Chapter Five A: Sunday, Sunday

By Sunday morning Aaron was tired of sleeping. He’d lain in bed with the Sentinel, reading it from front to back. He’d worked the crossword puzzle, Sudoku, and Scrabble quiz. He’d eaten two of Theresa’s frozen dinners with pain pills and had actually decided to put clothes on, but changed his mind when he tried to bend over. He settled for a shower and an old sweat suit. He couldn’t face sitting at his desktop computer, but set his laptop on his chair-side reading table. He brought a cup of coffee and settled in to do some research. He started at the public library, thinking he would look up the old tax records on Aunt Hattie’s property, but instead found himself looking for references to the Twelve Oaks Church. It was pretty sparse. He checked in with the Wells County, Historical Society and Museum, but most of the information on their site was related to Bluffton, much of which he had written himself. He couldn’t remember ever having come across records of Twelve Oaks Church.

It was not listed under active churches of Wells County, which meant that there was no official denominational affiliation for the church. That didn’t mean a lot. Churches of many sorts escaped official notice. But usually if there was a historic building of some sort, it would show up on someone’s radar someplace. He would cross-check the land tax records. Even an exempt piece of property would have to show up on the land roles.

Even this proved elusive and Aaron found himself staring at pages and lines of records without really seeing them. Instead, his mind was filled with images of Pol Stamos. The total absurdity of having entertained a US Representative in his pajamas was so ludicrous to him that he almost burst out laughing. The first chuckle sent a warning spasm through his ribcage that brought the impending laugh to an abrupt halt. What was he thinking? It was more like she was entertaining him in his own home. She cooked dinner for him! Well, granted, Theresa had actually cooked the dinner and Pol only heated it for the specified time in the microwave, but still… Pol? How could he be thinking of a US Congresswoman that he hardly knew by her first name? This was really getting absurd.

Yet… She seemed so genuine. She didn’t just talk like he would expect a politician to do. Oh, sure, she could talk and she’d shown him that, but she not only listened to him, she coaxed stories from him that he hadn’t related to any but his best and most intimate friends. Well, what could he expect? She’s a politician after all. She could probably do his own job better than he could, sitting in front of anyone and interviewing them, getting them to expose their hidden memories of lives long past. She had to make people believe she cares. No one would vote for her otherwise. She was just part of the big governmental machine that ground people’s souls out of them and made them into fodder for special interests and big business.

Bitter? No he wasn’t bitter. It was just the way life works. Not her fault. He was sure she’d had great ideals when she started her political career. Probably still believed she had them. What had she said? “Come work for me and I’ll show you how?” That’s ballsy. What does she think she’s got that Jimmy Carter didn’t have? What does she think she’s got that Angela didn’t have?

The pain was intense enough that Aaron went to take another Vicodin. He was blaming it on the ribs. But was that where it hurt?

When he returned to his chair with a fresh cup of coffee, he changed his search parameters. “Let’s see who you really are, Congresswoman,” he muttered under his breath. This was his job. He found out who people and where they fit in the greater context of life. People in public office were even easier to track down than others.

First Aaron attacked the US House of Representatives information site and read through Representative Stamos’s website and profile. They really cut the state up in some odd pieces with the last re-districting, extending Congressional District 6 all the way from the southern tip of Allen county south to just across the river from Cincinnati. It actually cut in across the south to include a bit of Johnson and Shelby Counties south of Indianapolis. So delivering a speech in Franklin was squarely within her district if at its very frontiers. With that area of the state, it was a wonder that she’d ever been elected. Her district contained the eastern tier of industrial cities, including Muncie, Marion, Anderson, and Richmond. And mixed in with it, some of Indiana’s richest Ohio valley farmland.

So what did the candidate say to those people to get them to vote for her—a liberal, democrat, female? Must have been good.

Aaron started working his way through news clippings, speeches, voting records, campaign budgets, and voter satisfaction surveys. It had been a close election after the redistricting, but there was no question of the winner. She showed well in every county. Her record and her practices were squeaky clean. Aaron couldn’t remember a Stamos family in older records, but he looked for her family information all the same. Telephone directories showed an Ari Stamos family on record as far back as 1959. Pol was born in 1960. No particular information of note about the family. No great fortune behind her election.

The more Aaron read about Pol Stamos the more impressed he was. She appeared to be everything she said she was… or everything Aaron wanted her to be. She hadn’t said that much about herself now that he thought of it, just that she could make it different. She believed that and Aaron found himself desperately wanting to believe it as well.

It was about 2:00 in the afternoon when there was a knock at the door and it was unlocked and gently opened. Jack’s voice came through the opening.

“Don’t get up. Can we come in?”

“Yeah of course, Jack,” Aaron called from his chair. Jack and Theresa stomped the snow off their boots inside the door and hung their coats in the closet with the familiarity of old friends. Theresa bustled into the living room first with Jack not far behind.

“Working?” she exclaimed. “Aaron, you are supposed to be resting. Have you eaten? Did you take your pain pills? I knew you should have stayed at our house.” Aaron chuckled in spite of himself.

“I’ve eaten, Mom, and I don’t get another pain pill till 3:00. I’ve done nothing but sleep ever since I got home and I had to do something or go stir crazy.”

“You could have watched TV,” Theresa rejoined.

“It’s Sunday afternoon, Theresa,” Jack jumped in. “For Pete’s sake, don’t ride the boy for entertaining himself.”

