't it have been ironic then when I found out that the man I was building my life on was a fraud."

Sam puts his hand to his face to hide his tears. I stand there uselessly for a minute and then I take the two steps necessary to hold him. For a minute, he stiffens then he wraps his arm around me too and presses his face against my shoulder and I feel his tears. He feels like he's tearing apart in my arms and I hold him tighter, as though strength can somehow stop the pain. For a brief moment it crosses my mind that if someone looks out a window or drives past and sees us under the streetlight, well, CJ will be busy. I don't care. Sam's still shaking with sobs and between the gasps he keeps saying,

"Oh God, Toby, I wanted to be him….."

And all I can do is hold him.

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in the rain - and back in the rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.