The Sixth Wedding (28 Summers #1.5)(4)

“You should start dating too, Mama,” Bess says. “I can make you a profile on Firepink? That’s the new one for olders.”

“Ha!” Ursula says. “Every man in this country already knows my profile. That’s what happens when you run for President. You lose your mystique on the dating apps.”

Bess laughs. “I love you, Mama.”

“I love you too, baby,” Ursula says. “Talk next week.”

They hang up and Ursula stays at the window, watching the sky turn purple, and tries to judge how Bess sounds. A bit too much like Ursula herself: lonely, and working too hard.

Ursula and Bess hadn’t always been this close; Bess’s adolescence had been a battlefield. Bess challenged Ursula’s political views and called her out on her relentless ambition. Achieving is the most important thing to you. It’s more important than love, Bess said when she was fifteen years old. And wow—Ursula had felt that comment like a slap to the face.

Bess has mellowed as she’s gotten older. She approved of Ursula’s vote against confirming Stone Cavendish as a Supreme Court Justice and when Ursula announced her bid for the presidency a short while later, Bess joined the campaign, courting Gen Z voters.

But the development that brought mother and daughter closer, the event that finally made them friends, was Ursula’s defeat on Election Day.

Ursula had been stunned when first Florida and then Ohio swung for her opponent, Fred Page. Ursula de Gournsey and Fred Page weren’t that dissimilar. Fred was a centrist who leaned a little left and Ursula a centrist who gravitated a bit right, but they agreed on more than they disagreed on and their debates had been civil, even collegial. Ursula felt she could afford to be nice to Fred (she hadn’t run a single attack ad) because she was dead certain that she was going to win. All of the polls had her ahead by three to five points. Her campaign had outspent Fred’s campaign by 20 percent. Bayer Burkhart, who served as Ursula’s shadow campaign manager, assured her daily that a de Gournsey presidency was a lock.

So what had happened?

All Ursula can come up with is that when people were alone in the voting booth, they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a woman.

The problem wasn’t Ursula. It was American society.

Of course Ursula harbored plenty of private fears—that ultimately, she wasn’t likable; that the country saw her naked ambition, her quest for power; that somehow she hadn’t projected her desire to serve as effectively as Fred had. Ursula had focused too much on foreign policy, and not enough on controlling the pandemic. She had mentioned Notre Dame too many times, or Georgetown Law; she had seemed like a braggart when she told Anderson Cooper that she was fluent in French, Spanish, Italian. She rarely attended church, despite her Catholic background. She hadn’t seemed maternal enough, or like a devoted-enough wife. So much more was expected of a female candidate.

It didn’t matter. Fred Page had won fair and square. Ursula gave a beautiful concession speech wishing Fred the very best and encouraging her supporters to celebrate his victory.

She spent the next two days in their house in South Bend in a numb fog while Jake and Bess dealt with the news vans lined up on LaSalle Street. At night, Ursula would lie on the couch, clicking among the news outlets, listening to everyone’s surprised reactions about the outcome. Bess brought Ursula mugs of tea that she didn’t drink and made her sandwiches she didn’t eat. Bess covered Ursula with a blanket at night and kissed her mother’s temple.

“I’m proud of you,” Bess said. “You’re taking time to process. You aren’t making excuses. You aren’t blaming anyone. It takes an extraordinary person to handle this kind of loss as graciously as you are.”

At these words, Ursula sat up and stretched out her arms. Bess came to her and, finally, Ursula cried. She cried for her broken dreams, dreams she’d nurtured since she was a child, she cried out of embarrassment, she cried for her dead father; she had wanted to make him proud. She cried from exhaustion and bone-deep weariness. She had given the campaign everything she had—nearly two full years of her life, trips to forty-three states, bus rides, flights, hotel conference rooms. How many women, not to mention girls, had told her she was inspiring? How many virtual fundraisers had she attended where she had given some variation of her platform speech, “Straight Up the Fairway”? She spoke out for common sense politics, against extremist agendas. Ursula would be a moderate, clear-eyed president who would use her intellect and her excellent judgment to govern.

She cried because she had been rejected, plain and simple.

“It hurts,” she told Bess. “It really hurts.”

“I know, Mama, but that’s okay,” Bess said. “Pain means you’re growing.”



The call came three weeks later while Ursula was still convalescing, still dismantling her campaign, and still working as a United States senator from Indiana.

It was Fred Page. He asked Ursula to serve in his Cabinet. Attorney general.

This was, needless to say, unexpected. Indeed, unprecedented. And it wasn’t just a good-guy Fred Page promotional stunt. It wasn’t a “nod to unity.” Fred said, “You’re the most accomplished lawyer I know. I would trust you with the job above and beyond any other candidate on my list.”

Yes, Ursula thought. He’s right. I would be the best at this job.