Theresa humphed to herself. “Well, I just want to make sure he’s been eating,” she said heading off to the kitchen.

“How ya doin’ kid?” Jack asked as he looked at Aaron from a little closer than Aaron thought was merited.

“As well as can be expected, Jack,” Aaron answered. “Pain comes and goes. Pills cause weird dreams. Can’t cough, laugh, or sneeze. Other than that, everything’s hunky dory.”

“Look at me,” Jack caught Aaron by surprise and he looked up into the older man’s eyes. “Good. Your pupils aren’t dilated any more. You’re tracking okay. Bad headaches or hearing loss today?”

“No. Jeez, Jack, you’ve got a doctorate in history, not medicine,” Aaron waved him away. “I’m doing fine. Believe me, I’m a big baby and I’d tell you if I wasn’t. I can’t believe they don’t put a cast on you or something for broken ribs. How do they expect a guy to heal if he goes into a spasm every time he moves?”

“You know what the doctor said,” Jack answered. “They heal too tight and restrict your breathing if they strap you together. This is one you’re just going to have to tough out.”

“Well, I tell you, I don’t feel all that tough right at the moment,” Aaron shook his head. “Guess that’ll teach me to tangle with a telephone pole that’s bigger than me.”

“Where did you put all that food?” Theresa exclaimed coming into the room. “Did the accident put a hole in your stomach? I’ve got to make up some more dinners.”

“First you were complaining about him not eating, now you are complaining that he is eating. Make up your mind, woman,” Jack sounded crabby, but the twinkle in his eye said this was what he expected from his wife of nearly fifty years.

“Well, I wanted him to eat it, but I was expecting it would last through Monday!” Theresa said.

“I have to have something to eat every time I take a pill,” Aaron said. “So I even had dinner at midnight last night.”

“Well, I’ll just whip up a couple more dishes to get you through till morning,” Theresa said. “I have a few ingredients left over.” She was gone in a whirlwind, content to be mistress of her domain in the kitchen.

“Also,” Aaron said softly to Jack, “I had company last night.”

“Who came by?” Jack asked, suddenly interested.

“My guardian angel,” Aaron said. “The woman who called the ambulance and let you know where I was.”

“Sent me to the wrong place, didn’t she?” Jack groused. “How’d she find you?”

“She collected my briefcase and cell phone after I was gone in the ambulance. Name and address are on the luggage tag. She just came by to drop them off and see how I was doing. Turned out she stayed for dinner.”

“You can’t be hurting as much as I thought you were,” Jack growled at him. “Why didn’t she just give the stuff to the police?”

“I have a feeling this lady doesn’t let go of responsibility, even if it is just perceived,” Aaron said.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you remember all the old stories about being responsible for a person if you save their life and all,” Aaron posited. “Something like that.”

“You mean this gal’s going to be hanging around you for the rest of your life just because she called an ambulance? Sounds a little obsessive.”

“No. Jack, get this: the lady is a U.S. Congresswoman.”

“What?”

“It was Representative Pol Stamos of the 6th District. She lives out there somewhere near where the accident was. Just got home when she heard me ring the churchbell.” Aaron cut himself off. He didn’t want to spill too much of his story to Jack, at least not right now.

“Congress is still in session,” Jack surmised. “What’s she doing wasting taxpayers’ money here in Indiana saving your sorry butt?”

“Thanks. It’s a holiday weekend. Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday,” Aaron answered. “She’s back to do a speech.”

Jack began probing about Aaron’s meeting with the Congresswoman and subsequent dinner. “You mean she just went into your kitchen and cooked you dinner?” He exclaimed at one point.

“Really, Jack,” Aaron said, “Theresa cooked dinner. All Pol did was put it in the microwave.”

“Pol? Is that how you address a U.S. Representative? When I was teaching U.S. Government it would have been The Honorable Lady from Indiana,” Jack teased.

“Well, it still would be if I addressed her in public,” Aaron said, “but it seemed a little over the top for someone who was heating up turkey and dressing in my microwave.”

They continued to chat, analyzing the information that Aaron had looked up over the internet and discussing the Congresswoman’s politics. It was not until Aaron casually mentioned that she’d suggested he should work for her that Jack took a serious pause in the conversation.

“You should consider it,” he said at last.

“I doubt she was serious,” Aaron answered. “Really, she hardly knows me and I’m sure she’s got her pick of serious campaign advisors. I don’t even know what she’d want me to do.”

“Handle her press office, obviously,” Jack stated flatly. “Can’t tell me that she didn’t see your citation from Carter. Hard hitting experience is in big demand these days. Everybody in Washington is twenty-something years old. I tell you they’re looking for seasoned talent again.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty well seasoned, all right. Besides, I’ve got a job and we’ve got a business. I don’t need to clutter up my life with politics.”

“You should consider it for two reasons,” Jack rejoined. “First, you are good and capable and might be able to do something meaningful. Second, it might be good for our business to have a foot inside a Congresswoman’s office. We’ve been getting a lot of requests for research on everything from oil prices to farm subsidies. And most importantly, you’ve wasted your talents and your passion for twenty years and it’s time you got off your butt and did something real.”

“That’s three reasons.”

“Well, one was a bonus. Consider it.”

“All right, I’ll consider it.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously.”

Theresa came in with Aaron’s three o’clock pain pill and another dinner. After he’d eaten and they were satisfied that he was going to survive, the older couple packed up to leave.

“Call me if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Jack. Thank you, Theresa.”

“Anything,” Jack shot back as they left the house.

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